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This is what happens when Capitalism is given too much free reign - fascism
and communism borne out of anger at the ruling, rich elite.
Fascism-Nazism are pan-European ideologies, let's not kid ourselves, and Greece could not be left out of this phenomenon. Fascism has remained dormant for 35 odd years, simply because the Greek elites squandered billions of many on populist policies and handouts. When your belly is full, you can always claim to be a patriot and a socialist.
It is the same in Ukraine. It all depends whose history you have been taught. bg -> Talkthetalk, 08 June 2014 6:05pm Real anger and the correct cause, the globalised banks that take money from the poor and give to the rich. If only they could drop the racism. Or is that being exaggerated because they are anti-banking. The words Fascism is thrown about a lot at the moment when it should be reserved for the true fascists that are in government across the western world. As Mussolini said Fascism is the coming together of corporations and the state. |
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May 20, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
Max , May 19 2021 19:25 utc | 12
The key characteristics of the SOCIOECONOMIC system of a suzerainty are hierarchy, polarization and exploitation. This enables the Global Financial Syndicate to drive PRIVATE CONTROL by privatization, extracting profits and increasing its power. Without this system it can't survive, capture new entities and increase its power.
In analyzing any situation one need to understand the POWER DYNAMICS. This enables one to understand the hierarchy of religions, nations, corporations, elites,...There seems to be a well defined playbook that is being followed to expand the global power. However, now it seems to be failing?
Is this a good chart of the POWER PLAYERS driving U$A's and international developments?
(Solid lines refer to funding and dashed lines refer to mostly ideological connections)
Does this Global Power Pyramid provide a good overview of the global entities?
Are there better charts and overview of the power players?
If one were to view Israel from an imperialist lens then it is a beachhead in the Middle East of the Financial Empire like the Colony of Virginia (1606). The IMPERIALIST goal is to create a Middle East Union (MEU), similar to the United States and the EU. Israel will be the financial, technological, military and trading hub of the ME? It will drive decimation of states to steal the region's land, oil gas and natural resources, so they can be priced in the Empire's currency.
What were the strategies and tactics used by the Imperialist settlers to steal land from the Native Americans? Wasn't (freedom of) religion one of the dimensions? How was the LAND stolen from natives of America? Weren't treaties made in bad faith? "In 1830, US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, forcing many indigenous peoples east of the Mississippi from their lands." Ayn Rand framed it as ... to the graduating Class Of U$A's military academy at West Point
Which of the past patterns of stealing land and getting rid of the natives are being repeated by Israel? We're watching a tragedy and living through an epoch in the history of humanity.
Max , May 19 2021 20:35 utc | 20
One more thing... MECHANISM of power & control expansions to capture resources and control points...
Is this a good overview of what happened in Ukraine? It discusses various power players, plans and ploys.
"Anyone who does not understand contemporary history as a chain of decisions and events and instead always takes only the end link of a long chain into account – will not understand anything at all."
"We must cultivate among the Ukrainians a people whose consciousness is altered to such an extent, that they begin to hate everything Russian". -- Who said this & why?
The Dollar Empire is working towards neutralizing Russia through short term concessions. Russia has defined redlines and demanded no interferences with Nord Stream 2, Belarus, Syria & Ukraine (implementation of the Minsk agreement). Also, no NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Russia wants to develop Iran and Turkey as regional powers, and be the third power to that of the U$A and China. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
May 19, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
Truth be told , May 19 2021 20:36 utc | 21
"Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves." -- Menachem Begin (Israeli Prime Minister, 1977-1983)
Oct 10, 2020 | www.rt.com
President Zelensky must speak Ukrainian, but only while conducting his 'constitutional' duties, Kiev's Supreme Court rules 10 Oct, 2020 10:55 / Updated 5 hours ago Get short URL Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gives a press conference at the end of an EU-Ukraine Summit at the European Council in Brussels, Belgium, October 6, 2020. © Reuters/Stephanie Lecocq 21 Follow RT on Ukraine's top court has ruled that Volodymyr Zelensky must only use the country's state language when exercising his official duties as president, after a citizen claimed he broke the law by speaking Russian at a public event.
The legal case was set in motion after a citizen filed a complaint against Zelensky for delivering a speech in Russian at an IT-themed forum in Kiev in May 2019. The person asked the Supreme Court to rule that Zelensky had broken the law by not using Ukrainian – the country's sole official language, according to the constitution – while exercising his presidential duties.
Zelensky is a native Russian-speaker, from the industrial city of Krivoy Rog, and like most Ukrainians of his generation, outside of the West of the country, he would have had little exposure to the native tongue as a child.
The court initially dismissed the claim, but an appeal was then launched. On Friday, the Supreme Court's Grand Chamber ruled that "the president of Ukraine must use the state language [Ukrainian] when carrying out his official duties."
However, the court clarified that the president is only subject to legal liability for actions undertaken "when carrying out his constitutional duties." In other cases, it only constitutes a "political" responsibility. The case was therefore closed, as "the plaintiff's claims are not subject to consideration in the administrative procedure."
In 2019, the parliament adopted a bill that made the use of Ukrainian mandatory by state officials and in the public sphere. The bill was signed into law by the outgoing president, Petro Poroshenko, when Zelensky was still president-elect. At the time, many observers felt Poroshenko made the move to make life difficult for the incoming leader, given his preference for the use of Russian.
ALSO ON RT.COM EU says ruling Ukrainian party 'knee-deep' in corruption: MEPs threaten Kiev with cuts to financial aid & visa-free travelThink your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Jul 24, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
Consortiumnews Volume 26, Number 206 – Friday, July 24, 2020
The Guardian's headquarters in London. (Bryantbob, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.ukThe Guardian a few days ago carried a very strange piece [which has since been removed] under the heading "Stamps celebrating Ukrainian resistance in pictures." The first image displayed a stamp bearing the name of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
The UPA was, without any shadow of a doubt, responsible for the slaughter of at least 200,000 Polish civilians; they liquidated whole Polish communities in Volhynia and Galicia, including the women and children. The current Polish government, which is as anti-Russian and pro-NATO as they come, nevertheless has declared this a genocide.
It certainly was an extremely brutal ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt either that at times between 1942 and 1944 the UPA collaborated with the Nazis and collaborated in the destruction of Jews and Gypsies. It is simplistic to describe the UPA as fascist or an extension of the Nazi regime; at times they fought the Nazis, though they collaborated more often.
There is a real sense in which they operated at the level of medieval peasants, simply seizing local opportunities to exterminate rural populations and seize their land and assets, be they Polish, Jew or Gypsy. But on balance any reasonable person would have to conclude that the UPA was an utterly deplorable phenomenon. To publish a celebration of it, disguised as a graphic art piece, without any of this context, is no more defensible than a display of Nazi art with no context.
In fact, The Guardian's very brief text was still worse than no context.
"Ukrainian photographer Oleksandr Kosmach collects 20th-century stamps issued by Ukrainian groups in exile during the Soviet era.
Artists and exiles around the world would use stamps to communicate the horrors of Soviet oppression. "These stamps show us the ideas and values of these people, who they really were and what they were fighting for," Kosmach says."
That is so misleadingly partial as a description of the art glorifying the UPA movement as to be deeply reprehensible. It does however fit with the anything -- goes stoking of Russophobia, which is the mainstay of government and media discourse at the moment.
Jun 10, 2020 | www.unz.com
Old Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 10, 2020 at 11:35 am GMT
The nationalist right should embrace police defunding. Let communities police themselves.
Peter Turchin's studies show that our polarization has reached catastrophic levels. The immiseration of the working and middle classes is 5 decades old and shows no sign of abating.
Plus we hate each other. De-platforming and firing for tiny, frivolous reasons will continue. The (second) American experiment is crashing, and the decline looks irremediable. Look at the streets.
The Great Society experiment is a failure. 80% of black Americans believe that race relations are worse today than in 1960.
If self-policing doesn't work (it probably won't), at least it will pave the way for peaceful separations based on "irreconcilable differences." Communities will develop a sense of sovereignty. A key aspect of state power is the exercise of legitimate coercion.
In any event, we do not have to kneel. "Is life so sweet and peace so dear "
Jun 10, 2020 | www.unz.com
The Alarmist , says: Show Comment June 10, 2020 at 11:07 am GMT
That's what people really want, justice. They want to see Floyd's killer prosecuted, convicted and put behind bars.
That's not justice, that is revenge. Justice would be a thorough examination of the facts of the matter and any mitigating factors that would lead a jury of the accused cops' peers to an appropriate verdict, which might also be acquittal.
As for the economy, the current fantasy-land painted by our leaders reminds me of the StayCations and FunEmployment of 2009-2010, including madam Pelosi's quip that we should all be free to be artists on someone else's dime. Instead, over time, we got more barristas and wait-staff jobs, more despair, and more opioid deaths.
C'est la vie.
Jun 10, 2020 | www.unz.com
jsinton , says: Show Comment June 10, 2020 at 10:38 am GMT
Russiagate. Impeachment scam. Planned demic. Obamagate. And now white lives don't matter. All these things are really the same thing.It's the globalist war of control to defeat the nationalists.
In America, it means war on God, family, and love of America. We've been bombarded with this war for decades, but now Trump has brought the war out into the open. The good news is that the left is now at peak irrationality, and the tide is turning. They've used up all the kitchen sinks to throw at Trump, and now he's stronger than ever. No love lost for Trump on my part, but who in their right minds can vote for Biden now? It's Nixon '68 all over again.
Apr 29, 2020 | www.unz.com
Michael McCarthy , says: Show Comment April 29, 2020 at 9:30 pm GMT
Excellent, Mr. Unz. British, American and Jewish elites need to be isolated, they are obviously an enemy of the whole human race. Ethno Nationalism for all peoples of the world, protected by all peoples of the world, is the most sensible solution. Isolate the warmongers, secret societies and criminal's. No more war's and heal the earth. It's up to us.
Dec 31, 2019 | democracyjournal.org
from Winter 2019, No. 51 – 31 MIN READTagged Authoritarianism Democracy Foreign Policy Government nationalism oligarchy
Ever since the 2016 election, foreign policy commentators and practitioners have been engaged in a series of soul-searching exercises to understand the great transformations taking place in the world -- and to articulate a framework appropriate to the challenges of our time. Some have looked backwards, arguing that the liberal international order is collapsing, while others question whether it ever existed. Another group seems to hope the current messiness is simply a blip and that foreign policy will return to normalcy after it passes. Perhaps the most prominent group has identified today's great threat as the rise of authoritarianism, autocracy, and illiberal democracy. They fear that constitutional democracy is receding as norms are broken and institutions are under siege.
Unfortunately, this approach misunderstands the nature of the current crisis. The challenge we face today is not one of authoritarianism, as so many seem inclined to believe, but of nationalist oligarchy. This form of government feeds populism to the people, delivers special privileges to the rich and well-connected, and rigs politics to sustain its regime.
... ... ..
Authoritarianism or What?
Across the political spectrum, commentators and scholars have identified -- and warned of -- the global rise of autocracies and authoritarian governments. They cite Russia, Hungary, the Philippines, and Turkey, among others. Distinguished commentators are increasingly worried. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently published a book called Fascism: A Warning . Cass Sunstein gathered a variety of scholars for a collection titled, Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America .
The authoritarian lens is familiar from the heroic narrative of democracy defeating autocracies in the twentieth century. But as a framework for understanding today's central geopolitical challenges, it is far too narrow. This is mainly because those who are worried about the rise of authoritarianism and the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics. Their emphasis is almost exclusively political and constitutional -- free speech, voting rights, equal treatment for minorities, independent courts, and the like. But politics and economics cannot be dissociated from each other, and neither are autonomous from social and cultural factors. Statesmen and philosophers used to call this "political economy." Political economy looks at economic and political relationships in concert, and it is attentive to how power is exercised. If authoritarianism is the future, there must be a story of its political economy -- how it uses politics and economics to gain and hold power. Yet the rise-of-authoritarianism theorists have less to say about these dynamics.
To be sure, many commentators have discussed populist movements throughout Europe and America, and there has been no shortage of debate on the extent to which a generation of widening economic inequality has been a contributing factor in their rise. But whatever the causes of popular discontent, the policy preferences of the people, and the bloviating rhetoric of leaders, the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist.
The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy , Jeffrey Winters calls it "wealth defense." Elites engage in "property defense," protecting what they already have, and "income defense," preserving and extending their ability to hoard more. Importantly, oligarchy as a governing strategy accounts for both politics and economics. Oligarchs use economic power to gain and hold political power and, in turn, use politics to expand their economic power.
Those who worry about the rise of authoritarianism and fear the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics.
The trouble for oligarchs is that their regime involves rule by a small number of wealthy elites. In even a nominally democratic society, and most countries around the world today are at least that, it should be possible for the much larger majority to overthrow the oligarchy with either the ballot or the bullet. So how can oligarchy persist? This is where both nationalism and authoritarianism come into play. Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority to overthrow them.
The divide-and-conquer strategy is an old one, and it works through a combination of coercion and co-optation. Nationalism -- whether statist, ethnic, religious, or racial -- serves both functions. It aligns a portion of ordinary people with the ruling oligarchy, mobilizing them to support the regime and sacrifice for it. At the same time, it divides society, ensuring that the nationalism-inspired will not join forces with everyone else to overthrow the oligarchs. We thus see fearmongering about minorities and immigrants, and claims that the country belongs only to its "true" people, whom the leaders represent. Activating these emotional, cultural, and political identities makes it harder for citizens in the country to unite across these divides and challenge the regime.
Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out through ordinary political means. Tactics like these are not new. They have existed, as Matthew Simonton shows in his book Classical Greek Oligarchy , since at least the time of Pericles and Plato. The consequence, then as now, is that nationalist oligarchies can continue to deliver economic policies to benefit the wealthy and well-connected.
It is worth noting that even the generation that waged war against fascism in Europe understood that the challenge to democracy in their time was not just political, but economic and social as well. They believed that the rise of Nazism was tied to the concentration of economic power in Germany, and that cartels and monopolies not only cooperated with and served the Nazi state, but helped its rise and later sustained it. As New York Congressman Emanuel Celler, one of the authors of the Anti-Merger Act of 1950, said, quoting a report filed by Secretary of War Kenneth Royall, "Germany under the Nazi set-up built up a great series of industrial monopolies in steel, rubber, coal and other materials. The monopolies soon got control of Germany, brought Hitler to power, and forced virtually the whole world into war." After World War II, Marshall Plan experts not only rebuilt Europe but also exported aggressive American antitrust and competition laws to the continent because they believed political democracy was impossible without economic democracy.
Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different -- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. Electoral losers in places like North Carolina seek to entrench their power rather than accept defeat. The view that money is speech under the First Amendment has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy," as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship.
Addressing our domestic economic and social crises is critical to defending democracy, and a grand strategy for America's future must incorporate both domestic and foreign policy. But while many have recognized that reviving America's middle class and re-stitching our social fabric are essential to saving democracy, less attention has been paid to how American foreign policy should be reformed in order to defend democracy from the threat of nationalist oligarchy.
The Varieties of Nationalist Oligarchy
Just as there are many variations on liberal democracy -- the Swedish model, the French model, the American model -- there are many varieties of nationalist oligarchy. The story is different in every country, but the elements of nationalist oligarchy are trending all over the world.
... ... ...
... the European Union funds Hungary's oligarchy, as Orbán draws on EU money to fund about 60 percent of the state projects that support "the new Fidesz-linked business elite." Nor do Orbán and his allies do much to hide the country's crony capitalist model. András Lánczi, president of a Fidesz-affiliated think tank, has boldly stated that "if something is done in the national interest, then it is not corruption." "The new capitalist ruling class," one Hungarian banker comments, "make their money from the government."
The commentator Jan-Werner Müller captures Orbán's Hungary this way: "Power is secured through wide-ranging control of the judiciary and the media; behind much talk of protecting hard-pressed families from multinational corporations, there is crony capitalism, in which one has to be on the right side politically to get ahead economically."
Crony capitalism, coupled with resurgent nationalism and central government control, is also an issue in China. While some commentators have emphasized "state capitalism" -- when government has a significant ownership stake in companies -- this phenomenon is not to be confused with crony capitalism. Some countries with state capitalism, like Norway, are widely seen as extremely non-corrupt and, indeed, are often held up as models of democracy. State capitalism itself is thus not necessarily a problem. Crony capitalism, in contrast, is an "instrumental union between capitalists and politicians designed to allow the former to acquire wealth, legally or otherwise, and the latter to seek and retain power." This is the key difference between state capitalism and oligarchy.
... ... ...
Ganesh Sitaraman is a professor of law and Chancellor's faculty fellow at Vanderbilt Law School, and the author of The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars and The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic .
Dec 29, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
likbez 12.28.19 at 9:17 am
Peter T 12.28.19 at 5:50 am @38
I'm finding it hard to think of examples where the formerly norm-giving group becomes derided or humiliated.
You can probably try to look at the situation in (now independent) republics of the former USSR. Simplifying previously oppressed group, given a lucky chance, most often strive for dominance and oppression of other groups including and especially former dominant group. This is an eternal damnation of ethno/cultural nationalism.
And not only it (look at Mutual Help and The State in Shantytowns.) In them ethnic comminutes often own protection markets, offer services that hire people and replace the state, pay off gang leaders. they also provide some community support for particular ethnic group, enforce the rules of trade within themselves, etc. In GB the abuse of children by ethnic gangs was sickening ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/sep/30/abuse-children-asian-communities )
In many cases of ethnic/cultural nationalism this looks more like a competition for resources with the smoke screen of noble intentions/human rights/past oppression/ humiliations/etc
Or you can look at the language policy in the USA and the actual situation in some areas/institutions of Florida and California and how English speakers feel in those areas/institutions. Or in some areas of Quebec in Canada.
That actually suggests another meaning of famous Randolph Bourne quote " War is the health of the state " (said in the midst of the First World War.) It bring the unity unachievable in peace time or by any other methods, albeit temporarily (from Ch 14. Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States ):
the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on the battlefields-often for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches.
In the United States, not yet in the war, there was worry about the health of the state. Socialism was growing. The IWW seemed to be everywhere. Class conflict was intense. In the summer of 1916, during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, a bomb exploded, killing nine people; two local radicals, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, were arrested and would spend twenty years in prison. Shortly after that Senator James Wadsworth of New York suggested compulsory military training for all males to avert the danger that "these people of ours shall be divided into classes." Rather: "We must let our young men know that they owe some responsibility to this country."
The supreme fulfillment of that responsibility was taking place in Europe. Ten million were to die on the battlefield; 20 million were to die of hunger and disease related to the war. And no one since that day has been able to show that the war brought any gain for humanity that would be worth one human life. The rhetoric of the socialists, that it was an "imperialist war," now seems moderate and hardly arguable. The advanced capitalist countries of Europe were fighting over boundaries, colonies, spheres of influence; they were competing for Alsace-Lorraine, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East.
Neo-McCarthyism now serves a somewhat similar purpose in the USA. Among other thing (like absolving Hillary from her fiasco to "deux ex machine" trick instead of real reason -- the crisis and rejection of neoliberalism by the sizable strata of the USA population) it is an attempt to unify the nation after 2016.
Feb 18, 2020 | irrussianality.wordpress.com
I'd never heard of the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG) until today, even though it turns out that one of its members has the office next door to mine. Its website says that it seeks to respond to the challenge of East-West tensions by convening 'former and current officials and experts from a group of Euro-Atlantic states and the European union to test ideas and develop proposals for improving security in areas of existential common interest'. It hopes thereby to 'generate trust through dialogue.'
It's hard to object to any of this, but its latest statement , entitled 'Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region', doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. The 'twelve steps' the EASLG proposes to improve security in Eastern Ukraine are generally pretty uninspiring, being largely of the 'set up a working group to explore' variety, or of such a vaguely aspirational nature as to be almost worthless (e.g. 'Advance reconstruction of Donbas An essential first step is to conduct a credible needs assessment for the Donbas region to inform a strategy for its social-economic recovery.' Sounds nice, but in reality doesn't amount to a hill of beans).
For the most part, these proposals attempt to treat the symptoms of the war in Ukraine without addressing the root causes. In a sense, that's fine, as symptoms need treating, but it's sticking plaster when the patient needs some invasive surgery. At the end of its statement, though, the EASLG does go one step further with 'Step 12: Launch a new national dialogue about identity', saying:
A new, inclusive national dialogue across Ukraine is desirable and could be launched as soon as possible. Efforts should be made to engage with perspectives from Ukraine's neighbors, especially Poland, Hungary, and Russia. This dialogue should address themes of history and national memory, language, identity, and minority experience. It should include tolerance and respect for ethnic and religious minorities in order to increase engagement, inclusiveness, and social cohesion.
This is admirably trendy and woke, but in the Ukrainian context somewhat explosive, as it implicitly challenges the identity politics of the post-Maidan regime. Unsurprisingly, it's gone down like a lead balloon in Kiev. The notorious website Mirotvorets even went so far as to add former German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger to its blacklist of enemies of Ukraine for having had the temerity to sign the EASLG statement and thus 'taking part in Russia's propaganda events aimed against Ukraine.' Katherine Quinn-Judge of the International Crisis Group commented on Twitter, 'As the idea of dialogue becomes more mainstream, backlash to the concept grows fiercer.' 'In Ukraine, prominent pro-Western politicians, civic activists, and media, have called Step 12 "a provocation" and "dangerous",' she added
Quinn-Judge comes across as generally sympathetic to the Ukrainian narrative about the war in Donbass, endorsing the idea that it's largely a product of 'Russian aggression'. But she also recognizes that the war has an internal, social dimension which the Ukrainian government and its elite-level supporters refuse to acknowledge. Consequently, they also reject any sort of dialogue, either with Russia or with the rebels in Donbass. As Quinn-Judge notes in another Tweet:
An advisor to one of Ukraine's most powerful pol[itician]s told us recently of his concern about talk of dialogue in international and domestic circles. 'We have all long ago agreed among ourselves. We need to return our territory, and then work with that sick – sick – population.'
This isn't an isolated example. Quinn-Judge follows up with a couple more similar statements:
Social resentments underpin some opposition to disengagement, for example. An activist in [government-controlled] Shchastye told me recently that she feared disengagement and the reopening of the bridge linking the isolated town to [rebel-held] Luhansk: 'I don't want all that trash coming over here.'
In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what? We're trying to build a completely new society.'
And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their 'minimum level of human development'. You can fiddle with treating Donbass' symptoms as much as you like, ŕ la EASLG, but unless you tackle this fundamental problem, the disease will keep on ravaging the subject for a long time to come. In due course, I suggest, the only realistic cure will be to remove the patient entirely from the cause of infection.
Mao Cheng Ji says: February 18, 2020 at 5:02 pm Yeah, but that's just their standard narrative.
See here, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/uNupUPjLdUI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
And it's been there, either officially or beneath the surface, since forever. Since the Habsburgs, probably, when it was first introduced in Ruthenia.
Guest says: February 21, 2020 at 5:27 am
Mao Cheng Ji says: February 22, 2020 at 1:46 pmThis person speaks so casually of genocide!!!
It's disgusting that such people have been empowered and such ideas are mainstream.
Calling people sick trash is the start on the road to genocidedewittbourchier says: February 18, 2020 at 6:01 pmHe's still there, working. Popular journalist and blogger.
All that you have described above is very sad, but not very surprising – which is itself very sad. I think Patrick Armstrong is right that a lot of the reason Ukraine is not and has never been a functional polity is because much if not most of the population cannot accept that the right side won WWII.Mikhail says: February 18, 2020 at 10:15 pmHypocritically denounces the USSR, while seeking that entity's Communist created/inherited boundaries
akarlin says: February 18, 2020 at 6:48 pm
Contempt and loathing towards the Donbass is a pretty popular feeling amongst Ukrainian svidomy. E.g., one of the two regular pro-Ukrainian commenters on my blog.
To his credit, he supports severing the Donbass from Ukraine (as one would a gangrenous limb – his metaphor) as opposed to trying to claw it back. Which is an internally consistent position.
Mikhail says: February 18, 2020 at 10:13 pm
Same guy who doesn't consider Yanukovych as having been overthrown under coup like circumstances, while downplaying Poland's past subjugation of Rus territory.
Lyttenburgh says: February 19, 2020 at 8:18 pm
In Part I and II we saw how much truth is there in Herr Karlin's claim of being a model of the rrrracially purrrre Rrrrrrrussian plus some personal views.
Part III (this one) gives a peek into his cultural and upbringing limits, which "qualify" him as an expert of all things Russian, who speaks on behalf of the People and the Country.
" I left when I was six, in 1994 , so I'm not really the best person to ask this question of – it should probably be directed to my parents, or even better, the Russian government at the time which had for all intents and purposes ceased paying academics their salaries.
I went to California for higher education and because its beaches and mountains made for a nice change from the bleakness of Lancashire.
I returned to Russia because if I like Putler so much, why don't I go back there? Okay, less flippancy. I am Russian, I do not feel like a foreigner here, I like living in Moscow, added bonus is that I get much higher quality of life for the buck than in California ."
"I never went to school, don't have any experience with writing in Russian, and have been overexposed to Anglo culture , so yes, it's no surprise that my texts will sound strange."
Vladimir says: February 20, 2020 at 8:46 am
Mikhail says: February 20, 2020 at 4:54 pmThe Russian branch of Carnegie Endowment did a piece on this issue. It mostly fits your ideas, but the author suggests it was a compromise, short-term solution – what steps can be taken right now, without crossing red lines of either side – but compromise is unwelcome among both parties. The official Russian reaction was quite cold too.
"Удаленные 12 шагов. Почему в Мюнхене испугались собственных предложений по Донбассу"
https://carnegie.ru/commentary/81093Upon a quick perusal of the website of the org at issue, Alexey Arbatov and Susan Eisenhower have some kind of affiliation with it, thus maybe explaining the compromise approach you mention.
This matter brings to mind Trump saying one thing during his presidential bid – only to then bring in people in key positions who don't agree with what he campaigned on.
In terms of credentials and name status, the likes of Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Cohen and Jim Jatras, are needed in Trump's admin for the purpose of having a more balanced foreign policy approach that conforms with US interests (not to be necessarily confused with what neocons and neolibs favor).
Instead, Trump has been top heavy with geopolitical thinking opposites. He possibly thought that having them in would take some of the criticism away from him.
The arguably ideal admin has both sides of an issue well represented, with the president intelligently deciding what's best.
Guest says: February 21, 2020 at 5:23 am
Lyttenburgh says: February 21, 2020 at 11:16 amOn the BBC and on other media there are films of Ukrainians attacking a bus with people evacuated from China. These people even wanted to burn down the hospital where the peoplew were taken (along with other unrelated patients)
This is a sign of a degraded society – attacking people who may or may not be ill!!!
Ukraine will eventually break up
The nationalist agenda is just degrading the society.-The economy is failing
-People who can, are leaving
-The elected government has no control over the violent people who take to the streetsIt's clear Zelensky is a puppet no different to Poroshenko – this destroys the idea that democracy is a good thing.
It's very sad that the EU and the Americans under Obama – empowered these decisive elements and then blame Russia.
Crimea did the right thing leaving Ukraine – Donbass hopefully will follow.
Lyttenburgh says: February 21, 2020 at 2:12 pm"And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass"
[ ]
Only them?
[ ]
Yesterday marks yet another milestone on the Ukrainian glorious шлях перемог and long and arduous return to the Family of the European Nations. The Civil Society ™ of the Ukraine rose as one in the mighty CoronavirusMaidan, against the jackbooted goons of the crypto-Napoleon (and agent of Putin) Zelensky. Best people from Poltava oblast' (whose ancestors without doubt, welcomed Swedish Euro-integrators in 1709) and, most important of all, from the Best (Western) Ukrajina, who 6 years ago made the Revolution of Dignity in Kiev the reality and whom pan Poroshenko called the best part of the Nation, said their firm "Геть вiд Москви!"
to their fellow Ukrainian citizens, evacuated from Wuhan province in China
The Net is choke full of vivid, memorable videos, showing that 6 years after Maidan, the Ukraine now constitute a unified, эдiна та соборна country. You all, no doubt, already watched these clips, where a brave middle-aged gentleman from the Western Ukraine, racially pure Ukr, proves his mental acuity by deducing, that crypto-tyrant (and "не лох") Zelensky wants to settle evacuees in his pristine oblast out of vengeance, because the Best Ukrajina didn't vote for him during the election. Or a clip about a brave woman from Poltava oblast, suggesting to relocate the Trojan-horse "fellow countrymen" to Chernobol's Zone. Or even the witty comments and suggestions by the paragons of the Ukrainian Civil Society, " волонтэры ":
Shy and conscientious members of the Ukrainian (national!) intelligentsia had their instincts aligned rrrrrright. When they learned about that their hospital will be the one receiving the evacuees from Wuhan, the entire medical personell of that Poltava oblast medical facility rose to their feet and sang "Shenya vmerla". Democracy and localism proved once again the strongest suit of the pro-European Ukraine, with Ternopol's oblast regional council voting to accept the official statement to the crypto-tyrant Zelensky, which calls attempts to place evacuees on their Holy land "an act of Genocide of the Ukrainian People" (c)
[ ]
That's absolutely "normal", predictable reaction of the "racially pure Ukrainians" to their own fellow citizens. Now, Professor, are you insisting on seeking or even expecting "compromise" with them ? What to do, if after all these years, there is no such thing as the united Ukrainian political nation?
"Ukraine's democracy is flourishing like never before due to the tireless efforts of grassroots, pro-democracy, civil-society groups. Many Ukrainians say their country is now firmly set on an irreversible, pro-Western trajectory. Moreover, the country has also undertaken a top-to-bottom cultural, economic, and political divorce from its former Soviet overlord.
Today, Ukraine is a democratic success story in the making, despite Russia's best efforts to the contrary."
– Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal's foreign correspondent based in UkraineInternational recognition of the fact:
Feb 14, 2020 | off-guardian.org
Search Feb 15, 2020 3 Fascism in Ukraine: the conspiracy of silence Kit Knightly Joseph Altham The rise of the far right in Ukraine is one of the most disturbing trends in 21st century Europe. But it's a story you rarely get to read about in the British press.
These days, the mainstream media does not have much to say about Ukraine. And when Ukraine is mentioned, the main focus tends to be on Ukraine as it relates to the latest American political scandal, rather than on Ukraine itself. Six years ago, the revolt in Kyiv put Ukraine at the top of the news agenda, but now the papers have gone quiet.
This lack of interest in Ukraine is surprising, because Ukraine has some big stories that you would expert journalists to be reporting. The country has been going through a violent upheaval, and the fighting in Ukraine's eastern region still continues.
Supposedly, the reason for all the bloodshed was to secure Ukraine's European future? So how's that project going today? Not well. Ukraine is still a long way from full membership of the European Union, and remains one of Europe's poorest countries.
The ruins of Donetsk airport, December 2014 (Photo: Wikipedia)
Clearly, Ukraine is not working out. Of course, the nationalist uprising in Kyiv did achieve one of its core objectives: the termination of the old partnership with Moscow. But the uprising also aimed to end corruption in Ukraine and curb the power of the oligarchs. On both counts, Ukraine's political elite has performed badly. Ukraine's corruption rating is still poor, while Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's current president, was helped into power by the influential billionaire, Ihor Kolomoisky.
All in all, Ukraine's "bright future" seems further away than ever, and the biggest losers from Ukraine's pro-Western course have been the Ukrainian people. But the Western press long ago settled on the story that Vladimir Putin is the big bully, and Ukraine has been cast in the role of his victim.
Because Vladimir Putin is labelled as the bad guy, and criticism of the Ukrainian government is thought to serve his agenda, Ukraine has become a no-go area. The powers that be don't want to admit how bad things are inside Ukraine, so The Guardian's "fearless investigative journalists" don't get to write about it.
Mikhail Bulgakov. During his lifetime, his work was censored by the Soviets. In 2014, the new Ukrainian government banned a TV dramatization of his novel, The White Guard. (Photo: Wikipedia)Instead, the truth is being swept under the carpet. And the truth is that the nationalist forces that took control of Ukraine are bringing shame on their country. Ukraine has given way to crude nationalistic resentment, to the extent of vandalizing Soviet war memorials and banning books, TV dramas and films. And in its search for new national heroes to replace the Soviet heroes it is rejecting, Ukraine is glorifying the most despicable characters from its fascist past.
The Lviv pogrom, 1941 (Photo: Wikipedia)
The historical background is complicated. In the 1930s, Ukraine was oppressed by the Bolsheviks and millions died of famine. Then, during World War II, the German invasion of the USSR gave Ukrainian nationalists the opportunity to push for independence, in an uneasy alliance with Nazi Germany. By collaborating with Nazi Germany, the Ukrainian nationalists hoped that they would be rewarded with their own Ukrainian state.
As Ukraine fashions a new identity for itself, Ukrainians have been seeking inspiration from Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych and the other Nazi collaborators who piggy-backed on German military victories to advance the Ukrainian nationalist cause.
Torchlit procession of Ukrainian nationalists (Photo: Wikipedia)
The trouble is that these Ukrainian nationalists, who proclaimed statehood in Lviv in 1941, were committed to more than just a tactical alliance with Nazi Germany. Their organization sympathized with Nazi ideas, too.
The Nazis regarded Jews, Poles and Russians as subhuman, and so did Stepan Bandera. The Ukrainian nationalists massacred Poles, perpetrated pogroms and were willing participants in the Holocaust. They even had their own division in the SS, the SS Galicia.
A photo of Stepan Bandera displayed during the Maidan uprising, January 2014 (Photo: Wikipedia)
The dark side of Ukraine's wartime history has become a point of reference for the new, post-Maidan regime. As monuments to Soviet commanders are demolished, new monuments to Ukrainian fascists are going up.
The Ukrainian government has designated 1st January, Stepan Bandera's birthday, as a national holiday. Statues of Bandera and Shukhevych have appeared in many cities, and streets are being named after war criminals. Ultranationalist organizations are invited to schools to give children a "patriotic" education. Nazi symbols are openly displayed at concerts and football matches, and antisemitic literature is sold on market stalls.
Meanwhile, monuments commemorating the Holocaust have been desecrated, and synagogues have been attacked.
"Death to the Yids": graffiti beside a synagogue in Odessa. The sign is a Wolfsangel, a common Nazi symbol. (Photo: Wikipedia)
Old poisons are rising to the surface. The figures openly praised by Ukrainian leaders are the scoundrels and fanatics who threw in their lot with Hitler. The new Ukraine is obsessed with its own national grievances, but it shows little respect for any of the non-Ukrainian victims of history. With its sickly blend of romanticism and self-pity, Ukraine is now a breeding ground for racism and extremism. But this is something the Western press is not yet ready to admit.
Instead, the press has been colluding in a conspiracy of silence and shutting its eyes to the danger. By putting up statues of fascists from the past, Ukraine is giving a green light to fascism today.
Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest WhatsApp vKontakte Email Filed under: latest , Russia , Ukraine Tagged with: fascism , holocaust , russia , Stepan Bandera , Svoboda , ukraine , Ukraine coup , Vladimir Putin , WWII can you spare $1.00 a month to support independent mediaOffGuardian does not accept advertising or sponsored content. We have no large financial backers. We are not funded by any government or NGO. Donations from our readers is our only means of income. Even the smallest amount of support is hugely appreciated.
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Gall ,
Hey according to two faced Shifty Schiff Ukraine is "fighting the Russians so we don't have to". I mean another "great ally" like Israel who has been selling them arms hand over first despite the fact that the Ukrainians are truly "antisemitic" who unlike American "antisemites" that are always bellyaching about Israel's genocidal policies Ukrainians excel in their antisemitism by burning down synagogs and threatening the Jewish population er I mean offer them a one way train excursion all expenses paid.I mean what greater "ally" does Israel need to convince more Jews to come the "promised land"and kill a few Palestinians and steal their land. I mean things haven't been as good since ol' Uncle 'Dolph signed the Transfer Agreement.
Aside from a some occasional burbling about antisemitism by NuttenYahoo like the Americans they continue to sell them arms so they can launch genocidal campaigns against Dombass and other ethnic Russian areas that aren't as Ukofriendly as Washington and Tel Aviv using their reconstituted Bandera Brigade AKA SS Galicia of inveterate Iron Guard. I mean these guys aren't just a bunch Neo-nazis skin heads but qualify as the real animal.
Thanks to Obama, Nuland and Clinton with the help of Soros deep pockets to fund color revolutions whom if you remember according to 60 Minute interview a ways back reveled in turning over Jewish property and Jews to the tender mercies of the 3rd Reich. I mean what a guy.
Well the reason you probably haven't heard anything is because the American government is just too modest about show casing yet another example of bringing "freedom and democracy" to the benighted who haven't experienced the joys of austerity, privatization and giving all their money to help those poor needy kleptocrats who are just millionaires and are striving to be another Jeff Bezos.
Loverat ,
Ukraine is almost identical to the rise of fascism in 1990s Croatia. I wonder when the Pope will visit and grant saint hood to these appalling monsters.Jen ,
It must be said that the western parts of Ukraine, where the Ukrainian ultranationalist movement arose under people like Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych and Yuri Stetsko, were actually under Polish rule and were subjected to forced Polonisation under an increasingly nationalist and fascist Polish government during the 1920s and 1930s. This explains why ethnic Polish people were fair game for torture and lynching by Ukrainian followers of Bandera & Co during Nazi rule in the 1940s. Western Ukraine mostly escaped the famines that affected Soviet Ukraine and other parts of the USSR in the 1930s.
Jan 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Walter , Jan 30 2020 14:06 utc | 15@Florin (3) (semantics, rhetoric, naming)...In point of fact, of course, the zionist program to get lebensraum by liquidation or enslaving the Semitic native populations is telling, definitive.
... ... ...
(The Quakers say "tell the truth and shame the devil"... With the idea implied that truth saying is a duty under god, whatever it costs. The Quakers used to be significant in US history, but like CPUSA, are under reliable and useful control as agents of X. (ask Ruth Paine, of the curator group for Oswald operation))
Jan 26, 2020 | democracyjournal.org
Where Judis is on more solid ground, it seems to me, is in his reminder that liberals should not be too dismissive of nationalism, since nationalism, "by itself, is neither good nor evil, liberal nor conservative."
You wouldn't know it from the way the term is tossed about in popular discourse, but as a historical matter this is more or less incontestable: The nationalism of Donald Trump is only one of many varieties.
It's not the nationalism that emerged amidst the French Revolution, as part of an attempt to make sense of the revolutionary doctrine of popular sovereignty. Neither is it the anti-colonial nationalism marshaled to support a range of twentieth-century independence movements. Nor is it rooted in philosophical ruminations on the identity-shaping role played by language, or culture, or history -- any one of which could be associated with a range of thinkers who would be appalled by the MAGA-hat crowd.
Recognizing nationalism's protean nature is, in fact, a first step toward what might be a productive exercise for anybody hoping to revitalize the left at this moment in history. Assume that, at least over the short and medium term, the current global system of bordered nation-states is not going to disappear (even if it is undergoing transformation). And assume that, for many people, everyday thought and behavior will adhere to (largely unconscious) scripts that serve to locate them in particular settings, communities, associations, and so on.
Given these realities, what kind of collective self-understandings would it be useful to promote? American history doesn't lack for precedents; there are left-nationalist themes in texts like the Gettysburg Address, in FDR's 1936 nomination speech (the one featuring his denunciation of "economic royalists"), and in Martin Luther King Jr.'s metaphor of a promissory note .
Samuel H. Beer, one of the twentieth century's leading scholars of American politics, once described the great moments of American reform as responses to crises of nationhood : "[T]he crisis of sectionalism, culminating in the Civil War; the crisis of industrialism, culminating in the Great Depression and the New Deal; and the crisis of racism, which continues to rack our country."
In Beer's view, these moments of active reform counteracted destructive centrifugal forces; they made the nation " more of a nation ." This emphasis on "making" a nation through politics is a good reminder that nations were not found, but invented; they are not immune to political refashioning. And if they're unlikely to disappear anytime soon, it might be a good idea to start thinking about which kinds we can live with.
Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com
Weston Waroda , says: Show Comment January 18, 2020 at 5:19 pm GMT
@anonymousEliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment January 18, 2020 at 11:02 pm GMTThe US depends upon continuation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Were that to be lost the US likely would descend into chaos without end. When the USSR came apart it was eventually able to downsize into the Russian state. We don't have that here; there is no core ethnicity with it's own territory left anymore, it's just a jumble. For the US it's a matter of survival.
Possession of a core ethnicity doesn't invariably guarantee stability or even constitute a nation and I don't believe this is why Russia survives as a nation today. Russia itself is a country with a great many nationalities, and there are almost as many Asian as European faces in the country. Furthermore, the Ukraine was part of the USSR, has what you term a core ethnicity, and yet has descended into chaos without end since the collapse of the USSR. Clearly, a nation consists of something other than ethnic identity, language or even religion.
The 19th century French historian Ernest Renan in a famous lecture at the time "What is a Nation" stated: "A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life .
"Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation."
A nation is an organic entity not dependent on a common language, religion or bounded by geography. Whether or not a nation or nations survive the collapse of the American Empire will depend on the willingness of the people to live together with a shared collective memory of the past. Renan makes the point that national traumas are more unifying than national triumphs. The chaos that will surely follow the Empire's collapse will become part of the shared trauma, out of which a new nation or nations will arise, if the people so will.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110827065548/http://www.cooper.edu/humanities/core
"I see you have successfully internalized The Cuck's Credo."Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment January 18, 2020 at 11:09 pm GMTI won;t speak to the explication of what nationhood is as described. But clearly skin color is not a cohesive enough glue. The white colonists comprised of varying ethnic cultures went to war against whites in great britain. And by all indications of history the whites in Europe spent more than 1800 years killing each other in country and out --
So any claim that whiteness is a cohesive glue or embodies a cohesive glue cementing nationality is thoroughly rejected by history. That anyone contends it against the evidence is peculiar.
@Weston WarodaWeston Waroda , says: Show Comment January 19, 2020 at 12:32 am GMTThe 19th century French historian Ernest Renan in a famous lecture at the time "What is a Nation" stated: "A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle
Why was the lecture famous? Was it because Renan decided to redefine nation?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/nation@Daniel.I Oh, are you ever missing the point. What Renan wrote elsewhere, "that which makes a nation is the willingness of its members to live together," (ce qui fait une nation c'est la volunté de ses membres de vivre ensemble) cuts both ways. It not only expains why Russia successfully transitioned the fall of the USSR, while the Ukraine has not yet: the Russians chose to live together. It also explains why nationalists like you continue to choose by your own volition to identify as American despite your pissing and moaning. You and the Russians and the Ukrainians are making your own volitional choices about the nation you choose to be a member of. Those choices multiplied by the millions of inhabitants demonstrate how this is an organic process. Furthermore, Renan wrote well before the current idea of globalism had developed any traction, and he is writing from observation of history as a historian. He had no globalist agenda to promote. I have read quite a lot of what the hard right nationalists have had to say in their comments on the Unz Review, and frankly, the arguments are unconvincing. I would suggest reading the Renan lecture I posted the link to, it clears up the mess and shows a third way between you and the globalists, the way of how things really come down. It shows reality.Oscar Peterson , says: Show Comment January 19, 2020 at 1:55 am GMT@EliteCommInc.Daniel.I , says: Show Comment January 19, 2020 at 9:56 am GMTSo any claim that whiteness is a cohesive glue or embodies a cohesive glue cementing nationality is thoroughly rejected by history. That anyone contends it against the evidence is peculiar.
No matter what the core identity of a society, there will be at least episodic internal violence. But that doesn't mean that people don't need identity.
What identity, in your view, should the people focusing on whiteness as symbolic of their sense of belonging, be adopting?
It's obvious that being "an American" is becoming less and less psychologically satisfying. So what is the answer?
@Weston Waroda I am Eastern European living in my homeland.Daniel.I , says: Show Comment January 19, 2020 at 10:01 am GMT
So I can see right through your ZOG-manufactured bullshit.@EliteCommInc. You have no idea how satisfying it is to watch the Anglo – after having forced liberalism down the throat of everyone else – finding himself on the receiving end of it.Weston Waroda , says: Show Comment January 20, 2020 at 6:36 am GMTKeep celebrating your own dissolution, cuck.
@Polemos The nation in Renan's thinking transcends consideration of the one and the many through a kind of political metaphysic: the nation is spiritual, the nation is a mystery. The national myth of shared trauma creates a past while organic human volition results in a spiritual recognition of both the individual and others as participants in this mystery, this nation, this Gestalt . Charles de Gaulle touched this in his benediction "vive la France eternelle," as did Ronald Reagan with the metaphor from the Gospels, "a city on a hill."Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment January 20, 2020 at 6:53 am GMT@Daniel.I I get the general use by Americans to use "liberal" for what the rest of the Anglophone countries would probably call "left wing" (although I think Americans also say "neo liberalism" mraning something quite different). But I struggle to understand what you mean by "liberalism". Derived from which lot of Anglos? Thrust down throats by which lot of Anglos? I would like to learn more from you about the ideology or philosophy or political movement you are referring to.Vojkan , says: Show Comment January 20, 2020 at 8:07 am GMTAs a prompt to leap out of a narrowly based view I note that the main conservative right of centre party which often forms Australian governments is the Liberal Party.
@Weston Waroda "A nation is an organic entity not dependent on a common language, religion or bounded by geography."Miro23 , says: Show Comment January 20, 2020 at 9:02 am GMTIs it to say that the German, the English, the Swede, the Polish, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Czech, the Slovak, the Italian, the Greek, the Hungarian, the Romanian, the Bulgarian, the Portuguese, the Irish, the various nations that emerged from the former Yugoslavia or the USSR are not organic entities but only the Belgian are? Is it to say that African states with borders drawn across ethnicities by colonial powers are nations? Today's France is proof of the contrary to your statement and Renan's theory. You are the one disconnected from reality as your idea of what constitutes a nation is a pure abstract disproven by empirical evidence.
@Weston WarodaMustapha Mond , says: Show Comment January 20, 2020 at 2:14 pm GMTRenan makes the point that national traumas are more unifying than national triumphs.
It's interesting that the places that the Empire has been unable to control are often ex-Communist (Russia, China, Eastern Europe) which experienced national trauma, but were also outside of the Zio-Glob Empire in its critical post 1945 growth period (the map of US overseas bases).
Also, Imperial institutions like NATO are looking irrelevant. European leaders may well wonder why they're necessary. In 1945, the US was the world's leading industrial economy/ international creditor with a legitimate reserve currency – now not so much – with the US clinging onto power using violence, threats and sanctions and generally alienating everyone.
Israel is a very successful example of a strongly ethnocentric state that has its endless internal squabbles between the various groups within that identity, but yet remain fairly united against potential threats from outsiders (i.e., the"others"). This most definitely applies to the critical matter of immigration.Wisely, they do not easily accept immigrants, except those who are proven to be of their own ilk, and they are currently exploring, via internal public dialog, whether their already relatively stringent standards are not restrictive enough. (See here: https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/6-out-of-7-immigrants-to-Israel-not-Jewish-611842 )
They know they will be internally weakened, displaced, and ultimately, replaced if they do otherwise. They 'see the writing on the wall'.
Jews are not stupid people. It would seem equally wise for the US, Canada, and the European states to emulate their example, preserving their shared heritages and commonalities, which provide strength and unity in the face of adversities and against foreign enemies, both abroad and domestically.
What is sauce for the (jewish) goose is sauce for the (goyim) ganders .
Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
ben , Jan 19 2020 3:31 utc | 72
@71 said in part; "The once oppressed have become oppressors."A succinct description of the Israelis..
Jan 12, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org
Strategic Culture Search History Why Canada Defends Ukrainian Fascism Michael Jabara Carley March 9, 2018 © Photo: Public domain
Canada has a reputation for being a relatively progressive state with universal, single-payer health care, various other social benefits, and strict gun laws, similar to many European countries but quite unlike the United States. It has managed to stay out of some American wars, for example, Vietnam and Iraq, portrayed itself as a neutral "peace keeper", pursuing a so-called policy of "multilateralism" and attempting from time to time to keep a little independent distance from the United States.
Behind this veneer of respectability lies a not so attractive reality of elite inattention to the defence of Canadian independence from the United States and intolerance toward the political and syndicalist left. Police repression against communist and left-wing unionists and other dissidents after World War I was widespread. Strong support for appeasement of Nazi Germany, overt or covert sympathy for fascism, especially in Québec, and hatred of the Soviet Union were widespread in Canada during the 1930s. The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany. Mackenzie King and many others of the Canadian elite saw communism as a greater threat to Canada than fascism. As in Europe, the Canadian elite -- Liberal or Conservative did not matter -- was worried by the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). In Québec French public opinion under the influence of the Catholic Church hoped for fascist victory and the eradication of communism. In 1937 a Papal encyclical whipped up the Red Scare amongst French Canadian Catholics. Rejection of Soviet offers of collective security against Hitler was the obverse side of appeasement. The fear of victory over Nazi Germany in alliance with the USSR was greater than the fear of defeat against fascism. Such thoughts were either openly expressed over dinner at the local gentleman's club or kept more discrete by people who did not want to reveal the extent of their sympathy for fascism.
The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany
Even after the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the formation of the Grand Alliance against the Axis, there was strong reticence amongst the governing elite in Canada toward the Soviet Union. It was a shotgun marriage, a momentary arrangement with an undesirable partner, necessitated by the over-riding threat of the Nazi Wehrmacht. "If Hitler invaded Hell," Winston Churchill famously remarked, "I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." Once Hitler was beaten, however, it would be back to business as usual. The Grand Alliance was a "truce", as some of my students have proposed to me, in a longer cold war between the west and the USSR. This struggle began in November 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd; it resumed after 1945 when the "truce", or if you like, the Grand Alliance, came to a sudden end.
This was no more evident than in Canada where elite hatred of communism was a homegrown commodity and not simply an American imitation. So it should hardly be a surprise that after 1945 the Canadian government -- Mackenzie King was still prime minister -- should open its doors to the immigration of approximately 34,000 "displaced persons", including thousands of Ukrainian fascists and Nazi collaborators , responsible for heinous war crimes in the Ukraine and Poland. These were veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Waffen SS Galicia and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), all collaborators of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Chrystia Freeland, the current Canadian minister for external affairs
The most notorious of the Nazi collaborators who immigrated to Canada was Mykhailo Chomiak , a mid-level Nazi operative in Poland, who came under US protection at the end of the war and eventually made his way to Canada where he settled in Alberta. Had he been captured by the Red Army, he would quite likely have been hanged for collaboration with the enemy. In Canada however he prospered as a farmer. His grand-daughter is the "Ukrainian-Canadian" Chrystia Freeland, the present minister for external affairs. She is a well-known Russophobe, persona non grata in the Russian Federation, who long claimed her grandfather was a "victim" of World War II. Her claims to this effect have been demonstrated to be untrue by the Australian born journalist John Helmer , amongst many others.
In 1940 the Liberal government facilitated the creation of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC) , one of many organisations used to fight or marginalise the left in Canada, in this case amongst Canadian Ukrainians. The UCC is still around and appears to dominate the Ukrainian-Canadian community . Approximately 1.4 million people living in Canada claim full or partial Ukrainian descent though generally the latter. Most "Ukrainian-Canadians" were born in Canada; well more than half live in the western provinces. The vast majority has certainly never set foot in the Ukraine. It is this constituency on which the UCC depends to pursue its political agenda in Ottawa.
The Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC) president Paul Grod
After the coup d'état in Kiev in February 2014 the UCC lobbied the then Conservative government under Stephen Harper to support the Ukrainian "regime change" operation which had been conducted by the United States and European Union. The UCC president, Paul Grod, took the lead in obtaining various advantages from the Harper government, including arms for the putschist regime in Kiev. It survives only through massive EU and US direct or indirect financial/political support and through armed backing from fascist militias who repress dissent by force and intimidation. Mr. Grod claims that Russia is pursuing a policy of "aggression" against the Ukraine. If that were true, the putschists in Kiev would have long ago disappeared. The Harper government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor , a Ukrainian fascist paramilitary group, through two organisations in Canada including the UCC, and even accorded "charitable status" to one of them to facilitate their fund raising and arms buying. Harper also sent military "advisors" to train Ukrainian forces, the backbone of which are fascist militias. The Trudeau government has continued that policy. "Canada should prepare for Russian attempts to destabilize its democracy," according to Minister Freeland : "Ukraine is a very important partner to Canada and we will continue to support its efforts for democracy and economic growth." For a regime that celebrates violence and anti-Russian racism, represses political opposition, burns books, and outlaws the Russian language, "democracy" is an Orwellian portrayal of actual realities in the Ukraine. Nevertheless, late last year the Canadian government approved the sale of arms to Kiev and a so-called Magnitsky law imposing sanctions on Russian nationals.
The Harper government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor , a Ukrainian fascist paramilitary group
There is no political opposition in the House of Commons to these policies. Even the New Democratic Party (NDP), that burnt out shell of Canadian social democracy, supported the Harper government, at the behest of Mr. Grod, a Ukrainian lobbyist who knows his way around Ottawa. In 2015 the UCC put a list of questions to party leaders, one of which was the following: "Does your party support listing the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic as terrorist organizations?" The Lugansk and Donetsk republics are of course anti-fascist resistance movements that emerged in reaction to the violent coup d'état in Kiev. They are most certainly not "terrorist" organisations, although they are subjected to daily bombardments against civilian areas by Kiev putschist forces. Nevertheless, the then NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, who would have agreed to almost anything to win power, answered in the affirmative. This must have been a moment of dismay for Canadians who still harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties. How could it support a US/EU installed putschist regime which governs by intimidation and violence? In fact, it was a Conservative electoral strategy to obtain the votes of people of Ukrainian and East European descent by backing putschist Kiev and denouncing Russia. Mulcair was trying to outflank Harper on his right, but that did not work for he himself was outflanked on his left.
Some Canadians harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties
In the 2015 federal elections the Liberals under Justin Trudeau, outwitted poor Mr. Mulcair and won the elections. The NDP suffered heavy electoral losses. Mulcair looked like someone who had made a Faustian bargain for nothing in return, and he lost a bid to remain as party leader. The Liberals campaigned on re-establishing better relations with the Russian Federation, but that promise did not hold up. The minister for external affairs, Stéphane Dion, tried to move forward on that line, but appears to have been stabbed in the back by Mr. Trudeau, with Ms. Freeland guiding his hand in the fatal blow. In early 2017 Dion was sacked and Freeland replaced him. That was the end of the Liberal promise to improve relations with the Russian government. Since then, under Freeland, Russian-Canadian relations have worsened.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket. There are photographs of him side by side with Mr. Harper and then with Mr. Trudeau, with Ms. Freeland on his left. Mr. Grod has been a great success in backing putschist Kiev. Last summer Mr. Trudeau even issued a traditional Ukrainian fascist salute, "SlavaUkraini!" , to celebrate the anniversary of Ukrainian independence. The prime minister is a great believer in identity politics.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket
The latest gesture of the Canadian government is to approve $1.4 million as a three year grant to promote a "Holodomor National Awareness Tour". Ukrainian "nationalists" summon up the memory of the "Holodomor", a famine in the Ukraine in 1932-1933, deliberately launched by Stalin, they say, in order to emphasise their victimisation by Russia. According to the latest Stalin biographer, Steven Kotkin, there was indeed a famine in the USSR that affected various parts of the country, the Ukraine amongst other regions. Kazakhstan, not the Ukraine suffered most. Between five and seven million people died. Ten millions starved. "Nonetheless, the famine was not intentional. It resulted from Stalin's policies of forced collectivization ,"Kotkin writes, himself no advocate of the Soviet Union. Compulsion, peasant rebellion, bungling, mismanagement, drought, locust infestations, not targeting ethnicities, led to the catastrophe. "Similarly, there was no 'Ukrainian' famine," according to Kotkin, "the famine was [a] Soviet[-wide disaster]" ( Stalin , 2017, vol. 2, pp. 127-29). So the Liberal government is spending public funds to perpetuate a politically motivated myth to drum up hatred of Russia and to support putschist Kiev.
Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II
The Canadian government also recently renewed funding for a detachment of 200 "advisors" to train Ukrainian militias, along with twenty-three million dollars -- it is true a pittance by American standards -- for "non-lethal" military aid, justified by Ms. Freeland to defend Ukrainian "democracy". Truly, we live in a dystopian world where reality is turned on its head. Fascism is democracy; resistance to fascism is terrorism. Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II. " Any country sending representatives to Russia's celebration of the 70th anniversary of their victory against Adolf Hitler," warned putschist Kiev in April 2015, "will be blacklisted by Ukraine."
"The further a society drifts from the truth," George Orwell once said, "the more it will hate those that speak it." Well, here is one truth that Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland will not want to hear, hate it or not: 42,000 Canadian soldiers, not to mention 27 million Soviet citizens, died during the war against the Axis. Memories must be fading, for now we have come to this pass, where our government is supporting a violent, racist regime in Kiev directly descended from that very enemy against which Canada and its allies fought during World War II. The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Tags: Canada Chrystia Freeland Print this article Michael Jabara Carley March 9, 2018 | History Why Canada Defends Ukrainian Fascism
Canada has a reputation for being a relatively progressive state with universal, single-payer health care, various other social benefits, and strict gun laws, similar to many European countries but quite unlike the United States. It has managed to stay out of some American wars, for example, Vietnam and Iraq, portrayed itself as a neutral "peace keeper", pursuing a so-called policy of "multilateralism" and attempting from time to time to keep a little independent distance from the United States.
Behind this veneer of respectability lies a not so attractive reality of elite inattention to the defence of Canadian independence from the United States and intolerance toward the political and syndicalist left. Police repression against communist and left-wing unionists and other dissidents after World War I was widespread. Strong support for appeasement of Nazi Germany, overt or covert sympathy for fascism, especially in Québec, and hatred of the Soviet Union were widespread in Canada during the 1930s. The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany. Mackenzie King and many others of the Canadian elite saw communism as a greater threat to Canada than fascism. As in Europe, the Canadian elite -- Liberal or Conservative did not matter -- was worried by the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). In Québec French public opinion under the influence of the Catholic Church hoped for fascist victory and the eradication of communism. In 1937 a Papal encyclical whipped up the Red Scare amongst French Canadian Catholics. Rejection of Soviet offers of collective security against Hitler was the obverse side of appeasement. The fear of victory over Nazi Germany in alliance with the USSR was greater than the fear of defeat against fascism. Such thoughts were either openly expressed over dinner at the local gentleman's club or kept more discrete by people who did not want to reveal the extent of their sympathy for fascism.
The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany
Even after the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the formation of the Grand Alliance against the Axis, there was strong reticence amongst the governing elite in Canada toward the Soviet Union. It was a shotgun marriage, a momentary arrangement with an undesirable partner, necessitated by the over-riding threat of the Nazi Wehrmacht. "If Hitler invaded Hell," Winston Churchill famously remarked, "I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." Once Hitler was beaten, however, it would be back to business as usual. The Grand Alliance was a "truce", as some of my students have proposed to me, in a longer cold war between the west and the USSR. This struggle began in November 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd; it resumed after 1945 when the "truce", or if you like, the Grand Alliance, came to a sudden end.
This was no more evident than in Canada where elite hatred of communism was a homegrown commodity and not simply an American imitation. So it should hardly be a surprise that after 1945 the Canadian government -- Mackenzie King was still prime minister -- should open its doors to the immigration of approximately 34,000 "displaced persons", including thousands of Ukrainian fascists and Nazi collaborators , responsible for heinous war crimes in the Ukraine and Poland. These were veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Waffen SS Galicia and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), all collaborators of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Chrystia Freeland, the current Canadian minister for external affairs
The most notorious of the Nazi collaborators who immigrated to Canada was Mykhailo Chomiak , a mid-level Nazi operative in Poland, who came under US protection at the end of the war and eventually made his way to Canada where he settled in Alberta. Had he been captured by the Red Army, he would quite likely have been hanged for collaboration with the enemy. In Canada however he prospered as a farmer. His grand-daughter is the "Ukrainian-Canadian" Chrystia Freeland, the present minister for external affairs. She is a well-known Russophobe, persona non grata in the Russian Federation, who long claimed her grandfather was a "victim" of World War II. Her claims to this effect have been demonstrated to be untrue by the Australian born journalist John Helmer , amongst many others.
In 1940 the Liberal government facilitated the creation of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC) , one of many organisations used to fight or marginalise the left in Canada, in this case amongst Canadian Ukrainians. The UCC is still around and appears to dominate the Ukrainian-Canadian community . Approximately 1.4 million people living in Canada claim full or partial Ukrainian descent though generally the latter. Most "Ukrainian-Canadians" were born in Canada; well more than half live in the western provinces. The vast majority has certainly never set foot in the Ukraine. It is this constituency on which the UCC depends to pursue its political agenda in Ottawa.
The Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC) president Paul Grod
After the coup d'état in Kiev in February 2014 the UCC lobbied the then Conservative government under Stephen Harper to support the Ukrainian "regime change" operation which had been conducted by the United States and European Union. The UCC president, Paul Grod, took the lead in obtaining various advantages from the Harper government, including arms for the putschist regime in Kiev. It survives only through massive EU and US direct or indirect financial/political support and through armed backing from fascist militias who repress dissent by force and intimidation. Mr. Grod claims that Russia is pursuing a policy of "aggression" against the Ukraine. If that were true, the putschists in Kiev would have long ago disappeared. The Harper government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor , a Ukrainian fascist paramilitary group, through two organisations in Canada including the UCC, and even accorded "charitable status" to one of them to facilitate their fund raising and arms buying. Harper also sent military "advisors" to train Ukrainian forces, the backbone of which are fascist militias. The Trudeau government has continued that policy. "Canada should prepare for Russian attempts to destabilize its democracy," according to Minister Freeland : "Ukraine is a very important partner to Canada and we will continue to support its efforts for democracy and economic growth." For a regime that celebrates violence and anti-Russian racism, represses political opposition, burns books, and outlaws the Russian language, "democracy" is an Orwellian portrayal of actual realities in the Ukraine. Nevertheless, late last year the Canadian government approved the sale of arms to Kiev and a so-called Magnitsky law imposing sanctions on Russian nationals.
The Harper government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor , a Ukrainian fascist paramilitary group
There is no political opposition in the House of Commons to these policies. Even the New Democratic Party (NDP), that burnt out shell of Canadian social democracy, supported the Harper government, at the behest of Mr. Grod, a Ukrainian lobbyist who knows his way around Ottawa. In 2015 the UCC put a list of questions to party leaders, one of which was the following: "Does your party support listing the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic as terrorist organizations?" The Lugansk and Donetsk republics are of course anti-fascist resistance movements that emerged in reaction to the violent coup d'état in Kiev. They are most certainly not "terrorist" organisations, although they are subjected to daily bombardments against civilian areas by Kiev putschist forces. Nevertheless, the then NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, who would have agreed to almost anything to win power, answered in the affirmative. This must have been a moment of dismay for Canadians who still harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties. How could it support a US/EU installed putschist regime which governs by intimidation and violence? In fact, it was a Conservative electoral strategy to obtain the votes of people of Ukrainian and East European descent by backing putschist Kiev and denouncing Russia. Mulcair was trying to outflank Harper on his right, but that did not work for he himself was outflanked on his left.
Some Canadians harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties
In the 2015 federal elections the Liberals under Justin Trudeau, outwitted poor Mr. Mulcair and won the elections. The NDP suffered heavy electoral losses. Mulcair looked like someone who had made a Faustian bargain for nothing in return, and he lost a bid to remain as party leader. The Liberals campaigned on re-establishing better relations with the Russian Federation, but that promise did not hold up. The minister for external affairs, Stéphane Dion, tried to move forward on that line, but appears to have been stabbed in the back by Mr. Trudeau, with Ms. Freeland guiding his hand in the fatal blow. In early 2017 Dion was sacked and Freeland replaced him. That was the end of the Liberal promise to improve relations with the Russian government. Since then, under Freeland, Russian-Canadian relations have worsened.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket. There are photographs of him side by side with Mr. Harper and then with Mr. Trudeau, with Ms. Freeland on his left. Mr. Grod has been a great success in backing putschist Kiev. Last summer Mr. Trudeau even issued a traditional Ukrainian fascist salute, "SlavaUkraini!" , to celebrate the anniversary of Ukrainian independence. The prime minister is a great believer in identity politics.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket
The latest gesture of the Canadian government is to approve $1.4 million as a three year grant to promote a "Holodomor National Awareness Tour". Ukrainian "nationalists" summon up the memory of the "Holodomor", a famine in the Ukraine in 1932-1933, deliberately launched by Stalin, they say, in order to emphasise their victimisation by Russia. According to the latest Stalin biographer, Steven Kotkin, there was indeed a famine in the USSR that affected various parts of the country, the Ukraine amongst other regions. Kazakhstan, not the Ukraine suffered most. Between five and seven million people died. Ten millions starved. "Nonetheless, the famine was not intentional. It resulted from Stalin's policies of forced collectivization ,"Kotkin writes, himself no advocate of the Soviet Union. Compulsion, peasant rebellion, bungling, mismanagement, drought, locust infestations, not targeting ethnicities, led to the catastrophe. "Similarly, there was no 'Ukrainian' famine," according to Kotkin, "the famine was [a] Soviet[-wide disaster]" ( Stalin , 2017, vol. 2, pp. 127-29). So the Liberal government is spending public funds to perpetuate a politically motivated myth to drum up hatred of Russia and to support putschist Kiev.
Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II
The Canadian government also recently renewed funding for a detachment of 200 "advisors" to train Ukrainian militias, along with twenty-three million dollars -- it is true a pittance by American standards -- for "non-lethal" military aid, justified by Ms. Freeland to defend Ukrainian "democracy". Truly, we live in a dystopian world where reality is turned on its head. Fascism is democracy; resistance to fascism is terrorism. Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II. " Any country sending representatives to Russia's celebration of the 70th anniversary of their victory against Adolf Hitler," warned putschist Kiev in April 2015, "will be blacklisted by Ukraine."
"The further a society drifts from the truth," George Orwell once said, "the more it will hate those that speak it." Well, here is one truth that Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland will not want to hear, hate it or not: 42,000 Canadian soldiers, not to mention 27 million Soviet citizens, died during the war against the Axis. Memories must be fading, for now we have come to this pass, where our government is supporting a violent, racist regime in Kiev directly descended from that very enemy against which Canada and its allies fought during World War II. © 2010 - 2020 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org . The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Also by this author Michael Jabara Carley Professor of history at the Université de Montréal. He has published widely on Soviet relations with the West What Poland Has to Hide About the Origins of World War II The Canadian Prime Minister Needs a History Lesson The Russian V-Day Story (Or the History of World War II Not Often Heard in the West) The Skripal Affair: A Lie Too Far? Lament for Canada Sign up for the Strategic Culture Foundation Newsletter Subscribe
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© 2010 - 2020 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org . The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. <div><img src="https://mc.yandex.ru/watch/10970266" alt=""/></div>
Dec 25, 2019 | independent.co.uk
The desire by people to see themselves as a national community – even if many of the bonds binding them together are fictional – is one of the most powerful forces in the world
Patrick Cockburn | @indyworld |
Nationalism in different shapes and forms is powerfully transforming the politics of the British Isles, a development that gathered pace over the last five years and culminated in the general election this month.
National identities and the relationship between England, Scotland and Ireland are changing more radically than at any time over the last century. It is worth looking at the British archipelago as a whole on this issue because of the closely-meshed political relationship of its constituent nations. Some of these developments are highly visible such as the rise of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to permanent political dominance in Scotland in the three general elections since the independence referendum in 2014.
Other changes are important but little commented on, such as the enhanced national independence and political influence of the Republic of Ireland over the British Isles as a continuing member of the EU as the UK leaves. Dublin's greater leverage when backed by the other 26 EU states was repeatedly demonstrated, often to the surprise and dismay of London, in the course of the negotiations in Brussels over the terms of the British withdrawal.
Northern Ireland saw more nationalist than unionist MPs elected in the general election for the first time since 1921. This is important because it is a further sign of the political impact of demographic change whereby Catholics/nationalists become the new majority and the Protestants/unionists the minority. The contemptuous ease with which Boris Johnson abandoned his ultra-unionist pledges to the DUP and accepted a customs border in the Irish Sea separating Northern Ireland from the rest of Britain shows how little loyalty the Conservatives feel towards the northern unionists and their distinct and abrasive brand of British nationalism.
These developments affecting four of the main national communities inhabiting the British Isles – Irish, nationalists and unionists in Northern Ireland, Scots – are easy to track. Welsh nationalism is a lesser force. Much more difficult to trace and explain is the rise of English nationalism because it is much more inchoate than these other types of nationalism, has no programme, and is directly represented by no political party – though the Conservative Party has moved in that direction.
The driving force behind Brexit was always a certain type of English nationalism which did not lose its power to persuade despite being incoherent and little understood by its critics and supporters alike. In some respects, it deployed the rhetoric of any national community seeking self-determination. The famous Brexiteer slogan "take back control" is not that different in its implications from Sinn Fein – "Ourselves Alone" – though neither movement would relish the analogy.
The great power of the pro-Brexit movement, never really taken on board by its opponents, was to blame the very real sense of disempowerment and social grievances felt by a large part of the English population on Brussels and the EU. This may have been scapegoating on a grandiose scale, but nationalist movements the world over have targeted some foreign body abroad or national minority at home as the source of their ills. I asked one former Leave councillor – one of the few people I met who changed their mind on the issue after the referendum in 2016 – why people living in her deprived ward held the EU responsible for their poverty. Her reply cut through many more sophisticated explanations: "I suppose that it is always easier to blame Johnny Foreigner."
Applying life lessons to the pursuit of national happiness The Tories won't get far once progressives join forces 22,000 EU nationals have left NHS since Brexit vote, figures show This crude summary of the motives of many Leave voters has truth in it, but it is a mistake to caricature English nationalism as simply a toxic blend of xenophobia, racism, imperial nostalgia and overheated war memories. In the three years since the referendum the very act of voting for Brexit became part of many people's national identity, a desire to break free, kicking back against an overmighty bureaucracy and repelling attempts by the beneficiaries of globalisation to reverse a democratic vote.
The political left in most countries is bad at dealing with nationalism and the pursuit of self-determination. It sees these as a diversion from identifying and attacking the real perpetrators of social and economic injustice. It views nationalists as mistakenly or malignly aiming at the wrong target – usually foreigners – and letting the domestic ones off the hook.
The desire by people to see themselves as a national community – even if many of the bonds binding them together are fictional – is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It can only be ignored at great political cost, as the Labour Party has just found out to its cost for the fifth time (two referendums and three elections). What Labour should have done was early on take over the slogan "take back control" and seek to show that they were better able to deliver this than the Conservatives or the Brexit Party. There is no compelling reason why achieving such national demands should be a monopoly of the right. But in 2016, 2017 and 2019 Labour made the same mistake of trying to wriggle around Brexit as the prime issue facing the English nation without taking a firm position, an evasion that discredited it with both Remainers and Leavers.
Curiously, the political establishment made much the same mistake as Labour in underestimating and misunderstanding the nature of English nationalism. Up to the financial crisis of 2008 globalisation had been sold as a beneficial and inevitable historic process. Nationalism was old hat and national loyalties were supposedly on the wane. To the British political class, the EU obviously enhanced the political and economic strength of its national members. As beneficiaries of the status quo, they were blind to the fact that much of the country had failed to gain from these good things and felt marginalised and forgotten.
The advocates of supra-national organisations since the mediaeval papacy have been making such arguments and have usually been perplexed why they fail to stick. They fail to understand the strength of nationalism or religion in providing a sense of communal solidarity, even if it is based on dreams and illusions, that provides a vehicle for deeply felt needs and grievances. Arguments based on simple profit and loss usually lose out against such rivals.
Minervo , 1 day ago
Bigger by far are two forces which really do have control over our country -- the international NATO warmongers but even more so, the international banksters of the finance industry.
Why no 'leftist' campaign to Take Back Control of our money? Gordon Brown baled out the banks when they should have gone bankrupt and been nationalised.
Blair is forever tainted with his ill-fated Attack on Iraq. Surely New Liberals or Democrats or Socialists would want to lock down on that fiasco?
The Nationalism of taking back control could be a leftist project too.
Dec 29, 2019 | www.unz.com
"The life of the individual is a constant struggle, and not merely a metaphorical one, against want or boredom, but also an actual struggle against other people. He discovers adversaries everywhere, lives in continual conflict and dies with sword in hand."
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the WorldAlthough Nietzsche seems to be the philosopher of choice for many on the Dissident Right, I've always had a soft spot for Arthur Schopenhauer. His cantankerous philosophical pessimism has always struck a chord with my own temperament, and for many years I've found his quasi-Buddhist and highly compassionate conceptualisation of suffering to be strangely comforting. That life is a struggle involving endless adversaries and competitors also forms an aspect of Schopenhauer's philosophy, and this continues to be significant in shaping my political and philosophical outlook. Certainly, it goes without saying that adversaries have never been in short supply for members of the Dissident Right. They are arrayed before us now, emerging from all points of the political spectrum, and often even from within our own ranks. Dissident right political philosophies, more than any other, appear destined to be mired in continual conflict, and I often find it difficult to shake the dark impression that one day I will die, metaphorical sword in hand, with every battle raging but far from won. For this reason, I sometimes permit myself the relief of optimism (a form of cowardice to both Schopenhauer and Spengler), and part of this is the attempt to find allies where formerly one may have seen only foes. This brings me to the subject matter of this essay -- recent developments on the Left which appear to suggest the emergence of an anti-globalist, anti-immigration, and anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic politics.
Swedish Communists Wake Up
Just days ago, Sputnik reported on the fact that almost half of the members of the Communist Party in Malmö, Sweden, are resigning. They plan to establish a new workers' party that no longer features multiculturalism, LGBT interests, and climate change as key policy goals. Nils Littorin, one of the defectors, told a local newspaper that today's Left has become part of the elite and has come to "dismiss the views of the working class as alien and problematic." Littorin suggested that the Left "is going through a prolonged identity crisis" and that his group, instead, intends to stick to the original values, such as class politics. Littorin adds "[The Left] don't understand why so many workers don't think that multiculturalism, the LGBT movement and Greta Thunberg are something fantastic, but instead believe we are in the 1930s' Germany and that workers who vote [right-wing] Sweden Democrats have been infected by some Nazi sickness." In a piece of simple insight previously rare on the Left, he argues that the rise in right-wing votes for people like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are in fact due to "widespread dissatisfaction with liberal economic migration that leads to low-wage competition and the ghettoisation of communities, a development that only benefits major companies." Rather than being beneficial to working class Whites, Littorin condemns a "chaotic" immigration policy that has led to "cultural clashes, segregation and exclusion due to an uncontrolled influx from parts of the world characterised by honour culture and clan mentalities."
Littorin continues to talk sense when it comes to the LGBT agenda. He explains that LGBT issues and the climate movement are merely "state ideologies" that are "rammed down people's throats". Littorin adds that phenomena like these happen at the expense of real issues, such as poverty, homelessness, and income equality: "Pride, for instance, has been reduced to dealing with sexual orientation. We believe that human dignity is primarily about having a job and having pension insurance that means that you are not forced to live on crumbs when you are old."
As well as prioritising jobs and pensions over the flamboyant celebration of buggery, Littorin and his colleagues have pledged to abandon the name and ethos of Communism, describing it as a
word drawn to the dirt, a nasty word today, and not entirely undeservedly. In communist parties, there is this risk of elitism, self-indulgence, and a belief that a certain avant-garde should lead a working class that does not know its own best interests, instead of asking people what they want. 20th-century Communism died with the Soviet Union, it has never been successfully updated for the 21st century but has been stuck in 100-year-old books.
Curiously, events in Malmö have been mirrored somewhat in broader Swedish Left politics, with Markus Allard, the leader of the left-wing Örebro Party, expressing similar thoughts in an op-ed titled "Socialists don't belong to the left," accusing the mainstream left of completely abandoning its base , switching from the working class to "parasitic grant-grabbing layers within the middle class."
British Socialists Reinvent Themselves
Almost simultaneously, an identical process is occurring in Britain with George Galloway 's announcement of a new Workers Party of Britain . At the time of its launch Galloway described the party as "hard Brexit and hard labour," and added: "If you're a liberal who thinks it's Left if you're still pining for the EU, if you think shouting "racist," "homophobic," "transphobic" at everybody who doesn't agree with you is the way forward, we're probably not for you." Galloway's pro-Brexit stance is rooted in his belief that the modern British Left "have no vision for an alternative to rampant neoliberalism and a deindustrialised, finance-led, low wage economy, they calculate the best way to make this work is within the EU." He argues that the cosmopolitan leadership of the Labour Party in particular "think we are some kind of uncivilised tribe, painting our faces blue, and only able to vote in a right-wing government," a view he finds "not only deeply insulting, but also self-defeating and overly optimistic about the EU." On immigration, Galloway argues that there is "nothing left-wing about unlimited mass immigration. It decapitates the countries from which the immigrants leave, and drives down wages in those where they arrive. The wealthy benefit from it, as they can afford cheap labor for their companies, or cheap au-pairs, cheap baristas, cheap plumbers. But the working class suffers."
Galloway has also stressed that his new party will strongly pursue anti-Israel politics, and is fully committed to opposing the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Galloway and the Workers Party of Britain have also taken a stand against the more extreme forms of LGBT indoctrination, particularly the mass promotion of transgenderism. Galloway, who has previously been attacked by a self-styled "trans anarchist" while giving a speech, is here following the lead of the pro-Brexit Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) which recently published Identity Politics and the Transgender Trend: Where is LGBT ideology taking us and Why does it matter? In this text, and other articles on the party's website, including this very interesting speech denouncing transgender ideology as anti-materialist and anti-scientific, the argument is made that
Biological differentiation between male and female is a real thing . It doesn't just exist in humanity, it exists in many species throughout the natural world. Sexual reproduction is a natural biological process that has persisted in nature due to the diversity it engenders; it is a phenomenon encountered in the natural world. And let's not forget how this debate impinged upon us. We've been following this ideological trend, and encountering identity politics (idpol) among supporters and candidates for membership of our party, and amongst people we've been working with for at least four or five years. Because idpol has become a fashion in that period. And it is a fashion; it is a trend. And it suddenly -- from being very marginal to certain academic institutions in the 1970s -- became mainstream globally worldwide; it was actively promoted. Not promoted by communists, not by socialists, but picked up on and accepted by many of them, because they are led by, and they blindly followed, bourgeoise society down this dead-end. There is a group of self-proclaimed 'socialists' who are not actually any longer fighting against our oppression, they're fighting against reality!
The Left in Crisis?
None of these developments are entirely surprising and, in fact, the argument could be made that they are the inevitable side effect of what Nils Littorin termed the Left's prolonged "identity crisis." The endorsement and promotion of multiculturalism and its sex-politics corollaries never did make much sense within the framework of rational critiques of capitalism, and the tension between the nominal desire for working class solidarity and divisive pseudo-Marxian doctrines (e.g. Whiteness Studies) designed to mobilise imported ethnic factions against the largest section of the working class (blue-collar Whites) was always destined to bring about significant stress fractures when Leftist fortunes began to decline.
And decline they have. Of course, we have to set aside rampant ideological and cultural success. Figures and cliques operating under the banner of social equality and eternal progress continue to hold the reins of power in government, academia, and the mass media. But the Left is without question currently subject to a period of political decline. It's losing votes, and more important, it's fast losing hearts and minds. I should also add that they aren't losing them to right-wing ideas, but to the hollow shells of right-wing ideas (Free Enterprise! Build the Wall!) and to the charismatic globalist play-actors who promote-these ideas like salesmen selling used cars or aftershave. White working-class people are voting for free enterprise without hesitation while Jewish vulture capitalism operates with impunity under that very banner, destroying their towns, exporting their jobs, and repossessing their homes. The same people vote for a wall they'll never get -- and would never really solve the problems resulting from capitalism or ensure a majority White future. And they do it not because of concern about identity or racial destiny, but in the same way one might decide to install CCTV in a grocery store -- the ever-elusive Wall will never be built so long as it represents nothing more than the aspiration to protect mere inventory. The hollow men of the pseudo-Right-wing offer flimsy placebos, and yet the political Left, supposedly the historical repository of hard materialism, can't seem to compete.
There's been a scramble to blame the situation on a lack of charismatic leaders , disunity, a lack of attractive policies, and even the idea that the European Left made the fatal mistake of trying to meet the Right on its own turf by "flirting with closed-border nationalism or neoliberalism." But the real reason is surely the fact the Left has consistently alienated and browbeat working class Whites, while slowly revealing itself to be an elite-run clique of cosmopolitans, who are living the high life while waxing lyrical about oppressions that are rarely real and often imaginary, and in any case never affect them personally. Added to this is the fact Leftist ideology has become so convoluted and contorted, with the square-peg doctrine of Marx endlessly forced into new and increasingly abstract circular and triangular holes, resulting in Marxist interpretations of such ephemera as graffiti, pop music, and drag queens, all of which strike the average blue-collar worker as a steaming pile of effeminate middle-class navel-gazing. All this plays out as young yet dithering social justice warriors, jobless and senseless, search for oppression like an old lady with dementia searches for a purse she hasn't owned in 20 years. As the pundits split hairs, I look on, and it occurs to me rather simply that right now the pseudo-Left-wing liars aren't quite as good as the pseudo-Right-wing liars.
Are These Rebels Potential Allies?
When I was around 11 years old, my mother made a new friend, a Scottish woman in her 30s, who always struck me as very strange. It was her eyes. I didn't know at first what schizophrenia was, though I would soon find out. One day she arrived at our house and, recognising her, I opened the door and welcomed her in. I called to my mother, who was upstairs, and made small talk with the Scottish woman, who, standing still and staring right at me, seemed perfectly cheerful and articulate. She asked about how I was doing at school, and we talked a little bit about science, which she seemed to know a lot about. It was only after a few minutes that I noticed the smell and deduced that the woman had fouled herself. By the time my mother arrived, the Scottish woman had descended into a stream-of-consciousness gibberish that culminated in her attempting unsuccessfully to retrieve a knife from the kitchen before running from the property. She'd simply stopped taking her medication. We later discovered she was found by police that night, dancing and weeping with bare, bloody feet in a nearby graveyard, wearing nothing but a nightgown and proclaiming to the dead that she was God, distraught at the death of the crucified son.
The episode has remained with me now for over two decades, shaping my perceptions of reality, relationships, and trust. Here it suffices only to remark that the insane talk sense at times, even as their psyche shatters. And if we dig deeply enough into the statements of these moderately "awakened" Leftists, do we yet see signs of madness? A look again at the statement from the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), along with some reading between the lines, suggests something decidedly off . Yes, "biological differentiation between male and female is a real thing." Of course it is. But so is biological differentiation between races, and yet here our erstwhile British hardcore materialists, currently led by a full-blooded ethnic Indian named Harpal Brar , decide to fight against reality. On that note, we should add that Brar's daughter, Joti Brar, has been announced as George Galloway's deputy leader at the "hard Brexit and hard labour" Worker's Party of Britain. Galloway, it's worth adding, has been married four times, with three marriages to non-Whites (Palestinian Amineh Abu-Zayyad in 1994, Lebanese Rima Husseini in 2007, and ethnic Indonesian Putri Gayatri Pertiwi in 2012). So for all his protestations of being against mass migration, one gets the distinct impression that Galloway is a committed multiculturalist and that his party will be internationalist in every meaningful sense of the term.
If there is any hope for some sanity in this camp of frustrated Leftists it is for the simple reason that these small new pockets of reason are for the most part free of Jewish influence and all the intellectual distortions such influence entails. In a 2018 essay titled " On "Leftist Anti-Semitism": Past and Present ," I considered the gradual shift of Jews away from the hard Left due to growing anti-Zionism, and their growing confinement in centrist neoliberalism:
Jewish blindness to their privileges, genuine or feigned, is of course one major cause for the undeniable friction between Jews and the modern Left. It was perhaps inevitable that foolish but earnest egalitarians on the Left would come to the slow realization that their 'comrades of the Jewish faith' were in fact not only elitists, but an elite of a very special sort. The simultaneous preaching of open borders/common property and 'the land of the Jewish people' was always going to strike a discordant note among the wearers of sweaty Che Guevara t-shirts, especially when accompanied so very often by the cacophony of Israeli gunfire and the screams of bloodied Palestinian children. Mass migration, that well-crafted toxin coursing through the highways and rail lines of Europe, has proven just as difficult to manage. Great waves of human detritus wash upon Western shores, bringing raw and passionate grievances even from the frontiers of Israel. These are people whose eyes have seen behind the veil, and who sit only with great discomfort alongside the kin of the IDF in league with the Western political Left -- the only common ground being a shared desire to dispossess the hated White man. For these reasons, the Left could well become a cold house for Jews without becoming authentically, systematically, or traditionally anti-Semitic. One might therefore expect Jews to regroup away from the radical left, occupying a political space best described as staunchly centrist -- a centrism that leans left only to pursue multiculturalism and other destructive 'egalitarian' social policies, and leans right only in order to obtain elite protections and privileges [domestically for the Jewish community, internationally for Israel]. A centrism based, in that old familiar formula, on 'what is best for Jews.'
As seen in the recent clash between Jews and the UK's Labour Party, the political relocation of Jews to a kind of amorphous and opportunistic centrism will bring them into direct conflict with those on the hard Left who not only pursue anti-Zionist politics but also object to manifestations of raw Jewish power like the mass adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and the economic abuses of politically ambiguous (neither Left nor Right, but Jewish) oligarchs like Paul Singer. As such, and together with their natural aversion to being part of the Right, Jews will increasingly find it difficult to define themselves politically as anything other than Jews, leading to the increased visibility of their activities and interests -- something witnessed in the unprecedented step of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis openly calling for British Jews to move against Jeremy Corbyn. This increased visibility can only be a good thing for those concerned with Jewish influence, and who have been frustrated in previous periods by Jewish influence masquerading in various political guises.
A potential opportunity, imperfect but perhaps feasible, may therefore be arising whereby White interests could be subliminally or even publicly defended through savvy, nominally hard-Left activism against mass migration (on economic rather than racial grounds), against Israel and international Zionist influence, against some aspects of PC culture, and against the capitalist excesses of the Jewish vulture funds. It goes without saying that Leftist activists don't receive anywhere near the same level of social, professional, or legal punishment for their activism as those on the Right, especially the dissident Right. I don't think I'm too wide of the mark in suggesting that an anti-immigration agitator with "Workers Party of Britain" plastered over his social media is less likely to lose his job than someone with public National Front affiliations. It may therefore be worth serious consideration by young activists as to whether they might want to cultivate a kind of "Leftist" mask to defend White interests in much the same way as Jews in the past have adopted various convenient political masks while concealing deeper ethnic interests. I am suggesting a combination of infiltration and masquerade. What matters most is the private motivation and the potential benefits of the ultimate goal -- White interests and objectives serving them.
There are, of course, also dangers in supporting such movements. I am not suggesting the investment of serious time and money in these groups, since the risk is great that the majority of their members are committed to a politics that is ultimately antagonistic and destructive to our own ultimate goals. There is also huge potential for betrayal on many of the issues where we might have common ground -- immigration, LGBT madness, PC culture -- and I find it difficult to shake off the impression that these developments bear the mark of a temporary despair and are designed to dupe blue-collar Whites into voting Left once more.
Still, 2020 may open up a new front in the war, and as the New Year approaches, I'll silence my inner Schopenhauer and toast to that.
G. Poulin , says: Show Comment December 29, 2019 at 9:57 pm GMT
Gee, they're starting to sound like Mussolini.Anonymous [341] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment December 30, 2019 at 1:28 am GMTBoris Johnson seems to be a step in this direction, many of the policies he has openly stated would have been almost unthinkable for a Conservative PM previously, things like amnesty for illegal immigrants, vast amounts of public spending, he has even stated an intention to nationalise things like train operators.Ron Unz , says: Show Comment December 30, 2019 at 2:54 am GMTBoris is seen as very much right wing by most people in the UK, but if you look at his policies he could easily be described as a sort of left wing nationalist, especially in terms of his social policies. In terms of actual policy there is increasingly little difference between the Conservatives and Labour, the differentiation has become about abstract things like self-proclaimed patriotism and the level of pandering to Zionism.
WN-types such as the author of this article tend to focus so heavily on immigration as an issue. So here's a link to a long piece I published a couple of years ago proposing a solution to the American version of the problem, though I'm not sure how applicable it would be to Britain:Bolteric , says: Show Comment December 30, 2019 at 5:29 am GMThttps://www.unz.com/runz/a-grand-bargain-on-immigration-reform-2/
@Ron Unz I think, Mr. Unz, you highlight peaceful coexistence, at the same time many still pine for a separate nation of exclusively white Christians. While it's a lost cause at this point, it doesn't stop the WN types – a set that is difficult to exclude myself from – from imagining a different reality and the National policies that would accompany that. Is a grand bargain possible? It gives me pause.Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment December 30, 2019 at 5:42 am GMTWe need the Left-Right, which is fascism.Frankie P , says: Show Comment December 30, 2019 at 5:45 am GMTIt's extremely surprising to me that Andrew Joyce, in his analysis of left/right potential cooperation for the benefit of the nation and its legacy population, would fail to mention or bring up the French Equality and Reconciliation movement of Alain Soral. Here is a movement with meaty ideas, and more importantly, results. For what ideas drive the Yellow Vest protests if not the very concepts that Joyce points out in this article, expressed so well by Soral and so many of the white French protesters? Soral, originally a Marxist who subsequently joined the National Front (now the National Rally), has a number of useful and accurate slogans. He is a brilliant analyst and an articulate commentator; unfortunately, his videos and activism is limited to the French language. "The Left for the worker, The Right for morality." Isn't this similar to Joyce's argument that the Left is losing members who are rejecting the identity politics, gender bender, climate change distraction issue driven narrative that is driving the Left today? Of course in France Soral is labeled a Rightist Antisemite, as he is not shy about calling out the stranglehold that CRIF holds over French politics and how this has warped foreign policy in the interests of apartheid Israel. When I watch some of his videos and commentary, I wonder why we don't have a similar figure and movement in the US.
Dec 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Really?? , Dec 20 2019 13:45 utc | 88
vk #80Your basic question seems to be: What holds a country together? Especially, a large country--- such as France/Germany/the UK/the USA/the USSR/China---that comprises many disparate regions and ethnicities? What differentiates such a country from an empire?
So in the USSR seems like a case can be or is being made that the Party is what held the union together, as an overarching organization that incorporated leaders into its structure. Perhaps I am wrong in that inference as to what you or someone else is saying.
Seems like the queen's speech shows her effort to point out why it might be better for the UK to stick together: ability to deliver better outcomes to all members of the country/society.
The queen does seem to draw a certain line in her speech as to newcomers to the society who wish to become part of it. Only those with specific skills to contribute to those already here will be welcome. She doesn't specify that others are not welcome, but she certainly seems to imply it. And, quite rightly, IMO.
Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
bevin , Dec 8 2019 19:17 utc | 25
"A botched assassination attempt against Ukrainian politician and businessman Vyacheslav Sobolev has resulted in the death of his three-year-old son, Alexander."While Sobolev and his wife were leaving his high-end restaurant "Mario" in Kiev this past Sunday, right-wing thugs opened fire on Sobolev's Range Rover, missing him but hitting his son who was seated in the back of the vehicle. The three-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
"Police later apprehended two men who had fled the scene in a black Lexus sedan, Oleksiy Semenov, 19, and Andrei Lavrega, 20. Both are veterans of the war in Donbass in eastern Ukraine where they served as members of the fascist Right Sector's paramilitary formation until June of this year.
"The Right Sector was instrumental in the US- and EU-backed, fascist-led coup in February 2014 that toppled the Yanukovitch government and replaced it with a pro-Western and anti-Russian regime. Since then, the Right Sector has been among the far-right forces that have been heavily involved in the war against Russian-backed separatists in East Ukraine."As is usual when members of neo-Nazi groups carry out political attacks, the Right Sector and their former battalion commander fraudulently attempted to distance themselves from Lavrega and Semenov, claiming they had lost contact with them since they left Ukraine's armed forces in June. These claims are not credible.
"Lavrega, who has been identified as the principal shooter in the killing, has been a member of the Right Sector for at least half a decade. He had participated in the Maidan movement of 2014 as a member of the Right Sector and perfected his shooting skills as a sniper killing separatist soldiers in eastern Ukraine. According to his Right Sector battalion commander, Andrei Herhert, Lavrega -- also known as "Quiet" -- was "one of the best snipers in the war" and "very ideological."
"As a thanks for his service to the right-wing Kiev government, Lavrega received a military decoration from former President Petro Poroshenko for "courage" just last year, in October of 2018." ..........
"Whoever is ultimately responsible for ordering this political assassination and the murder of the three-year-old boy, it is clear that the same far-right forces that were instrumental in the coup in February 2014 and the civil war are now being employed to carry out political assassinations by the Ukrainian oligarchy.
"Since the 2014 coup, the number of targeted political assassinations by right-wing neo-Nazi groups like C14 and the Right Sector has skyrocketed. At least 15 people have been murdered in such hit jobs by the far right since 2014. Among them was the well-known Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet and the politician Kateryna Handziuk, who was killed in a horrific acid attack by right-wing thugs last year.
"In virtually all these cases, the perpetrators have been protected from serious legal prosecution. One of the murderers of Handziuk received a barely three-year prison sentence. A critical role in shielding the neo-Nazis is played by Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs' Arsen Avakov, who controls the country's police force and possesses well-known ties to Ukraine's most notorious fascist militia, the Azov Battalion.
"Avakov is one of the few members of the previous Poroshenko government that have remained in the current Cabinet of Ministers under President Volodmyr Zelensky. He was recently praised by former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch while testifying before the House of Representatives regarding the Trump impeachment investigation (see also: "The impeachment crisis and American imperialism").
"President Zelensky, who was elected in April this year on the basis of promises that he would bring an end to the widely despised civil war in eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of over 13,000 people, has maintained a conspicuous silence on this latest political assassination attempt by the far right. Instead, the day after the murder, he posted a message on Facebook to honor two Ukrainian soldiers who were killed while fighting in eastern Ukraine this past weekend."
The rest of the story can be found at the WSWS
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/07/ukra-d06.htmlThe Right Sector links with the former US Ambassador-Democratic heroine- are topical.
cirsium , Dec 9 2019 0:03 utc | 53
@bevin, 25. - this article from The Stalkerzone provides information on the killers and suggests that they intended to kill the child as a message to the fatheruncle tungsten , Dec 9 2019 8:19 utc | 75
https://www.stalkerzone.org/ato-monsters-in-ukraine-a-market-of-hired-serial-killers-appeared/psychohistorian #68Thank you for that insight. I cannot see how Zelensky will manage the Nazi Ukrainians short of a virtual civil war against one western district. The USA will foment a major insurrection to destroy him if he does a deal with Gazprom. Your suggestion as to where those issues are discussed would be welcome.
A User #72
Thank you and well said. The eurocentric kabuki does mesmerise the information providers. I too seek escape from that dominance and spent a good time today researching the Power of Siberia implications and issues of South America. The global assault on all things African is a matter of deep despair for me and I feel totally powerless to reverse the relentless assault on their world.
Dec 06, 2019 | www.businessinsider.com
This map shows how the US really has 11 separate 'nations' with entirely different cultures Andy Kiersz and Allana Akhtar Dec 4, 2019, 7:56 PM
Facebook Icon The letter F. Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email. Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Twitter icon A stylized bird with an open mouth, tweeting. LinkedIn icon The word "in". Fliboard icon A stylized letter F. More icon Three evenly spaced dots forming an ellipsis: "...". Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.
- Author and journalist Colin Woodard identified 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US.
- His book " American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America " breaks down those cultures and the regions they each dominate.
- From the utopian "Yankeedom" to the conservative "Greater Appalachia" and liberal "Left Coast," looking at these cultures sheds an interesting light on America's political and cultural divides.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
America may be divided into 50 states, but many areas are culturally similar.
In his fourth book, " American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America ," award-winning author Colin Woodard identifies 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US.
"The country has been arguing about a lot of fundamental things lately including state roles and individual liberty," Woodard, a Maine native who won the 2012 George Polk Award for investigative reporting, told Business Insider. "[But] in order to have any productive conversation on these issues," he added, "you need to know where you come from."
Woodard also believes the nation is likely to become more polarized, even though America is becoming a more diverse place every day. He says this is because people are "self-sorting."
"People choose to move to places where they identify with the values," Woodard says. "Red minorities go south and blue minorities go north to be in the majority. This is why blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder and the middle is getting smaller."
Here's how Woodard describes each nation:
Matthew Speiser contributed to a previous version of this article. Yankeedom values education, and members are comfortable with government regulation. < >
Encompassing the entire Northeast north of New York City and spreading through Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Yankeedom values education, intellectual achievement, communal empowerment, and citizen participation in government as a shield against tyranny. Yankees are comfortable with government regulation. Woodard notes that Yankees have a "Utopian streak." The area was settled by radical Calvinists. New Netherland in the New York area has a "materialistic" culture. < >
A highly commercial culture, New Netherland is "materialistic, with a profound tolerance for ethnic and religious diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience," according to Woodard. It is a natural ally with Yankeedom and encompasses New York City and northern New Jersey. The area was settled by the Dutch. The Midlands, largely located in the Midwest, opposes government regulation. < >
Settled by English Quakers, The Midlands are a welcoming middle-class society that spawned the culture of the "American Heartland." Political opinion is moderate, and government regulation is frowned upon. Woodard calls the ethnically diverse Midlands "America's great swing region." Within the Midlands are parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Tidewater started as a feudal society that embraced slavery. < >
Tidewater was built by the young English gentry in the area around the Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina. Starting as a feudal society that embraced slavery, the region places a high value on respect for authority and tradition. Woodard notes that Tidewater is in decline, partly because "it has been eaten away by the expanding federal halos around D.C. and Norfolk." Greater Appalachia encompasses parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Texas. < >
Colonized by settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Greater Appalachia is stereotyped as the land of hillbillies and rednecks. Woodard says Appalachia values personal sovereignty and individual liberty and is "intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike." It sides with the Deep South to counter the influence of federal government. Within Greater Appalachia are parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas. Deep South adopts a rigid social structure and opposition to government regulation. < >
The Deep South was established by English slave lords from Barbados and was styled as a West Indies-style slave society, Woodard notes. It has a very rigid social structure and fights against government regulation that threatens individual liberty. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina are all part of the Deep South. El Norte has a dominant Hispanic culture. < >
Composed of the borderlands of the Spanish-American empire, El Norte is "a place apart" from the rest of America, according to Woodard. Hispanic culture dominates in the area, and the region values independence, self-sufficiency, and hard work above all else. Parts of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California are in El Norte. The Left Coast, located in coastal California, is a lot like Yankeedom and Greater Appalachia. < >
Colonized by New Englanders and Appalachian Midwesterners, the Left Coast is a hybrid of "Yankee utopianism and Appalachian self-expression and exploration," Woodard says, adding that it is the staunchest ally of Yankeedom. Coastal California, Oregon, and Washington are in the Left Coast. The Far West spans states in the central US including Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. < >
The conservative west. Developed through large investment in industry, yet where inhabitants continue to "resent" the Eastern interests that initially controlled that investment. The Far West spans several states, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Nebraska, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Oregon, and California. New France inhabitants are comfortable with government involvement in the economy. < >
A pocket of liberalism nestled in the Deep South, its people are consensus driven, tolerant, and comfortable with government involvement in the economy. Woodard says New France is among the most liberal places in North America. New France is focused around New Orleans in Louisiana as well as the Canadian province of Quebec. First Nation, most of whose people live in the northern part of the country, is made up of Native Americans. < >
Made up of Native Americans, the First Nation's members enjoy tribal sovereignty in the US. Woodard says the territory of the First Nations is huge, but its population is under 300,000, most of whose people live in the northern reaches of Canada. SEE ALSO: 50 maps that explain how America lives, spends, and believes DON'T MISS: The best books of 2019 on how we can rethink today's capitalism and improve the economy
Nov 27, 2019 | blackagendareport.com
White supremacy is an incredibly insincere distraction that tries to erase the histories of White, Black, and Red peoples.
"Many White people seem to have forgotten what happened to them."
Some say the white supremacy ideology comes from pride. Some say it comes from a belief that one's culture is superior. Some say it comes from hatred. I never believed these things are the primary reason because I always sensed a deep loss in the heart of countless white people, some deep emptiness and fear. Though, admitting to this emptiness is another matter.
James Baldwin wrote about American racism beyond the lines designed to separate us, saying of white supremacy: "The root of the white man's hatred is terror. A bottomless and nameless terror..."
It's said that anger is a secondary emotion. Hatred is anger. Racism is hatred. Hatred is anger. Anger is a secondary emotion, beneath it lies something else.
After talking with many White American friends about the real origins of white supremacy, I found there was always a certain limit beyond which they refused to go. This had nothing to do with any hatred toward "the other" and everything to do with a chasm of pain they could not bear to speak of -- not even for a few minutes could they speak of what has been seeping out of the wound for so long. It is hard to speak of buried trauma. One wonders what might get stirred up in that uncovering. Beyond wondering, there is healing, and the certainty that the truth will set you free. We can be free in this life, you in your body, me in mine, together. To heal the history we carry, let's allow the past and future to benefit from the courage of the present.
There were Massacres, But No One Ever Says Their Names
The massacres in Europe lasted at least 500 years. Public tortures. Inquisitions. Generation after generation of entire communities forced to watch their family, friends, and neighbors terrorized and killed in front of them.
The ideology of white supremacy as we know it came at the end of this specific period of history during which immense traumas occurred simultaneously: the mass killing and public torture of women, the brutal assault against common people, the 'thought-police' Inquisition committees, the terror from which one could almost not escape, and the enslavement of White people throughout the region. This all happened in the centuries before the transatlantic slave trade.
When you get to that part of the origin of white supremacy, and the deal that was subsequently made with one's oppressor -- that deal being the ridiculous 'white supremacy' idea and the target of the terror shifting to others -- the conversation often drops dead. Silence, a few words here and there. Change the topic. Avoid that pain. This is the point beyond which few have been willing to go.
The Details of the Time
Many have wondered how White people came up with the brutal tortures they imposed on Native and African people in 'the Americas.' A look into history shows that many of the same tactics were used on White people during the genocide against them.
The Inquistioners also targeted hair in Europe, especially towards women, which was used against Native and African people in the Americas. The crimes they committed in this regard are barely utterable.
The amount of whipping in Europe begs to be mentioned because of its relevance to American history.
White people were intimately familiar with being enchained themselves, necks in iron, shackled in rows together, taken on ships here and there, sold in markets -- for centuries. They were also enslaved throughout the region during the same period as African people, likely side by side, during the Arabic and Viking slave trades that preceded the transatlantic one.
In Europe those days, the people who escaped slavery were certainly not free. They were lynched, burned in public executions, tortured at length in public, and hunted down – by the millions.
Many White people seem to have no memory of this history.
"Whites were enslaved during the Arabic and Viking slave trades that preceded the transatlantic one."
The kind of torture documented in a book in 1860 by Pressel of a woman in Prossneck, Germany is a small glimpse into the genocide. Anyone is advised to skip the following quoted list describing the torture. It is reprinted simply to acknowledge what was going on and to whom, by whom, and the lies upholding it, etc.
"Verbatim report of the first days of torture of a woman accused of witchcraft at Prossneck, Germany, in 1629.
1. The hangman bound the hands, cut her hair, and placed her on the ladder. He threw alcohol over her head and set fire to it so as to burn her hair to the roots.
2. He placed strips of sulphur under her arms and around her back and set fire to them.
3. He tied her hands behind her back and pulled her up to the ceiling.
4. He left her hanging there from three to four hours, while the torturer went to breakfast.
5. On his return, he threw alcohol on her back and set fire to it.
6. He attached very heavy weights on her body and drew her up again to the ceiling. After that he put her back on the ladder and placed a very rough plank full of sharp points against her body.
7. Then he squeezed her thumbs and big toe in the vise, and he trussed her arms with a stick, and in this position kept her hanging about a quarter of an hour, until she would faint away several times.
8. Then he squeezed the calves and the legs in the vise, always alternating the torture with questioning.
9. Then he whipped her with a rawhide whip to cause blood to flow out over her shift.
10. Once again, he placed her thumbs and big toes in the vise, and left her in this agony on the torture stool from 10:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m., while the hangman and the court officials went out to get a bite to eat. In the afternoon a functionary came who disapproved this pitiless procedure. But then they whipped her again in a frightful manner. This concluded the first day of torture. The next day they start all over again, but without pushing things quite as far as the day before.
-Wilhelm Pressel, Hexen and Hexenmeister (1860)"Historian and scholar, Silvia Federici, says of the historical amnesia regarding this period:
"That the victims, in Europe, were mostly peasant women may account for the historians' past indifference towards this genocide, an indifference that has bordered on complicity, since the elimination of the witches from the pages of history has contributed to trivializing their physical elimination at the stake, suggesting that it was a phenomenon of minor significance, if not a matter of folklore."
She also explores the emergence of Capitalism during the genocide against these women.
Supremacy Was Never The Question. It's Just a Mask
The lie that Black people are somehow inferior was a distraction that masked -- and nearly erased -- the reality that 'white supremacy' ideology as we know it came at the end of this brutal period in Europe. But it wasn't "about color" in Europe. There they were given a different reason. In Europe they were killed for heresy, "any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs." The Inquisition of that age has been described as a court and the tormenters focused on getting 'confessions.' Their barbarity is astounding.
The lie that Black people are somehow inferior was also another layer of the brutality that grew as it moved on from Europe to Africa and the Americas. Psychological warfare, aimed at distraction and destruction.
If it wasn't "about color" in Europe, then it was never about color at all. 'White supremacy' is an incredibly insincere distraction that tries to erase the histories of White, Black, and Red peoples. As a result, many White people seem to have forgotten what happened to them, while many African and Native people have had to fight within their hearts regarding their own inherent value. Who benefits from this?
Who was it that concocted this very strange 'white supremacist' idea: the White people who had been brutalized for so long, or the powers-that-be(making the terror)? Who was it calling People of Color savages, too natural, strangely spiritual and they should all be studying Christianity? Who wrote that script to be repeated? It's obvious who wrote it. And it's obvious who accepted this new ideology under duress.
Some White people tout white supremacy, and the clear truth is – they are more than encouraged to. But to speak of these massacres and the deal one subsequently made with one's oppressor? Well, there's a deep-seated fear there, few people will speak of it. That's not healing. That's an imposed silence.
Who imposed that silence? When did it start?
What Kind of Deal, What Kind of Battle?
If the people living in the ghettos and reservations of America, who have been so long mistreated, were today offered a deal that some "less than" people had just arrived and would be put on the lowest rung, and they were offered a deal – free land and houses, a bunch of free money, honey flattery, a much easier life, a few steps up the rung, a permanent raise, and silence as to any mistreatment of these new "less thans" – who among the people would take that deal? And who would not?
This, to me, is pointing to the heart of the battle. It's not skin tone, it's the battle of the heart.
Race Conversations
James Baldwin spoke passionately about race in America, searing images unto a nation trying to plaster itself in tv imagery that avoided the questions almost altogether. Baldwin never tried currying favors from the class oppressing the people. He spoke searing words to the heart of corrupted authority out of the desire for profound change.
Profound change. Not – you stay in your corner and gripe, and I'll stay in my corner and gripe, and we'll yell at each other from our abysses when our own people ain't even doing that well, and Those are not positive racial relations. They are not positive human relations.
There are so many different people acting within a People. Those who hate, those who blame, those ashamed, those who raise children to be healthy adults, those striving trying to find a way, those who hold fast to the medicine they are here to protect. There are many people acting within a People.
We are not really so different as we seem, our different cultures like different clothing on the body of our lives. Do you judge me for mine? Right or wrong, good or evil, from a glance even? We are not really so different, but America draws lines so dense between our communities that we often conjecture about each other from afar. Why do we accept these terms of engagement?
In many pockets of America, race conversations have moved into a state of mutual enrichment, merging worlds even if only for a moment. The possibilities are endless for what could happen in the healing of race in America.
No Disrespect
This is not written as any kind of acceptance of the idea of white supremacy, which is blatantly ridiculous and untrue. It is not written as any excuse about the violence and degradation that flows from this philosophy. It is written to look more closely at the ideology's true origins and authors.
We now understand how trauma affects communities, and how it can manifest in future generations if it isn't addressed. How do we work together to heal the pain we've all been forced to endure by these powers-that-be-making(the terror)? How do we heal when some of us turned into perpetrators in our own communities and beyond? How do we change our circumstances when a brutal system tries to erase all our histories and replaces them with lies?
The cycles of pain unleashed on each other within our communities and between them "is enough to make prophets and angels weep," as Baldwin said. Where does the pain end and the beauty begin?
We can heal through changing and challenging ourselves one by one and then giving to each other. We can heal through respect. We can heal through understanding each other's worth and striving to lessen each other's pain. We can battle to unify beyond all arbitrary borders and change the reality of this nation ourselves. We can heal through becoming clear about the future we want with each other and letting nothing dissuade us from attaining it, no matter what happens on the journey to get there.
Who will write the future story of race on this planet? Who will educate us about who we are and our potential? The-powers-that-be(making the terror)? Or will we ourselves write a different story?
Chelli Stanley is an independent journalist, environmentalist, Buddhist, common person, of African, Japanese, and European descent born in Mexico. Has traveled widely, doesn't watch tv, wants freedom. Can be contacted at [email protected]
white supremacy
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Oct 05, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs , October 01, 2019 at 12:24 PM
"In our modern age, the continuation of racially based violent extremism, particularly violent white supremacy, is an abhorrent affront to the nation," said Kevin McAleenan, the acting director of homeland security.ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , October 01, 2019 at 01:42 PMHomeland Security Dept. Affirms Threat of White Supremacy
After Years of Prodding https://nyti.ms/2oTNJmQ
NYT - Zolan Kanno-Youngs - October 1WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security is beginning to address white supremacist terrorism as a primary security threat, breaking with a decade of flagging attention after bigoted mass shooters from New Zealand to Texas took the lives of nearly 100 people in the last six months.
In a little-noticed strategy document (*) published last month to guide law enforcement on emerging threats and in recent public appearances by Kevin K. McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, the department is trying to project a new vigilance about violent white nationalism, beating back criticism that the agency has spent a decade playing down the issue.
"I would like to take this opportunity to be direct and unambiguous in addressing a major issue of our time. In our modern age, the continuation of racially based violent extremism, particularly violent white supremacy, is an abhorrent affront to the nation," Mr. McAleenan said during an address last month, describing white nationalism as one of the most dangerous threats to the United States.
The department's new stance contrasts that of President Trump, who has repeatedly dismissed white supremacy as an insignificant fringe movement. But beyond words and documents, many officials trying to combat the threat throughout the country remain skeptical that the full weight of federal law enforcement is finally being used to give bigoted domestic terrorism the attention it deserves. ...
* (Could be this.)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
FOR COUNTERING TERRORISM AND TARGETED VIOLENCESeptember 2019
Pull out the racist cards!
Sep 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
The conservative movement's unwholesome obsession with Israel is not an entirely organic obsession to be sure. There is a whole lot of dark kosher oligarch money lurking behind the neoconservative cause, Christian Zionism, and the Reagan/Zioboomer battalion. Nevertheless, whether organic or not, the boomer generation's excessive regard for Israel is today authentic and undeniable. A strong fealty to Israel is deeply entrenched amongst boomer-generation conservatives. Indeed, when it comes to defending Israel and its conduct, many of these types are like samurais on meth. They don't seem to care at all if their entire state or city should devolve into a semi-anarchic New Somalia, but god forbid some Somali congresswoman should lambaste the sacred Jewish state. That simply can't be countenanced here in the land of the free!
Mind you, this article is not meant to constitute a polemic against Israel, or Jewish ethnopolitics for that matter. The BDS movement is just as wrongheaded as Ziocuckoldry, in my humble opinion. Although there is much wrong with Israel, there is plenty right with it as well. Despite what the modern left may believe, there is nothing inherently illegitimate about a state like Israel, one rooted in history, in genes, in religion, and in race. States built around a shared ethnicity or a shared religion (or, as in Israel's case, an ample helping of both) are generally more stable and successful than diverse societies erected upon propositions most people and peoples don't really accept, or leftist values that have ideological quicksand for their foundations.
With that said, there is something awfully peculiar, almost disturbing about the old guard's infatuation with Israel. I mean, why are American boomers so concerned about the Jewish state and its survival? How exactly does a tiny apartheidesque ethnostate half-way around the world affect their everyday lives? Are they simply mind-slaves to a mainstream media dominated by powerful Jews and powerful Jewish interest groups? Is this all really about scripture as Christian radio likes to contend? Or is there something else afoot here? Well, in short, there is.
White Westerners, white Americans in particular, are a thoroughly vassalized, deracinated people. We aren't allowed to celebrate our own race's host of historic accomplishments anymore. That would be racist. We aren't allowed to put our own people first either, as all other peoples do. That would likewise be racist. White Western peoples aren't even allowed to have nations of our own any longer, nations which exist to advance our interests, and which are populated by and overseen by people like us, who share our interests and our attitudes. That also would be, you guessed it, racist. Our very existence is increasingly little more than an unfortunate, racist obstacle to a brighter, more diverse future, in the eyes of the Cultural Marxist sociopaths who rule the Western World. Needless to say, most white Americans would rather be dead than racist, and so we are naturally, quite literally dying as a result.
The white American psyche has been tamed, broken as it were. Ziocucking is a symptom of that psychic injury. Because white boomers possess no group/tribal identity any longer, or collective will, or sense of race pride, or civilizational prospects, because they have been enserfed by a viciously anti-white Cultural Marxist overclass, they have opted to live vicariously through another race. White Americans can not, they must not, stake claim to an identity or a future of their own, so they have essentially committed themselves to another people's identity and future instead of their own. Indeed, just as the cuckold doesn't merely permit another man to penetrate his wife, but actually takes a kind of perverse pleasure in the pleasure of that other man, in large measure by fetishizing his dominance and sexual prowess, the Ziocuck likewise doesn't merely allow his civilization to be debased, he takes an equally perverse pleasure in the triumphs of other peoples and nations, and by so doing imagines, mistakenly of course, that America itself is still as free and proud a nation as those foreign nations he fetishizes.
Actually, Donald Trump's electoral victory is at least partially attributable to a very similar psychological phenomenon. White Americans, who have largely lost the self-confidence to stand behind their traditions and convictions, still had the gumption to vote for a man who possesses in oodles and cringy oodles, the self-same self-confidence they lack. White Americans are thus engaged in an almost unstated, indirect, vicarious defiance of Cultural Marxism via Trump/Trumpism, a tangible, albeit somewhat incoherent, symbol of open revolt against Western elites. The repressed group will of whites is longing for an authentic medium of civilizational expression, but can only find two-bit demagoguery and Israel worship. The weather is not fair in the white, Western mind.
Through this sordid, vicarious identitarianism, threats to Jewish lives become threats to their own white lives. Jewish interests become tantamount to their own interests. It is a sad sight to behold anyhow, a people with no sense of dignity or shame, too cowed by political correctness to stand up for their own group interests, too brainwashed to love themselves, too reprogrammed to be themselves, idolizing alien peoples. Nevertheless, the need for belonging in place, time, and history, and for collective purpose, doesn't just go away because Western elites say being white signifies nothing but "hate". As white civilization aborts and hedonizes itself into extinction, as whites practice suicidal altruism and absolute racial denialism, atomized white individuals seek out other histories, other stories, other peoples to attach themselves to and project themselves onto.
White Americans have thus foolishly come to see their own destiny as inseparable from the destiny of a people whose destiny they don't really share. After all, the birthrates of Jews in Israel are at well above replacement level . Israelis are optimistic about the future. As whites in the West fall on their proverbial sword to atone for their racist past, Jews in Israel are thriving. As whites in America suffer from various epidemics of despair , their fellow white Americans seem more interested in the imaginary plight of Israelis who can't stop winning military skirmishes, embarrassing their Arab enemies, and unlawfully acquiring land and resources in the Levant. The actual, visceral plight of their own people seems almost an afterthought to most white Americans. The whole affair is frankly bizarre and shameful.
This peculiar psychological phenomenon of vicarious identitarianism is at least partially responsible for the Zioboomer's undying devotion to Israel. Furthermore, that unwholesome obsession will not dissipate until whites reclaim their own history, rediscover their roots, learn to take their own side, and demand a place in the planet's future (yes, I said demand , since the white race's many enemies have no intention of saving a place for them or willingly handing them a say in that future). Until whites have a story and a spirit of their own, they will only, and can only, live through the identities and triumphs of other races. And perhaps most critically, they will continue to be a ghost people on the march to extinction.
nymom , says: September 26, 2019 at 4:24 am GMT
Well you are almost right.silviosilver , says: September 26, 2019 at 4:59 am GMTWe can say Israel is the canary in the coal mine for the US. Might be closer to the truth
A related phenomenon is Russia-cucking. White American conservatives who have seen through Jewish bullshit often seem to conclude that the racial predicament in America is hopeless, so they switch to Russia-cucking. Being pro-Russia is obviously more sensible than being pro-Israel, but it's nationalism by proxy all the same.
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Northern Star September 18, 2019 at 4:18 pm
StoogesJen September 18, 2019 at 4:48 pmAny thoughts on this?
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Seeing that both the Canadian ambassador to Banderastan and his boss the Canadian Foreign Minister having family histories rooted in western Ukraine / Banderastan Ground Zero – Waschuk's father and Freeland's maternal grandmother both from Ivano-Frankivsk – what thoughts are we expected to have on Waschuk's participation and Freeland's approval for him to attend other than that cliche: "Birds of a feather flock together?"Moscow Exile September 18, 2019 at 8:48 pmIvano-Frankivsk; formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislau, or Stanisławów. Became part of the UkSSR within the USSR as per the shifting of the pre-WWII Eastern Polish frontier (set by the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, but ignored by Poland) westwards and the transference of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire's Kronland of Galitsia, capital Krakow and administrative language Polish and not German as in other Kronländer , with the exception of Hungarian in the Hungarian part of the dual Hapsburg Empire.Mark Chapman September 18, 2019 at 5:00 pmReligion: Roman Catholic or Greek Uniate, depending whether you are a Polish Pan or a Ruthenian peasant shitkicker.
Built in the mid-17th century as a fortress of the Polish Potocki family, Stanisławów was annexed to the Habsburg Empire during the First Partition of Poland in 1772, after which it became the property of the State within the Austrian Empire.
The fortress was slowly transformed into one of the most prominent cities at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. After World War I, for several months, it served as a temporary capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic.
Galitsia, as Porky Poroshenko said, is the essence of
Banderastanthe Ukraine.Like Like
What a disgrace.Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 1:47 amLike Like
The descent into a regime of terror:et Al September 19, 2019 at 8:56 amUkrainian Nazis Celebrate the Murder of a DPR Militiaman, Western "Human Rights Defenders" Silent
September 17, 2019 Stalker Zone"Higher Justice is always done Once again, using humanistic principles, I address the enemies of the Ukraine: 'Surrender to Ukrainian law enforcement! Voluntarily go to Ukrainian prisons and don't leave them! Because God's punishment will inevitably come! Glory to the nation! Death to enemies!'" -- Dmitry Yarosh, commenting on his Facebook page on the murder of a DPR militiaman in Mariupol.
What can be said about this? A day has already passed since this extremist statement was made, but no human rights organisation or international observer has reacted. The murder of a DPR militiaman in Mariupol is obviously on the hands of nationalist battalions, but this case, like many others, will be registered as unsolved or fabricated. The fact of the exemplary punishment of people who supported the creation of the People's Republics testifies to the true attitude of Kiev towards the residents of Donbass. That is why Zelensky is against amnesty and wants elections after the People's Militia lays down their arms. As soon as the UAF come here, objectionable persons will be simply slashed and killed, and Yarosh only confirms this
The Mother of the DPR Militiaman Killed in Mariupol Named the Organiser of Her Son's Execution
September 17, 2019 Stalker ZoneAbout the Exaltation of Banderist Murderers
September 18, 2019 Stalker ZoneLike Like
I'll say it again, the world's great democracies don't have a problem with little nazis and extremists. After all, they can be put back in their boxes when time is due, just as they did with Adolf Hitler and just as they did with ISIS in Syria.Northern Star September 19, 2019 at 3:18 pmYou wonder how many times these countries go around this bush of backing 'small groups' that they then 'lose control of' leading to a much larger conflagration.
Accidental? Unintended? Repetitive? You won't have the great and good democratic institutions or the representatives of the great free press publicizing cause and effect much at all. What a bunch of Britneys!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/CduA0TULnow?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
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Well it seems to me that the solution to a particular individual problem rests upon removing the problem permanently.Northern Star September 19, 2019 at 3:28 pmLike Like
As I understand it if a scope equipped assault automatic weapon can be targeted at point A to point B, its versatility enables it to operate the other way 'round..from B to A.Northern Star September 19, 2019 at 3:43 pmLike Like
Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 6:53 amhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/wMvTR012Dmg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 6:56 amTypical Times twat!
Pay, if you wish, to gain access to the shite that he has written!
Funny, though, how a state that he and his ilk consider to be weak, failed and "isolated" from the "World Community" always seems to win.
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And as regards the "crimes" in the Ukraine that he mentions, I should not imagine that amongst those he includes the very recent and public murder of a Mariupol "Vatnik" and the praise for which crime the murderer/s has/have very publicly received in Banderastan.Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 7:13 amLike Like
The clipped paragraph in Boyes' Times article above reads:Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 7:39 amNow we're at it again. Thirty-five Ukrainians, including a film director and two dozen hapless sailors, were this month traded for some hardnut separatists including Vladimir Tsemakh, the commander of a Russian-backed unit in Donetsk which shot down the civilian MH17 airliner in 2014.
Plenty of Dutch and Australian relatives of the victims of that Malaysian Airlines flight are unhappy that Tsemakh is
WALL
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If anyone should wish to do so, Boyes' article can be back translated from its Russian translation that is at, inosmi.ruMark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:19 pmThe Times (Великобритания): Путин нужен Трампу, чтобы побеждать за рубежом
which ends with:
Perhaps it seems to Trump that Putin is the lever that will raise his moral weight and authority. Perhaps he seems to him to be a useful partner in times of extreme global confusion and volatility. It is possible that, in the opinion of the American president, a rapprochement with Putin will strengthen his reputation in the world, and will by no means will look like a fatal retreat. However, the principle should be that relations with Russia cannot return to normal, as long as it keeps the Crimea, cynically taken away from the Ukraine five years ago.
The Kremlin will try to fool the new and inexperienced president of the Ukraine, hoping that Western leaders will put pressure on him and forget a lot. However, the country where Sergey Skripal and his daughter were poisoned right before everyone's eyes should not silently watch this rehabilitation.
[back translation from the Russian]
Hear him, hear him, I say!
Let's hear it again for Great Britain!!!!
Those British are no fools and know full well what those damned Russkies are up to!
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Or the ubiquitous "Agent 404" and his well-earned down-time for killing journalists in Ukraine.Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:16 pmhttps://www.rt.com/news/250529-ukraine-journalists-killed-database/
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Well, there must be some truth to what he says – western food actually does plump you up.https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/552768/Britons-too-fat-to-work-are-costing-taxpayers-10m-a-year
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Sep 07, 2019 | off-guardian.org/
"Aftermath" is the latest addition to three previous publications by Rickards, Currency Wars (2011), The Death of Money (2014), The Road to Ruin (2016). Together, with the present offering (Aftermath, 2019), the author uses the analogy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to illustrate the themes of his four books. The latest book is thematic in its approach to the events which have taken place in the world in general and the United States in particular during this period.
HIGH SOCIETYRickards had previously worked for the CIA (possibly still does – who knows?) but now seems to be a free-wheeling business executive, writer and strategic analyst. He tends to circulate outside of the usual middle-ranking semi-elite circles preferring to consort with the less observable, higher-ranking coteries of the inner-party. Moreover, he has nothing but disdain for the run-of-the-mill talking heads to be found (in abundance) in the media and academia – the outer-party.
His observations of this social stratum are unapologetic and caustic:
History is the first casualty of media micro-second attention span. An army of pseudo-savants saturate the airways to explain that tariffs are bad, trade wars hurt growth and mercantilism are a throwback to the 17th century. These sentiments come from mainstream liberals and conservatives and tag-along journalists trained in the orthodoxy of so-called free-trade and the false if comforting belief that trade deficits are the flipside of capital surpluses. So, what is the problem? The problem is that perpetual trade deficits have put the United States on a path to a crisis of the US$."[ 1 ]
As is apparent, his contempt is palpable.
It should be said that much of his writing and theorising is at times occasioned by a high level of sophistication, alas sadly lacking in most of his contemporaries. But for all his refinement and eloquence that doesn't stop him being, from Off Guardian's perspective (and mine), on the other side – the side of the Anglo-Zionist empire.
THE GREAT BETRAYALThroughout this book and previous books there runs a familiar leitmotif; a sense of betrayal by the present dominant section of the US elite. This is not by any means an unusual political phenomenon and bears comparison with the stab-in-the-back myth – a notion doing the rounds in Germany circa 1918.
It held that the German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield but it was 'traitors' on the home front, especially the traitorous republicans who overthrew the Hohenzollern monarchy in the German Revolution of 1918–19.
This precedent loosely corresponds to Rickards' belief in the perfidy of the current leadership of the US and his vitriol is directed against this globalist faction who are firmly ensconced in both Democrat and Republican parties and whom, he argues, have sold the pass in terms of America's strategic interests. He writes:
Obama, both Bushes, and Bill Clinton were globalists, defined as those willing to trade-off or compromise US interests for the sake of a stronger global community even conservative hawks like Reagan and JFK were firmly in the globalist camp, as they relied on NATO, the UN and the IMF to pursue their cold war goals.
However, all was not lost. As a result of
the Presidential election of 2016 when Donald Trump was sworn in on 17 January 2017 as the strongest nationalist since Theodore Roosevelt. For the first time in 100 years a committed nationalist was sitting in the Oval Office." [ 2 ]
The event was obviously political grist to Rickards' mill.
However, precisely how this liberation of the US from the domestic globalists' stranglehold was to be brought about wasn't made clear, and in fact is barely touched upon by Rickards.
Trump, for all his bombast and promises to Make America Great Again (MAGA), and pursue a radical foreign policy of withdrawal from globalist wars of choice and military adventurism, has been conspicuous by its absence.
Moreover, from the outset he has been beset by the ancien regime of neo-conservatives and neo-liberals – Bolton, Pompeo and Pence – entrenched in key US institutions, as well as various think-tanks and media who are still doggedly set upon the realization of neo-con foreign policy goals.
It seems odd that Rickards doesn't see fit to comment on this important development given that Trumps' campaign promises have disappeared almost without trace since he entered the Oval Office.
IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPIDRickards is on firmer ground, however, when dissecting the 8th wonder of the world – US economic policy. The US sovereign debt (i.e., the debt of the Federal Government) to GDP is now at a record, this is unprecedented for a peacetime administration.
In addition, it is also worth noting the magnitude of US private debt and unfunded future liabilities, pensions, Medicaid, social security and so forth.
This would include household debt, student debt, financial debt, corporate debt, and municipal debt. Add this to sovereign debt and you get a figure roughly 5 times US sovereign debt, and even this is regarded as being a conservative figure according to many – see David Stockman, John Mauldin et al).
According to Rickards, the present situation has been largely the result of excess spending by both Democratic and Republican administrations. The spending has either been on 'Defence' – a Republican favourite – or social like L.B. Johnson's 'Great Society' programme – a Democratic favourite.
LBJ's administration contrived to conduct the Vietnam War as well as an expensive social programme, simultaneously. A guns plus butter economy. (The original version of the Guns versus butter argument was given in a speech on January 17, 1936, in Nazi Germany. The then Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels stated: "We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms." )
LBJ's guns-and-butter policies were enacted in the late sixties at the height of the Vietnam war and the Tet Offensive. The utopian attempt to have the best of both worlds brought LBJ's administration to an end; more importantly, perhaps it was also the beginning of the process which brought down the curtain on the post WW2 economic world order established at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944.
Because the costs of the Vietnam war were superimposed on the economy not far effectively from full employment, the US domestic sector was severely destabilised.
Instead of taxing the nation to pay for the war, the government engaged in the more acceptable practice of deficit financing
Vietnam showed that neither the United States nor any other democratic nation can ever again afford the foreign exchange costs of conventional warfare, although the periphery was still kept in line by American military initiatives most recently in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.
The lesson in the long term is that peace will be maintained only by governments refusing to finance the military and other excesses of the increasingly indebted imperial power." [ 3 ]
The figure for the US sovereign debt – began to rise relentlessly from the 1980s onwards approaching wartime levels by the time of the 2008 blowout.
It has been estimated by some economic theorists that any sovereign Debt-to-GDP figure greater than 60% represents a tripwire whereby governments should act to rein in government expenditures.
The EU Maastricht criteria, for example, stipulated that EU Debt-to-GDP should not go over 60% except in certain circumstances and an annual budgetary deficit should not be more than 3%.
That is a pretty tight monetary and fiscal policy EU style, but not to be outdone the spendthrift US was to go on a wild binge in both fiscal and monetary terms the result of which is a now an unpayable mountain of debt. This gives an indication of how far US economic policymaking has drifted away from any viable economic strategy.
Rickards fulminates:
To see how America came to this pretty pass we, one needs to review almost 40 years of fiscal policy under Presidents Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and Trump from the period 1981-2019." [ 4 ]
Under Reagan in 1981 US Debt-to-GDP ratio was 32.5%. The President was gung-ho for tax cuts and big spending increases, particularly 'defence' spending. This trend was continued under the tutelage of the Bushes and Clinton, and Debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 56.4% when Bush Jr, took office and had risen to 82% by the time he left.
The Obama years saw the Debt-to-GDP rise to 100%. The diagram below 2009 debt-to-GDP was 82.3% This figure has risen inexorably to over 100% in 2018. Yep, here we have the dreaded law of Diminishing returns. Every new dollar of input gives you 90 cents of output.
The above diagram illustrates the growth of debt vis-ŕ-vis National Income (GDP) since the 2008 blowout. Debt has been growing progressively faster than National Income.
The US economy, like the US shale oil industry, has become a Ponzi scheme in all but name. The Fed's issuance of new debt to pay off existing debt signals the key moment of the Minsky crisis.[ 5 ]
There doesn't appear to be any viable way out this predicament short of a straight default. But Rickards argues that 'the United States will never default on its debt because the Fed can simply print the money and to pay it off.' This will involve an engineered inflation to wipe out the debt. But in fact, inflation is the default, a default by the back door. Getting paid in worthless currency is in essence no different than not getting paid at all.
NO EXITAs for solutions to a crisis which has seemingly reached the point of no return, all that Rickards can offer is a Japanese scenario of low or zero growth punctuated by recession for the United States and by implication for the rest of the world. The United States had its first long decade from 2007 to 2017 and is now into its second decade.
This growth pattern will persist absent of inflationary breakout which the Fed seems powerless to ignite in the short run; a war; or severe depression perhaps caused by a new financial crisis.[ 6 ]
Not much of a prospect for the average family then. But Rickards does give some useful advice to his more opulent readers on how they should diversify their assets.
There are apparently "luxury bombproof bunkers built in former missile silos and expansive estates in New Zealand loaded with rations and good wines."
Really? At this point one wonders if Mr Rickards is being serious or just smug.
SOCIAL IMMOBILITY AND THE RISE OF OLIGARCHYThe social and economic impact on levels of inequality in both the US and globally have been extremely deleterious and seem set to continue. Inequality in income and wealth – a phenomenon identified and outlined by Thomas Piketty – is resulting in societies which more and more resemble feudal economic and social structures rather than textbook capitalism. Social class is hardening into social caste and rates of social mobility are decelerating at an alarming rate.
The liberal notion that the individual is the author of his/her own destiny has become a very dubious proposition when the drawbridges of advantage, birth and preferment are drawn up. Moreover, high levels of income/wealth are not conducive to growth since the new aristocracy owns most of the wealth/income which is hoarded rather than spent on investment and/or consumption. Stagnation, idled capital and rent extraction becomes the economic norm.
Inequality is common in college admissions where the wealthy and connected continue to send their sons and daughters to elite schools while the middle-class are restrained by sky-high tuitions and the burden of student loans.It's true in the housing market where the rich picked up mansions on the cheap in foreclosure sales whilst the middle-class were frozen in mortgage negative equity.
It's true in health care, where the rich could afford all the insurance they needed while the middle class were handicapped by unemployment and the loss of job-related benefits. These disparities also affected the adult children of the middle-class. There are no gold-plated benefits packages in the gig society
Research shows that fewer than 50% of all children aged 30 today earn more than their parents did at the same age. This 50% figure compares with 60% who earned more in 1971, and 80% who earned more in 1950.
The American dream of each generation earning more than the prior generation is collapsing before our eyes The middle class is getting poorer on a relative basis and lagging further behind the rich whose incomes absorb an increasing share of total GDP The manner in which the rich become rich is variable.
It could be due to a number of unrelated factors Problems arise in the way that the rich stay rich become richer and pass on wealth to their children and grandchildren." [ 7 ]
It is a matter of common knowledge that the traditional techniques of preserving and creating wealth have been long established in law, customs, education and socialization; these traditional methods being practised over decades, if not centuries, have produced a system of elite self-recruitment, one moreover which endures through time.
Many of the richest US citizens – e.g., Buffet, Bezos, Zuckerberg – pay minimal tax demands. Much of the wealth of the richest Americans is never taxed because they hold onto real estate and stocks and pass them onto their beneficiaries tax-free. This is one of a perfectly legal method of avoiding tax; there are many more too numerous to cite which include various other examples of tax avoidance/evasion.
Levels of income and wealth inequality within states are usually measured by what is called the Gini Co-efficient. This measure is a commonly used measure of income inequality that condenses the entire income distribution for a country into a single number between 0 and 1 or 0% to 100%: the higher the number, the greater the degree of inequality. A rough estimate of inequality is a figure above 40%.
The United States and China are in the low forties, surrounded by underdeveloped and developing states such as The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Burundi and El Salvador. At the other end of the spectrum are Sweden, Norway and Iceland.
In this connection the by now well-known study carried out by two American academics at Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and North western University Prof Benjamin Page argue that the US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In plain English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.
The two professors came to this conclusion after reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public policy issues. They broke the responses down by income level, and then determined how often certain income levels and organised interest groups saw their policy preferences enacted.
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to be a democratic society are seriously threatened."
In summation, both gentlemen concluded that in essence the US was an oligarchy not a properly functioning democracy. All very true but somewhat self-evident.
Rickards regards the present situation as being irreversible. He does not present any alternative to this trend other than some vague hopes that the 'nationalist' President in the Oval Office will turn things around – MAGA in fact.
The golden age of post WW2 capitalism ended when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard in August 1971, which was in effect a default by the US. Holders of surplus dollars in Europe who were no longer able to swap these dollars for gold but were merely presented with other US$s with which they had to purchase US Treasurys (Bonds) debts which were never going to be repaid. In the age of fiat currencies Europe and various other holders of US Treasuries were in fact subsidizing the United States.
POOR LITTLE AMERICAAt this point the book becomes one long whinge about how hard done-by America has been and how the rest of the world has taken advantage of this benign gentle giant. This rather bizarre belief calls for further analysis. The US pays some of the bill for NATO whilst European nations pay insufficient amounts for the 'defence' of their countries.
It should be pointed out, however, that in terms of military hardware the NATO alliance is standardized to American specifications. This means large-scale purchasing of US war materiel which is a gift bonus to the US armaments industry.
Then Germany has the nerve to buy Russian gas transported to Europe via Nordstream 2 which is cheaper and more reliable than US Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), when in fact they should be buying more expensive and less reliable US LNG. Apparently, Germany ought really to be subsidising the US shale oil Ponzi racket. Bad, ungrateful Germany.
Then comes the incessant carping regarding trade policy and trade deals. The US in its speed to become a cool, post-modern, financialised economy apparently forgot about the importance of production. In the automobile industry the once dominant US triad of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are no longer in the vanguard and Japan, with South Korea catching up, is now the leading country in the export of auto vehicles, a position which the US once held. It was the Japanese auto industry which pioneered production methods including just-in-time deliveries and lean production (Toyota). Was anyone stopping the Americans from innovating?
In rank order. Figures quoted in Global Shift – Peter Dicken.
Volkswagen, Germany: Annual Output 8,576,94 Toyota, Japan: Annual Output 8,381.968 Hyundai, South Korea: Annual Output 6,761,074 General Motor, USA: Annual Output 6,608,567 Honda, Japan: Annual Output 4,078,376 Nissan, Japan: Annual Output 3,830,954 Ford, USA: Annual Output 3,123,340 PSA, France: Annual Output 2,554,059 Suzuki, Japan: Annual Output 2,483,721 Renault, France: Annual Output 2,302,769Globally, the leading manufacturer of auto-vehicles is Volkswagen followed by Toyota. GM are 4th and Ford are 8th of ten. Hardly market leaders anymore, but Rickards apportions the blame to 'unfair practices' by foreign manufacturers and argues instead for tariffs. The same goes for other trade partners. Fact that the United States has to a large extent been deindustrialised was a political choice of its own making.
If the US has lost ground in the competition for trade on world markets that is because of its own insular provincialism and hubris, not foreign competitive malpractice. Moreover, much of its productive industry which remains has been outsourced to low cost venues such as China. The US more than anyone should know that its competitors are simply using the same policies that it itself used during the 19th century to break British trade hegemony.
It has been the same story with agriculture. Trade liberalization (this must rank as the greatest misnomer of trade theory) and trade treaties have been an example of the blatant unfairness of such agreements. During the Uruguay round of 'talks' (1982-2000):
the United States pushed other countries to open up their markets to areas of 'our' (i.e. the US's) strength, but resisted, successfully so, to efforts to make us reciprocate.Construction and maritime services, the areas of advantage of many developing countries were not included in the new agreement. Worse still, financial services liberalization was arguably even harmful to some developing countries: as large international (read American) banks squelched local competitors denying them the funds they garnered would be channelled to the international firms with which they felt comfortable, not the small and medium-sized local firms
As foreign banks took over the banking systems of like Argentina and Mexico worries about small and medium sized firms within these countries being starved of funds have been repeatedly voiced.
Whether these concerns are valid or not, whether they are exaggerated or not, is not the issue: the issue is that countries should have the right to make these decisions themselves, as the United States did in its own country during its formative years; but under the new international rules that America had pushed, countries were being deprived of that right.
Suffice it to say that agriculture has always been a flagrant example of the double standards inherent in the US trade liberalization agenda. Although we insisted that other countries reduce their barriers to our products and eliminate the subsidies for which those products competed against ours, the United States kept barriers for the goods produced by the developing countries, and the US continued massive subsidies to its own produce. [ 8 ]
EXORBITANT PRIVILEGEOh, I almost forgot: the imperial tribute that the world pays to the hegemon; aka the reserve status of the dollar. The role of the US dollar in the world's political economy gives it advantages which the rest of the dollar surplus-states are dragooned into accepting. In the late sixties early seventies, the US was on the verge of technical bankruptcy due to its spending profligacy at home and military adventurism in Indochina. It had three choices of how to deal with this acute problem.
[The] 3 courses open to the US government on the collapse of the Gold Pool in London in 1968 were: immediately pull out of the war in South-East Asia and cut back overseas and domestic military expenditure to allow the dollar to firm again on world markets; to continue the war paying for its foreign exchange costs with further outflows of Fort Knox gold; or to induce the Europeans and other payments surplus areas to continue to accumulate surplus dollars and dollar equivalents (US Treasuries) not convertible into gold." [ 9 ]
Of course, it was option three that appealed and Nixon in his television broadcast was to announce a 'temporary' suspension of gold sales by the US to its overseas 'partners'.
The date in question, 15 August 1971, marked the end of one epoch and the beginning of another. The temporary suspension soon morphed into a permanent one and a global fiat currency regime based on the dollar came into being. This represented a culmination of a situation in which the US manipulation of the dollar was termed the 'Exorbitant Privilege' by the senior French politician Valery Giscard d'Estaing. And privilege it was.
The central political fact is that the dollar standard places the direction of the world monetary policy in the hands of a single country which thereby acquires great influence over the economic destiny of others. It is one thing to sacrifice sovereignty in the interests of interdependence; it is quite another when the relationship is one-way.
The difference is that between the EEC(EU) and a colonial empire. The brute fact is that the acceptance of a dollar standard necessarily implies a degree of asymmetry in power which, although it actually existed in the early post-war years, had vanished by the time that the world sliding into a reluctant dollar standard." [ 10 ]
There were a number of advantages which accrued to the dollar contingent on the ending of gold convertibility which Eichengreen listed these in his book. But the principle one was making the surplus nations of the world pay for America's wars with an unconvertible currency. Instead of being paid for in gold, or at least a gold-backed currency the world produced goods and services for a piece of green paper backed by nothing.
Quite a clever little racket when you think about it.
Better still is the way that the two biggest surplus nations, Japan and China, have been the US's main creditors, bankrolling the US by buying its Treasuries. This had another intended, or perhaps unintended effect: long term interest rates on US bonds came down (since bond prices and bond interest rates move in opposite directions) and enabled the property bubble to expand until the inevitable blow-out in 2008.
In mafia terms the US dollar has been a 'made' currency enjoying a set of privileges and protection which it did not earn but foisted upon others. This is a unique dispensation which is enjoyed by the US to which the rest of the world is excluded.
However, it is in the nature of things that privileges will ultimately get abused. In pushing its luck to the point of abuse the US should be aware that initial signs are that the world is sloughing off the US dollar. As it proceeds in that direction, the US currency will lose its position as the global reserve asset. Holders of trillions of dollar-denominated assets will become sellers eventuating in a collapse of the currency.
The US economy lives like a parasite off its partners in the global system, with virtually no savings of its own. The World produces whilst North America consumes. The advantage of the US is that of a predator whose advantage is covered, by what others agree, or are forced, to contribute.
Washington uses various means to make up for its deficiencies: for example, repeated violations of the principles of liberalism, arms exports, and the hunting-down of oil super-profits (which involves the periodic felling of producers; one of the real motives behind the wars in Iraq and Central Asia).
But the fact is that the bulk of the American deficit is covered by capital inputs from Europe and Japan, China and the South, rich oil-producing countries and comprador classes from all regions, including the poorest, in the third world, to which should be added the debt-service levy that is imposed on nearly every country in the periphery of the global system. The US superpower depends from day to day on the flow of capital which sustains its economy and society. The vulnerability of the United States represents a serious danger to Washington's project." [ 11 ]
In light of the above we may conclude that – in spite of the irritating name-dropping – Rickards' books are interesting well written and well-argued; per contra they are very light on facts which have been left deliberately unexamined as well as counter-narratives which have also been ignored.
This was to be expected quite simply because at bottom Rickards is a sophist much in the tradition of Protagoras, Gorgias and Thrasymachus "I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger" [ 12 ]
A view which Rickards would certainly endorse. Beneath the Upper Manhattan, polished chic, there resides a ruthless Cold Warrior. The further one digs into the book, the more this becomes apparent.
NOTES:-
- [1] Rickards – Aftermath – page.21
- [2] Ibid., – page.65
- [3] Michael Hudson – Super Imperialism – pp.298/99, 32.
- [4] Rickards – Ibid. – page.66
- [5] Hyman Minsky's theories about debt accumulation received revived attention in the media during the subprime mortgage crisis of the late 2000s. The New Yorker has labelled it "the Minsky Moment". Minsky argued that a key mechanism that pushes an economy towards a crisis is the accumulation of debt by the non-government sector. He identified three types of borrowers that contribute to the accumulation of insolvent debt: hedge borrowers, speculative borrowers, and Ponzi borrowers.
- The "hedge borrower" can make debt payments (covering interest and principal) from current cash flows from investments. For the "speculative borrower", the cash flow from investments can service the debt, i.e., cover the interest due, but the borrower must regularly roll over, or re-borrow, the principal. The "Ponzi borrower" (named for Charles Ponzi, see also Ponzi scheme) borrows based on the belief that the appreciation of the value of the asset will be sufficient to refinance the debt but could not make sufficient payments on interest or principal with the cash flow from investments; only the appreciating asset value can keep the Ponzi borrower afloat.
- [6] Rickards – Ibid., page.85
- [7] Rickards – Ibid., page.239
- [8] Joseph Stiglitz – The Roaring 90s – pp.206/207
- [9] Gold Pool 1968. The price of one troy ounce of gold was pegged to US$35. The larger the gap, known as the gold window, between free market gold price and the foreign exchange rate, the more tempting it was for nations to deal with internal economic crises by buying gold at the Bretton Woods price and selling it in the gold markets. It couldn't last and it didn't.
- [10] Michael Hudson – Ibid. – p.309
- [11] Barry Eichengreen – Exorbitant Privilege – passim.
- [12] Plato – The Republic. Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest WhatsApp vKontakte Email
Frank Lee left school at age 15 without any qualifications, but gained degrees from both New College Oxford and the London School of Economics (it's a long story). He spent many years as a lecturer in politics and economics, and in the Civil Service, before retirement. He lives in Sutton with his wife and little dog.
GuyExcellent article by Frank Lee. Many of us are aware of the problems of the USD but few are able to so succinctly explain why and connect the dots to expose the true picture. The bottom line is that the lifespan of the USD as king is almost over .There will not be any rabbit pulled out of the hat to make America great again.That is a feel good cliché used to further induce the population to go back to sleep.FoodBowlThe US has been exposed, and so well said, as a predator nation .There must be a reason why China and Russia are buying up as much gold as their economy will permit .The exchange medium used for trade since time immemorial .
Measuring 'National Debt as a Portion of the US Economy' is for economics classes and for newspapers to publish. The Criminal Elites look at things differently. They measure the National Debt as a Portion of the 'FEROCIOUS BOMBING POWER the US Possess'. Also, 'Spreading Chaos Capabilities' is added to the Bombing Power.Fair dinkumFrom this point of view, they see enormous assets, and the debts becomes less worrying as they see less urgency to deal with this ever growing liabilities.
No analysis required because it's always been the same. The few exploit the many. This has fed the cancers of psychopathy, messiah complexes and endless wars.MASTER OF UNIVE
We are rushing towards the midnight sun. The Wall Street ethos has always been 'kill or be killed' where bears eat, and bulls eat, but pigs get slaughtered! The problem with today's market & stock valuations is that they are as hyperinflated as Real Estate Commercial & Residential sectors are which leaves no wiggle room for price discovery until there is a system wide crash that mean reverts the valuations back to a realistic price.markWarren Buffett is currently sitting on $55 billion in cash so that he does not get destroyed on the upcoming systemic wide crash. Buffett has never pulled this kind of bread from the table in his lifetime whilst waiting for a systemic crash & the inevitable fat tail blowout that is poised to rip the face off of the USA & EU as their eyeballs get ripped out too.
Ripping a face off & ripping eyeballs out is day trader speak for kicking counterparties in the groin for the deal. The French Revolution was all about teaching the financial elite predator class of monetary control freaks who the boss really is when the gravy train slows during Financial Winter.
And if they can't take the heat they should get out of the kitchen!
RW
All that is happening now is that Trump is trying to solve his country's intractable economic and financial problems by looting the rest of the planet. This is not a new development, but Trump is at least refreshingly honest in his public pronouncements.AntonymIt has always been thus.
- The Roman Empire imposed tribute on its subjects. You have to send us so much grain, cattle, so many slaves, so much timber for shipbuilding, so much precious metal and base metal, so many wild beasts for our circuses. In return we won't kill you.
- The Nazi Empire imposed tribute on its conquests in identical fashion. Send us your industrial output, agricultural produce and raw materials. In return we'll give you a big credit balance at the Reichsbank.
- Uncle Sugar says send me your BMWs, fine wines, electronic gadgets, oil and minerals. In return I'll give you some worthless little pieces of green paper you can exchange for worthless IOUs called Treasury Bills.
The current (real) military budget is $1,134 billion, around 60% higher than the fictitious figure that is normally touted.
The trade deficit is $900 billion. The budget deficit $1,175 billion, over 20% of the overall budget.
America is borrowing around $4 billion a day from the rest of the world. Uncle Sam is the biggest scrounger, parasite, leech, bludger, and panhandler in the history of the planet.
The official national debt of $22.5 trillion understates the true position by a factor of over ten. Every US man, woman, child, and babe in arms is in hock to the tune of over $700,000.
Trump != the Swamp. They hate him.RobG The global economy is about to crash, yet again (because it's never really recovered from the 2008 crash)'. Answers on a postcard, please (and one that doesn't involve giving the banksters eye-watering amounts of money).Frank Lodge Without reading the book in question, this seems like an thoroughly sound and incisive review. Just one thing, "cometh" takes a singular subject.BigB Rickards attitude is famously: "Buy gold" to which he creates a fear porn scenario around the coming recession. His solution: "Buy gold". Not, lets look at the conditions that are causing the underlying boom and bust business cycles and find a solution that works for humanity. His solution: "Buy gold" which the likes of he and the others who are driving the business cyclical waves of mutilation have already done to hedge their portfolios. Fuck Ricards. I have no time for those who wish to profit from the overfinancial immiseration of humanity. And you know where you can stick your gold.markGood luck to anyone who produces gold in an actual collapse scenario. So you need to buy guns and bodyguards for self-protection if you buy gold...
Gold could form some kind of basis for exchange in a collapse setting. Other desirable barter items would be alcohol, cigarettes, basic drugs like aspirin and paracetamol, electrical batteries, fuel and similar goods. Maybe ammunition as well. Goods were priced in cigarettes in postwar Germany.bevinGold would probably be of use. Gemstones, jewellery, would not. 99.9% of people are unable to distinguish a real diamond from a piece of glass.
"he original version of the Guns versus butter argument was given in a speech on January 17, 1936, in Nazi Germany." Not for the first time Wikipedia is wrong here. Bismarck is normally credited with the choice between Guns and Butter. Goebbels was suggesting that Guns will bring Butter.Martin Usher Its nice to see this in a book but its really common knowledge. The only thing I'd dispute is this notion of an 'elite', there is no such thing, its just greed holding the reins -- its like a mass FOMO, nobody's willing to take the long view because it might mean they'll miss out on what they can grab right now.wardropperThe danger we face from this is that if a large enough economic bloc runs by more rational rules then its going to eventually cream us economically. This forces us to destroy it. This is what's at the bottom of our problems with China. The USSR wasn't strong or well organized enough to pose a real threat to us so it could be taken down primarily by economic means. The Chinese learned their lesson from the Russian experience and 'played nice' which they built their country up -- we all heard the commentariat from a few years ago about them 'not really being communists any more'. Now they're in a position to look us in the eye so we've got to confront them, to take them down. (You'll notice that one of the conditions that will end the trade war is the 'liberalizing of capital markets' -- that is, we need to take over their banking system and currency.) If -- when -- this fails then the only recourse would be actual war.
The crime in all this is in the pursuit of money -- ultimately a wholly artificial concept -- we're wasting immense amounts of resources and human potential, spreading misery and despoliation all over the planet and generally behaving like really awful global citizens. We can and must do better.
And we certainly must stop talking about "taking down" the Chinese, and instead actually try to understand where they come from, with their roots in a far more ancient civilized society than ours.AntonymAmerican exceptionalism, for example, takes it for granted that we in the West are good, and therefore the East must become more like us. But we are logically, and morally, obliged to look at this from the opposite perspective too: What if the Chinese take it for granted that they are good, and therefore the West must become more like them?
I have been to China, and found the people there to consist of the same mixtures of honest, good, nondescript, sinister and deplorable as we have here at home.
They also share exactly the same fundamental problem as we do: Their politicians and their people, like ours, are two entirely separate things. Of course the origins of Chinese, or Russian, society are different from ours, but that is no reason to despise them. Our origins are often pretty despicable too.
The Chinese people are as materialistic or spiritual as any; it is the local deep state (CPC) totalitarian culture that needs to change.Robbobbobin "The crime in all this is in the pursuit of money -- [w]e can and must do better."MASTER OF UNIVEThree thousand years?
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity. –Ecclesiastes 5:10
Two thousand years?
For the love of money is the root of all evil –1 Timothy 6:10
Surely the Anti Deceased Equine Distress Society has lobbied some sort of statute of limitations onto the books by now?
American parasitism writ large over the last half century has amply signified to the entire world that 'manifest destiny' was merely a ruse to foist American hegemony onto all sovereign nations at the behest of an out-of-control American Oligopoly that was power-tripping post WW2 & drunk on the souls of the poor sots all over the entire world with their power hungry warmongering Military Industrial Complex.Martin UsherProof of their combined ignorance with respect to Cybernetics & Systems Theory was their willingness to follow the likes of the Vietnam War architects that assumed incorrectly that they could impose a closed-looped cybernetic control system over world finance & mercantilism throughout the entire world at the behest of academic failures like Macnamera who would not know a 'closed-looped cybernetic' from an open-looped cybernetic if his life & legacy depended on it.
Simply put, American printing presses at the privately owned Federal Reserve cannot even remotely help or assist in anymore financial profligacy for the Neoconservative or Neoliberal camps of the cerebrally sclerotic & Early Onset Dementia riddled, & uneducated, financial buffoons that emanated out of the now defunct Chicago School headed up by Strauss et al. in the 60s & 70s.
All the macroeconomic indicators over the last two decades have clearly indicated that the Greenspan era of asset inflation was nothing more than the undoing of Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker's hard won success during his tenure pre-Greenspan 'Maestro' halcyon days of animal spirits run amok.
In brief, the United States of America can eat my shorts as it is solely responsible for manufacturing a finance control system & requisite money pump fraud that is nothing more than a worldwide Ponzi scheme to defraud the entire world of disposable income & discretionary income gain so that all gains accrue to the rentier class of speculative investors like Warren Buffett & Bob Paulson.
Bottom line is that Warren Buffett will have to purchase all the new automobiles, trucks, houses, mansions, cottages, farms, cites, towns, railroads, roads, & precious metals as the emerging markets & first world markets all decouple just as Professor Emeritus Benoit Mandelbrot hypothesized they would just before he died.
Go ahead, America, print the fake fiat greenbacks to infinity in vain hope of extricating yourselves from the intractable financial muck & mire you are most assuredly going to find yourselves in this approaching October 2019.
Go ahead, Punk, make my day!
Are you feeling lucky, Punk?
RW
Its not "American". We just happen to be the chosen host for this part of history. Before us it was the British Empire that was top dog.MASTER OF UNIVEMoney has no particular loyalty to a country. In pre-WW1 Europe the bourgeois were all intermarried, connected primarily by wealth and power regardless of their nominal nationality, our present equivalent are similarly connected. Just like WW1 when the chips are down we -- the ordinary people -- will be sacrificed on the alter of patriotism while they'll survive and prosper.
March 10th 2008 around 11:00am Bear Stearns time New York shitty was the virtual end of American hegemony worldwide forever more into the obvious future of Macroeconomics & Macroprudential Policy as an ongoing concern. Debt-to-GDP of all sovereign Western imperialist nations is intractably North of any semblance of sustainability vis-a-vis Finance worldwide or within Emerging Economies or First World Developed Economies.martinIntractable debt limits were broached when Nixon declared the bankruptcy of the Bretton Woods infrastructure of gold backed USA Reserve Currency Status and then opted in ignorance for the petro-dollar bait & switch fiat USD Finance capture worldwide which has now come home to roost across the rust belt of the heartland USA, and in places that were once bastions of manufacturing for the middle class USA blue collar worker such as Detroit or Chicago. Today the business model of the USA is transnationalist whereby places across the USA are not even remotely financed into that transnationalist Wall Street model of Finance that is wholly parasitic to the point of crashing mainstreet USA across all sectors of the Service Sector Industries that were supposed to be replacing the long lost USA Manufacturing Base that was offshored to the Third World sovereigns that would temporarly increase profit margins for the transnationalist class of corporate parasites run amok to collectively destroy all life on Planet Earth for centuries to come if we are lucky.
RW
MASTER OF UNIVEYou have made the common mistake of asserting that it is America, instead of those who govern (the USA and its pundits) that have engineered the problems you point out.
Why would the two parties in congress (Article II followers) and the two fellows with the Article II power, continue to [expand the debt in fake, made up and useless expenses], unless they were controlled by external forces?
Maybe bankers and their high powered corporations are finding they can no longer easily dupe Americans into delivering their resources into the pockets of the wealthy. Maybe the American people have drawn the line, no more, will they produce for the IMF, world bank?
Maybe Americans have decided to refuse the tax burdens imposed to retire the fed debt? Maybe foreign nations have denied the banks and their corporations access to their resources as a means to pay the USA debt? Maybe script has been recognized as a false capital in-capable of ruling the world? Maybe organized criminals have taken up positions in the western governments and used those positions to force on the governed many things? Maybe burdening the USA with debt is part of the plan to bankrupt America? <==but why should the banks bankrupt America, why has access to education been limited, why has the USA spied on Americans? Why have the governed Americans been denied access to the USA? Has the USA retired Americans from productive jobs, in order to accelerate the demise of America? The USA has made Americans into debtors obligated to pay bankers in the form of taxes to be collected by the USA and remitted to the bankers. <= just as is now occurring in Britain, Greece, France, and other places. Privatization, monopolization and conversion from public to private franchising and ownership have served as the transforming agents that have made the elite so wealthy.
Economic Zionism. as opposed to government regulated capitalism, condones no competition, allows no prisoners and either takes or destroys all likely competitive elements (persons, corporations, or nations) Economic Zionism demands the government that governs (as in USA governance over Americans) assist in rendering Americans broke. Is it because until Americans are broke, the EZ bandits are hampered? Is scooping resources into private, monopoly powered, already wealthy hands, the goodies to be had the goal? Maybe the USA is a privatizing agent instead of a benefactor serving Americans?
In USA governed America, there is much very-productive farm land, millions of tons of minerals, many productive seaports, and tons and tons of money making monopolies (patents, copyrights, royalties, government franchised goodies, lucrative government contracts, and plenty of government services and resources) to be privatized for profit. The goodies are located in thousands of acres of rich farmland, the major ports and services attached thereto, and embedded within little domestic American companies which the USA debt will eventually burden into bankruptcy. After all "scalping a bankruptcy" is historically a speciality of economic zionism.
In 1994 JPMorgan management & traders went on a little holiday in Miami to concoct the Global Ponzi of debt & risk associated with loans into what is known today as the Financialization Process whereby bank risk would be shuffled off of investment bank balance sheets and onto those speculators that wanted to purchase all that risk involved in the bank portfolios en masse because they knew how to offload that risk to unsuspecting greater fools that were always certain to come knocking in a climate of upward growth and yield curve convexity. But the chink in their financial alchemy was obviously debt limits and the ability to track the risk to the system as a whole given that all transactions in the derivatives world are dark & unregulated due to the helmsmen like the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who previous to being nominated as Treasury Secretary was in fact the top man at Goldman Sachs where he raked in approximately a smooth billion before traversing the revolving door between the Whore House & Goldman Sachs New York shitty offices.nottheonly1Casino Banking morphed into Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism when Bob Paulson wanted more Residential Mortgage Backed Security issuance and pressured Goldman Sachs into providing more issuance via NINJA loans & Liar Loans after 05 when the Wall Street speculators had to go bottom feeding for loan issuance in order to meet investor demand & apatite for their unhinged Gordon Gecko greed.
'Maestro' Greenspan emphasized his 'flaw' in his macroeconomic model of the world when the investor greed broached fat tails on the order of a 10% crash of the power laws of distributions of loan issuance. Greenspan never assumed that the Financialization Process would exceed a default scenario greater than 5-7% of no-performing loans in the subprime issuance tranche.
American exceptionalism via Henry Paulson USA Treasury Secretary 08 is what rendered American Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism wholly defunct going forward into 2020 & beyond with a permanent lower bound CB Interest Rate Regime & specter of WW3 hot conflagration.
My money is on the pinko Commie bastards this time round the sovereign insolvency loop of domestic misery USA.
WELCOME to the New World Disorder!
RW
To condense this lengthy essay: This ship is sinking.This would include household debt, student debt, financial debt, corporate debt, and municipal debt. Add this to sovereign debt and you get a figure roughly 5 times US sovereign debt, and even this is regarded as being a conservative figure according to many
One – at least on this side of the screen – cannot but think that all this is by design. The cart is driven intentionally off the cliff. To start off with a clean slate? Where the wealthy still have their wealth, but the suckers are depending on hand-outs?
An old proverb alledges that: To borrow brings sorrow.
To which only those who make loads of money from lending will disagree. Where are the solutions? No solutions, just listicles as to how bad it all is? Sure, the West is reminiscent of the HMS Titanic – with the slight difference of the hole made by the iceberg (debt) extending over the whole length of the ship. It is listing beyond dancing.
Well, I am willing to tell a secret (that isn't one anymore for quite some time):
- Outlaw/prohibit Interest .
- Prohibit capital gains . Or tax them with 99%.
- Prevent under all circumstances a continuation of Performanceless Profits .
Make them punishable with prison time of no less than half of the age at which they were perpetrated. You're 30? You're going in for 15. You're 65? Easy math.
Fact is, that there are solutions galore to save our souls. Problem is, those whose lives are depending on them, don't demand them to be implemented. And why would the wealthy tax non-payers like Bezos et al want to change their 'winning team'? That is a well known no-no. The only solution the masses of the little people can hope for is 'Force Majeur' that works to their benefit. Shall we wait for that to happen?
Aug 24, 2019 | off-guardian.org
mark
I'll give you some "truly horrible expressions of bigotry." Palestinians are:- "beasts walking on two legs" (Begin), "drugged cockroaches in a bottle" (Eitan), "hungry crocodiles" (Barak), who "must be crushed like grasshoppers" (Shamir). Truly horrible racist stuff. 8 -4 Reply Aug 22, 2019 1:39 AM Reader
Mandy Miller
What is it with you Mark, that you keep just bringing up the same four or six quotes from the most bigoted Jews you can find who are mostly dead? I am curious what you think it proves about anything?markSure there are lunatics and there are racists and some of both are Jews, just as some are not Jews. Taking the words of the racist Jews and using that to fire up your own racist hate of all Jews, even those like me who think Begin was a one-eyed lunatic, is a waste of your life and breeds nothing but more hate. I hope God grants you peace in your heart, Mark.
These are not four random annoying saloon bar bores blowing off steam after one too many. They are three successive prime ministers and the head of the armed forces. Four typical political and military leaders. You could say the same about any other political and military figures. Or religious figures like the Chief Rabbi. This is normal and routine. There is a great deal that is far worse, like "Justice" Minister Shaked, who called for all Palestinian mothers to be murdered so that no Palestinian children could be born. Or a national newspaper called The Times of Israel openly advocating the extermination of the Palestinian people at concentration camps in the desert, "When Genocide Is Justified." Or two leading rabbis calling for the murder of all Palestinian children.Mandy MillerImagine that Cameron, or May, or Johnson, called Jews cockroaches or grasshoppers, let alone calling for Jews to be murdered. And every leading UK politician and military figure had done the same as a matter of routine for decades. Imagine the outrage. Rightly so.
I would never call Jews cockroaches. But ALL these Zionist figures ROUTINELY speak of Palestinians in these terms. This is completely normal. And nobody so much as raises an eyebrow. It is perfectly okay for the Chosen Folk to do this.
That is the point. It would be of benefit to the world if there was a little peace in the hearts of these people as well.
I didn't say they were insignificant I said they were regarded by most sensible Jews that I know as lunatics.markBegin did not speak for most Jews while he was alive and certainly doesn't now he's dead. I'm sure he liked to think he did, but why believe that racist schmuck? Ditto for Binyamin, who is as stupid and racist as he is crazy.
Like I said you might as well quote Hitler or Goebbels as being representative of today's Germany or claim they speak for all gentiles everywhere unless individuals specifically state otherwise. I was born a Jew, my kids were born Jews, we didn't volunteer to join! We should not need to officially repudiate Zionism or the crazy ravings of our leaders past or present in order to be assumed good people, any more than you, Mark, should have to repudiate Nazism or Mr Churchill's racism or mr Johnson's anti-Russian schtick to be considered a good person.
I would like to see a good study of Zionism here, I support the Palestinians in their struggle as again do many many Jews of my acquaintance (though, sadly not all I will admit). But do you not see how alienating and hurtful it is to see comments such as "the chosen people did 9/11", or (as was talked about a short while back) "Hebrews have a tendency toward pedophilia"? Please! Have a little respect is all. Talk about the evils of Zionism but don't conflate that with Judaism or with everyone lucky or unlucky enough to be born a Jew!
And all that oy vey goy stuff you do feels quite hurtful also, I am just curious what you think it brings to the conversation by way of enlightenment, communication and brotherly love, Mark? It just looks like you are hating on Jewishness in the same way those Nazi images of guys with hook noses etcetera did. It feels nasty. What does it achieve? Would it be a nice and helpful gesture to at least drop all that?
We have fringe racist groups in the UK and US and elsewhere. But the KKK in the US just get drunk and burn a few crosses now and again. They are totally irrelevant. If they supplied ALL the heads of state, Begin, Shamir, Sharon, Barak, Netanyahu, ALL the heads of the armed forces, ALL the religious leaders, and the media in the country, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have to acknowledge there is a difference.Mandy MillerYou can't criticise ANY of these people because it "offends" AIPAC, the Board of Deputies, the Friends of Israel, and "hurts their feelings." You are not allowed to call them out without incurring unprecedented draconian penalties unless you have first solved world hunger, global warming, criticised every other nation on the planet, and obtained a written permit from the Board of Deputies specifying exactly what terms and language you are authorised to use.
Why obsess about Talmudistan? Because it is the tail that wags the dog. It exercises a complete stranglehold over the politics and foreign policy of the US and its satellites like the UK. It incites endless wars which those countries are expected to prosecute on its behalf. It destabilises the entire planet causing indescribable suffering and human misery. It expects and receives a free pass to commit genocide and possess a huge illegal arsenal of WMD it constantly threatens to use. It extorts unimaginable amounts of tribute from other countries. It commits terrorist atrocities like 9/11 with complete impunity. Its endless intrigues and subversion poison the whole public space in entire countries. The smear campaign against Corbyn and the Epstein organisation are just two fairly trivial recent examples. Politicians and ordinary people are not required to swear loyalty oaths to Botswana or Bolivia on pain of instant dismissal. That is the difference.
A bit of kvetching about all the above seems a little bit justified under the circumstances.
Ok, Mark, I understand that you think Israel is a bigger racist problem than the UK and all the NATO non-democracies, and I can agree with you about that. Israel is for me and many (not all) of my family and friends a place of terrible evil and shame. I hate that the suffering of so many Jews under the Nazis has been turned into an excuse to impose more suffering on other innocent people simply because of their race. So, let's agree Israel is indefensible in its treatment of the Palestinians and in its appalling foreign policy. Just awful.My question is, how helpful is it to express those facts in racial terms? Why do you use these words that only have the effect of turning people away from you and closing down there receptiveness?
Ok, what I'm saying is, if you try to tell the average non-political nice well meaning Jewish person or liberal, of which my sister is a good example (both) that Israel is the aggressor nation in so many instances and if you tell them about the terrible plight of the Palestinian people it will be hard for you to get them to listen even if you don't use words that make you sound like a racist. But as soon as you start throwing around words such as Talmudistan and "chosen folk" and mockery of Yiddish with your "oy vey goy" routine, you are giving them a route to the exit door., which is what they want. You are giving them permission to ignore you! They can say "oh what a racist", and just leave the building.
So, my question is, why use that language? What good is it doing you that makes it worthwhile to lose so much credibility among people you could perhaps convert if you approached it differently?
I guess my question is, what does this aggressive use of offensive terms do for you that you hold on to it to the point of undoing any good you could do? Why not just say "Israel"? Why terms such as goy and chosen folk and language that can sound soooo racist and threatening?
I believe you Mark that you don't entertain real racist thoughts, but can you communicate with me why you use that language that makes it sound as if you do? Maybe you don't realize it but to a Jew it feels like a slap across the face. It triggers centuries of dormant fears of persecution. I have to try hard to put that aside and approach you without fear or anger. So I'm asking you, as a gesture toward understanding, to please not use those terms in our conversation? And maybe you might find you don't need that armour, or comfort blanket or whatever it is to you. Maybe you will find your message, which as put above is something I can get on board with, gets across more clearly.
Can we take that step, Mark? I am asking with peace and love in my heart.
Aug 19, 2019 | www.unz.com
Adûnâi , says: August 15, 2019 at 6:17 pm GMT
"The other significant force in the Ukraine is the West Ukrainian (Galician) Nazi death-squads and mobs."Where are death camps for the Jews? Where are racial laws that expel non-Ukrainians? Where is the propaganda of eugenics and healthy lifestyle? Where are construction projects bringing in jobs, and state-subsidized recreation tours?
Ukraine is a Jew-driven shithole that has nothing to do with National Socialism. They don't even honour the sacrifice of the SS Galizien.
"but what they are genuinely fantasizing about is the territory, and only the territory. As for the 2 million-plus virulently anti-Nazi people currently living on these lands, they simply want them either dead or expelled)."
A lie. Currently, more than a half of those "expelled" have migrated inside Ukraine. A stark contrast to Croatia where the Serbs were driven out of the country, and their land given to Croats.
Again, Ukraine is suicidal and full of civic nationalism, nothing about it is blood-based.
"They and their Polish supporters want Russia to break apart in numerous small state-lets which they (or, in their delusional dreams, the Chinese) could dominate."
Why do you consider this as a negative for the Russian people? The current Russian state is in its death throes as much as the US and France – the ethnic Russians are dying out, fleeing and being replaced. Any alternative might prove out more hopeful.
"In contrast, the LDNR forces seem to be doing pretty well, and their morale appears to be as strong as ever (which is unsurprising since their military ethos is based in 1000 years of Russian military history)."
I have to remind you that the Donbass was colonized far more recently than Ukraine – in the 18-19th centuries. What "ancient" traditions?
"but Novorussia also is a never healing wound in the side of Nazi-occupied Ukraine"
The Donbass has never been part of Novorussia which is to the west, from Dniepropetrovsk to Odessa. Admittedly, Novorussia's colonists were mostly from Ukraine – it is clearly seen on the language maps.
"The problem with this slogan is that there is simply no way the (relatively small) Galician population can ever succeed in permanently defeating their much bigger (and, frankly, much smarter) Jewish, Polish or Russian neighbors."
Khmelnitsky managed to do just that – 100k dead Jews. And he's on the Ukrainian currency. Too bad modern "Nazi" Ukrainians have elected a Jew President. This is not the Khmelnitsky uprising, this is Kiev under the Khazar Khaganate before Oleg came from the North.
Jul 20, 2019 | conversableeconomist.blogspot.com
Thursday, July 4, 2019 "Loyalty to the Nation All the Time, Loyalty to the Government When it Deserves It." Mark Twain wrote an essay back in 1905 called "The Czar's Soliloquy" ( North American Review , Vol. 180.No. DLXXX). The essay was triggered by a sentence in the London Times , reporting: "After the Czar's morning bath it is his habit to meditate an hour before dressing himself." Twain imagined that the Czar, standing naked in front of a mirror, was for a few moments honest with himself about the injustices and cruelties that he had allowed and perpetrated, and hoped for a better future. Imagining the Czar's words to himself, Twain wrote:
There are twenty-five million families in Russia. There is a man-child at every mother's knee. If these were twenty-five million patriotic mothers, they would teach these man-children daily, saying : "Remember this, take it to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.On the Fourth of July in particular, it makes me sad to run into people whose patriotism ebbs and flows according to what political party occupies the White House. There ought to be a large and real line between support of whoever who is in government at a particular time, and a broader patriotism. A country is a mixture of people, ideals, geography, history, cultures, and more. It should be possible to love your country, whether your feelings about the government are positive, negative, neutral, ambivalent, or don't-give-a-damn.
Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
The more a local economy has been negatively affected by the two shocks, the more its electors have shifted towards the radical right and its policy packages. These packages typically combine the retrenchment against international openness and the liberalisation of the internal market and more convincingly address the demand for protection by an electorate that, after the austerity following the Crisis, no longer trusts alternatives based on more liberal stances on foreign relations and the parallel promise of a stronger welfare state.
A big reason why liberal democracies in Europe have remained relatively stable since WWII is that most Europeans have had hope that their lives will improve. A big reason why the radical vote has recently been on the rise in several European countries is that part of the electorate has lost this hope. People are increasingly worried that not only their own lives but also the lives of their children will not improve and that the playing field is not level.
On the one hand, despite some progress in curtailing 'tax havens' in recent years, there has never been as much wealth in tax havens as there is today (Zucman 2015). This is seen as unfair because, if public goods and services (including those required to help the transition to a 'green economy') have to be provided in the regions where such hidden wealth comes from, lost tax revenues have to be compensated for by higher taxes on law-abiding households.
On the other hand, fairness is also undermined by dwindling social mobility. In the last decades, social mobility has slowed down across large parts of the industrialised world (OECD 2018), both within and between generations. Social mobility varies greatly across regions within countries, correlates positively with economic activity, education, and social capital, and negatively with inequality (Güell at al. 2018). Renewed migration from the South to the North of Europe after the Crisis (Van Mol and de Valk 2016) is a testimony of the widening relative lack of opportunities in the places that have suffered the most from competition from low-wage countries.
Concluding Remarks
Globalisation has come accompanied by the Great Convergence between countries around the world but also the Great Divergence between regions within several industrialised countries. The same holds within the EU. In recent years, redistributive policies have had only a very limited impact in terms of reversing growing regional inequality.
As a result, the traditional liberal package of external liberalisation and internal redistribution has lost its appeal with the electorate, conceding ground to the alternative package of the radical right that consists of external protectionism and internal liberalisation.
This is both inefficient and unlikely to lead to more regional convergence. What the political and policy debate in Europe is arguably missing is a clearer focus on two of the main underlying causes of peoples' growing distrust in national and international institutions: fiscal fairness and social mobility.
See original post for references
Jesper , July 3, 2019 at 12:37 pm
When did this traditional liberal package mentioned in the concluding remarks ever happen?
the traditional liberal package of external liberalisation and internal redistribution has lost its appeal with the electorate
Maybe if it was clear who got it, what it was, when it was done, how it happened then people might find this liberal package appealing.
flora , July 3, 2019 at 11:26 pm
Right. It would be better to say "the traditional New Deal liberal package " has not lost its appeal, it was killed off bit by bit starting with NAFTA. From a 2016 Thomas Frank essay in Salon:
That appeal to [educated credentialed] class unity gives a hint of what Clintonism was all about. To owners and shareholders, who would see labor costs go down as they took advantage of unorganized Mexican labor and lax Mexican environmental enforcement, NAFTA held fantastic promise. To American workers, it threatened to send their power, and hence their wages, straight down the chute. To the mass of the professional-managerial class, people who weren't directly threatened by the treaty, holding an opinion on NAFTA was a matter of deferring to the correct experts -- economists in this case, 283 of whom had signed a statement declaring the treaty "will be a net positive for the United States, both in terms of employment creation and overall economic growth."
The predictions of people who opposed the agreement turned out to be far closer to what eventually came to pass than did the rosy scenarios of those 283 economists and the victorious President Clinton. NAFTA was supposed to encourage U.S. exports to Mexico; the opposite is what happened, and in a huge way. NAFTA was supposed to increase employment in the U.S.; a study from 2010 counts almost 700,000 jobs lost in America thanks to the treaty. And, as feared, the agreement gave one class in America enormous leverage over the other: employers now routinely threaten to move their operations to Mexico if their workers organize. A surprisingly large number of them -- far more than in the pre-NAFTA days -- have actually made good on the threat.
Twenty years later, the broader class divide over the subject persists as well. According to a 2014 survey of attitudes toward NAFTA after two decades, public opinion remains split. But among people with professional degrees -- which is to say, the liberal class -- the positive view remains the default. Knowing that free-trade treaties are always for the best -- even when they empirically are not -- seems to have become for the well-graduated a badge of belonging.
The only internal redistribution that's happened in the past 25 – 30 yearsis from the bottom 80% to the top 10% and especially to the top 1/10th of 1 %.
Not hard to imagine why the current internal redistribution model has lost its appeal with the electorate.
Sound of the Suburbs, , July 3, 2019 at 1:50 pm
UK policymakers had a great plan for globalisation.
Everyone needs to specialise in something and we will specialise in finance based in London.
That was it.
rd , , July 3, 2019 at 1:58 pm
I think there are two different globalizations that people are responding to.
1. Their jobs go away to somewhere in the globe that has lower wages, lower labor protections, and lower environmental protections. So their community largely stays the same but with dwindling job prospects and people slowly moving away.
2. The world comes to their community where they see immigrants (legal, illegal, refugees) coming in and are willing to work harder for less, as well as having different appearance, languages, religion, and customs. North America has always had this as we are built on immigration. Europe is much more focused on terroire. If somebody or something has only been there for a century, they are new.
If you combine both in a community, you have lit a stick of dynamite as the locals feel trapped with no way out. Then you get Brexit and Trump. In the US, many jobs were sent overseas and so new people coming in are viewed as competitors and agents of change instead of just new hired help. The same happened in Britain. In mainland Europe with less inequality and more job protection, it is more of just being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of newcomers in a society that does not prize that at all.
Sound of the Suburbs, , July 3, 2019 at 2:04 pm
I saw the warning signs when Golden Dawn appeared in Greece
The liberals said it was just a one off, as they always do, until it isn't.
How did successful Germany turn into a country where extremism would flourish?
The Hartz IV reforms created the economic hardship that causes extremism to flourish."Germany is turning to soft nationalism. People on low incomes are voting against authority because the consensus on equality and justice has broken down. It is the same pattern across Europe," said Ashoka Mody, a former bail-out chief for the International Monetary Fund in Europe.
Mr Mody said the bottom half of German society has not seen any increase in real incomes in a generation. The Hartz IV reforms in 2003 and 2004 made it easier to fire workers, leading to wage compression as companies threatened to move plants to Eastern Europe.
The reforms pushed seven million people into part-time 'mini-jobs' paying €450 (£399) a month. It lead to corrosive "pauperisation". This remains the case even though the economy is humming and surging exports have pushed the current account surplus to 8.5pc of GDP."
This is a successful European country, imagine what the others look like.
Adam1 , July 3, 2019 at 2:20 pm
"British referendum on EU membership can be explained to a remarkable extent as a vote against globalisation much more than immigration "
As an FYI to the author immigration is just the flip side of the same coin. Why were immigrants migrating? Often it's because they can no longer make a living where they left. Why? Often globalization impacts.
Summer , July 3, 2019 at 4:23 pm
Another recap about that really just mourns the lack of trust in the establishment, with no answers. More "I can't believe people are sick to death of experts of dubious skills but networking "
What it is just admitted that a system that can only work great for 20% of any given population if they are born in the right region with the right last name just simply not work except as an exercise in extraction?
And about the EU as if it could never be taken over by bigger authoritatians than the ones already populating it. Then see how much those who think it is some forever bastion of liberalism over sovereignity likes it .
Which is worse - bankers or terrorists , July 4, 2019 at 7:21 am
"Another recap about that really just mourns the lack of trust in the establishment, with no answers."
Usually it involves replacing the establishment or creating an internal threat to reinstate compliance in the establish (Strauss and Howe).
Strategies for initiate the former may be impossible in this era where the deep state can read your thoughts through digital media so you would like it would trend to the latter.
stan6565 , July 3, 2019 at 4:35 pm
Mmmmm, yes, migration, globalisation and such like.
But, unregulated migration into an established environment, say a country, say, UK, on one hand furthers profits to those benefiting from low labour wages (mainly, friends of people working for governments), but on the other leads to creation of parallel societies, where the incoming population brings along the society they strived to escape from. The Don calls these sh***hole societies. Why bring the f***ing thing here, why not leave it where you escaped from.
But the real betrayal of the native population happens when all those unregulated migrants are afforded immediate right to social security, full access to NHS and other aspects of state support, services that they have not paid one penny in support before accessing that particular government funded trough. And then the parasitic growth of their "family and extended family" comes along under the banner of "human rights".
This is the damnation of the whole of Western Civilisation which had been hollowed out from within by the most devious layer of parasitic growth, the government apparatus. The people we pay for under the auspices that they are doing some work for us, are enforcing things that treat the income generators, the tax paying society as serfs whose primary function in life is to support the parasites (immigrants) and parasite enablers (government).
The laws of biology and physics and whatever else say that the host that is being parasitised upon, cannot support the endless growth of the parasites attached upon it. The unfortunate host will eventually die.
Understanding of this concept is most certainly within mental capabilities of all those employed as the "governing classes " that we are paying for through our taxes.
Until such time when legislation is enacted that each and every individual member of "government classes " is made to pay, on an indemnity basis, through financial damages, forced labour, organs stripping or custodial penalties, for every penny (or cent, sorry, yanks), of damage they inflict on us taxpayers, we are all just barking.
Skip Intro , July 3, 2019 at 4:49 pm
This piece does an admirable job conflating globalisation and the ills caused by the neoliberal capture of social democratic parties/leaders. Did people just happen to lose hope, or were they actively betrayed? We are left to guess.
"negative effects of globalisation: foreign competition, factory closures, persistent unemployment, stagnating purchasing power, deteriorating infrastructures and public services"
Note that these ills could also be laid at the feet of the austerity movement, and the elimination/privatisation of National Industrial Policy, both cornerstones of the neoliberal infestation.
Summer , July 3, 2019 at 5:56 pm
Not only is globalization not new, all of the issues that come with it are old news.
All of it.Part of the problem is that the global economic order is still in service to the same old same old. They have to rebrand every so often to keep the comfortable even more comfortable.
Those tasked with keeping the comfortable more comfortable have to present this crap as "new ideas" for their own careerism or actually do not realize they haven't espoused a new idea in 500 years.
K Lee , July 5, 2019 at 9:12 am
Putin's recent interview with Financial Times editor offers a clear-eyed perspective on our changing global structure:
"What is happening in the West? What is the reason for the Trump phenomenon, as you said, in the US? What is happening in Europe as well? The ruling elites have broken away from the people. The obvious problem is the gap between the interests of the elites and the overwhelming majority of the people.
Of course, we must always bear this in mind. One of the things we must do in Russia is never to forget that the purpose of the operation and existence of any government is to create a stable, normal, safe and predictable life for the people and to work towards a better future.
You know, it seems to me that purely liberal or purely traditional ideas have never existed. Probably, they did once exist in the history of humankind, but everything very quickly ends in a deadlock if there is no diversity. Everything starts to become extreme one way or another.
Various ideas and various opinions should have a chance to exist and manifest themselves, but at the same time interests of the general public, those millions of people and their lives, should never be forgotten. This is something that should not be overlooked.
Then, it seems to me, we would be able to avoid major political upheavals and troubles. This applies to the liberal idea as well. It does not mean (I think, this is ceasing to be a dominating factor) that it must be immediately destroyed. This point of view, this position should also be treated with respect.
They cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades. Diktat can be seen everywhere: both in the media and in real life. It is deemed unbecoming even to mention some topics. But why?
For this reason, I am not a fan of quickly shutting, tying, closing, disbanding everything, arresting everybody or dispersing everybody. Of course, not. The liberal idea cannot be destroyed either; it has the right to exist and it should even be supported in some things. But you should not think that it has the right to be the absolute dominating factor. That is the point. Please." ~ Vladmir Putin
https://www.ft.com/content/878d2344-98f0-11e9-9573-ee5cbb98ed36
He's talking about the end of neoliberalism, the economic fascism that has gripped the world for over 40 years:
"If you're not willing to kill everybody who has a different idea than yourself, you cannot have Frederick Hayek's free market. You cannot have Alan Greenspan or the Chicago School, you cannot have the economic freedom that is freedom for the rentiers and the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sector to reduce the rest of the economy to serfdom." ~ Michael Hudson
Let's get back to using fiscal policy for public purpose again, to granting nations their right to self-determination and stopping the latest desperate neoliberal attempt to change international norms by installing fascist dictators (while pretending they are different) in order to move the world backwards to a time when "efforts to institutionalize standards of human and civil rights were seen as impingements on sovereignty, back to the days when no one gave a second thought to oppressed peoples."
kristiina , July 4, 2019 at 2:47 am
Very interesting article, and even more interesting conversation! There is a type of argument that very accurately points out some ills that need addressing, and then goes on to spout venom on the only system that might be able to address those ills.
It may be that the governing classes are making life easy for themselves. How to address that is the hard and difficult issue. Most of the protection of the small people comes from government. Healthcare, schools, roads, water etc.(I'm in scandinavia).
If the government crumbles, the small people have to leave. The most dreadful tyranny is better than a failed state with warring factions.
The only viable way forward is to somehow improve the system while it is (still) running. But this discussion I do not see anywhere.
If the discussion does not happen, there will not be any suggestions for improvement, so everything stays the same. Change is inevitable – it what state it will catch us is the important thing. A cashier at a Catalonian family vineyard told me the future is local and global: the next level from Catalonia will be EU. What are the steps needed to go there?
SteveB , July 4, 2019 at 5:54 am
Same old, Same old. Government is self-corrupting and is loath to change. People had enough July fourth 1776.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
FWIW: The fireworks we watch every Fourth of July holiday are symbolic!!!!
John , July 4, 2019 at 5:43 pm
The cashier seems to be envisioning a neoliberal paradise where the nation-state no longer exists. But who, then, collects the taxes that will pay for infrastructure, healthcare, education, public housing, and unemployment insurance? The European Parliament?
Will Germans and Finns be willing to pay high taxes in order to pay for those services for Greeks and Spaniards?
Look at the unemployment rate in Greece the Germans would simply say that the Greeks are lazy parasites and don't want to work (rather than understand that the economic conditions don't allow for job creation), and they would vote for MEPs that vote to cut taxes and welfare programs.
But maybe this was the plan all along you create this neoliberal paradise, and slowly but surely, people will dismantle all but the bare bones of the welfare state.
John , July 4, 2019 at 5:35 pm
I believe that one of the fundamental flaws in the logic behind the EU is this assumption of mobility. Proponents of the EU imagine society to be how it is described in economics textbooks: a bunch of individual actors seeking to maximize their incomes that don't seem to exist in any geographic context. The reality is that people are born into families and communities that speak a language. Most of them probably don't want to just pack up all of their things, relocate, and leave their family and home behind every time they get a new job. People throughout history have always had a very strong connection to the land on which they were raised and the society into which they were brought up; more accurately, for most of human history, this formed the entire existence, the entire universe, of most people (excluding certain oppressed groups, such as slaves or the conquered).
Human beings are not able to move as freely as capital. While euros in Greece can be sent to and used instantly in Germany, it is not so easy for a Greek person to leave the society that their ancestors have lived in for thousands of years and move to a new country with a new culture and language. For privileged people that get to travel, this doesn't sound so bad, but for someone whose family has lived in the same place for centuries and never learned to speak another language, this experience would be extremely difficult. For many people over the age of 25, it might not even be a life worth living.
In the past, economic difficulties would lead to a depreciation of a nation's currency and inflation. But within the current structure of the Eurozone, it results in deflation as euros escape to the core countries (mainly Germany) and unemployment. Southern Europeans are expected to leave everything they have ever known behind and move to the countries where there is work, like Germany or Holland. Maybe for a well-educated worldly 18 year old, that's not so bad, but what about a newly laid-off working class 35 year-old with a wife and kids and no college degree? He's supposed to just pick up his family and leave his parents and relatives behind, learn German, and spend the rest of his life and Germany? His kids now have to be German? Would he even be able to get a job there, anyway? Doing what? And how is he supposed to stop this from happening, how is he supposed to organize politically to keep jobs at home? The Greek government can hardly do anything because the IMF, ECB, and European Commission (all unelected officials) call the shots and don't give them any fiscal breathing room (and we saw what happened the last time voters tried to assert their autonomy in the bailout deal referendum), and the European Parliament doesn't have a serious budget to actually do anything.
I'm surprised more people don't vote for neo-fascist parties like the Golden Dawn. Ordinary liberal politics has completely failed them.
Jun 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
gzon , Jun 29, 2019 8:49:43 AM | 129
@ snake 90"Nationality, is a named object, programmed by propaganda."
Nationality in the formal sense, derives from two or more feudal monopolies defining their differences and according a separate recognition to the other, usually including geographical markers. The extension of personal identity to national identity is product of the recognition of belonging to one specific feudal hierarchy. This might be natural or imposed, the theme of nation literally implies the environment or peoples one is born into.
The term multi-cultural is propaganda, the shift from "nation" to "culture" is used to atomise the perception of belonging that nation implies, into becoming one amongst many under the authority of state, which at this point has usually become an impersonal law and structure from which a bureaucratic elite govern and thrive off of private enterprise, where before a feudal lordship profited by taking a share of personal endeavour. The extremes might be Frankfurt school vs serfdom, with various combinations of philosophy in-between.
The evolution of the above has been observed to occur by financial means, but is itself also an ideology. The capitalist side to this ranges from the granting of favours (as per permission to reside) through to fractional lending backed only by national debt (spending). The taxation that must still occur to provide a sense of connectedness to real economy, and hence to provide a sense of value to the currency, punishes the established and functional society. The sum when mispent goes towards recruiting new nationals, and on paying the elite bureaucracy for their pet projects. The old hierarchy tends to maintain much control the private financial sphere, and works with the state by granting it a certain legitimacy, as well as receiving positions, contracts and favours.
The economic zionism you describe is via knowledge of finance, monetary theory, trade, weaknesses in society, political reality and more. It uses international realities as a tool. Where before international banking was a measure of trust in the clearing of accounts, this left room for manipulation, and the ability to pressure by holding control of that accounting. The reality though is that nations (leaders) became weak or corrupted, decided on grand enterprise they could not repay, and so broke trust in the old order by resorting to or accepting manipulation of accounts (for example ending the original European Monetary Union of the 19th century), and eventually resorting to war amongst themselves where outward conquest was no longer profitable enough.
Were, or are they, clients of monopolies though ? Well no, because it is an illusion that anyone holds monopoly of finance or money. However they did commit themselves to a system without which they would then be left weak, where they would lose public honour and respect if they did not produce a result of some kind. The resulting corruption between various sides became a feature of national policy, a kind of symbiosis at elite levels. "Multiculturalism" helps hide that reality, as well as serving in terms of having population with weakened identity at their disposal.
The only monopoly states are truly client to is that of the use of force.
On a more social side, there are corners of the world where various cultures exist well side by side, and where interaction is positive. This even within the boundaries of one country. However it is not that country that makes that work, the different cultures tend to hold a deeper respect and understanding for one another, but if you look you will find that they do keep to themselves voluntarily, and simply reside next to each other peacefully. They don't call themselves multiculti or anything. I expect multiculturalism theoretically could exist, but because it is so artificial a concept, it seems more like an ersatz for loss of own culture, so being sad cheap and empty once trying to celebrate it returns to common day to day reality.
You are right about the correct form being a society that knows itself, that naturally governs and watches over itself. This is often criticised as simplistic or idealised, and the reason for that is that those who seek more centralised control only have the view of putting down vast law as scripture and then forcefully imposing it, they love complexity so as to be those that clarify it. If we live outside of that the rules, and life, are much simpler, and fortunately most people have an innate understanding of right and wrong somewhere. The local culture explains or represents the true form of interaction, so if that becomes confused, so does society, and strife and unhappiness results.
Here is an interesting and very readable explanation on monetary theory, it gives a quite clear explanation of how finance actually works in social and political terms
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-does-fiat-money-seemingly-work.html
ralphieboy , Jun 29, 2019 9:08:22 AM | 130
"Multiculturalism" is a loaded term: if it is used to mean different styles of food, music and dress, then I am all for it. But it does not mean that the host nation should accept misogyny, homophobia, honor killings or other "traditional values" that immigrants bring along.And although immigrants should feel free to speak their language at home and even in society, they will have to accept that the language of the law, commerce, education and civil authority is that of the host nation and it is up to them to learn it or at least learn how to work with or around it.
Jun 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
Jake says: June 20, 2019 at 4:24 pm GMT 300 Words @Cleburne
'Christian Zionism' is the direct fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism broadly understood. Over its life, it has manifested itself in many ways. The beliefs were so powerful even before the Puritan revolution that groups of English Dissenter/Low Church Protestants existed that taught that the original natives of Britain, barbarians in every sense, had been uplifted by the arrival of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel – this was taught to prove that the English had Hebrew blood and so were the Chosen Race, which meant that Anglophone Protestantism (Low Church) was the true faith.
By the dawn of the Victorian age, standard Brit WASP Judaizing had become secular and had discovered that Arabs are also Semites linguistically and culturally. That allowed many of the Brit WASP Elites to adopt Arabs and/or Mohammedanism as their pet Semite to elevate over the vast majority of British Isles natives that they despised.
The religiously pro-Jewish original focus of the culture produced by the Judaizing heresy that was Anglo-Saxon Puritanism was still alive and very powerful at the dawn of the 20th century. That is how the Oxford UP came to publish the Scofield Study Bible.
Churches across the South were remarkably free of any taint of overt Judaizing in the WASP vein until well after WW2. The growth was slow but steady until after the Reagan years, when it exploded. I have seen no signs of a regression in the 21st century.
You also are way off about the economic notions held by rural Evangelicals in the South.
Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Just recently, John Judis, undisguisedly a political commentator of the Left, made an important argument in favor of nationalism. "Nationalist sentiment," he writes in his book The Nationalist Revival , "is an essential ingredient of a democracy, which is based on the assumptions of a common identity, and of a welfare state, which is based on the acceptance by citizens of their financial responsibility for people whom they may not know at all, and who may have widely different backgrounds from theirs."
Of course, nationalism can be "the basis of social generosity or of bigoted exclusion." It is therefore important, according to Judis, that enlightened state leaders push nationalism in the proper direction.
Judis points out that while "globalism" is a force that nationalists understandably oppose, "internationalism" need not clash with nationalist sentiment. In a op-ed in The New York Times last October, Judis praised his kind of nationalism as being beneficial to a successful and growing welfare state and a happier world. It can also be, he said, a stepping stone that leads beyond itself to international cooperation .
For those who study European socialism, it is clear that Judis is reprising the position of French sociologist Pierre Bordieu , who argued for decades that a socialist regime must create some kind of social glue to hold its subjects together. Judis is now transferring Bordieu's view to the American political scene.
AdvertisementNow, a conference on "conservative nationalism," which will take place in Washington in July , may be pushing a "nationalism" that is at least as adaptable as Judis's. One featured speaker , Claire Lehmann, the founder of Quillette, will be talking about how nationalism "is the antidote to racism." Presumably the more inclusive the operative term, the less likely will be the Left's attack on those wielding it.
The presence of Daniel Pipes and other neoconservatives at this gathering also suggests that at least some of the panelists will be offering two approved concepts of nationalism: propositional nationhood for the United States and solidarity with Israeli nationalism. In both cases, however, the nationalism being advocated ends up tied to an aggressive foreign policy.
Nationalism, in any case, means different things for different peoples. It doesn't hold the same meaning for Estonians or Hungarians, who belong to ethnic, historic communities, as it does for a pluralistic country with hundreds of millions of people and a constantly expanding immigrant population.
In the latest issue of the Rassemblement National monthly L'Incorrect , Steve Bannon speaks of the natural fit between European nationalism and the nationalist movement that he has been promoting in the United States. Both these ideologies, Bannon says, derive from the same national principle. In an interview with me in the same publication, I treated Bannon's contention as wishful thinking. The United States has become too diverse and too culturally disunited to fit a traditional national model. Our use of nationalism will likely lead to something less quaint and less organic but more explosive than what comes from the Baltic nationalists or Viktor Orbán.
The Nationalist Delusion The New Nationalism Won't Save the RightThe nationalist label has now fallen into the hands of the neocon establishment, which has managed to identify it with international meddling and a creedal nation. In other words, it's been appropriated by those who already wielded power.
The same protean label is also likely to wander onto the Left, given the nontraditional and very pliable nature of our "nationalism." John Judis may in fact be the harbinger of a new American Left that celebrates nationalism, provided that Left is allowed to define that term for the rest of us. Indeed, it may be possible to frame LGBT rights and reparations for blacks as "nationalist" issues. Nationalism also need not hinder us from letting in lots of undocumented immigrants who are only trying to join our team and learn our values.
Men and women of the interwar Right, down to such later figures as Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet, were understandably critical of American nationalism. They identified it with social engineering and centralized government and preferred localism and regionalism to any justification for an expansionist administrative state.
But what makes American nationalism even more unpalatable now than when Robert Nisbet famously denounced it in The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America is its rhetorical availability. It serves different agendas, depending on which power bloc appeals to it. The hope once entertained by Pat Buchanan that a nationalist cause would help slow down immigration and preserve America's traditional moral and cultural identity has not worked out as planned. Those who control our politics and culture determine the meaning of terms, which is as true of nationalism as it is of other political labels like "freedom" and "equality."
Until recently, nationalism had portentous associations for much of the political class. It signified, rightly or wrongly, ethnocentricity and dislike for outsiders. Now that's all changing. Those in power have tamed the concept and are recycling it for their own purposes. Stay tuned.
Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown College, where he taught for 25 years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale Ph.D. He is the author of 13 books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents .
Jun 13, 2019 | www.theguardian.com
Looks like firms like 23andMe opened the can of worms... Use of genetics to substantiate racist stereotypes
For almost two decades, Farber and his colleagues have advocated for this immigrant community in the face of what they see as targeted discrimination. In cases of marriage, Farber acts as a type of rabbinical lawyer, pulling together documentation and making a case for his clients in front of a board of rabbinical judges. He fears that DNA testing will place even more power in the hands of the Rabbinate and further marginalize the Russian speaking community. "It's as if the rabbis have become technocrats," he told me. "They are using genetics to give validity to their discriminatory practices."
Despite public outrage and protests in central Tel Aviv, the Rabbinate have not indicated any intention of ending DNA testing, and reports continue to circulate in the Israeli media of how the test is being used. One woman allegedly had to ask her mother and aunt for genetic material to prove that she was not adopted. Another man was asked to have his grandmother, sick with dementia, take a test.
Boris Shindler, a political activist and active member of the Russian speaking community, told me that he believes that the full extent of the practice remains unknown, because many of those who have been tested are unwilling to share their stories publicly out of a sense of shame. "I was approached by someone who was married in a Jewish ceremony maybe 15, 20 years ago, who recently received an official demand saying if you want to continue to be Jewish, we'd like you to do a DNA test," Shindler said. "They said if she doesn't do it then she has to sign papers saying she is not Jewish. But she is too humiliated to go to the press with this."
What offends Shindler most is that the technique is being used to single out his community, which he sees as part of a broader stigmatization of Russian speaking immigrants in Israeli society as unassimilated outsiders and second-class citizens. "It is sad because in the Soviet Union we were persecuted for being Jewish and now in Israel we're being discriminated against for not being Jewish enough," he said.
As well as being deeply humiliating, Shindler told me that there is confusion around what being genetically Jewish means. "How do they decide when someone becomes Jewish," he asked. "If I have 51% Jewish DNA does that mean I'm Jewish, but if I'm 49% I'm not?"
May 31, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
Two related tendencies have sown confusion over the crisis of liberalism that continues to unfold across the U.S. and Europe. On the one hand, the forces of the political right are ascendant. Right-wing leaders are being elected as an apparent rebuke of the serial failures of neoliberalism. On the other, the will of the polity is increasingly irrelevant to the formulation and concerns of nominally public policies.
In the U.S., the political establishment continues to put forward candidates which its functionaries appear to believe can best perpetuate this illusion of democracy. Befuddlement at the rise of reactionary forces is met with an increasingly strident insistence that there is nothing to react against, that all is well if people would only shut up and follow the directions of their betters.
Despite the conspicuous failures of the existing order here and abroad -- a series of murderous vanity wars intermingled with economic crises of increasing scale and scope, the seemingly unstoppable trajectory toward full-blown environmental crisis, nuclear weapons that serve as background psychic violence and political economy that is organized to milk the polity dry at every opportunity, the political powers-that-be seek to perpetuate this radically dysfunctional status quo.
In this environment, the rise of illiberal, reactionary forces seems not only predictable, but to be the ugly cousin of the neoliberal resolve that all is well. Adding insult to injury is the insistence that the neoliberal order, the bi-partisan governance that fronts for the oligarchs, bears no responsibility for the consequences of four decades of neoliberal rule. It is the polity's unwillingness to comport with the dictates of rule by and for the oligarchs that is the point of contestation, goes the chide.
An entire functionary class that smiled and nodded approvingly when Bill Clinton launched his 1992 presidential bid at Stone Mountain, Georgia, birthplace of the twentieth century KKK, while standing in front of neatly ordered black prisoners, is mystified by the re-emergence of white nationalism. And while the Clinton / Biden 1994 Crime Bill wasn't exactly a white nationalist manifesto, it inflicted more racially targeted human misery than the late twentieth century Klan ever could have hoped for.
If enacting punitive measures against the poor is separable from the full throated and bi-partisan endorsement of the quasi-market -- heads, the rich win, tails, everyone else loses, economics of neoliberalism, where is the evidence? And how, precisely, does this con recover from the panicked giveaways of 2009 when the ' runway was foamed ' with the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of working people and poor to prevent oligarchs from losing their fifth yacht or their seventh vacation home?
The alternative to the vile misdirection of xenophobia would be for the oligarchs and their servants in the political class to confess that their faux-market economics -- trade agreements that created the asymmetry of mobile capital and immobilized labor, was a tragic mistake that displaced millions of workers for the benefit of the oligarchs. With honest accounting of what happened and who is responsible 'off the table,' xenophobia appears to be the preferred tactic of the oligarchs.
The farce of Democratic Party functionaries shouting 'racist' at the thoroughly predictable fruit of their labors has subsided with the political ascendance of Joe Biden to complicate the line between white nationalism and liberal loathing of the audience it helped create. The neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville were / are white nationalists. But what does this make professional-class liberals who supported the Clinton / Biden 1994 'Crime' Bill under feigned ignorance of its racial subtext?
The sub-textual connotation of the term 'dog whistle' behind the Crime Bill doesn't do justice to the social violence of its facts. The subject-object relation of the political panderer to his / her audience carries with it the moral formulation 1) we agree that overt racism is objectionable because 2) if it weren't, we wouldn't be opaque expressing it. But how is this not to assert that race represents a real, as opposed to manufactured, line of division, something akin to the white nationalist's premise of its essential character?
The dog-whistle is, to the extent that there is an audience for it in the terms given, politically motivated misdirection. The speaker won't be explicit if the audience is clear as to the true meaning of what is being said. But isn't this even more insidious than the straightforward (if ontologically implausible) claim of essential difference by race? The rhetorical layer of 'crime' gives a social logic to a host of punitive consequences. With the Crime Bill, the Clintons and Joe Biden grievously harmed the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of human beings.
There is, of course, a long history behind this relation of law and racial repression. Law, the legislative, judicial, policing and penal functions, was used to maintain the institution of slavery and later, following the Civil War, to recreate its broad contours for purposes of economic taking. Convict leasing, Black Codes, Jim Crow and mass incarceration are part of an historical trajectory. However, to the point made by Adolph Reed, degree matters -- current conditions aren't analogous to those of the Jim Crow South or slavery.
But with this history behind it, what legitimate basis is there for the sub-textual use of a relation of race to criminality? As the patriarch of modern political marketing, did Bill Clinton really believe that there was no racial subtext to his vile stunt at Stone Mountain? More pointedly, through promoting the compound storyline of race and crime, how is Mr. Clinton not promoting a slightly more complex, and insidious, version of white nationalist 'difference?' Alternatively, if crime has a social basis, why would proposed solutions be punitive rather than restorative?
All of this could be ancient history if it didn't exist at the center of current travails. Without an accounting of the failures of liberalism, these compound storylines from history provide the rhetorical core of contemporary politics. It is hardly coincidental that Joe Biden is 1) a dedicated corporatist, 2) a long-time purveyor of racist tropes, 3) the Democrats latest, if improbable, hope for restoration of the neoliberal order.
Joe Biden opposed the racial integration of public schools. He wrote most of the Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill. He was an enthusiastic proponent of NAFTA. He joined the Clintons to support George W. Bush's catastrophic war against Iraq. And he supported the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) until the very end. He authored many, if not most, of the policies of modern liberalism / neoliberalism that are being contested.
By putting Mr. Biden forward as the establishment presidential candidate, the Democrats affirm that they see themselves well-served by reactionary illiberalism. Otherwise, their rhetorical rejections of white nationalism and xenophobia could be supported by robust critiques of their own policies of the last four decades and a well-considered political program to counter their consequences could be put forward. But Mr. Biden is the antithesis of both.
The Democrats co-invented identity politics to defer blame for the consequences of their policies. If they cared about combatting racism and xenophobia, none of the Democratic Party establishment would be considered for public office. The rhetorical distinction between dog whistles and white nationalism begs the question of what objective dog whistles are intended to convey. These aren't precisely the same. Dog whistles are more insidious in that they include compound storylines (e.g. race and criminality) that are more onerous to disentangle.
White nationalism is frightening for its direct ties to the history of racialized violence. However, the scientific racism that served as the 'natural' basis for alleged racial difference used by the Nazis was an American invention. Its proponents were the professional class of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. And the intersection of these two tendencies, the brutal, barely reflexive racial loathing of the Stone Mountain KKK and the educated, liberal use of racist subtexts to facilitate 'respectable' racism amongst the modern professional class, is the apparent point of Bill Clinton's 1992 photo op.
At what point is politics about leading rather than manipulating people via a shared vocabulary? Phrased differently, how is this shared vocabulary not tied to consensus around the logic it represents? So-and-so understands the logic of racism well enough to convey it through coded language and still chooses to perpetuate it for political gain. Why not give his audience the benefit of the doubt and use this understanding to challenge the logic?
The broader backdrop of an ascendant political right in Europe emerges from a similar unwillingness / inability of European liberals / neoliberals to atone for the consequences of their policies and develop alternative political programs. Xenophobia is portrayed as arising from the shadows of twentieth-century European history as a moral failing of the polity rather than the manufactured, and predictable, political crisis that it is.
As with the American refugee 'crisis' arising from U.S. military interventions in Central America, the refugee crisis across Europe is the product of American / NATO led military incursions in the region as well as economic dislocations emerging from the structure of the EU (European Union). One reason why George H.W. Bush decided against occupying Iraq after the first Gulf War was for fear of destabilizing the region. This fear was realized when George W. Bush, with widespread support from the Democratic Party establishment, launched the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq.
Furthermore, as has been addressed ad infinitum over the last decade, through the creation of the EU, member nations exchanged fiscal sovereignty for membership in a trading bloc. When crisis struck, the inability of member nations to respond with fiscal stimulus meant that 'externally' imposed austerity was the only alternative. This flawed structure supported the interests of some member nations (Germany) against those of the European periphery. This institutionalized class warfare, carried out under the cover of fiscal probity, has led to widespread questioning of the nature and purpose of the liberal institutions the EU represents.
Across the U.S. and Europe cottage industries have arisen proclaiming critiques of the EU, globalism and liberalism / neoliberalism to be the work of nascent fascists and neo-fascists. While historical parallels exist, missing is analysis of the parallel failures (then and now) of neoliberal policies as well as a social accounting for the consequences of these failures.
More pointedly, such claims require historical parsing that lacks a cohesive logic outside of political posturing. American slavery and genocide against the indigenous population constituted the initial conditions of American industrial success going into the early twentieth century. Considered in combination with the scientific racism of eugenics, contemporaneous American imperial endeavors and oligarchic control over the U.S. economy going into the Great Depression, the Nazi political program looked remarkably similar to the American program .
Additionally, the genesis of racialized violence in economic relations has been materially misrepresented in current accounts of the rise of European fascism. This history is given substance in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States . Mr. Zinn provides evidence of race being knowingly used by capitalists to divert attention away inconvenient class interests. This history places the modern Democrat's use of identity politics in a different light. Dog whistles and identity politics are premised in pre-existing and concrete racial divisions.
In contrast to white nationalism, these divisions can have a social basis, rather than in 'nature.' This would seem to make racial identity more malleable, and therefore more amenable to being resolved. But as establishment Democrats demonstrated through their use of dog whistles and racialized policies, rhetorical compounding can put a superficially respectable face on racialized violence. The professional class can respond to 'crime' without considering its history as a strategy of racialized economic taking, its genesis in capitalist class relations, or the violence inherent in policing and incarceration.
The Democrat's apparent strategic confusion in putting Joe Biden forward as the establishment candidate should put an end to identity politics as more than cover for the class interests that the Democrats represent. The studied ignorance embedded in the question: 'If we broke up the big banks tomorrow would that end racism' is oblivious to the relationship between Bill Clinton's neoliberal programs and his racially targeted public policies. Given the historical use of racial division as a tool of class control, the correct answer is yes, breaking up the big banks would be a step toward ending racism.
None of this is to pick on the Democrats per se. Republicans have long fostered / aligned with white nationalism. But again, given the historical genesis of the idea of race, what this suggests is that both political parties serve the interests of capital. Moral distinctions between pandering to white nationalists and the use of dog whistles and racially targeted public policies depend on parsing history in ways that the political elevation of Joe Biden calls into question.
The bitter rhetorical battle over the use, or even the theoretical coherence, of identity politics, has had no apparent impact on the Western political establishment's march into the abyss. A quick bet is that part of the political calculus behind the elevation of Mr. Biden is that he wouldn't hesitate to use dog whistles, racially divisive language and xenophobia if he thought it would help him win the election. The conceit that such would only be a tactic was belied when Bill Clinton used it to craft punitive policies like ending welfare and the Crime Bill.
The West, led by liberal / neoliberal establishments, is in a terrible way. As recent European elections demonstrate, the rise of hard-right governments has followed serial public disappointment with their liberal / neoliberal predecessors. Far from being irrational rejection of functioning liberalism, it is the inability of liberals to accept and address the consequences of their own mal-governance that is leading the move rightward.
Bill Clinton's answer to Reaganism was to triangulate Reaganite policies from the right. Joe Biden is a product of this same time, place and ethos. Whomever the Democrat's choice for president ends up being, without a fundamental redistribution of political power, the outcome will be the same -- a long march into the political abyss.
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Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book Zen Economics is published by CounterPunch Books.
May 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Sid Finster says: May 23, 2019 at 11:06 am
Any time you read an article (or a comment) on Russia, substitute the word "Jew" for "Russian" and "International Jewry" for "Russia" and re-read.
If the revised article would not look out of place in Der Stuermer, that should tell you something.
May 27, 2019 | arktos.com
Edward Dutton
Arktos, 2019."Those who advocate Multiculturalism seem to have lost an important instinct towards group -- and thus genetic -- preservation. Once a society, as a whole, espouses Multiculturalism as a dominant ideology then the society is acting against its own genetic interests and will ultimately destroy itself."
Ed DuttonWatching his incredibly entertaining Jolly Heretic You Tube channel, it's easy to forget that Ed Dutton is also an extremely serious, and increasingly prolific, researcher, author, and scientist. The recent publication by Arktos of Dutton's Race Differences in Ethnocentrism follows closely in the wake of Dutton's At Our Wits' End: Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What it Means for the Future (2018), How to Judge People by What They Look Like (2018), J. Phillipe Rushton: A Life History Perspective (2018), and The Silent Rape Epidemic: How The Finns Were Groomed to Love Their Abusers (2019). In Race Differences in Ethnocentrism, Dutton, who has collaborated with Richard Lynn on a number of occasions, builds impressively on the work of the latter and has offered, in this text, one of the most informative, formidable, pressing, intriguing, and poignant monographs I've read in years.
ORDER IT NOWDutton's book is a work of science underscored by an inescapable sense of social and political urgency, and has been explicitly prompted into being by the need to address two questions "particularly salient during a period of mass migration": 'Why are some races more ethnocentric than others?' and, most urgently of all, 'Why are Europeans currently so low in ethnocentrism?' In attempting to answer these questions, Dutton has designed a book that is accessible to readers possessing even the most modest scientific knowledge, without compromising on academic rigor or the use of necessary scientific language. The text is helpfully replete with explanatory commentary and useful rhetorical illustrations, and its opening four chapters are dedicated exclusively to placing the study in context and exploring the nature of the research itself. This is a book that can, and should, be read by everyone.
In the brief first chapter, Dutton explains ethnocentrism or group pride as taking two main forms. The first, positive ethnocentrism, involves "taking pride in your ethnic group or nation and being prepared to make sacrifices for the good of it." Negative ethnocentrism, on the other hand, "refers to being prejudiced against and hostile to members of other ethnic groups." Typically, a highly ethnocentric person or group will demonstrate both positive and negative ethnocentrism, although it is very common for people and groups to be high in one aspect of ethnocentrism but not in the other. It is also apparent that some countries and ethnic groups are very high in both forms of ethnocentrism while others are extremely low in the same. The author sets out to explore how and why such variations and differences have occurred, and are still fluctuating. This is clearly a piece of very novel research. Dutton remarks that "there exists no systematic attempt to understand why different ethnic groups may vary in the extent to which they are ethnocentric." Dutton's foundation is built on a deep reading of existing literature on the origins and nature of ethnocentrism, pioneered to some extent by R. A. LeVine and D. T. Campbell in the 1970s, and built upon most recently by Australia's Boris Bizumic. These scholars advanced the argument that ethnocentrism was primarily the result of conflict. Another highly relevant theory in the study of ethnocentrism has been the concept of 'inclusive fitness,' which argues that ethnocentrism provides a method for indirectly passing on one's genes.
Dutton closes his introductory chapter by providing an interesting overview of historical observations of differences in ethnocentrism. During the so-called 'Age of Discovery,' Europeans encountered large numbers of different and distant tribes, and many remarked on the reception they received from these groups. Some, such as the natives of Hawaii and the Inuit were noted as being extremely friendly, while the negrito tribes of the Andaman Islands, near India, remain notoriously hostile to outsiders, shoot arrows at passing aircraft, and kill intruding foreigners, including an American missionary in November 2018 . The Japanese appear throughout history to have combined a moderate level of negative ethnocentrism with very high levels of positive ethnocentrism, resulting in a society typified by high levels of social harmony and in-group co-operation, and willing sacrifice for the nation in times of war. By contrast, the Yąnomamö tribe of Venezuela are very high in negative ethnocentrism but very low in positive ethnocentrism, resulting in a society riddled with lawlessness, extreme violence, poor social harmony, and an inability to form stable social structures of any kind. Differences in general levels of ethnocentrism are important because, as Dutton points out, those societies most welcoming of outsiders were subsequently colonized and fundamentally and permanently changed by migration. Meanwhile, those societies that displayed extreme hostility to outsiders have remained almost intact, and remain unchanged even centuries after the European 'Age of Discovery.'
In the second chapter, Dutton answers the question 'What is 'Race'?' Although many of our readers will be familiar with most of the material presented in this chapter, it is nevertheless a very well-presented defense of the concept of race and its unabashed employment as a scientific system for categorizing and studying humans. In Dutton's presentation, 'race' is employed to refer to what in the animal kingdom would be a subspecies: a breeding population separated from another of the same species long enough to be noticeably evolved to a different environment but not long enough to be unable to have fertile offspring with the other group. After discussing the processes through which different races or subspecies evolve, Dutton offers a summary of historical taxonomies of race, before finally answering a number of criticisms of the concept of race. In the third chapter, and following much the same framework, Dutton sets out to answer the question, 'What is Intelligence?' Here Dutton answers a number of criticisms of the concept of intelligence, particularly as they relate to Blacks, before moving to a discussion of race differences in intelligence. The debt to Richard Lynn's research is quite clear in this chapter, but Dutton presents past findings with style, conviction, and novel context, meaning that familiar elements such as Cold Winters Theory are worth getting to grips with once more.
The fascinating fourth chapter is where the study begins in earnest, and answers the question 'What Are 'Ethnocentrism' and 'Ethnicity'?' It goes without saying that both terms have entered, if not dominated, the lexicon of White advocacy, and I found it very refreshing to become more familiar with the scientific basis for them. Dutton, referring to the work of Bizumic, notes that the term 'ethnocentrism' was coined by the Polish sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838–1909) before entering English with the work of the American economist William Sumner (1840–1910). In order to better explain the nature of ethnocentrism, Dutton lays out various lexical definitions of ethnicity and discusses competing schools of thought in relation to the origins of ethnicity. The division between scholars of ethnicity can be broadly discussed in terms of two camps: 'Primordialists,' and 'Constructivists' or 'Subjectivists.' Primordialists, representing an older school of thought, assert that ethnic groups are extremely ancient and are ultimately based around common ancestry. Supporting this position, Dutton, borrowing from Frank Salter, points out that genetic data shows that ethnic groups really are distinct genetic clusters. Constructivists, on the other hand, assert that ethnic identities are merely a product of culture and environment, and are therefore arbitrary and subject to change. The author spends a great deal of time dissecting the arguments of the Constructivists and, for me personally, one of the great pleasures of Race Differences in Ethnocentrism is reading as Dutton prods and teases and the manifold weaknesses in the Constructivist position.
The author closes the chapter with an extended discussion of the sociobiological origins of ethnic identity, before providing a summary of proffered causes for ethnocentrism. These include threat and conflict, psychodynamic theory as advanced by Freud, terror management (a variation on the theme of threat and conflict), self-aggrandizement theories (ethnocentrism boosts in-group self-esteem), Marxist theory (ethnocentrism is a tactic employed by one group in order to gain power over, and exploit, another group), social dominance theory (ethnocentrism as a side-effect of certain types of personality), socialization explanations (children learn to be ethnocentric), and the sociobiological model (ethnocentrism is a product of evolution and adaptation). Dutton argues convincingly that only the sociobiological model offers answers which explain group behavior in both animals and humans, arguing that "ethnocentrism is most parsimoniously understood via a partly biological theory wherein the ethnic group is a kind of extended family."
In the fifth chapter, Dutton surveys recent evidence for the sociobiological model of ethnocentrism and ethnicity. At the core of the chapter is J. Philippe Rushton's ' Genetic Similarity Theory ,' which is treated with respect but also caution by the author, who insists that "it does not fully explain all manifestations of ethnocentrism and, accordingly, it needs to be nuanced and carefully developed." Put simply, ' Genetic Similarity Theory ' is the idea that animals will instinctively behave more pro-socially to those who share more of their genes, and that ethnic groups, which are essentially extended families, will demonstrate the same inclination towards the genetically similar in the form of ethnic nepotism. It is this inclination to support the genetically similar that paves the way for 'inclusive fitness' -- indirectly passing on at least some of one's genes by supporting kin -- and thus provides some explanation for the origins of altruism. Rushton provided a great deal of research strongly indicating that humans very much tend to marry, befriend, and otherwise associate with those who are genetically similar to them, and this is succinctly explored. Some controversy surrounds the issue of whether or not ' Genetic Similarity Theory ' is applicable to circles beyond genealogical kin, and Dutton explores the work of Frank Salter in support of the idea that it is indeed applicable. The only criticism of the concept that Dutton concedes is that 'Genetic Similarity Theory' does not fully explain variations in ethnocentrism and therefore does not appear to attribute sufficient weight to environmental factors, especially external threats to the interests of the ethny -- a factor that has demonstrably inflamed ethnocentrism throughout human history. Dutton also suggests that fluctuations in ethnocentrism may also be rooted in the dynamics of human personality, both as humans age, and as far as personality is influenced by 'Life History Strategy.'
ORDER IT NOWThe sixth chapter, 'Ethnocentrism, Personality Traits and Computer Modelling,' focuses in detail on the issue of personality. Dutton explains that "we have to examine the concept of an 'ethnocentric personality' because there are race differences in modal personality. So, if there is an 'ethnocentric personality,' then this would neatly explain why race differences in ethnocentrism exist." Dutton ultimately dismisses the idea of an 'ethnocentric personality,' particularly the work of Adorno on prejudice, as having very little relevance to meaningful research on ethnocentrism. He concludes rather that it seems very likely that "ethnocentrism is not the by-product of a series of partly heritable personality traits." Instead, "ethnocentrism is a human universal and is significantly genetic, in the sense that propensity to genetic similarity is partly genetic." The chapter then moves to the concept of 'group selection,' during which is it explained and demonstrated that ethnocentric groups are more likely to win the battle of group selection. "The more ethnocentric group should always triumph in battles of group selection. This would mean that, all else being equal, races that were compelled, by the nature of their environment, to combat other groups (by being internally cooperative by externally hostile) would be more ethnocentric." Computer modelling of such battles has demonstrated conclusively that ethnocentric strategies will always triumph, leading Dutton to conclude that universalist humanitarianism is ultimately a losing strategy, "unable to sustain high levels of in-group cooperation." Humanitarian groups invariably "waste their precious reproductive potential helping out free riders who give them nothing in return."
In Chapter 7, one of the best and most provocative in the book, Dutton explores the genetics of ethnocentrism. Dutton takes as his starting point the high level of positive and negative ethnocentrism among Northeast Asians, and attempts to find candidate genes that may play a role in producing this situation. Building on research suggesting that oxytocin may contribute to in-group bias by motivating in-group favouritism and, to a lesser extent, out-group hostility, Dutton points to scholarly findings that Northeast Asians disproportionately possess ("much higher than Europeans") genes identified with fear of social exclusion and higher oxytocin levels (A118G – OPRM1). Further research has indicated that the serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) combines with environmental factors to shape in-group bias. Dutton cites studies showing that "70–80 percent of an East Asian sample carried the short form of this gene, that is to say the form that makes you more ethnocentric. Only 40–45 percent of Europeans in the sample carried the short form of the gene. Indeed, it was found that across twenty-nine nations, the more collectivist a culture was the more likely it was to have the short form as the prevalent allele in the population." Dutton adds that his own work found such correlations to be weak, and he is reluctant to attribute ethnocentrism to small numbers of specific genes. He instead finishes the chapter with the suggestion that specific genes such as these may play a small role, but only in conjunction with Life History Theory -- for example, he provides data suggesting that populations with Slow Life History strategies (typified by higher intelligence, delayed gratification, and higher investment in children) are likely to be higher in positive ethnocentrism.
In Chapter 8, Dutton presents data on race differences in ethnocentrism, and he then explores the impact of cousin marriage and religion on ethnocentrism. The chapter opens with a very interesting discussion of racial dating preferences derived from the OKCupid dating site. The data suggest that, at least in sexual terms, White women were the most ethnocentric group, overwhelmingly preferring to date men from their own ethnic group. By contrast, most non-White groups seemed to have a preference for dating Whites. Dutton explains that this data cannot be meaningfully employed in the study of ethnocentrism because the fact non-Whites want to have sex with Whites merely means that "Whites have value." He continues: "this does not, of course, mean that black people would be necessarily more inclined to lay down their lives for white people, show preference for white interests over those of their own race, vote for whites over members of their own race or any other behaviour of that kind that might be regarded as low in ethnocentrism." Dutton instead utilizes the 'World Values Survey' as a more reliable indicator of ethnocentric feeling, and finds that East Asians are among the most ethnocentric populations. At this stage, the author returns to Genetic Similarity Theory, pointing out that the East Asian gene pool is much smaller than the European gene pool -- in other words, two random Japanese men will be more closely related than two random English men. This is important because
any act of ethnic altruism by the Japanese man would have a greater payoff in terms of inclusive fitness than would precisely the same act by an Englishman. As such, we would expect higher levels of positive ethnocentrism among Northeast Asians than among Europeans. By the same token, were a Japanese person to be confronted by a foreigner, this would potentially damage his genetic interests to a greater extent than would be the case if a European, from a larger gene pool, was confronted by a foreigner.
Genetic Similarity Theory, as outlined above, is particularly salient in Dutton's discussion of ethnocentrism among Arabs and South Asians, populations with high levels of cousin marriage. Arabs and South Asians are more ethnocentric than Europeans but, unlike East Asians, the nature of Arab and South Asian ethnocentrism tends more towards negative ethnocentrism -- something Dutton links to relatively lower average intelligence. Consanguineous marriage, itself a response to a stressful and/or conflict-riven ecology and a means of developing a functioning society in populations with Fast Life History strategies, will accelerate and deepen negative ethnocentrism.
This phenomenon is deepened further by high levels of religiosity, which, Dutton argues, has been demonstrated as boosting both positive and negative ethnocentrism. Among the aspects of religion that contribute to ethnocentrism and group selection, Dutton cites high levels of fertility, matrimony, physical punishment of children, bodily mutilation, honor killing, martyrdom, celibacy, and intense violence or enmity directed at non-believers. I found Dutton's work here to be especially interesting, though I was left with some significant questions about the nature of modern Christianity, something disappointingly absent from Dutton's text despite his rich background in the study of Christian fundamentalists. Why is modern Christianity so entirely lacking in ability to promote any kind of ethnocentrism? My own instinct is that it has something to do with the development and spread of the belief in a "personal Jesus," a largely nineteenth-century American innovation, rather than the older belief in folding oneself into a community of believers under a more distant and overarching God of nations. But this would require an essay, or several, to fully articulate, rather than an aside in a book review. It should suffice to state here that more detail or illustration from Dutton in this regard would have been most welcome.
Dutton spends several pages discussing Jewish ethnocentrism, and is appreciative of the work of Kevin MacDonald in this area. Jews are clearly very high in positive ethnocentrism, as demonstrated by very high levels of in-group philanthropy, belief in themselves as members of a Chosen People with a special world-historical destiny, and the prolific production of self-congratulatory and apologetic literature about themselves that is frequently accompanied by a widespread refusal to make any concessions on negative aspects of the history of the ethnic group. Jews have also distinguished themselves throughout history with very high levels of negative ethnocentrism, including their genocides of other peoples (real or imagined) in their religious texts, very negative portrayals of non-Jews in their religious commentaries, frequent outbursts against Greek cultural influence in the Classical period, exploitative economic relationships with Europeans since at least the Carolingian dynasty, the preference for suicide over conversion in the Medieval period, high levels of culturally disruptive behaviors among host populations in the modern period, and most recently their extraordinarily hostile treatment of the Palestinians. This can be partly explained, as Dutton points out, by the highly consanguineous nature of the Jews. For example, "it has been found that the world's 10 million Ashkenazi Jews are all descended from about 350 Ashkenazi Jews who found themselves in Eastern Europe about the year 1400." High levels of inbreeding have led to the noted prevalence of several genetic disorders among the Jews, including Tay-Sachs Disease, Gaucher's Disease, and Riley-Day Syndrome. Dutton argues that Jews would have been more ethnocentric than Europeans from the earliest stages of their settlement in Europe, and that this ethnocentrism would have been deepened even further over historical time, in successive cycles, by their continued breeding within a small gene pool (intensifying the impact of Genetic Similarity Theory) and their presence in a high stress environment typified by periodic outbursts of reactive persecution (resulting in "harsh selection" for the most ethnocentric Jews). Dutton then discusses the findings of one study carried out by developmental psychologists, in which it was found that Israeli infants displayed unusually intense fear reactions in response to strangers when compared with North German infants. Whereas the North German infants had relatively minor reactions to strangers, the Israeli infants became "inconsolably upset."
The author brings his eighth chapter to a close with a discussion of low ethnocentrism among Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans. Low ethnocentrism among Africans is explained briefly via their very pronounced r -strategy, resulting in low rates of consanguineous marriage and a much broader gene pool and genetic diversity . On the other hand, Europeans, argues Dutton, occupy a 'Goldilocks Zone' of very low ethnocentrism because they are less K -selected than East Asians, have a larger gene pool, and their environment is less harsh, leading to lower levels of group selection. There appears to be a position on the r – K spectrum, lower than East Asian K strategies, where cousin marriage is selected for (boosting ethnocentrism) and this position is occupied by Arabs and South Asians rather than Whites, who instead occupy a position below East Asians but above Arabs and South Asians. The trade-off for this relatively weakened position of Europeans is that for a population with moderate-to-high intelligence, "low ethnocentrism would permit a greater ability to trade and pool resources and so, ultimately, the creation of an extremely large coalition with a very large gene pool. This group would be more likely than a smaller group to produce geniuses."
Dutton thus argues that, in a sense, some level of selection took place for low ethnocentrism in Europeans -- a "genius" group evolutionary strategy. Dutton argues that groups with high levels of genius but low levels of ethnocentrism will triumph over groups with high levels of ethnocentrism but low levels of genius so long as certain conditions are met. The most important condition is that the genius group should maintain a basic level of ethnocentrism. Should this base level decline or collapse, the genius strategy would fail and highly ethnocentric groups would eventually dominate. European ethnocentrism has clearly been stronger in the past than it is at present, a fact the author very capably discusses within the framework of broader fluctuations in ecology (especially the advent of the industrial revolution) and ongoing evolutions in race itself.
In Chapter 9, Dutton explores in detail several variables that may impact ethnocentrism at individual and group level. Highly stressful situations in which survival is at risk have been shown to boost ethnocentrism, and researchers have found that playing violent video games is even sufficient to increase aggression to perceived out-groups. Mortality salience, or the fear of death, has also been shown to lead people to believe in a way which is highly defensive of their in-group. Although Dutton does not explore the theme in any great depth, I was moved to reflect on how anti-stress Western civilization has become during the last 60 or so years, not only in terms of industrialization, radically lowered infant mortality, and medical advances (all of which Dutton explores), but also in the extraordinary emphasis placed by modern culture on individual transient pleasures and prolonging youth (and therefore delaying or avoiding confronting death). Decadence, which is what such a culture essentially decays into, is therefore obstructive or oppositional to the development of ethnocentrism, and 'weaponized decadence' therefore strikes me as a particularly useful strategy that could be employed by a highly ethnocentric group with significant cultural influence in a host society with pre-existing moderate-to-low levels of ethnocentrism -- a way of pushing a stronger "genius evolutionary strategist" into a fatally lower level of ethnocentrism and thus, ultimately, into defeat and destruction. Other variables impacting upon levels of ethnocentrism, and discussed by Dutton, include age, gender, pregnancy, intelligence and education, and ethnic diversity.
ORDER IT NOWI found the last of these the most salient. Dutton, following from Vanhanen and Salter, argues that multi-ethnic societies are much less capable of successfully defending themselves against incursion from outsiders. This is for three key interrelated reasons. The first is lower levels of trust, as sapped confidence in one's group leads to radically fewer sacrifices on behalf of the group. The second is that a multi-ethnic society will be able to draw on significantly lower reserves of positive ethnocentrism. The third is that ethnic minorities will tend to support immigration, essentially acting as a fifth column; allies to the outsiders engaged in incursion. So much for the "diversity is our greatest strength" mantra.
In the penultimate chapter, Dutton makes the argument that the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for European ethnocentrism. Industrialization has significantly reduced human ecological stress in the West, and has accelerated the decline of European religion -- one of the key supports for an already low level of European ethnocentrism. Advances in medicine and developments in the welfare state have led to wholesale dysgenic impacts such as the extraordinary rise in numbers of people with moderate to severe genetic disorders (26 percent increase in hemophilia, 22 percent increase in cystic fibrosis, and a 300 percent increase in phenylketonuria). The author posits that the increased proliferation of unhealthy mutations has further precipitated the decline of healthy instincts rooted in healthy genes that promoted survival (on a related note, it is interesting that those identified as ethnocentric score very highly in disgust sensitivity -- a trait associated with disease avoidance ). Dutton and some of his colleagues have come to describe such negative mutations as "spiteful mutations" which "cause people to act against their own genetic interests." He continues:
If [carriers of 'spiteful genes'] influence society, they can persuade even non-carriers of these 'spiteful' genes to act in self-destructive ways and they can undermine structures -- such as religion -- which help to promote group interests. Woodley of Menie et al. call this 'social epistasis.' As a consequence, modern (liberal) religion and ideology -- far from being an indirect means of genetic preservation -- would in fact reflect a sick society's growing desire to destroy itself. An obvious example can be seen in the ideology of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness.
In Dutton's reading of our present situation then, the worst of our traitors are in fact what perhaps Nietzsche was referring to when he condemned "the botched and the bungled" -- malformed and maladapted offspring eager for self-destruction, and dragging the healthy down with them.
The final, brief, chapter of Race Differences in Ethnocentrism offers a neat summary of the findings and central arguments of the book before ending on a warning and offering some meagre light at the end of the tunnel. The warning is clear:
Europe is increasingly allowing into its borders people who are extremely high in ethnocentrism as predicted by their high levels of religiousness, low median age, their practice of cousin marriage, low average intelligence, and (likely) low mutational load. We have noted that the ethnocentric strategy will, eventually, tend to dominate all other strategies in the battle for group survival. Alternate strategies can also work, such as the development of large and highly inventive coalitions, but these cannot last if they promote ideologies which are actively to the detriment of their genetic interests, as it happening with Political Correctness, which actively promotes an effective destruction of European people.
And yet this may be a night that is necessary before the dawn, as Europeans are once more plunged into a cleaning cauldron of harsh, selective conditions:
We are now living under these conditions. But it will be the collapse of [European] civilisation and power that will likely lead, many years hence, to their becoming more ethnocentric once again.
It is the humbling, unenviable, and largely thankless task of websites like The Occidental Observer
- obwandiyag says: May 24, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT Oh, positive ethnocentrism is all well and good. It's just that you have to ignore how rotten the actual individual members of your own group that you actually know are. Then, it's pride all the way! Read More • Replies: @Endgame Napoleon , @Anon , @Parsnipitous Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Colin Wright says: • Website May 24, 2019 at 3:23 am GMT • 100 Words ' By contrast, the Yąnomamö tribe of Venezuela are very high in negative ethnocentrism but very low in positive ethnocentrism, resulting in a society riddled with lawlessness, extreme violence, poor social harmony, and an inability to form stable social structures of any kind.'
It would be a cruder version of Israel, then. Read More • Replies: @AaronB Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Colin Wright says: • Website May 24, 2019 at 3:51 am GMT • 200 Words ' "The more ethnocentric group should always triumph in battles of group selection '"
At least in the short term, this would seem questionable.
At one extreme, consider the US from 1780 to about 1970. By very willingly accepting and incorporating newcomers, it increased in size roughly fifty-fold, and grew to be the most powerful state in the world. Our subsequent history demonstrates that it's possible to have too much of a good thing, but
At the other extreme, consider Jews -- a group very assiduously devoted to preserving its group identity, and not at all interested in absorbing outsiders. Over the last century, roughly a third have been exterminated, another third are rapidly being assimilated in the US notwithstanding their efforts at self-preservation, and the last third have decided the course of wisdom is to pack themselves into a strip of semi-desert and attack all their neighbors without actually crushing any of them.
Whatever the failings of the strategy of the US, it's far from demonstrated that the opposite course makes for an improvement. Read More • Replies: @Wally , @notanon2 , @RobRich , @John Gruskos Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Ron Unz says: May 24, 2019 at 4:01 am GMT • 200 Words Well, most of the article was pretty interesting. But I'm quite skeptical about this claim:
Dutton instead utilizes the 'World Values Survey' as a more reliable indicator of ethnocentric feeling, and finds that East Asians are among the most ethnocentric populations.
This doesn't really make any sense. Until the last hundred years or so, I'd guess that something like 99% of Han Chinese had almost never even *seen* a non-Han during their entire lives, and that was also true for almost all of their ancestors for many, many centuries. Probably the same for Japanese and Koreans.
But if you and almost all of your ancestors have lived all of their lives in a nearly 100% ethnically-pure social environment, how would any tendencies toward ethnocentricity ever evolve or be maintained? Wouldn't they be about as useful as wings on a gopher?
In support of this theoretical framework, isn't it an empirical fact that China has always been one of the most "absorptive" nations in the world, with some of the lowest barriers to ethnic intermarriage and assimilation? That's why the Chinese have absorbed so many other groups over the millennia, including all the groups that conquered them.
Moreover, there's that famous dictate by Confucius that foreigners who come to China and act like Chinese should be considered Chinese. Indeed, I think you could make a reasonable case that China is the world's oldest "Propositional Nation." Read More • Agree: Godfree Roberts , Mr. XYZ • Replies: @Thulean Friend , @micheal8 , @AaronB , @notanon2 , @Anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Colin Wright says: • Website May 24, 2019 at 4:03 am GMT • 100 Words ' "it has been found that the world's 10 million Ashkenazi Jews are all descended from about 350 Ashkenazi Jews who found themselves in Eastern Europe about the year 1400." '
Given the large Jewish populations expelled from Britain, France, and the German states in previous centuries, this statement seems almost fantastically improbable. Surely there were more than 350 Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe in 1400, and surely more than 350 of them contributed to the genes of the modern population of Ashkenazim. This leaves aside the visible resemblance of German Jews to Gentile Germans, of Polish Jews to Gentile Poles, etc -- and the implications of that. Read More • Replies: @Ron Unz , @Johnny Rottenborough , @notanon2 , @Anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Ron Unz says: May 24, 2019 at 4:23 am GMT • 200 Words @Colin Wright
' "it has been found that the world's 10 million Ashkenazi Jews are all descended from about 350 Ashkenazi Jews who found themselves in Eastern Europe about the year 1400." '
Given the large Jewish populations expelled from Britain, France, and the German states in previous centuries, this statement seems almost fantastically improbable.
I'm not up on the latest genetic research, but it does sound a little garbled
From what I recall seeing a decade or so ago, almost European Jews are descended from the offspring of a few hundred Middle Eastern males and Northern Italian females who lived around 500-800 AD (the date was disputed and it's also fuzzy in my memory).
However, by the time the Jews established themselves in Eastern Europe, perhaps around 1000 AD or later, there were probably some tens of thousands of them.
So maybe new scientific findings have updated the history or (more likely) the writer is getting the two different foundation events mixed up. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Endgame Napoleon says: May 24, 2019 at 4:42 am GMT @obwandiyag Glorifying other groups doesn't help to purify your own group, either. Humans are "all too human," as the man said. Where is BatMan when you need him? He is enjoying himself in Gotham & Gomorra. Read More • LOL: Tusk Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [932] • Disclaimer says: May 24, 2019 at 5:42 am GMT @obwandiyag Ignoring that is harder for some groups who are lousy with rotten members (nearly everyone). Other groups merely have to deal with an unavoidable standard deviation that is part of the human condition. Those groups invented advanced prison systems, long ago, along with the rest of advanced civilization. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [932] • Disclaimer says: May 24, 2019 at 5:52 am GMT • 200 Words Ethnocentrism is about two things: psychological health and political protection.
That humans require identity and belonging, things that by definition require barriers, isn't debatable in terms of their salubrious effects on the individual's mental health.
Humans require political protection from other groups. Humans without political or other protection that arises from the in-group traditionally had de facto or actual slave status in the presence of other groups. The same is true today.
Slavers, with slaver religions, push for an end to out-group ethnocentrism for their desired slaves because it eradicates that group's ability to politically or physically defend themselves in an effective manner. Due to lack of effective in-group cooperation.
Those resisting slavery should always work to build a deep and single ethnic culture and the genetic in-group that it incubates over time.
Once this is formed, political power will follow via the deep in-group cooperation that this genetically and culturally deeply linked group encourages.
Self-protection, independence, and self determination are all attainable thereafter. All which are correctly seen as fundamental Human Rights.
Those that fail to cooperate effectively enough, even when allowed their ethnocentrism, will continue to be controlled by out-groups. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- Johnny Rottenborough says: • Website May 24, 2019 at 10:39 am GMT • 100 Words @Colin Wright Colin Wright -- Haaretz carried the story in 2014:
Read More • Replies: @res , @Colin Wright Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All CommentsA model based on the genetic sequencing of 128 Ashkenazi Jews concludes that today's Ashkenazim descend from the fusion of European and Middle-Eastern Jews during the medieval era, between 600 to 800 years ago.
The math also indicates that today's sprawling community of Ashkenazi Jews -- there are more than 10 million around the world -- derived from just 350 people or so.
- Sean McBride says: May 24, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMT • 100 Words How would one go about ranking contemporary nations by intensity or degrees of ethnocentrism?
How would one go about ranking groups, organizations, individuals, social networks and publications by intensity or degrees of ethnocentrism?
Could one use automated methods to produce and update these rankings in real time by tracking and mining social media and all media in general?
One obvious approach: count up the number of times an agent mentions its ethnic identity, issues, problems, enemies, etc. in its communications.
Questions that would be interesting to answer: which are the most ethnocentric groups in contemporary American politics? In contemporary European politics? In contemporary global politics?
Which are the most significant and strategic ethnic conflicts in contemporary global politics? Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- res says: May 24, 2019 at 7:43 pm GMT • 200 Words @Johnny Rottenborough Here is the underlying paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5835
One issue here is that the effective population size may be (much) less than the census population size at any given time. This page gives some reasons for that:
http://www.uwyo.edu/dbmcd/molmark/lect07/lect7.htmlFor some perspective, 10,000 is commonly quoted as the effective population size for modern humans based on https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0016672310000558
(with most of that variation coming from Africa).
This more recent paper gives a range of 622 to 10,437: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21450133It would be good to hear from a real population geneticist about this. This graphic from the first link above seems to indicate much larger effective population sizes than the other two links. Note that AJ = Ashkenazi Jewish and FL = Flemish.
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- Colin Wright says: • Website May 25, 2019 at 2:55 am GMT • 200 Words @Johnny Rottenborough 'Colin Wright -- Haaretz carried the story in 2014:
A model based on the genetic sequencing of 128 Ashkenazi Jews concludes that today's Ashkenazim descend from the fusion of European and Middle-Eastern Jews during the medieval era, between 600 to 800 years ago.
The math also indicates that today's sprawling community of Ashkenazi Jews -- there are more than 10 million around the world -- derived from just 350 people or so.'
Then either (a) Haaretz inaccurately reported the results of the research, or (b) the research itself was flawed.
Enough historical data exists so that we effectively know all Ashkenazim were not descended solely from 350 ancestors living between 600 and 800 years ago.
If I announced that a genetic study showed that all whites currently living in America were descended from four hundred Irishmen present in New York City in 1860, would you believe it?
since most of us don't clearly understand genetics or how research into it is conducted, there's a tendency to accept any stated result as certain truth, handed down at Mount Sinai.
Actually, I suspect -- and some of the results proferred imply -- it's no more certain than anything else. Read More • Disagree: Ron Unz Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Wally says: May 25, 2019 at 6:43 am GMT • 100 Words @Colin Wright said:
" consider Jews Over the last century, roughly a third have been exterminated"Complete Zionist horseshit that has not, cannot be proven.
Jews have been lying about '6,000,000 dead Jews' since the early 19th century.
No wonder that it's called The Big Lie .
"No alleged human remains of millions to be seen in allegedly known locations, no 'holocaust'."
See Colin Wright & his curious fantasies demolished in the comments here:
American Pravda: Holocaust Denial , by Ron Unz: http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-holocaust-denial/http://www.codoh.com Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- VUU THE GREAT says: May 25, 2019 at 8:47 pm GMT • 100 Words Eh, it's the superiority-cuckery cycle
A bunch of dumbasses start being punished for their idiocy, forcing them to adapt and become smart. Then they strut around the world like they own the place, but then relax, become cucked and then regress to the start. At that point another group is on it's rise, or it's a dark age until the same group starts over Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- Bardon Kaldian says: May 25, 2019 at 10:24 pm GMT • 100 Words
Dutton then discusses the findings of one study carried out by developmental psychologists, in which it was found that Israeli infants displayed unusually intense fear reactions in response to strangers when compared with North German infants. Whereas the North German infants had relatively minor reactions to strangers, the Israeli infants became "inconsolably upset."
Interesting.
By the way, a very good review &, as far as I can tell, an intriguing book. Read More • Agree: Thulean Friend , anon19 • Replies: @AaronB Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Thulean Friend says: May 27, 2019 at 4:40 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz
isn't it an empirical fact that China has always been one of the most "absorptive" nations in the world, with some of the lowest barriers to ethnic intermarriage and assimilation? That's why the Chinese have absorbed so many other groups over the millennia, including all the groups that conquered them.
These foreigners have been Mongolians, Manchu etc. People who are closely related kin. It's like various tribes of Europe absorbing each other and forming greater nations.
It's qualitively different when you talk about people who look radically different from you, because that implies the genetic distance is also far greater. There is no reason to assume that North East Asians are on par with Northern Europeans in their low ethnocentrism, though it is likely lower than many assume since intermarriage rate with Whites is quite high (but only really with Whites. Whereas Whites mix with a lot of groups). Read More • Replies: @Ron Unz , @david fields Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- anon19 says: May 27, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT All races, except for brainwashed-by-Jews, unorganized whites are extremely ethnocentric. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- Cyrano says: May 27, 2019 at 5:03 am GMT • 200 Words I don't think I buy this theory about low European ethnocentricity at all. I think it's all the rich degenerate elites who are to blame for the "decline" in ethnocentricity.
The rich degenerates think that being rich is their ethnicity – and the only one worth defending – not some genetic similarity with the great unwashed whom they despise.
That's why they invented that most humane of all altruisms – multiculturalism – because it defends their ethnicity based on money, to hell with genetically based ethnicity.
I think that ordinary Europeans are as ethnocentric as they always were, someone else is expanding their ethnic acceptance against their will in order to preserve their financial ethnocentricity.
And first of all why blame the Europeans – like they were the ones who invented multiculturalism? If European civilization is going to collapse – it's not going to happen in Europe first – it's going to happen in the birthplace of multiculturalism. Read More • Replies: @Wizard of Oz , @notanon2 , @Anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Ron Unz says: May 27, 2019 at 5:26 am GMT • 100 Words @Thulean Friend
These foreigners have been Mongolians, Manchu etc. People who are closely related kin. It's like various tribes of Europe absorbing each other and forming greater nations.
It's qualitively different when you talk about people who look radically different from you, because that implies the genetic distance is also far greater.
At least with regard to China, I just don't think that's correct
As far as I know, Westerners who've moved to China and taken up Chinese wives and Chinese customs have been absorbed as easily as other Asians.
And here's a notable historical example. For various reasons, Jews have traditionally been exceptionally resistant to absorption into local populations, remaining as a distinct group sometimes after thousands of years of living within a particular host population. But China absorbed its Jews long ago, being just about the only documented case that easily comes to mind. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker , @Wizard of Oz , @Thulean Friend , @j2 , @Anon , @AaronB , @Anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Roderick Spode says: May 27, 2019 at 5:26 am GMT
at least in sexual terms, White women were the most ethnocentric group, overwhelmingly preferring to date men from their own ethnic group.
So many Unzers BTFO here Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- Wizard of Oz says: May 27, 2019 at 5:37 am GMT • 100 Words @Cyrano Aren't you mistaken in attributing multiculturalism to the rich? Certainly they don't participate in it as perhaps you imply when you say that being rich is their ethnicity. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife are perhaps typical , and, I would suggest, not people of different cultures but from one which is not that of the rich but of the upper middle class educated. Perhaps you are suggesting that people like that underrate the importance of differences in culture that isn't actually part of their experience and therefore rather softheadedly say "each to his own" in libertarian style without understanding what they are thereby encouraging amongst the lower classes. Could you spell out your case please? Read More • Replies: @Cyrano Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 27, 2019 at 5:52 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz RON
Ashkenazi Jews appear to be 40-50% Italian according to DNA tests on the female side.
Which means at some point following the diaspora from Judea in Roman times there was a massive degree of intermarriage between Jewish men and Roman women prior to the fall of Rome.
Also, considering that Jews trace their origins through their mothers, one would think that they would all consider themselves Italians.
So they Jews had to absorb non-Jews into their gene pool at some point.
As for Westerners assimilating into Chinese culture, this is relatively commonplace. A small number of Portuguese live in Macau and of course there are more recent examples. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Wizard of Oz says: May 27, 2019 at 6:05 am GMT • 300 Words @Ron Unz I have hardly even a vague knowledge of China's absorption of Jews (and haven't, I confess, asked Google an obvious, let alone probing, question). But what you say raises the question of how much more impressed with Chinese culture, custom and governance the Jews in China were than the Jews elsewhere. Dark Ages Europe (and the ME) with Christian mobs destroying ancient art and learning may not have looked good compared with Tang or Sung dynasty China (though I invite someone to tell me about differences within China in those times). Alternatively one might ask whether the Jews in Europe were only clinging to Judaism through desperately strict reliance on the/a Talmud which helped maintain separation whereas the Jews in China may have been free of that limiting influence. Compare indeed the rapidity with which Jews in America, not least, I believe, the poor of Eastern Europe, began to assimilate at least in so far as intermarriage implies assimilation. To that plenty of grouches would no doubt point to Jewish corruption of what the grouches would like to think of as the culture they were assimilating with (whereas I am more a "Jewish Century" interpreter) but my emphasis would tend to be rather on the division and, for a time, arrested development, of American Jewry by the creation of Israel and its drawing on people's need for tribalism and at least equal need to have an object or ideal beyond themselves. (Isn't being a good American enough? Well, hardly, when you are a prosperous part of the one superpower .). I suspect assimilation is going to win. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Ghali says: May 27, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT Dutton's book has NO science. It is a fabricated lie that relies on racism and prejudice. Multicultural societies are the opposite of monocluturals; they are rich in diversity and culture. Just like monoagriculture, monocultural societies are empty of all the organic ingredients. Read More • Disagree: Robert Dolan • Replies: @Anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Thulean Friend says: May 27, 2019 at 6:27 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz
Westerners who've moved to China and taken up Chinese wives and Chinese customs have been absorbed as easily as other Asians.
What percentage are they of the total population? 0.01%? Hardly relevant as an example.
China absorbed its Jews long ago, being just about the only documented case that easily comes to mind.
Jews in China were always an extremely small minority, several orders of magnitudes lower than in leading Western countries as a percentage of the population. Harder to build buffers in such an environment. Also, I would take issue with your characterisation of Jews as unable to assimilate. Non-Orthodox Jews in the US have an intermarriage rate of 72%. The rabbis are constantly reminding us of the 'silent holocaust'. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 6:49 am GMT very interesting
Why is modern Christianity so entirely lacking in ability to promote any kind of ethnocentrism?
50+ years of sustained media attack.
the only defense against television is a television station of your own. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT @Colin Wright with Jews very concentrated in urban areas i would have thought the Black Death could have caused a bottleneck like that (as the plague didn't reach Poland for some reason).
map of spread of black death
note big gap in Poland Read More • Replies: @Republic Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 7:32 am GMT @Colin Wright
At least in the short term, this would seem questionable.
the simulations used to study this set a level playing field so it won't be true in all real world situations. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- j2 says: May 27, 2019 at 8:10 am GMT • 400 Words @Ron Unz Ron, the claim, when correctly understood, is correct also concerning China. Chinese are especially negative towards Blacks, anybody with dark skin color. (They think Blacks smell bad.) They appreciate white skin color. They avoid tanning and use whitening creams. Yes, they absorb Whites, including Jews, but they are ethnocentric towards other peoples.
I have this kind of a small theory why this is so. Consider a trait, like intelligence, being not a product of additive gene alleles, but by a combination of favorable alleles of several genes. We can assume the combinations are mostly two gene combinations. Assume a population has two alleles of each two genes (A,a and B,b) with A,a and B,b being each of 50% frequency, and one combination AB raises the trait. Thus, 1/4 of the population has AB. Mixing this population with a population with two other alleles for these genes, D,d and E,e, produces a population where the trait increasing combinations, AB and DE, occur in 1/8 of the population. Thus, the average of the trait decreases from mixing.
From this one can conclude that populations with a large number of alleles increasing the trait has a lower average on the trait, like IQ in Sub Saharan Africa. In SSA genetic diversity is high and thus there are many alleles of all genes. While in East Asia genetic diversity is lower than in Europe and the IQ trait is higher. Indeed, if we plot genetic diversity against average IQ we should get more or less a Piffer plot, a straight line. This would come from a PGS being not additive but a combination of pairs of two (or more) IQ genes. To support this idea, notice that additive positive alleles should make a sweep and become fixed and the variance at the both ends of the trait should be small because the distribution converges to normal. But this is not so, we do not have populations with average IQ of 150, while we have very tall or very short dog races produced by selection. It indicates that the height trait is additive but IQ is not additive.
From this idea it follows that ethnocentrism is higher in populations with low genetic diversity, average values of traits are higher in populations with low genetic diversity (as natural selection cannot act if diversity is high: descendants too seldom inherit the trait of the parents). It would follow that East Asians are ethnocentric, have a higher IQ and low diversity. They would still like to mix with people possessing the trait they admire (white skin), so it is not a contradiction. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- RobRich says: • Website May 27, 2019 at 8:36 am GMT • 100 Words @Colin Wright Good point. As libertarians point out the US grew 30-fold with relatively open borders then tripled that with variations of the current more restrictive but open to extended family/high achievers (Have a close relative, great invention or a million bucks to invest in the US? To the head of the line! Otherwise take a number, BTW the waiting list is 100 years long–good luck!) still pretty open compared to most countries. By 1970 is was near a 100-fold, not 50-fold, growth, so your case is even better. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Republic says: May 27, 2019 at 11:04 am GMT
Some, such as the natives of Hawaii and the Inuit were noted as being extremely friendly,
Didn't Capt.Cook get killed and eaten by those "friendly," natives of Hawaii? Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- micheal8 says: May 27, 2019 at 12:32 pm GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz There are lots of apocryphal data saying many things about the Chinese over history.
Of course, in the US of 330 million people at least 46.6 million are foreign born (by far the highest number of any country, according to Wikipedia).
China has a population of a billion or so, but less than a million foreign born. This despite the dramatic improvement in their culture and economics.
So over 14% of the US population are foreign born vs 0.1% of Chinese. One can argue as to the basis for this difference, but almost all nations are restrictive on accepting immigrants, unless they provide value.
Would seem the Chinese are similar to the Japanese (who are now absorbing more foreigners due to a shortage of young workers), who will not tolerate big changes in their society or mores unless brought about internally. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments- Catiline says: May 27, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT Andrew Joyce are you back on Twitter? Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 27, 2019 at 12:45 pm GMT • 100 Words @Wizard of Oz WIZARD
While coming from a similarly ancient civilization I suspect Jews found less ability to trade or profit in China than Europe which is why less of them gravitated there than to Europe.
Jews did not really make much of an impact in India either.
I suspect that because money-lending was never a crime in China or India, there was not much of living in either of those countries for Jews compared to Europe where they thrived.
Jews in America arrived as Edison was inventing the film camera and industrialization required many lawyers, bankers and so on. China never needed these. Read More • Replies: @Wizard of Oz Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- david fields says: May 27, 2019 at 12:56 pm GMT • 200 Words @Thulean Friend I tend to agree with Unz, that Chinese are quite open to mixing with and/or assimilating other ethnic groups. Apart from the well-known examples of Manchus and Mongols, a large community of Jews migrated to China during the Middle Ages and settled in Kaifeng, China where they gradually and non-violently assimilated. If one observes the behavior of Chinese-Americans in the U.S., a large plurality if not a majority marry Caucasians within one or two generations, usually with little opposition from their families.
For a literary work that touches on of this Chinese cultural trait, I refer readers to James McKenna's excellent novel, "The Sandpebbles", which was based on his experience in the U.S. Navy in China in the 1920s. At that time was not unusual for retiring navy enlisted men to settle down in China, often with a Chinese woman. To paraphrase a line from the novel, 'For the Chinese, it's quite natural for a foreigner to become a Chinese'. Read More • Replies: @the grand wazoo Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 27, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT • 300 Words @Colin Wright Astute observation.
Ethnocentrism is not a directly selected for thing – it is unfortunate that HBD promoters no longer understand second-order effects.
To HBD people, every trait is a simplistic directly selected for thing, not a second or third order effect of some other trait.
This is a sign of the declining intelligence of our times, this inability to think complexly.
Anyways, ethnocentrism is a second order effect of egoism – you love yourself, you love your group. Your group is just a version of yourself.
An ethnocentric society is also a highly competitive and stratified by status one internally, because it is a society with a high level of egoism – when whites were ethnocentric, it was the same way with them. And it's the same way in other ethnocentric societies like China.
The reason whites went from being an intensely ethnocentric group to not being one in the space of less than a century has nothing to do with genetics, of course, but because they lost the egocentric perspective – partly as a result of loss of religion, which inculcated positive self image (one is in a relationship with God), and partly as a result of the so called objectivity and neutrality required by science, which makes you lose touch with your natural self love.
If whites ever become ethnocentric again, there will have to be a general rise in competitiveness also.
Of course, the picture is not one dimensional, and is balanced out by warmth, camaraderie, and brotherhood. Israelis are fiercely competitive with each other but also extremely brotherly and helpful to anyone in need.
And whites will be the same way if they become ethnocentric again – but let there be no illusions about the bad side as well. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [282] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 2:28 pm GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz It all depends if the other group is thought to be *higher* or *lower* , higher and lower meaning what they quite universally mean in human business.
See how well a vast number of races are absorbed in China
(Corollary 1: a group seeing itself as *above* all others will avoid intermixing with every other group).
I don't venture into saying this is wrong this is right these are better those are worse. Behind the surface, everyone agrees to the rules of the game. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 27, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz Individual Jewish communities, especially in extremely remote locations without connections to the rest of the world, have disappeared. That's not at all unusual. And Jews have been assimilating into gentile populations throughout history.
Plus, the Jews of Kaifeng have not entirely disappeared.
But I agree with your point that Chinese can and do assimilate racial outsiders – all ethnocentric groups do. There are Chinese and Indian looking Jews in Israel, and of course conversion to Judaism is a very real thing.
I cannot think of any ethnocentric group that isn't prepared to assimilate racial outsiders in the right numbers, provided they demonstrate commitment to the culture – skin in the game – and aren't numerous enough to rapidly alter the racial character. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 27, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT • 200 Words @AaronB AARON
We do see a detente in politics. Jews and Irish-Americans initially distrusted and disliked one another. Southern Democrats, who produced Clinton and Carter, obviously harbored anti-Jewish feelings (The word anti-Semite refers more to Arabs).
However, Irish-Americans and Jews and Southerners worked together in the Democrat party. Without the Jewish vote, Clinton would never have been elected (He was undone by his involvement with one, however).
In this sense, ethnocentrism was replaced by politics.
As for the white identity in America, it was always based upon a value system. Whites were from all corners of Europe and never bound by blood but by a sense of political and moral identity.
Once this was gone, whites had no cultural anchor. Asians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Italian-Americans to a lesser extent always had a cultural anchor of sorts. White Americans, for whatever reason, did not seem to. When drugs swept through America, encouraged by Jews (As well as by Irish-Americans like Timothy Leary and Charles Manson of course) they ravaged whites and not Jews. BEASTIE BOYS were the first "whiggers" but Jews never sought to imitate them. Ron Jeremy and Sarah Silverman and Al Goldstein all espoused sexual freedom and promiscuity but the out-of-wedlock birth rate never soared among Jews.
Similarly, Asians-Americans and Hindus and Muslims have not really be affected by the media like whites.
These are only a few of the reasons. But I agree with you that science (Rationalism and passivity) somehow eroded belief systems essential to European-Americans. Read More • Replies: @John Gruskos , @AaronB Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 27, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT • 100 Words @AaronB AARON B
In a number of societies Jews did not particularly thrive. For example, in Calcutta the Iraqi Jews failed completely and most moved to Israel simply in order to survive economically (Not due to persecution).
I knew Jews in Kerala personally and they had fared slightly better by intermarrying with Brahmin women to become the so-called St. Thomas Christians.
But Jews have come and gone from several major civilizations without making a great impact.
European Jews were, you remember, just that. Sometime after the Diaspora they intermarried with Roman women at a time when Rome was in the late stages of its glory and the Askenazi Jews as a race began and subsequently found themselves in the Rhineland as this rose in prominence.
Jews probably NEVER fared as well in Spain or India or China or Persia as they did in Europe. Why?
This is debatable. Read More • Replies: @AaronB , @notanon2 , @Anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- John Gruskos says: May 27, 2019 at 3:24 pm GMT • 100 Words @Colin Wright
By very willingly accepting and incorporating newcomers, it increased in size roughly fifty-fold, and grew to be the most powerful state in the world.
Wrong!
Most of the increase was due to high birth rate among old stock Americans, which was in turn due to affordable family formation (low land prices / high wages).
The highest % increases ever recorded in the decennial census occurred 1790-1830, during a period of very low immigration levels.
America would have become the world's greatest economic and military power, even if the total number of immigrants from 1780 to 1970 had been precisely 0. Read More • Agree: Ron Unz Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- John Gruskos says: May 27, 2019 at 3:37 pm GMT • 100 Words @jeff stryker
for whatever reason . . . somehow eroded belief systems essential to European-Americans
Read Culture of Critique .
American (aka real American, aka un-hyphenated American, aka old-stock American, aka White American) ethnocentrism was deliberately attacked and destroyed by a series of Jewish intellectual and political movements, with the intention of facilitating the group interests of Jews.
The education system, news media and entertainment industry are all viscerally hostile to American ethnocentrism, but supportive of the ethnocentrism of diaspora peoples living among the Americans, especially the Jews. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Wizard of Oz says: May 27, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT • 100 Words @jeff stryker It may be pedantically logical to say so, but I think what you are effectually doing is to deny significance to what Ron said by saying there weren't really very many of them (because of lack of opportunity for exercosing their particular skills).
As to your last paragraph, what bearing do you think it has on the assimilation, past, present and future, in America. It could be said that the value added by lawyers and bankers in industrialising America was very different from the activities in Eastern Europe which, with or without justice, aroused antagonism. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 27, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT • 300 Words @jeff stryker I'm not sure about that. I believe the Iraqi Jews who traded in India were very successful, and Iraqi Jews in Israel have a good reputation. I believe the extremely wealthy British Sasoon family were Iraqi Jews who made their fortune in the India trade.
Interestingly, Iraqi Jews took over many Indian dishes like curry and mango chutney (known as amba in Israel, and put on schwarma).
The Syrian and Persian Jewish community were also very successful, and Jews had a Golden Age in Spain.
You are correct though that nowhere did the Jews achieve the same level of prominence as in post 18th century Europe – and the reason is obviously the European Enlightenment, which enshrined the rule of Reason and destroyed healthy traditions that allowed Europeans to compete against Jews.
Before this period, Jewish success in Europe was on par with their performance in Syria or Persia – successful, but nothing amazing.
And yes, Ashkenazi Jews are indeed actually 50% European (90% and up on the mothers side), Italian, to be specific, with northern European admixture.
There is a surprising number of Hasidic Jews who look Aryan – tall, blond, and blue eyed. And if you stroll through the Hasidic areas of Brooklyn you will see lots of blond kids with blue eyes and pale skin. But there are lots of darker Med types as well.
The truth is that each Jewish community mixed heavily with the local population – very heavily – and Jews are anything but a pure ethnic group.
There is an ethnic core, to be sure – but what really shapes them and unites them is the culture and religion. That's what it takes to make a people and nation. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 27, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT • 300 Words @jeff stryker This isn't quite true. I grew up in the modern orthodox community in Brooklyn in the 90s, and heavy drug use was extremely widespread even among kippa wearing religious Jews, and indeed all sorts of dysfunction including wild parties and sex. It was truly wild times – today's kids are so much tamer all across America.
Perhaps it wasn't as bad as in the white community today, and the drugs were different but not always, but Jews are not magically insulated from social trends.
However, most of these guys that I knew are married with kids and jobs today – Jewish culture, with its traditions, social cohesiveness, and general rejection of abstract Enlightenment culture, provided a level of protection and resilience that deracinated and de-culturalized whites do not have, tragically.
These are only a few of the reasons. But I agree with you that science (Rationalism and passivity) somehow eroded belief systems essential to European-Americans.
This really key to understanding what's going on with whites, and you understand this because you live in Asia, and can see a more organic culture first hand.
The solution is simple but very daring and bold – simply relax the role of rational and abstract thought in life, and an organic culture based on intuition and different ways of engaging with the world will begin to spontaneously regenerate itself among whites.
Simply acknowledge human powerlessness and dependence on God.
But this is extremely difficult to do for people addicted to ego and control, and probably a real collapse is needed before they are willing to accept the help of a higher power. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Grace Poole says: May 27, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT • 200 Words I listened closely to several of Dutton's videos -- he's gifted and highly knowledgeable; it would be great to see Dutton & E Michael Jones at a grand conference, UNZpac USA.
re his, Why do the Irish have a low IQ? (93 compared to British 100)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/cOB9fV_m1BE?feature=oembed
Among other things, he argues that
a. it takes intelligence to migrate
b. the Potato famine induced massive migration; -- the best Irishmen left IrelandAt the same time, I'm trying to get some work done on a house, and in my region, only Hispanics/Latinos do this work. I'd hire an English-speaking tradesman if I could find same, but I can't.
The painter, electrician and wannabe carpenters working on my property do not speak English and understand only rudimentary English; they neither read nor write -- preparing a prioritized list for their use is pointless. They possess a certain group canniness -- the painter suggests the electrician, etc., and they are diligent about their work. But Honduras is not experiencing a brain-drain based on these men.
So I wonder if Dutton got it wrong in some fundamental way: Was the Potato famine pursued and prolonged by the British precisely to drive cheap labor to Anglo-America, and / or to pursue the Talmudic dictum, Kill all the best gentiles?
That is pretty close to what we are slowly slowly discovering happened to the German (and Italian -- thanks, Guido Preparata) people and nation.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TFqCiJOpWhk?feature=oembed @notanon2 Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 27, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT • 100 Words @Bardon Kaldian Presumably, those Israeli children are seeing racially similar people. So the response was not to different race people, but to strangers.
Secondly, Israeli culture is no doubt quite different, closely at war with a neighboring people and subject to periodic terrorist attacks, and infants are conditioned differently at an early age.
This does not say anything about genetic differences. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 5:10 pm GMT • 100 Words @jeff stryker
Jews probably NEVER fared as well in Spain or India or China or Persia as they did in Europe. Why?
nepotism is one aspect of ethnocentrism.
if group A is more nepotistic than group B then they gain an advantage in small scale competition (e.g. business) .
Jews in India/China etc hit a wall cos their competitors was the same as them – this is the thing, Jewish nepotism isn't unusual, most peoples are like that, WEIRD peoples are the odd ones out.
(this is why they're starting to get out-competed in the US particularly by Indians)
nb ethnocentrism operates at different scales – in peacetime most "ethnic" competition is very small scale i.e. two extended families competing over a business opportunity. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 27, 2019 at 5:12 pm GMT • 200 Words @Ron Unz
But if you and almost all of your ancestors have lived all of their lives in a nearly 100% ethnically-pure social environment, how would any tendencies toward ethnocentricity ever evolve or be maintained? Wouldn't they be about as useful as wings on a gopher?
But most people across the world lived like this, so the whole genetic ethnocentrism or non ethnocentrism thing seems like it doesn't really make sense. Most Swedish people probably never saw a non European, and most Anatolian Turks probably never saw a non Turk, and most Omani Arabs likewise.
Only a very few groups would have had the chance, for relatively short periods, to live in cosmopolitan cities are areas with clear racial fault lines.
Ethmocentrism is surely a second-order effect and an acquired cultural trait. It also doesn't make sense that Europeans went from being intensely ethnocentric to very little in the space of a century. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- anonymous [145] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT • 200 Words It is not a race/ethnicity specific thing; it is an in-group thing. It is also very much tied to cultural unity.
Why is modern Christianity so entirely lacking in ability to promote any kind of ethnocentrism?
Europeans lost faith in Christianity after WW2. In 1945, Europe was in ruins with millions dead, after having fought yet another war that supposedly nobody ever wanted. People turned inwards and reflected on the past 500 years of European history. There were numerous wars between Christian states and between Christians and non-Christians. There was the age of exploration, slavery, colonialism, conquistadors, etc. Christianity itself was not necessarily blamed, but it didn't need to be; it was just enough that it was associated with the entire time period. And in 1945, whether rightly or wrongly, these associations were overwhelmingly negative. Christianity has remained in Europe, of course, but these days certain aspects are emphasized ("love thy neighbor", "turn the other cheek") over others. Even secular Europeans still retain certain Christian values which are then conveniently incorporated into their acceptance of mass immigration.
In comparison, Christianity in the US still retains an aspect of being a force for local unity in a way that has been lost in Europe. Recent American conflicts have usually been subtly framed as being a triumph of Christian America over atheist commies or Muslims. Of course, I am sure that it is just a coincidence that this exists to the benefit of a certain tribe. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT • 100 Words @Cyrano
I don't think I buy this theory about low European ethnocentricity at all. I think it's all the rich degenerate elites who are to blame for the "decline" in ethnocentricity.
my understanding of ethnocentricity is although it's always there, unless people are under a direct threat it is a relatively weak force except at the scale where people are most related e.g. extended family, clan etc and to be a big factor at higher scales it needs cultural reinforcement.
in the past western elites promoted that cultural reinforcement whereas now they do the opposite.
so i think euros did gradually get less ethnocentric but it was disguised because the elites compensated for it artificially with patriotic cultural reinforcement and then when the elites suddenly stopped (from WW1 onwards) the underlying low ethnocentricity remained. Read More • Replies: @Cyrano Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 5:41 pm GMT • 200 Words @Grace Poole
re his, Why do the Irish have a low IQ? (93 compared to British 100)
based on personal experience i both believe and disbelieve this data.
one of the things you notice if you ever work in areas with lots of blue collar immigrants is the kids are taller and smarter than the parents even if they're marrying other immigrants from the same place.
keyword: same?
i worked construction (a long time ago) with people from rural Ireland so yeah i can see where the 93 figure comes from but at the same time I worked with the kids or grand kids of same and they were "normal" so i think there's a rural inbreeding effect which is being missed – not inbreeding in the sense of actively marrying close cousins but a long term effect of people in the same valley marrying each other for so many centuries they're all effectively close cousins and all it takes to get rid of negative homozygous effects is marrying someone from the next valley.
i think there's potentially big jumps in average IQ between rural and urban for this reason and differences in average IQ between genetically similar populations may often be the result of differences in the ratio of urban : rural : mountain rural. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [421] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 5:41 pm GMT @Colin Wright English:
"a language is a dialect with an army and navy"
Yiddish:
"a shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey aum yam – flot
German:
Eine Sprache ist ein Dialekt mit einer Armee und einer MarineA comparison of three Germanic languages; where's the supposed Slavic? Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Cyrano says: May 27, 2019 at 5:51 pm GMT • 300 Words @Wizard of Oz Multiculturalism was invented in lieu of real Socialism – in order to avoid it. They even borrowed the main mantra from socialism – "We are all equal".
Socialism is about equality, not capitalism. When you hear capitalist talk about equality you have to know that there is some kind of scam involved.
The whole idea of multiculturalism stinks of Nazi Germany influence. They were the first to use the term "socialism" for propaganda purposes and the same thing is with the multiculturalism – it was created for purely propaganda purposes to portray the west as progressive and liberal – in order to prevent demand for social improvements.
What makes things funnier is that both the Nazis and present day "democracies" were sworn enemies of socialism – as being the "evil" system, yet when they want to fake humanization of their system, they borrow elements from socialism. Is than irony or what?
They are obviously lying about socialism being the "evil" system, because with their actions they admit that the only way capitalism can progress – is toward socialism. Now, I am not advocating conversion towards total socialism – that has been tried – it didn't quite work out. But the improvements that need to be made in capitalism have to be borrowed from socialism – the only other option is to borrow from feudalism and that's not going to work either.
"Real" socialism advocated equality among nations and among people within a nation – provided they stayed where they are. The modern Frankenstein of socialism that they created in the West with chopped up body parts of socialism, misaligned them and breathed into the monster the holy spirit of capitalism and they expected it to work.
How can you achieve "equality" by bringing hordes from the 3rd world when you haven't achieved equality among the original, native born population? But that's the whole point – isn't it – to pretend that you are striving for some kind of equality, because you don't want the native born population to move one inch closer to being equal with the rich elites. Read More • Replies: @notanon2 Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz
if you and almost all of your ancestors have lived all of their lives in a nearly 100% ethnically-pure social environment, how would any tendencies toward ethnocentricity ever evolve or be maintained?
i think people are assuming the "ethno" part of ethnocentricity developed at and for the ethnic group scale whereas i think it mostly came into being at the clan or extended family level.
those evolved traits can then be culturally reinforced to operate at the ethnic group level depending on various factors
– inclination of elites to promote that cultural reinforcement
– how actually related the group is at the group level
– peace or war Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments- Cyrano says: May 27, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT • 100 Words @notanon2 So what are you saying, that in order to strengthen ethnic bonds, they should organize pow-wows? Ethnic bonds are as strong as ever in Europe.
The rich elites are ruining societies in order to preserve their personal wealth.
If they want to test how strong are the ethnic ties, why not one single country which is now under threat of multiculturalism has organized a referendum on immigration? Then you'll find out how strong the ethnic bonds are.
But I guess "democracy" was only designed to let you choose which clown from the deep state you want to entertain you in the next 4 years. You were never asked for opinion on things that really matter.
Every western country should organize "Brexit" style referendum on such a crucial issue which threatens the survival of the state – immigration. Read More • Replies: @notanon2 Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 6:16 pm GMT @Cyrano
Multiculturalism was invented in lieu of real Socialism
the multicult was invented cos slavery was abolished and Emma Lazarus' family needed a new source of cheap labor. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Republic says: May 27, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT @notanon2
note big gap in Poland
That is the general area where The Pale of Settlement was established hundred of years later by the Jews Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 8:05 pm GMT • 200 Words @Cyrano
So what are you saying, that in order to strengthen ethnic bonds, they should organize pow-wows?
the elites used to actively promote patriotism to reinforce ethnocentricity but now they promote anti-nationalism.
Ethnic bonds are as strong as ever in Europe.
they're still strong in south and east Europe but less so in NW Europe.
The rich elites are ruining societies in order to preserve their personal wealth.
yes partly that but also partly an anti-nationalist reaction to the world wars because Europeans developed technology that made war dysgenic even for the winners.
If they want to test how strong are the ethnic ties, why not one single country which is now under threat of multiculturalism has organized a referendum on immigration? Then you'll find out how strong the ethnic bonds are.
imo the level of overt ethocentricity displayed by a population will be a combination of
– baseline level
– the level of elite reinforcement (or not)
– the level of external threatso yes even with a low baseline and the elites actively suppressing the normal reaction to being replaced in your own homeland, being replaced is clearly enough of a threat to get people to vote against it in a referendum but so far not enough to force politicians to put it to a referendum.
so far all most people do is move away. this may change when there's nowhere left to run. Read More • Replies: @Vianney Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Vianney says: May 27, 2019 at 8:48 pm GMT • 100 Words @notanon2 The trials by NY Jewish lawyers of Alt Right protesters in Charlottesville COULD serve as a referendum if a few, or better yet, a group or Law School summoned the cajones to argue on the side of American heritage.
It's Thomas Jefferson's city, fer chrissake, that is being reduced to "remember Munich" status.
No mere happenstance.Is there no one left in Charlottesville with enough pride to snatch up and raise high the American flag rather than the blue 6-star? Read More • Replies: @notanon2 Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- notanon2 says: May 27, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMT @Vianney given the education system only went fully anti-white c. 10 years ago the people who understand what is happening and have (or will have) the skills to fight back in the courts are probably still in college or only recently left. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [427] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 10:16 pm GMT • 300 Words @Ron Unz Chinese have lived in Southeast Asia since the 1800's, yet in virtually all SEA countries, they remain distinct as an ethnic group, rarely intermarry with non-Chinese. Growing up as an ethnic Chinese minority in Malaysia, I was taught to believe that the Chinese were the superior race, compared to the lazy, low IQ Malays or Indians.
Since immigrating to the US in my teens in the 80's, I have watched with alarm how much immigration from mainland China has grown in the US in the last 2 decades. My mixed race kids tell me the Chinese kids in school tell them their mainland Chinese parents always tell them "China #1!", and they wonder why their parents moved to the US (the answer: because they are all corrupt and need to get out with their ill gotten gains before they get thrown in jail). Chinese ethnocentrism is real and it is ugly.
However, as with all generalization, there are always exceptions and I am one such. I've grown to despise my own tribe over the last 4 decades. I see how the Chinese behave the world over, whether they are the majority or minority, they are greedy, selfish, dishonest, rude, loud, clannish and have excessive ethnic pride, which causes many to completely lack introspection. They are also a filthy tribe who does not take care of their environment, their yard, and lack any kind of civic mindedness. The Cantonese are an especially obnoxious tribe among the Chinese, absolutely abominable.
I think fewer Chinese is a good thing for the world. My tribe needs to die out, either through childlessness or intermarriage. The world will be a better place. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- mcohen says: May 27, 2019 at 10:30 pm GMT • 100 Words "Those who advocate Multiculturalism seem to have lost an important instinct towards group -- and thus genetic -- preservation. Once a society, as a whole, espouses Multiculturalism as a dominant ideology then the society is acting against its own genetic interests and will ultimately destroy itself."
Ed DuttonBullshit.inbreeding leads to retardation and genetic diseases
As defined
inbreed
/ɪnˈbriːd/
verb
gerund or present participle: inbreeding
breed from closely related people or animals, especially over many generations.
"persistent inbreeding has produced an unusually high frequency of sufferers from this disease" Read More • Replies: @anon Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- the grand wazoo says: May 27, 2019 at 10:33 pm GMT • 100 Words @david fields I doubt the Chinese, or Asians in general are quick to assimilate by marriage. How many mixed couples, i.e. Asian/White, Asian/Black, do we see. Not many and closer to none, even here in liberal metro LA. I was at a party in Palos Verdes, Ca. the other day. There were a number of Asian couples present, but not 1 mixed. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [427] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT • 200 Words @Cyrano Lack of ethnocentrism in whites is almost entirely caused by the last 5 decades of relentless Jewish brainwashing and browbeating through their control of the media and the education establishment. Jews have beaten white guilts into the white psyche to the point where whites are either afraid to express their true feelings or are completely brainwashed into believing in their own evilness. It's a real shame as Northern Europeans especially from Germany and Scandinavia are probably the best race: intelligent, industrious, and quite possibly the only truly honest people on earth.
European countries are the most beautiful places on earth not because they are the richest -- many Europeans actually live quite modestly by American standards, they live in small apartments or homes and don't make that much money compared to many upper middle class professionals in the US, but they take care of their environments. They build beautiful homes, grow beautiful gardens and yards, keep their environments clean and tidy, and obey the law. It makes their societies look rich by comparison.
People in other parts of the world need to take a page from the Northern Europeans and take better care of their environments. Beautiful places put people in better moods, and make them want to be better people, e.g. more honest and law abiding. Read More • Replies: @Cyrano Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- anon [297] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 10:46 pm GMT @mcohen I agree, therefore all Jews should be forced to interbreed exclusively with Nigerians to solve their severe inbreeding problem. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [427] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 10:59 pm GMT • 300 Words @Ron Unz
For various reasons, Jews have traditionally been exceptionally resistant to absorption into local populations, remaining as a distinct group sometimes after thousands of years of living within a particular host population.
Throughout ancient Europe, Jews were not allowed to own land and were often despised as the money lenders throughout the diaspora. I don't know how hard it would've been for the Jews to ditch Judaism, adopt Christianity, intermarry and completely assimilate with the native Europeans, but at least the Spaniards had tried to get them to do that, to no avail. I can only surmise that the Jewish religion is a very strong religion that keeps the Jews believing out of fear or a strong sense of kinship.
However, many Jews in the US have become secular, yet continue to identify as Jews. Perhaps this is because membership has its privileges, Jews help out other Jews in business, academia, politics etc. But lately I'm thinking it has a lot to do with Israel. There seems to be more and more "Holocaust Museums" being built all over the west. Who is building them? Nearly 80m died in WWII, yet all we ever hear about are the 6m. Israel depends on support from the diaspora to survive, esp. those in the US, both financially and politically, so they continue to fan up the Holocaust to keep Jews loyal to the tribe, even as the influence of Judaism wanes. As such, as long as Israel is still around, Jews will never fully assimilate to whichever country they live in, because Israel wouldn't let them. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [427] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 11:05 pm GMT @Ghali Multicultural societies are all failed societies, dysfunctional, chaotic, dog-eat-dog, every man for himself, everybody hates everybody. Just look at Malaysia or Brazil.
The US is turning into Brazil x 10, with nukes. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Parsnipitous says: May 27, 2019 at 11:07 pm GMT @obwandiyag You're such an idiot, Obi Wan. I don't mind the leftist/antiracist bent, but you're making such poor arguments. What is your connection here? You getting paid? Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Cyrano says: May 27, 2019 at 11:20 pm GMT • 100 Words @Anon Here we go about the Jews again. Can we leave them out of at least one conversation? Ethnocentrism is "losing strength" today because it's actively suppressed by the elites. They do this by equating ethnocentrism with racism and accusing only the deplorables of being racists, while they – the rich degenerates are so above it.
The elites implemented multiculturalism because it's the cheapest form of "socialism". Cheapest for them – it didn't cost them a penny, in the long run Multiculturalism is going to be the most expensive and destructive form of phony socialism for each country that embraced it. Read More • Replies: @Time to Wake Up , @Vianney Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Anon [427] • Disclaimer says: May 27, 2019 at 11:26 pm GMT • 100 Words @jeff stryker
Jews probably NEVER fared as well in Spain or India or China or Persia as they did in Europe. Why?
Jews did well in Europe because the native Europeans are honest and easy to rip off. The dishonest always make the honest look stupid by comparison.
But the Spaniards, Indians, Chinese, Persians are as dishonest and unscrupulous as the Jews, so they have no advantage over these groups. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Time to Wake Up says: May 27, 2019 at 11:58 pm GMT @Cyrano Yep, the (((elites))) wanted multiculturalism. When every group is an outgroup, (((they))) will no longer stick out as the only outgroup and be easily called out for all their treacheries. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Vianney says: May 28, 2019 at 12:23 am GMT • 100 Words @Cyrano Jewish-designed, intended and enforced brain washing -- they, themselves, call it psychological warfare, is an historical fact and a present reality.
There may be other groups or causal factors responsible for breakdown of ethnocentricism, but Jewish ideology and praxis ranks at or near the top of the list.
It's foolish and self-destructive to ignore an accurate diagnosis out of fear of 'offending the Jew.' That is a Jewish defense mechanism. A soldier does not refrain from dispatching an adversary just because the adversary calls him names. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- Agathocles says: May 28, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT • 300 Words We should recognise that within Europe there is significant disparities in levels of ethno-centrism. For example, the Greek belief in the superiority of its culture compared to others (somewhat of a proxy of ethno-centrism) is through the roof compared to northern and western Europe.
Greeks also show high values for anti-diversity and anti-immigrant views.
Despite being one of history's most important trading people, being in a part of the world which is not isolated and also having been colonised by Muslim Turks for 400 or so years, Greeks have retained remarkable consistency in their genetic composition with only relatively small intrusions of Slavic ancestry primarily in Macedonia and some Levantine intrusions in Cyprus.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythical-origins-ancient-dna-reveals
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg201718The key to ethnocentricity, which is not addressed by many, is a strong and stable family structure as ethnicity is largely passed on by genes and family education. Of course, state education is also critical. And Greeks again show some of the healthiest signs in the developed world on this front. Children born out of wedlock in the two Hellenic states of Greece and Cyprus are very low.
https://www.oecd.org/els/family/SF_2_4_Share_births_outside_marriage.pdf
Also, divorces rates are very low; particularly, in Greece.
https://www.oecd.org/els/family/SF_3_1_Marriage_and_divorce_rates.pdf
Of course, even the Greek family is not immune to modern lifestyle-related diseases as witnessed by the low birthrate.
As for state education, although the Greek state has sometimes been disorganised, wherever Greeks go, they establish two things first: a church and school often with the support of the Greek state. Both institutions are key vehicles for the perpetuation of ethno-centric values Read More • Replies: @utu Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- utu says: May 28, 2019 at 12:44 am GMT @Agathocles And Greeks have been ranked with the highest in Europe anti-Semitism index by ADL. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 28, 2019 at 12:50 am GMT @Anon 427
Similarly Chinese cannot get over on Koreans or Japanese like they can on Southeast Asians. Why? Because they have the same characteristics as Chinese.
Makes sense the Jews fared less well in Southern Europe getting over on wary and shrewd Sicilians or Spanish. Read More • Replies: @AaronB Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 28, 2019 at 1:11 am GMT @jeff stryker How do you explain the Jewish Golden Age in Spain, which was almost comparable to later Jewish prominence in Northern Europe?
But I agree with your general point – Jewish dominance after the Enlightenment is only because northern Europeans made themselves vulnerable to group competition.
This is undoubtedly correct. Read More • Replies: @jeff stryker Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 28, 2019 at 1:23 am GMT • 100 Words @AaronB AARON
Jews had their Abbie Hoffmans (A real charmer who once doled out advice on how crash Bar Mitzvah's in STEAL THIS BOOK) and their whiggers (BEASTIE BOYS made EMINEM look positively sophisticated) and their sexual degenerates (Goldstein, Ron Jeremy, Sarah Silverman).
But Jews never regarded these people as examples of any kind. They merely regarded them as degenerates who HAPPENED to be Jewish.
Similarly, crack cocaine's popularity affected Jews in the boroughs of New York as well. But statistically less.
As for wild teenage behavior among whites or Jews, this seemed to reach a peak in the post-70's period of FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and by 1983 dissipated during the Reagan Revolution.
When one watches the original KARATE KID today their first thought is "where are the police? Where's the principal?" Read More • Replies: @AaronB Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- AaronB says: May 28, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT @jeff stryker I have always despised the Beastie Boys, I can tell you that. Utterly talentless, vulgar, hacks. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
- jeff stryker says: May 28, 2019 at 1:37 am GMT • 100 Words @AaronB AARON
Spain is ostensibly easy to explain. There was less animosity between Muslims and Jews at that time than between Muslims and Catholics, provided the Jews paid their taxes. Same as the Maghreb. Which the Catholics were aware of and so expelled the Jews along with the Muslims.
In addition to the Enlightenment is the European class system, from which Jews were relatively free.
Whereas in Southern Europe, trade had existed in Rome for a long time. There was also the issue of usury.
May 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel published (German) reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.
The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal circles.
In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.
Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.
A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid, German)During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them. He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws. They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.
The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.
Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair. Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.
At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter. Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.
Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.
Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive reports about the video.
After the reports appeared Strache immediately stepped down and the conservatives ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.
On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky opines on the case:
Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view. The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian" puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.
Bershidsky continues:
Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election. Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.
Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now.
But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new far-right block Natteo Salvini will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.
Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:
In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of real left alternatives.
Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray put his finger on the wound:
The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions....
The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties – and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.
If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people, especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money.
While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new 'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.
In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions, he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes, we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.
Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM | Permalink
May 14, 2019 | www.unz.com
It seems as if British Jewish pressure groups have achieved their goal: anti-Semitism is now a mass movement in the UK. The rabid Zionist Algemeiner reports that "Antisemitism and virulent Israel-hatred were rife on Saturday at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in London."
The Jewish press seems to be upset by a pro-Palestinian march that assembled at the offices of the BBC, not too far from a synagogue. I guess that the rationale is simple: once London is dotted with synagogues, human rights enthusiasts will be pushed out of the city. They will have to gather somewhere out of the green belt.
Jewish outlets complain that participants brandished 'antisemitic badges and placards,' such as "Israel provokes anti-Semitism." I am puzzled. Is this really an anti-Semitic statement? If anything, it is an attempt to identify the cause of anti-Semitism.
Jewish outlets are also upset by images of the Star of David crossed with a swastika. To start with, those who equate Israel with Nazi Germany actually contemplate the memory of the Holocaust and are by no means 'deniers.' I guess that the time is ripe for Zionists and supporters of Israel to accept that in consideration of the ongoing Israeli racist crime in Palestine, the Star of David has become a symbol of evil in the eyes of many.
The Jewish press is upset by the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" that calls for Israel's destruction. I would actually expect Jews who seem to be upset by the Hitlerian concept of an 'Aryans-only state' to accept that the concept of a 'Jews-only state' is equally disturbing.' They should support Israel becoming 'a state of its citizens' and accept that sooner or later this state will evolve into Palestine, from the river to the sea.
The Jewish press is totally irritated by Jewish Voice for Labour's Secretary Glyn Secker, who claimed that pro-Israel Labour officials were a "fifth column" in the party and asked, "What on earth are Jews doing in the gutter with these rats?" I would remind my readers that Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is itself a Jewish racist exclusive political body that wouldn't accept non-Jews into its ranks. I have wondered more than once how it is possible that the anti-racist Jeremy Corbyn is willing to be associated with such a body. However, in his statement (if quoted correctly by the Jewish press), secretary Glyn Secker actually expresses the most disturbing tribal supremacist view. He looks down at a bunch of labour MPs whom he labels 'rats' and call for his Jewish brethren to disassociate from these low creatures. Glyn, in practice, sustains the Jew/Goy binary divide. He should actually receive the Kosher weekly award rather than be abused by the Zionist league.
But we can be reassured. Campaign Against Antisemitism has already confirmed that they are "reviewing the evidence that we gathered today. Where crimes have been committed, we will work with the authorities to ensure that there are arrests and prosecutions."
ORDER IT NOW
The facts on the ground are undeniable. The more Jewish bodies campaign against anti-Semitism the more opposition to Jewish politics is detected. The relentless Zionist campaign against Corbyn didn't hurt him, as he is still leading in most national election polls . Branding Nigel Farage as an anti-Semite didn't touch the man whose party is polling higher than the Tories and Labour combined in the coming European Parliament election. One way to look at it is to argue that Brits are not moved by the Jewish anti-Semitism hysteria. Another way to look at it is to conclude that Brits are actually grossly disturbed by the anti-Semitism frenzy. Being hated by the Zionist lobby has become a badge of honour, an entry ticket to Britain's political premiership.
Miro23 , says: May 13, 2019 at 9:36 pm GMT
Fran Taubman , says: May 13, 2019 at 9:09 pm GMTThe facts on the ground are undeniable. The more Jewish bodies campaign against anti-Semitism the more opposition to Jewish politics is detected. The relentless Zionist campaign against Corbyn didn't hurt him, as he is still leading in most national election polls.
In contrast to the 1960's Israel is starting to look unfashionable. Young people feel embarrassed to be associated with Jewish activism and Zionism.
Being unfashionable is a very serious state of affairs. Many failing businesses will testify to this. You do all the tried and tested stuff, and it just doesn't work.
@Grace Poole Why is a Jewish only state disturbing? It is surrounded by 32 Apartheid muslim only countries.renfro , says: May 13, 2019 at 9:37 pm GMT
Could I move to Iran?
If Israel becomes a theocracy not a democracy, who cares. Look at the neighborhood.
If not Jewish only then what a Jihad state like the rest of the Arab world?
Give Israel the razor blade.
All you dog noses who claim the Jews made a banquet from the holocaust. Just look at the meal the Arabs made from those original 750,000 refugees created by the State of Israel founding war.
Cry me a river. They have an entire UN agency devoted to their every need, and status to 3rd and 4th generation children of the originals not living in the country, who have citizenship else where, How does that add up to the 5 million diaspora pals.
It is all such a game to see Israel go down mostly thru jealously that the Jews came from the ashes of near by extension to create the best country over there.I would pay each one of the Pals 2 million to move to Jordan from the West Bank, and Gaza to the Sinai with joint ownership with Egypt. But that is a good idea and would solve the problem. No one wants to solve the problem they just want to see the Jews go down. Gilad licks his lips over it.
@Fran Taubman "There's always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors -- Palestinians -- who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports," said Tlaib.Anon [128] Disclaimer , says: May 13, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT"And just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away and it was forced on them."
Love it ..just the right thing to say.
@Fran TaubmanJames N. Kennett , says: May 13, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMTWhy is a Jewish only state disturbing?
Because Jews hold the establishment of Israel to be a prerequisite for the destruction of all other nations in a final world war, which the Jews seem intent on instigating with Islam. Zohar Shemot 32a.
After which Israel is slated to be the only remaining national power (everyone else being destroyed).
Do not forget your books. We don't.
Why is a non-Jewish European-only State disturbing to you and other Jews?
You have your own state but refuse the same to others. You are not Europeans (Brits, Germans, etc) as these were originally ethnic-racial categories before you interfered. Yet you claim them your yourselves as well, and in doing so deny everyone else an exclusive identity.
Jews only allow themselves an exclusive identity, because your "god" (the writing of Jews) only gave Judea a nation. Correct?
Asking moronic questions at this point, which everyone knows the answer to, is insulting. You people are not innocent, are not dumb, and you know precisely why people are hostile to your mass genocidal, supremacist tribe.
@Fran TaubmanJames N. Kennett , says: May 13, 2019 at 10:49 pm GMTI would pay each one of the Pals 2 million to move to Jordan from the West Bank, and Gaza to the Sinai with joint ownership with Egypt. But that is a good idea and would solve the problem.
At a cost of $9 trillion. Who is going to pay?
Realistically, offer $100,000 per person, or $450 billion total. Double that to include the diaspora Pals, and close the refugee camps. If the resettlement took place over a decade, it would cost $90 billion a year, which could come from the US Defense budget. The latter could be wound down over the same decade, as it would no longer be needed to fight wars on behalf of Israel. Israel would get land and peace; Palestinians would be well compensated; and the USA would be relieved of its duty as a Middle-Eastern warmonger. Everybody wins. What's not to like?
However, to gain approval for the plan in the USA, it would be necessary to show that the expenditure is both worthwhile and an improvement over the status quo . This would mean explaining what the status quo actually is; and how and why it has come about. Unfortunately, this information is so inflammatory that it can never be publicly discussed.
anon [833] Disclaimer , says: May 14, 2019 at 5:59 am GMTAntisemitism Is Now a Mass Movement in Britain
I don't think this is true. A few years back, Daniel Finkelstein of the (London) Times characterised British anti-semitism as "background noise".
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations are the "exception that proves the rule". Their support has two cores: radical Muslims, and political activists on the Left. Neither is a mass movement.
The British Left tends to support people who have the most "victim points". Rightly or wrongly, they believe that Palestinians have a lot of victim points and, as the Holocaust moves from living memory into history, that Israelis and diaspora Jews have very few.
Furthermore, the Left particularly seeks ogres who are white and Western. Paradoxically, they dislike Israel because Israelis are similar to Britons, not because they are different. In contrast, massacres by Saddam Hussein, ISIS, or Rwandans never attracted much opprobrium from the Left. The idea of holding people to a lower moral standard, the less they look or sound like oneself, is obviously racist; but it is followed by people who genuinely believe that they are the least racist people on earth.
@AnonAntares , says: May 14, 2019 at 7:09 am GMTWhy is a non-Jewish European-only State disturbing to you and other Jews?
because most jews, like taubstein, are racist, supremacist hypocrites
Israel's racism is hardcoded into law.nicholas nicola , says: May 14, 2019 at 8:09 am GMTHoorahnicholas nicola , says: May 14, 2019 at 8:14 am GMTWe have moved from the very REAL MURDER of thousands of Muslims by Jews in Palestine
to debating fluff in peoples navals
Millions of Jews have emigrated to the middle of a massive clan of muslims and formed a military enclave which is slaughtering muslims en-mass.Bill Jones , says: May 14, 2019 at 9:49 am GMTDo you think that the collective memory of The Ummah will forget this?
@James N. Kennett "which could come from the US Defense budget"Fool's Paradise , says: May 14, 2019 at 11:58 am GMTUnfortunately the US doesn't have a "Defense Budget" It has an Attack Budget, and it's not going anywhere but up.
The world won't be free until it's a mass movement everywhere. People are finally waking up to this truth: No Israel, no war.Fran Taubman , says: May 14, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT@nicholas nicola I hope the collective Ummah looks at:mark green , says: May 14, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
Somalia
All of Africa
China
Myamar
All of Arabia
Slave labor in Libya
Women's rights in the Islamic world
Genital mutilation
beheadingsThe entire muslim population in Israel has quadrupled since 1948. I guess the slaughtering of Muslims is not going so well.
You are deranged and delusional.Well said! All Jewry wants is everything.Longfisher , says: May 14, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMTJews demand their own exclusive state (subsidized by goyim), the privilege to cleanse their sacred (and expanding) Jews-Only territory of native gentiles, and the right to travel (and live) among the goyim as they see fit.
And don't you dare complain about these privileges. That's anti-Semitism!
And then there's the matter of speech.
Jews not only enjoy top tier access to the MSM (since they've conspired to buy up most of it for the undisclosed purpose of advancing pan-Zionist hegemony) but they actively and openly form teams, lobbies and NGOs to limit the right and opportunity of others to speak freely and assemble lawfully for the purpose of expressing their own political grievances.
Resistance and resentment to the entrenched double-standards that favor Jews, and state-sponsored lawlessness that empowers Israel, is routinely decried as anti-Jewish 'bigotry'. It is also mislabeled as 'anti-Semitism'. This keeps the opposition weak and off-balance.
How very clever. How very diabolical.
Why not call 'anti-Semitism what it is?
So-called 'anti-Semitism' is simply anti-Jewishness (or counter-Jewisness). It is merely an attitude.
Depending upon the circumstances, this attitude might be right or it may be wrong. But 'anti-Semitism' is all about Jews, their behavior, and their impact on non-Jews. Why not focus on this inescapable fact?
And since 'anti-Semitism' is not about 'Semites' at all, the very term itself is something of a canard.
On the other hand, organized Jewry is truly powerful. Sometimes it does real damage. Sometimes it does real harm. Sometimes it destroys. Why can't we talk about it openly?
Calling morally-grounded opposition to the real damage and real harm done by Jews 'anti-Semitism' is a calculated libel.
On the other hand, identifying and castigating organized Jewry for its various sins is vital, courageous, and healthy. So do the right thing.
When I was much younger and in Graduate School I hosted three British students who were on a summer sabbatical at the medical college I was attending.Longfisher , says: May 14, 2019 at 6:04 pm GMTThere was no particular reason that the Jews in America came up over beers, many beers (Texans and the British like beer equally well). But they told me that there was and expression among common British about Jews, and, no it's not that the only good Jew is a dead Jew.
It was that "antisemitism is when one hates the Jews more than is absolutely necessary".
Interesting concept, that is.
"Jewish outlets complain that participants brandished 'antisemitic badges and placards,' such as "Israel provokes anti-Semitism." I am puzzled. Is this really an anti-Semitic statement? If anything, it is an attempt to identify the cause of anti-Semitism."Fran Taubman , says: May 14, 2019 at 8:32 pm GMTYep, absolutely true.
It's not their religion about which folks object. It's not their race, if you want to call it a race.
IT'S THEIR BEHAVIOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@renfroRonnie , says: May 14, 2019 at 9:36 pm GMTWrong. At the time, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, was a supporter and ally of Hitler. When the two met, al-Husseini told Hitler that they shared the same enemies: "the English, the Jews, and the Communists." The two went on to scheme about how best to set upon and destroy the Jews of the Middle East. What's more, the Arabs regularly massacred Jews in Mandatory Palestine.
Lies are the lifeblood of anti-Semitism, and there's a purpose to Tlaib's false history. It serves to bolster the lie that the Jews waged war on a friendly and welcoming people, stole their land, and condemned them to ruin. Anti-Semitism depends on lies because its very motive is to hide the truth of one's own failings and lay blame on the Jews. The history of anti-Semitism is, in a sense, a history of wicked fabrications: From Jewish deicide, to the blood libel, to the claims of Jewish sorcery, to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to the idea that Jews were tipped off about 9/11, to the claim that Jews push the U.S. into wars, to the outrage over Jews supposedly buying politicians, to lies about Israel's founding.
Tlaib and Omar are exemplars of this tradition, peddlers of anti-Semitic folktales. In addition to spouting revisionist history, Tlaib has accused America's Israel-supporters of dual loyalty. Omar has done that and more, claiming that Israel has hypnotized the world into not seeing the evil it perpetrates, and stating that America's pro-Israel policies are simply purchased by those who support the Jewish state.
It is a very powerful and accurate expression to say that Israel is "unfashionable" – it is also true that most young people today feel no connection to the holocaust – when Rashida uses the word "comforting" to refer to her people's sacrifice for the Jews, I feel that the customary Zionist response to call these expressions "canards" will also be seen as an unfashionable response. Thank God for brave people like Tlaid and Omar who express distaste for the unfashionable and vulgar behavior of Israel and Zionists. Omar and Tlaib have already emboldened millions of others who share their ambivalence and horror, when they read about the Israel colonist settlers and their brutality to the Palestinians they displace .Curmudgeon , says: May 15, 2019 at 12:27 am GMT@Fran TaubmanIt is surrounded by 32 Apartheid muslim only countries.
Not so. Lebanon, Syria, and even Egypt have Christian minorities that have been protected over the years. Jordan has a few, but not many. Iraq, prior to Israel's proxy war on Saddam had plenty of Christians, including Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam's ministers.. Palestine has/had Christians that were killed by Israelis in the same way Muslims were.
Could I move to Iran?
I don't know, I'm not in charge of the Iranian immigration policy. Why not ask the Jews who are members of the Majles? You know, the legislative body with seats reserved for Jews and other minorities.
Like most Zionists, you seem to ignore the part where T.E. Lawrence got the go ahead from the British government to promise Arabs, which included Palestine, freedom from the Ottomans and self rule, in exchange for a revolt against them. That promise was never kept. The philo-Semite mass murderer Churchill is alleged to have organized Lawrence's assassination.
http://www.criminalelement.com/the-murder-of-lawrence-of-arabia-tony-hays/
May 03, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
Alex Budarin
The new millennium has seen a marked increase in parties and movements which appeal to racial and ethnic nationalism. What's behind it? I have an idea.Economic globalization could be a factor, as multinational corporations have shifted operations and production around the globe, to places where labor is cheaper and there's less official concern for public well-being. That's meant the loss of skilled-labor jobs in a number of countries with relatively high wages and state regulation in the name of public interest. There's doubtless anger that such jobs have been lost to Mexicans, Chinese, Filipinos, and people of other nations. But there's also evidence that this racial-ethnic anger is local and less abstract. Something else has triggered highly authoritarian Conservatives, I think.
The studies of Conservatives and authoritarians which I've cited in previous essays [ here and here ] suggested that these individuals are more sensitive to, and more alarmed by, conditions which present them with uncertainty. Any change from the status quo will do that. Consequently, any perceived deviation from the traditional order, with its established culture and hierarchies, will cause them to band together and fight for the status quo ante.
It's my hypothesis that, in many nations around the world, the 21st Century brought with it the increased presence and upward mobility of populations which Conservative/authoritarian citizens considered non-traditional and lower status. Conservative/authoritarian citizens would have viewed these social changes as threats to their traditional cultures and hierarchies, and they would have taken political actions intended to conserve or restore their traditional orders [e.g., to "Make America Great Again"].
Between 2000 and 2015, estimated global migration increased from about 173 million migrants to 244 million migrants, a jump of 41% (if I did the math correctly). Here are the top 10 countries to which they migrated:
Apr 27, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca
The Alarming Rise of Ukraine's Neo-Nazi MPs Since the 2014 "Pro-democracy Revolution" By Shane Quinn Global Research, April 26, 2019 Region: Europe Theme: History In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT
Less than two years ago, the Ukraine's parliament (Verkhovna Rada) voted to outlaw the St George's Ribbon, an emblem often worn to commemorate those who liberated the Soviet Union from Hitler's rule. Up to seven million Ukrainian infantrymen comprised part of the Red Army during their struggle against Nazi Germany, as Hitler was finally broken in the east.
By winter 1943, the once apparently indestructible Wehrmacht was spinning on its tail, their officers with their heads turning about westward, as they gradually retreated towards the German frontiers. Come the spring of 1945, about 2.5 million dead Ukrainian soldiers lay strewn across central and eastern Europe, many of their bodies never to be recovered.
The decision by an increasingly far-right Ukrainian parliament to ban remembrance symbols which commemorate those who fought against the Third Reich is, therefore, a desecration of their memory. It is an attempt to wash over that awful suffering the Ukrainian state endured during the Nazi occupation, with Hitler outlining plans to turn the country into a servile colony of Germanic dominion.
Over elapsing time from the February 2014 US-instituted "pro-democracy revolution", an ever expanding group of neo-Nazis has been elected to office. Notable amid these menacing figures is the far-right military commander Yuriy Bereza (image on the right), an MP since November 2014 who was elected under the title "People's Deputy of Ukraine".
Bereza is a member of fascist-infiltrated party, People's Front, which counts among its prominent MPs the neo-Nazi Andriy Parubiy , Chairman of the Ukrainian parliament since April 2016. In the early 1990s, Parubiy co-founded the far-right Social-National Party of Ukraine with fellow extremist Oleh Tyahnybok, that later became known as the Svoboda (Freedom) party.
When, in May 2017, a few of the Ukraine's conscientious MPs objected to moves in banning the St George's Ribbon, Bereza roared down from his parliamentary seat that he would like to "grab a machine gun and shoot those bast*rds". Bereza cuts an intimidating figure. He is a tall man routinely clad in full army fatigues, with tightly-cropped hair, broad shoulders and stern expression.
In December 2018, Bereza punched in the face Nestor Shufrych , an MP with the centre-left party For Life, after the latter removed a poster from the parliamentary podium which accused wealthy Ukrainian politician, Viktor Medvedchuk (image on the left), of being a Kremlin "agent". Medvedchuk is said to be an associate of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Bereza is familiar with the use of arms. Since April 2014, he has held the position of Dnipro Battalion leader: A fascist-linked unit which has fought Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukrainian regions such as the Donetsk Oblast, an area which rests directly upon Russia's south-western border, and is a mere 400 miles from Volgograd (Stalingrad). The Dnipro Battalion is subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, which among other things implements state policy.
Bereza and his regiment were involved in fighting during the autumn 2014 Battle of Ilovaisk, ending in decisive victory for the Moscow-supported Donetsk People's Republic.
Bereza's cause has drawn sympathy and backing from commercial media outlets like the Los Angeles Times, which wrote how his unit "survived on grass and rainwater as they braved five days of incessant sniper fire". The LA Times also quotes Bereza and, despite a heightened risk of nuclear war, the newspaper calls for increased funding to be granted to the far-right battalions.
Over Christmas 2014, Bereza's regiment was accused of war crimes by human rights groups, such as the deliberate starvation of Ukrainian civilians. His battalion has received more than $10 million of financial support from billionaire businessman Ihor Kolomoyskyi . There are photographs of the oligarch shaking hands amiably with Bereza in spring 2014.
Kolomoyskyi has provided critical support too for Volodymyr Zelensky , the Ukraine's president-elect, by guaranteeing him widespread exposure on television networks that the tycoon owns. Kolomoyskyi is one of the most powerful and affluent Ukrainians in the world. His corporate influence extends from the Caucasus of Eurasia to the Appalachian mountains of North America.
In a plot befitting a Hollywood film noir, Kolomoyskyi is presently under investigation by the FBI regarding claims of "ordering contract killings" and "financial crimes", including money laundering and embezzlement. In 2016, Kolomoyskyi was accused of defrauding the Ukraine's largest bank (PrivatBank) of hundreds of millions of dollars.
US and NATO's Ongoing Support for Neo-Nazis in UkraineAlso that year a criminal case was opened in Russia against Kolomoyskyi, purporting that he had organized the killings of civilians. He has been compelled to deny other allegations in the past relating to bribery and abduction.
Kolomoyskyi, who lived in the US for a period and retains vast business interests in states like Ohio and West Virginia, moved to Israel last September – which may well complicate a potential extradition to America, as he also possesses part Israeli citizenship.
Kolomoyskyi has bankrolled other far-right regiments fighting in eastern Ukraine, such as the Azov, Aidar and Donbas battalions. These armed groups have been cited by human rights activists for committing an array of offences, including war crimes – which have gone unpunished – like torture, abductions, possible executions, unlawful detention, sexual assault, etc.
An alarming number of neo-Nazis have indeed been elected to office in the Ukrainian parliament. Over the past five years of what the Washington Post calls "fledgling democracy", the following fascist figures have all enjoyed work as Ukrainian MPs, and they each comprise past and current members of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party: Oleh Tyahnybok, Ihor Mosiychuk, Oleh Osukhovskyi, Yuriy Bublyk, Oleksandr Marchenko, Oleh Makhnitskyi, Andriy Ilyenko, Ruslan Koshulynskyi, Mykhailo Holovko, Yuriy Levchenko, Igor Miroshnychenko, Pavlo Kyrylenko and Eduard Leonov.
The above's presence in the corridors of power has been almost undocumented in mass media reporting. There are other fascists receiving continued employment in the Ukrainian parliament – like Andriy Biletsky , co-founder of the now defunct white supremacist Social-National Assembly. Since late 2016, MP Biletsky has held the leadership of National Corps, a far-right party. This organization is reported to be expanding steadily with Biletsky saying last month that,
"we see how successful our movement is Ukraine is tired of the chaos, it needs new people who will protect the country".
Source: Euronews
For over two years from May 2014 Biletsky commanded the Azov Battalion, which enjoyed tacit Western support whilst fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Azov Battalion soldiers can be seen in photographs giving Nazi salutes, while flanked with swastikas and other symbols based on SS insignia.
More far-right individuals are holding seats like Andrey Artemenko, a Canadian citizen and MP since November 2014, who claims to be a "neo-conservative" and has membership of the fascist-led Radical Party. The Radical Party leader and MP is far-right extremist Oleh Lyashko , whose militant activities in the east of Ukraine were condemned by human rights organizations, in which he was described as "one particularly errant MP". Lyashko has been accused in preceding months of corruption relating to "illicit enrichment", which he denies.
Among the Radical Party MPs is the briefly above-mentioned Ihor Mosiychuk, a neo-Nazi who is a past member of both the Svoboda party and Social-National Assembly. Mosiychuk, sworn to office in November 2014, is also a journalist and editor-in-chief of the hardline newspaper Vechirnaya Vasilkov.
Serhiy Melnychuk , former leader of the Aidar Battalion, is likewise a Radical Party MP, as he has been since November 2014. Melnychuk is currently under investigation over allegations regarding a false assets declaration, while he has previously been the subject of multiple legal cases and accused of abduction. Melnychuk was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in June 2015.
There are further far-right Ukrainian MPs embedded in seemingly respectable parties like the People's Front. Among them is Ihor Lapin, a multi-decorated militant commander who comprised part of the Aidar Battalion, which draped Nazi-style insignia over its armoured vehicles.
Holding membership of the People's Front too is the aforementioned Parubiy, who has enjoyed trips to America and Canada, and is acquainted with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg . The far-right military figure, Mykhailo Havryliuk , is himself a People's Front member and MP, with Yuriy Bereza as stated also claiming a position in that party.
There are in addition fascists posing as "independents" in parliament such as Volodymyr Parasyuk, a former soldier in the Dnipro Battalion, commanded by Bereza. Parasyuk is a past member of the neo-Nazi party, Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. He was elected in November 2014, and still enjoys a place as MP more than four years on. Parasyuk has a reputation for physically assaulting people he does not like, including cowardly attacks on statesman Oleksandr Vilkul and security chief Vasyl Hrytsak, kicking the latter in the head while he was seated.
Boryslav Bereza is a separate extreme right-wing independent MP, and was elected in November 2014; he is a former spokesperson for Right Sector, a fascist party, and despite his surname he is no relation to Yuriy Bereza.
Boryslav Bereza is an open admirer of the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera , speaking warmly of his "three classic principles" in interviews. Moreover, in December 2014 Boryslav Bereza acknowledged that during the fighting in eastern Ukraine, Right Sector provided important assistance for Biletsky's notorious Azov Battalion.
MP Dmytro Yarosh , the one-time head of Right Sector, is yet another neo-Nazi who in the past was placed on Interpol's international wanted list, acceding to the Kremlin's request. Since late 2014, Yarosh constitutes a Ukrainian MP, and for many years he has been leader of the Tryzub (Trident) paramilitary group, whose full title is the Stepan Bandera All-Ukrainian Organization.
In Western establishment dialogue – pertaining to regimes they support – the terms "neo-Nazi" and "fascist" have been virtually erased from official records and reporting. These unequivocal labels are instead replaced with descriptions like "ultra-conservative", "nationalist" and "maverick". The latter ambiguous words blur the lines of neo-Nazism and fascism, sowing seeds of doubt and confusion in the reader's mind. A fascist now becomes an ultra-conservative or nationalist.
There are other post "revolution" MPs who have been part of fascist regiments, like Nadiya Savchenko, an Iraq War veteran and former instructor in the Aidar Battalion. Savchenko is a far-right extremist, and had been held in a Ukrainian jail for over a year until her unexpected release last week – after being suspected of planning a terrorist attack on the Ukrainian parliament building, and intending to overthrow the government. Savchenko still faces trial regarding these claims, and prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said her departure from prison suggests that the country's court apparatus is "gravely ill".
In June 2014, Savchenko was arrested by Russian authorities, placed on trial, and after long deliberation was charged in March 2016 with complicity in the killing of two state journalists. President Petro Poroshenko championed Savchenko's cause, describing her as "a symbol of the struggle for Ukraine"; and in March 2015 he awarded her the title "Hero of Ukraine", the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a Ukrainian citizen.
Semen Semenchenko , the far-right Donbas Battalion commander, was sworn in as a Ukrainian MP in November 2014. Semenchenko's election to parliament came weeks after his regiment was accused by a UN monitoring mission of executing war crimes on Ukrainian civilians, such as torture, beatings and sexual assault.
In September 2014, Semenchenko had arrived in Washington where he met Congress and Pentagon representatives. That same month he publicly called for US military backing, and enjoyed further visits to America later that year, while he is himself an admirer of Israel. In June 2017, an appeal was expounded against Semenchenko by former Donbas Battalion soldiers, who wanted an investigation conducted after accusing him of criminal acts.
In December 2018, Semenchenko was detained in Tbilisi, Georgia and suspected of "illegal possession and acquisition of arms". He was not arrested due to having a diplomatic passport, and thereafter travelled by airplane to an unknown destination.
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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com
Even people on the fringe of the Jewish Israeli society, the Russian Israelis, were all for Jewish nationalism and against socialism and Arabs. This is really silly. They are hardly considered Jews, to begin with. The Ministry of Interior plans to check them for DNA and whether they are Jewish at all.
The Russians are weak economically, and their participation in the national discourse is minimal. There is not a single Russian on the national Israeli TV channels.
They have a party of their own, the party of Mr Lieberman. However, the main demands of Mr Lieberman are (1) to bring the death penalty upon Arabs, (2) to bomb and invade Gaza, and (3) to make Mr Lieberman the Minister of Defence. And the Russian Israelis voted for him – or for Mr Netanyahu – anyway.
Israelis of Oriental origins who inhabit poor peripheral towns are similar to Russians. They also vote for Netanyahu and for his nationalist right-wing party, Likud. They are proud they vote against the Ashkenazi Blue-and-White Party, though all leaders of Likud are Ashkenazi Jews.
Is there a chance to change things in Israel, with such a Parliament? Well, yes. A military defeat can change minds, like it did in many countries many times. Otherwise, it is hard to imagine what would cause Netanyahu to change his course in view of the US support, Saudi friendship, Syrian weakness, and good election results. He is not for resolving conflicts, he is for managing conflict, and he is doing that well.
Russia's Putin plays ball with Bibi, too. Perhaps he does not like Bibi's relentless attacks on Syria, perhaps his heart goes for Palestinians, but he is a cautious statesman, and he does not want to antagonise the man who can mobilise American Jews into an action against Russia. There are enough American Jews against Russia and against Putin as things are; Putin does not need more. Besides, the Israeli opposition is not keen on Putin; they are lining up with the US Democrats and with Brussels Europeans. They called for direct intervention in Syria on the side of 'moderate rebels', while Netanyahu had kept Israel out of Syrian War and did not obstruct Putin's Syrian campaign.
Will Netanyahu annex the whole of the West Bank, as he said during the election campaign? Probably not; as nothing will be obtained by such an act but making apartheid visible. Instead, he is likely to annex every place where Jews live in the West Bank, turning the territory of Palestine into a slug-eaten cabbage leaf. He also may annex Area C, a bigger part of Palestinian territory presently under Israeli military control and Palestinian civilian administration. The Jewish settlers demand it, for, they say, Palestinians damage the contiguity of the Jewish settlements.
The Jewish religious parties came out stronger in the new parliament. They also enjoy a very high natural growth with families of 5 to 8 children average. They are not eager to compete on the labour market, and prefer to be paid for studying Talmud and having kids. While it may annoy some Israelis, in my view, it is an internal issue of little interest or importance for anybody outside the Jewish milieu.
Is there a possible solution for the conflict? It is definitely not the Deal of the Century of Mr Jared Kushner, some yet undefined arrangement usually done with smoke and mirrors. Probably One Democratic State, where Jews and non-Jews are equal, is the only possible solution, as the place is too small to divide but large enough to share.
Apr 16, 2019 | www.csmonitor.com
As people were forming up to stage this year's March 8 rally for women's rights in Kiev, a group of about three dozen young men, clad in dark clothes, started harassing the marchers by tearing off their lapel pins and ripping away their placards.
Some of the men tried to pull away a banner from Mariya Dmytriyeva, a well-known spokeswoman for feminist causes. She resisted. "Woman, why are you so nervous?" they jeered at her. Fortunately, she says, police intervened and separated them.
It's a familiar scene in Ukraine these days, where radical ultra-rightists are an increasingly threatening presence on the streets. "I think that overall these groups are very insignificant in size. But they are very radical and very loud," Ms. Dmytriyeva says. "If they can get away with attacking us like that, it shows there is something dangerous there."
Though few in number overall, far-right groups operate with a high degree of impunity in Ukrainian society, allowing them to harass and attack minorities and human rights advocates without repercussions. Some worry that such groups, given their anti-democratic ideals, paramilitary discipline, and freedom to operate, could have an outsize influence should Ukraine return to political instability. Though the ultra-rightists were given much latitude due to their help protecting the Maidan Revolution and the fledgling government that followed, now they highlight a key weakness of the current system.
"During the Maidan there was a context that was comfortable for [the radical right]. During the war [with rebels in the east], it was very comfortable," says Vyacheslav Likhachev, a historian and expert on Ukraine's right-wing movements. "Today we do not have a context in which a small minority, with street fighting skills, have the means to create instability. But in case there is instability, they are a very dangerous factor."
Operating with impunityUkraine's far-right groups, some of which include armed veterans of the war in Donbas, are an extremely controversial topic. And despite considerable stabilization in Ukrainian society over the past five years, the danger they pose appears to be growing.
Just a couple of days after the March 8 rally, scores of far-right activists belonging to the new National Corps party attacked the motorcade of President Petro Poroshenko in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy, injuring 19 police officers . In the past year, far-right organizations have carried out over two dozen violent assaults on women's groups, LGBT activists, and Roma encampments that have left many injured and at least one person dead. It is very rare, activists say , that police intervene as they did in Ms. Dmytriyeva's case, much less bring the attackers to justice.
Analysts say the strength of these groups derives mainly from the weakness of Ukraine's post-Maidan state, or rather its reluctance to enforce law and order when it comes to the depredations of radical rightists. That may be in part due to the role ultra-right fighters played during the Maidan revolt against former President Viktor Yanukovych, as organized defenders of the protest encampment and sometimes initiators of violence against police.
Even more important is their status as war heroes who formed private battalions and rushed to the front in 2014 to battle separatist rebels at a time when the Ukrainian Army was in serious disarray. As a result they enjoy connections with authorities, and a level of social respectability, that would probably not be the case otherwise.
It's important to point out that despite their high public visibility and the apparent impunity with which they act on the streets, the far-right groups do not appear to represent any social upsurge of radical nationalism. Indeed, a joint candidate put forward by five of Ukraine's leading ultra-rightist groups in the March 31 first round of Ukrainian presidential elections, Ruslan Koshulynskyi, won less than 2% of the votes.
Rather, the fear among many here is that if Ukraine's weak state institutions should again suffer any sort of breakdown, these highly organized, disciplined, armed, violence-prone, and ideologically determined groups might punch far above their weight in determining a political outcome.
'We are not democrats'Instability is a prospect that may not be far from the surface in post-Maidan Ukraine. The Right Sector, a militant ultra-nationalist group that played a very prominent role during the Maidan uprising, has since consolidated itself as a political party with an armed wing and a youth movement. It may not be the largest right-wing movement in Ukraine, but it has maintained its revolutionary sense of purpose and complete rejection of the existing order.
"We are not democrats. We participate in elections only because they are a step to revolution," says Artyom Skoropadskiy, press spokesman of the Right Sector party. "We want to change the whole system. New people, new order, new rules in the state system of Ukraine. We oppose Russia, and we are against Ukraine joining the European Union and NATO. We want Ukraine to be a self-sufficient, independent state."
The Right Sector backed Mr. Koshulynskyi's presidential bid simply because it offered an opportunity for political agitation, he says, and the vote tally is of secondary interest.
"Our organization is designed to take power. If circumstances warrant, that could happen by nondemocratic methods. Believe me, we are very capable of acting in extreme situations," he adds. "At the Maidan we had only 300 activists, and look what we did. In fact, if you consider that there was never more than 1 million people participating in the Maidan altogether, out of a population of 42 million, it shows how things really work. The active minority always leads the passive majority. Scenarios change, and we are ready. Our purpose is to save Ukraine."
The Right Sector, and other militant street groups such as C-14 and the newly created National Corps, already pose a real and present danger to vulnerable groups of the population, such as gay and transgender people, women's activists, Roma, as well as any dissidents who might, rightly or wrongly, be viewed as "pro-Russian."
Ulyana Movchan, director of Insight, a nongovernmental group that provides legal services and other support to LGBT groups, says that people who do not belong to these vulnerable groups of the population should wake up and be more concerned about what is happening.
"The problem is that these right-wing activists are armed; they have combat experience. They are organized into illegal military groups," she says. "They are trying to control the streets and maybe, in future, political life as well. We do not know what they might do. They don't just pose a personal danger to certain activists, they are a threat to the whole society."
Giving too much leeway to nationalists?Many Ukrainian analysts argue that these new rightist groups are not "nationalist," but rather racist, intolerant, and extreme social conservatives. But it may be a problem that more mainstream Ukrainian nationalists, such as the Svoboda party – which does not participate in street violence – tend to make heroes of 20th-century "fighters for Ukrainian independence." Those include Stepan Bandera, whose fascist ideology, collaboration with the Nazis, and participation in wartime ethnic cleansing against Poles and Jews makes him and those like him poor role models for modern Europe-bound Ukraine.
The Ukrainian parliament has passed legislation making it illegal to deny the hero status of Mr. Bandera. In Kiev, a major boulevard was recently renamed "Bandera Prospekt." It should be no surprise that groups like the Right Sector model themselves on such World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist fighters.
"We are a Ukrainian nationalist group, in the image of Stepan Bandera," says Mr. Skoropadskiy.
Tensions over these historical issues are real enough, especially in the more Russified eastern Ukraine – where everyone's grandfather served in the Red Army – and they may be part of the explanation for the very high first round vote for Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a Russian-speaker from eastern Ukraine who plays down nationalist themes.
"During the past five years the government made more steps [to legitimize figures like Mr. Bandera] than much of society is willing to accept," says Mr. Likhachev. "Most of society feels we don't need Lenin or Bandera. But you can't really mobilize people politically with these issues. There has been no big public movement against it."
More significant is the strong attraction these new radical right groups seem to exercise over Ukrainian youth. They articulate a cause. They have slick promotional materials and maintain a big infrastructure of sports clubs, training camps, and regular activities.
"I see how many young people want to be part of a movement," says Ms. Movchan. "It's kind of fashionable these days to join something, and here they are with all kinds of tools of recruitment, such as fight clubs, training grounds, and parades. They bring out the worst emotions, like homophobia and racism, to channel their aggression. I wish we could broaden our own audience to show young people there are other ways to be active, like fighting for human rights."
Apr 17, 2017 | www.unz.com
Introduction
Ethno-religious (ER) beliefs and practices have been harmless when individuals or groups linked to those practices have limited influence over the state and economy. In contrast, when such groups exercise a disproportionately powerful influence over the state and economy, they dominate and exploit majorities while forming closed self-replicating networks.
Examples of powerful ethno-centric regimes in the 1930's are well known for their brutality and devastating consequences. These include the white Christians in the US, Germany and the European colonial settlement regimes in Rhodesia, South Africa, India and Indonesia, as well as the Japanese imperialists in Asia.
In the post-colonial or neo-colonial era, ethno-centrism has taken the form of virulent anti-Islamic hysteria resulting in predatory Western regimes embarking on wars and military occupations in the Middle East.
The rise of Judeo-centrism, as an economic and political force, occurred in the last half of the 20th century. The Jewish-Zionist seizure, occupation and ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine and their rising economic and political influence within the United States has created a formidable power bloc with significant implications for world peace.
The rise of Jewish ethnocentrism (JE) has confounded its proponents as well as its adversaries; Zionists and anti-Semites alike are surprised by the scope and depth of JE.
Advocates and adversaries, of all persuasions, conflate the power of what they call 'the Jews', for their own purposes. Advocates find proof of 'Jewish genius' in every prestigious position and attribute it to their own unique culture, heredity and scholarship, rather than the result of a greater social-cultural context. The anti-Semites, for their part, attribute all the world's nefarious dealings and diabolic plots to 'the Jews'. This creates a strange duality of illusions about the exceptionalism of a minority group.
In this paper I will focus on demystifying the myths buttressing the power of contemporary Judeo-centric ideology, belief and organizational influence. There is little point in focusing on anti-Semitism, which has no impact on the economy and the exercise of state power with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia. Even the Saudi Monarchy's occasional outbursts against Israel do not inhibit it from engaging in large-scale financial transactions with the Jewish banking elite on Wall Street and City of London and from forming covert alliances with Israeli intelligence in order to overthrow secular pro-Palestinian Arab regimes – as has happened in Libya, Iraq and Syria. They have both benefited from the massive ethnic cleansing of the highly educated minority Christian populations of secular Iraq and Syria.
Fake Anti-Semitism: Operational Weapon of the Ethno-Centric Jews
Fake anti-Semitism is most recently seen in the launching of series of anti-Semitic 'threats' by ethno-centric Jews to create hysteria, serves many purposes following the recent rise of populism in Europe and the election of the American President Donald Trump who had promised to withdraw the US from wars in the Middle East. First, it secures widespread support from North American and European regimes, especially when Israel is criticized throughout the world and at the United Nations for its war crimes in occupied Palestine. Widespread fake anti-Semitic attacks divert attention to Judeo-ethno centrists and validate their claims to be the first among the history's victims. Second, widely publicized 'fake' acts of anti-Semitism arouse the ethnocentric foot soldiers and increase rich donor contributions to the illegal Jewish settlements and the Israeli military. Third, 'fake anti-Semitism' is used to threaten, repress and outlaw any organizations and individuals who criticize Israel and the influence of Jewish ethnocentric organizations in their home countries.
How many 'anti-Semitic' acts are staged is uncertain: On March 23, 2017, an Israeli-American man was arrested in Israel for sending hundreds of fake anti-Semitic threats to Jewish institutions and schools in four European countries and nine US states. Such threats led to the emergency grounding of two US airlines and the panicked evacuation of countless schools and cultural centers. This man used a sophisticated system of cloaking accounts to appear to originate in other countries. Despite his high skills at cyber-terrorism, Israeli authorities preposterously described him as a 'teenager with a learning disability'. The Israeli-American cyber-terrorist's arrest made the 'back-pages' news in the US for one day while his (and others') fake threats continued to make international headlines for weeks.
These scores of fake anti-Semitic bomb threats were cited by the major ethnocentric leaders in the US to pressure the US President and hundreds of Congressional leaders, University Presidents, etc. to mindlessly echo their clamor for greater police state investigations against critics of Israel and to offer special 'protection' for potential 'Jewish victims'. Moves to outlaw criticism of Israel as 'anti-Semitism' and a 'hate crime' increased.
Not surprisingly the leading Jewish organizations never backed down or called on the US government to investigate the source of the fake anti-Semitic threats: that is Israeli-American Zionists, who carry both nations' passports and can enter and exit with total ease and enjoy immunity from extradition.
It is almost certain that the US FBI had identified the perpetrator of these acts as they uncovered the sophisticated operation based in Israel. The FBI would have demanded Israeli police arrest 'the culprit' and shut down the operation. Israeli police staged their own 'fake' investigation and concluded that the complex cloaked cyber operations 'were the work of a shy nineteen year old with dyslexia' – clearly another example of the Jewish genius.
It is more likely that the hundreds of false-anti-Semitic threats were part of an Israeli state operation identified by the FBI who 'diplomatically' pressured Tel Aviv to cut out the monkey business. The news report of the lone-wolf teenager in Israel allowed the Israeli intelligence to cover-up their role. Once the Israelis passed off the unbelievable tale of a brilliant, if troubled, young 'lone wolf', the entire US mass media buried the story forever. In due time the so-called perpetrator will be released, amply rewarded and his identity re-cycled. In the meantime the US government, as well as several European governments, was forced to allocate tens of millions of dollars to provide extra security to Jewish institutions in the wake of these fake threats.
Jewish Power: The Top 25 American Multi-Billionaires
In February 2017, Forbes magazine compiled a list of the world's billionaires, including a country-by-country account. The top five countries with multi-billionaires among its citizens are: the US with 565, China with 319, Germany with 114, India with 101, and Russia with 96. Moreover, since 2016 the net worth of the multi-billionaires grew 18% to $7.67 trillion dollars.
While the US has the greatest number of billionaires, China is fast catching up.
Despite China's advances, the US remains the center of world capitalism with the greatest concentration of wealth, as well as the greatest and growing inequalities. One reasonably can argue that who controls US wealth controls the world.
'Jews' among the Top 25 Multi-Billionaires in the US
A review of the top 10 US multi-billionaires finds four who are identified as 'Jews': Mark Zuckerberg with $56 billion, Larry Ellison with $52.2 billion, Michael Bloomberg with $47.5 billion and Sergey Brin $39.4 billion. In other words 40% of the super-richest Americans are 'Jews' while 60% are non-Jews. Among the top ten in the US, billionaire Jews with a total of $195.1 billion are collectively less rich than the top billionaire Gentiles who own $282.7 billion.
Of the top 25 multi-billionaires in the US, 11 of the 25 are Jews. In other words 'the Jews' represent 44% of the top 25 biggest billionaires – outnumbered by Gentiles but catching up.
Analysis of the 'Richest Jews'
We place 'Jews' in quotation marks because this is a doubtful signifier – more useful to both Zionist fanatics and anti-Semitic polemicists. Most are not 'practicing' or are completely disinterested in tribal religions. Nevertheless, half of secular Jews in the US are active supporters of Israel or involved in Fifth Column Israeli 'front groups'.
In other words, about half of the richest 'Jews' do not consider themselves to be religiously or ethnically 'Jewish'. Super rich Jews are divided regarding their ethnic loyalties between the US and Israel.
Moreover what is murkier, many of the richest so-called 'Jews' were born to 'mixed marriages'. Strictly religious Jews do not recognize the children of such marriages as Jews because their mothers are not Jewish. The omnivorous Zionists, on the other hand, classify all of them as Jews on the basis of their actual or potential contribution to the State of Israel. In other words, the Zionist classification of 'Jews' becomes arbitrary, politicized and dependent on organizational affiliation. Religious practice and ethno-cultural purity are less important.
Judeo-Centrism and the Intrinsic Superiority Fallacy
Among the many zealous advocates of the Judeo-centric world, the most tiresome are those who claim they represent the product of superior genetics, culture and heritage – unique and intrinsic to Jews.
For many centuries most Jews were illiterate believers of religious tribal myths, taught by anti-scientific rabbis, who closed off the ghettos from the accomplishments of higher culture and forbade integration or mixed marriages. The high priests punished and expelled any Jews who were influenced by the surrounding Hellenistic, Romanized, Arabic, Renaissance and Rationalists cultures, like the great Spinoza.
In other words, Jews who had rejected Jewish law, the Scriptures and the Torah were expelled as apostates. But these 'apostates' were most open to the modern ideas of science. Jews greatly benefited from the emancipatory laws and opportunities following the French Revolution. Under Napoleon, Jews became citizens and were free to advance in science, the arts and finance by attending secular universities away from the primitive, superstitious Rabbi-controlled ghetto 'schools'.
The dramatic growth of intellectual excellence among Jews in the 19th century was a result of their ceasing to be Jews in the traditional closed religious sense. Did they suddenly switch on their 'genius genes' or invent a fake history or religion, as the ethno-centrist would have us believe? It seems far more likely that they took great advantage of the opportunities opened to them with major social and political developments in the greater society. As they assimilated and integrated in secular traditions, they ceased to be Jews in the tribal religious sense. Their scientific, medical and financial success came from learning, absorbing and exchanging scientific ideas, high culture and conservative, liberal and socialist ideas with the larger progressive non-Jewish society.
It is no coincidence that 'great Jewish achievers' like the totally secular Albert Einstein were educated in German universities by German professors and drew on scientific knowledge by German and non-Jewish scholars. His intellectual development was due to his free association with the great scientists and scholars of Germany and Europe, not closeted away in some ethno-tribal commune.
The Jews who remained embedded in the Polish, Lithuanian and Russian ghettos, under the reign of the leading Rabbis, remained illiterate, poor and backward. Most of the claims of 'superior' cultural heritage or traditions are the creation of a mythical folk history serving ethno-national supremacists.
The Myth of the Contemporary Genius
The modern ethnocentric ideologues ignore the 'dilution of Jewishness' in their celebratory identification with successful 'Jews'.
Many of the best thinkers, writers, scientists and political leaders were conversos (Christian converts), or integrated European secular nationalists, socialists, monarchists, bankers and professionals.
Some remained 'reformed Jews' or later transformed into secular Zionists: nationalists who despised non-Europeans as inferior and couldn't even conceive of Arab Palestine as their 'homeland'. It wasn't until the 20th century that Zionism was in part 'Judacized'. Early Zionists looked at various locations for a homeland, including Argentina and parts of Africa and Russia.
These ethno-chauvinist ideologues lay claim to all brilliant individuals, no matter how tenuous as examples of 'Jewish genius'. Even those personally opposed Jewish ethno-religious beliefs and indifferent to tribal loyalties end up being claimed as examples of the 'Jewish genius'. Once some 'matrilineal link' could be found, their success and brilliance was tied to the mystical lineage, no matter how tenuous.
This bizarre practice became even more commonplace following the Jewish military conquest and brutal ethnic cleansing of Palestine, with the military, political and financial backing of non-Jewish Europe and the United States. With myths and inflated ideas of unique virtue and brilliance, Israel was established as a racist apartheid state. A new militant, ethnocentric Judaism converted Israel and its overseas backers into an ethno-ideological international power with religious trappings, based on the myth of its 'exceptionalism'. To maintain this myth, the personal histories of all prominent 'Israel Firsters' were sanitized and scrubbed of anti-social and destructive behavior.
All Jewish billionaires were to be portrayed as uniquely philanthropic, while the exploits of Jewish billionaire swindlers (Bernie Madoff, Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky) were not to be mentioned in polite company. The conquests of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, rapist-procurer head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Governor Elliot Spitzer, Congressman Anthony Weiner and other similar perverts quietly slithered off the edge of the planet although all had once been hailed as examples of 'ethnocentric genius'.
Major Jewish political donors to US-UK-French electoral parties were hailed while their work on behalf of Israel was naturally assumed but not discussed. The dizzying shifts between open adulation and selective whitewash served to reinforce the illusion of superiority. Anyone, Jew or Gentile, bold enough to point out the obvious hypocrisy would be immediately censored as 'self-hating' (Jew) or 'anti-Semite' (Gentile).
Return to the Beginning: Judeo-Centric Power
As mentioned above, Jews represent a substantial minority among the top multi-billionaires, but they are still a minority. Below the top level of wealth are the single digit billionaires and triple and double digit multi-millionaires; here the proportion of 'Jews' increases. These 'less-than-super-billionaires' are among the most active and the biggest financial and political supporters of the ethno centric ideology and tribal cohesion.
Los Angeles-based Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban contributed tens of millions of dollars to support of the Jewish state's occupation of Palestine and brutal colonial land grabbing 'settlers'. His wealth is largely based on his 'genius' in pushing culturally vacuous Japanese cartoons (Mighty Morphing Power Rangers) on the nation's children. He is the primary donor to the Democratic Party pushing Israel's agenda – his number one priority as an American citizen.
The lesser 'foot soldiers' of the Zionist power structure are the millionaires and affluent professionals, dentists, stockbrokers, lawyers, doctors and impresarios. The middle and lower levels of wealth and power are a diverse group – mostly ethno-religious and secular, but very self-identified ethno-Jews. A minority is totally secular or converted to non-Jewish religions (especially Buddhism, Christianity)
Despite the constant drumbeat of ethnocentric identity, an increasing number of young US 'Jews' do not identify with Judaism or Israel. Their influence however is minimal.
The wealthy ethno-religious and secular ethnic Jews may or may not constitute a numerical majority but they are the best organized, most political and most adamant in their claims to 'speak for and represent the Jewish community' as a whole, especially during waves of (fake) 'anti-Semitism'!
The many former-Jews, anti-tribal Jews and 'non-Jewish' Jews are no match for the ethnocentric political apparatus controlled by the chauvinists.
When the tribalists appropriate the glory of a secular non-Jewish Jewish scientist or major 'prize winner' they claim his or her tribal affiliation in order to impress the 'goys' and to seduce younger more skeptical Jews about the advantages of ethno-chauvinism.
All the high-tech computer and financial billionaires are just assumed by the tribalists to view themselves as 'Jewish geniuses' even though they may have learned and borrowed ideas and knowledge from their non-Jewish partners and mentors in Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
Upward mobility within academia, government and business circles is automatically assumed by the tribalists to be a reward for superior merit – 'Jewish genius' – rather than nepotism or connections. Tribal networks and 'understandings' play a powerful unspoken role in career success and immunity from the consequences of failure, incompetence or dishonesty.
Multi-billionaires and multi-millionaires prospered because they entered establish lucrative fields or made their career choices highly profitable.
Early on, many powerful Gentile bankers provided entry for talented Jews to succeed. This is despite revisionist history bemoaning the exclusion of US Jews on Wall Street and their degrading denial of membership in select WASP country clubs. These myths of brutal oppression on Wall Street or Long Island yacht clubs have empowered generations of American Jews to assume the role of spokespersons for the oppressed everywhere. The expression 'crying all the way to the bank' comes to mind.
By the last quarter of the 20th century and especially in the 21st century, deindustrialization and the shift to financialization in the US economy increased the power and privilege of a disproportionate number of multi-billionaire/millionaire Jews. This seismic shift has coincided with the pervasive impoverishment of the marginalized working class in the former 'rust belt' and central parts of the country and the incredible concentration of national wealth at the top 1%. This is a demographic shift and ethno-class apartheid of huge, but unstudied, significance.
The most important political question is not how many Jews are super-wealthy but what proportion of them are influential political donors and active in the Democratic or Republican Parties in order to intervene on behalf of clan, tribe and motherland (Israel). Majorities among Jews are not crucial – most are not politically active. What is decisive is the percentage of all the super-wealthy who are politically active, organized and contribute substantially to influence and control the mass media to promote their ethno-centric ideology and punish critics.
Conclusion
Overt and covert Jewish supremacists have embroidered a fake history and legacy of exceptional intelligence ignoring the context of advanced non-Jewish science and cultures, which preceded and later provided Jews with opportunities for education and wealth.
The danger inherent in all ethno-centric tribes is that they work to dominate majority populations by creating systems of assigning superiority and inferiority. They then use these to justify growing inequalities of wealth, education and political power!
Historically favored minorities tend to overreach and, like the eyeless Sampson, bring down the Temple on everyone. Power corrupts and absolute ethno-chauvinist power corrupts absolutely. Intelligent Jews of principle are abandoning
Jul 09, 2018 | www.unz.com
renfro , July 4, 2018 at 7:23 pm GMT
@jilles dykstraL.K , July 4, 2018 at 9:24 pm GMTYou could help yourself by learning the real history ..I suggest the foremost historian on the subject Thomas Thompson and his ' History of Arabia'. Jerusalem was not founded by Jews, i.e. adherents of the Jewish religion. It was founded between 3000 BCE and 2600 BCE by a West Semitic people or possibly the Canaanites, the common ancestors of Palestinians, Lebanese, many Syrians and Jordanians, and many Jews. But when it was founded Jews did not exist.
Jerusalem was founded in honor of the ancient god Shalem. It does not mean City of Peace but rather 'built-up place of Shalem." The "Jewish people" were not building Jerusalem 3000 years ago, i.e. 1000 BCE. First of all, it is not clear when exactly Judaism as a religion centered on the worship of the one God took firm form. It appears to have been a late development since no evidence of worship of anything but ordinary Canaanite deities has been found in archeological sites through 1000 BCE. There was no invasion of geographical Palestine from Egypt by former slaves in the 1200s BCE. The pyramids had been built much earlier and had not used slave labor. The chronicle of the events of the reign of Ramses II on the wall in Luxor does not know about any major slave revolts or flights by same into the Sinai peninsula. Egyptian sources never heard of Moses or the 10 plagues & etc. Jews and Judaism emerged from a certain social class of Canaanites over a period of centuries inside Palestine. Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then non-existent "Jewish people" in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was not even inhabited at that point in history. Jerusalem appears to have been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates for the united kingdom under David and Solomon. So Jerusalem was not 'the city of David,' since there was no city when he is said to have lived. No sign of magnificent palaces or great states has been found in the archeology of this period, and the Assyrian tablets, which recorded even minor events throughout the Middle East, such as the actions of Arab queens, don't know about any great kingdom of David and Solomon in geographical Palestine. Since archeology does not show the existence of a Jewish kingdom or kingdoms in the so-called First Temple Period, it is not clear when exactly the Jewish people would have ruled Jerusalem except for the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Assyrians conquered Jerusalem in 722. The Babylonians took it in 597 and ruled it until they were themselves conquered in 539 BCE by the Achaemenids of ancient Iran, who ruled Jerusalem until Alexander the Great took the Levant in the 330s BCE. Alexander's descendants, the Ptolemies ruled Jerusalem until 198 when Alexander's other descendants, the Seleucids, took the city. With the Maccabean Revolt in 168 BCE, the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom did rule Jerusalem until 37 BCE, though Antigonus II Mattathias, the last Hasmonean, only took over Jerusalem with the help of the Parthian dynasty in 40 BCE. Herod ruled 37 BCE until the Romans conquered what they called Palestine in 6 CE (CE= 'Common Era' or what Christians call AD). The Romans and then the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium ruled Jerusalem from 6 CE until 614 CE when the Iranian Sasanian Empire Conquered it, ruling until 629 CE when the Byzantines took it back.A. The Muslims, who ruled it and built it over 1191 years.
B. The Egyptians, who ruled it as a vassal state for several hundred years in the second millennium BCE.
C. The Italians, who ruled it about 444 years until the fall of the Roman Empire in 450 CE.
D. The Iranians, who ruled it for 205 years under the Achaemenids, for three years under the Parthians (insofar as the last Hasmonean was actually their vassal), and for 15 years under the Sasanids.
E. The Greeks, who ruled it for over 160 years if we count the Ptolemys and Seleucids as Greek. If we count them as Egyptians and Syrians, that would increase the Egyptian claim and introduce a Syrian one.
F. The successor states to the Byzantines, which could be either Greece or Turkey, who ruled it 188 years, though if we consider the heir to be Greece and add in the time the Hellenistic Greek dynasties ruled it, that would give Greece nearly 350 years as ruler of Jerusalem.
G. There is an Iraqi claim to Jerusalem based on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, as well as perhaps the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin's dynasty), who were Kurds from Iraq.@jilles dykstraL.K , July 4, 2018 at 9:28 pm GMTI understand what you are saying, Jilles, but let's be accurate, shall we?
The Jews have ZERO right to "return" to Palestine one cannot go back to a place one never left in the first place.
The story that the Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine 2000 years ago is FALSE.
See Israeli historian Shlomo Sand( the invention of the Jewish people).At any rate, even had the story been true – and it is NOT – the notion of modern Jews laying claim to the land 2000 years later is truly bizarre.
@renfroIn short, today's Palestinians and their ancestors have been living continuously between the River and the Sea for about 9,000 years."
Exactly.
In the preface of his book "Ten myths about Israel", Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, writes:Were the Jews indeed the original inhabitants of Palestine who deserved to be supported in every way possible in their "return" to their "homeland"? The myth insists that the Jews who arrived in 1882 were the descendants of the Jews expelled by the Romans around 70 CE. The counterargument questions this genealogical connection. Quite a hefty scholarly effort has shown that the Jews of Roman Palestine remained on the land and were first converted to Christianity and then to Islam. Who these Jews were is still an open question -- maybe the Khazars who converted to Judaism in the ninth century; or maybe the mixture of races across a millennium precludes any answer to such a question.
Mar 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
March 25, 2019
In a recent thought-provoking article Gideon Levy, probably one of the last genuine Israeli voices for peace, claims that "It is not Netanyahu who is responsible for Israeli 'racism, extreme nationalism, divisiveness, incitement, hatred, anxiety and corruption.'" Behind Netanyahu, Levy says, there's a nation of voters and other elected officials that aren't very different from their leader.
"Simply put, the people are the problem There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything."
Levy reaffirms the observation that I have been pushing for two decades. The problem with Israel is not of a political kind . The conflict with the Palestinians or the Arabs is not of a political nature as some delusional characters within the Palestinian solidarity movement have been proclaiming for years. Israel defines itself as the Jewish state. In order to grasp Israel, its politics, its policies and the intrusive nature of its lobby, we must understand the nature of Jewishness. We must learn to define the differences between Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion) and Jewishness (the ideology). We have to understand how those terms are related to each other and how they influence Israeli and Jewish politics globally.
Levy writes that "there are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do. There are those who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do anything, simply because it can."
In order to understand what Levy is referring to we must dig into the core of Jewish identification and once and for all grasp the notion of Jewish choseness. Levy contends that "racism and xenophobia are deeply entrenched here, far more deeply than any Netanyahu The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's racism." Netanyahu as such, is not the disease. He is a mere symptom.
ORDER IT NOW
The devastating news is that neither the Israeli 'Left' nor the Jewish so-called 'anti' Zionist league are any less racist than their Zionist foes. The Israeli Left pushes for a 'two state solution.' It crudely ignores the Palestinian cause i.e. the Right of Return. The Israeli Left advocates segregation and ghettoization; not exactly the universal message of harmony one would expect from 'leftists.' Disturbingly, the Diaspora Jewish 'anti' Zionist Left is even more racially exclusive than the Israeli Right. As I have explored many times in the past, Corbyn's 'favourite Jewish political group namely, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is a racially exclusive political cell. It wouldn't allow gentiles into its Jews-only club. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is no better. It will happily take donations from Goyim but will never allow those Goyim to become its board members.
Levy proclaims that "Netanyahu is the best thing to ever happen to Israeli politics – you can dump everything on him." But in his most astute observation, which has been explored before by Uri Avnery (may he rest in peace) and yours truly, Levy continues, "It would be great if some local Nelson Mandela would arise, a brave leader with vision who would change the country's basic values and lead a revolution. But no such person has been born here, and it's doubtful he ever will be."
Levy points at the core of the Zionist failure. If early Zionism was a promise to civilise the diaspora Jew by means of 'homecoming,' Israel happened to do the complete opposite. Not much is left out of the Zionist promise to make the Jews 'people like all other people': as Israel is about to perpetrate another colossal war crime in Gaza, we have to admit that we are dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.
Bloody Bill , says: March 25, 2019 at 10:30 pm GMT
Another good one Atzmon. I thinks it's hard for people to grasp outside of Israel the connection you speak of between the religion, the people, and the ideology. Its underreported for obvious reasons in the media, plus the control the Israel lobby and its donors the Adelsons, Sabans, and Singers have in the US on what people hear about Israel and its citizens. All you hear is it's a democracy among hostile states that hate it because of freedom or democracy or whatever propaganda speak the mouth peace for Israel/Zionism media uses. You never hear about Israel's and its citizens actions that cause it just the eternal victim status they have been awarded.A123 , says: March 25, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMTViolent Islam is the Disease, Resistance Leaders are the SymptomHaxo Angmark , says: Website March 26, 2019 at 12:11 am GMTThe author makes a good point. Netanyahu is not unique:
– Modi resists violent Islam in Kashmir.
– Jinping resists violent Islam in Xinjiang.
– Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary.
– Trump resists violent Islam in the U.S.
– Netanyhau resists violent Islam in Israel.
And, there are more cases not in the list aboveIslam views all non-Muslims as infidels. Violent Islam wages Jihad until the infidels are killed, converted, or willingly submit as Dhimmi slaves. Until Islam changes, Resistance leaders will continue to protect their people. Perhaps the collapse of the Iranian government and its funding of terrorism will open the door to that change.
______Israel started as a far left venture where the people lived in true communist shared estates know as Kibbutz. Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive.
The upcoming election makes no difference in Israeli survival strategy. Netanyahu's only serious competitor, Benny Gantz, openly states he will fight Iran's violent Islamic expansion in Lebanon & Syria (Iranian Hezbollah) and in Gaza (Iranian Hamas).
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260896
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-vows-to-resume-targeted-killings-of-hamas-leaders-if-necessary/
Zionist racial nationalist occupation of PalestineSaggy , says: Website March 26, 2019 at 12:19 am GMTwould be just fine if
it weren't based on ZOG in America.
that's the core problem. The Chosen are in fact
parasites
who cannot live without a Host that
they insist on destroying.
Reg Cæsar , says: March 26, 2019 at 1:24 am GMTwe have to admit that we are dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.
Stay tuned next week when Atzmon will address another raging controversy, and he courageously concludes that we have to admit that water is wet.
ariadna , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:08 am GMTThere are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu.
Yes, from the Zagros Mountains to the ports of old Phoenecia to the Atlantic Ocean. Those who they've conquered.
First:mark green , says: March 26, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
Yes, do let's differentiate between Jews, judaism and jewishness (lest anyone be accused of criticizing "Jews the people," which is something only an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew might do, isn't it?).The Jews are the people, judaism is their deeply inculcated worldview and ethos, and jewishness is their inherently logical behavior.
Or the Jews are the computer, judaism is its operating system and jewishness its applications.
Or the Jews are the rice, while judaism and jewishness are the white on rice.
Second:
The zionism did NOT fail to deliver its promise to make the Jews "people like other people." It is Atzmon who fails to understand that the Jews' definition of "people" ("nations") is based on the very Jewish worldview of the model: irrationally hateful, brutal, greedy, covetous, and ruthless "winners." I would say zionism succeeded remarkably well, but it had eager students to start with.@ariadna Ha! Very well said.Anonymous [675] Disclaimer , says: March 26, 2019 at 5:33 am GMTMr. Atzmon has painted himself in a corner on this otherwise tough editorial. But let's give him some credit. Gilad's taken a hell of a lotta heat for his rough and penetrating criticisms of the Zionist colony and its endless deceptions. And he (generally) pulls no punches.
But when all is said and done, and all the hairs are split, and all the (overdue) debates are finally finished (and we can somehow separate the 'racist' Jews from the good, 'humanitarian' Jews) we are nevertheless left with a core Jewish identity that puts God's Chosen People forever and eternally above the rest of humanity. God says so!
Basically, the problem is that Jewishness and 'Jewish supremacism' are pretty much one and the same.
@Haxo Angmarkanimalogic , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:13 am GMTThe Chosen are in fact parasites who cannot live without a Host that they insist on destroying.
Bingo. Crazy, isn't it?
@A123 "Israel started as a far left venture Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive."jacques sheete , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:16 am GMT
I wonder why the Palestinians employ violence ? Of course, the State of Israel was born out of terrorism (King David hotel, multiple assassinations etc) & ethnic cleansing (ie Nakba ). And yes, the Palestinians were also violent.
As for Israel's "survival" -- that's been a none issue since the late 70's, at a minimum. Israel with its 100's of nuclear weapons & it's US body guard has NO survival issues. It's all the poor bastards around them who have survival problems : (Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Libya etc)@A123 Uh-huh.neutral , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:54 am GMT@A123Fidelios Automata , says: March 26, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMTOrban resists violent Islam in Hungary
Typical brain dead Hasbara nonsense. Orban resists third world immigration, which I support, the problem is about mass non white immigration not Islam. The ultimate problem is the jew, it is they that push for mass immigration and miscegenation the most.
My biggest problem with Zionism is that so many Zionists are hypocrites who want every nation to have open borders -- except Israel!Christo , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:43 pm GMT"Simply put, the people are the problem"anom , says: March 26, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMTAnd the rest of this article just goes on and on about how evil , Israel, Israelis are , and as to how they are self-justified and unified in being so. And this is a Jew writing this.
Wow. What is the world to do? Doesn't seem to be any other option or solution, except a trip to Wannsee.
@A123 Dancing Isreaeli said to the cops:" We are not your problem . Arabs are "anom , says: March 26, 2019 at 3:32 pm GMTThis guy is shouting at China India Russia and at the God : Israel is not the problem Its these Muslims.
Question is this : will these guys be allowed on the graves of the 911 victims strewn all across the world- Germany Soviet Russia, Poland, American rust belt, WW1 and 2 British cemeteries?
@Fidelios Automata That's it?m___ , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:10 pm GMTWhen did they say something that turned out to be true?
Having said that, the world would be a better place if they ended up destroying elite run US UK . Yes they would cut the branch on which they are sitting . But they would jump the ship just before taht happening
You know Albert Sasson whow as knighted , who married in Riothchilds family, whose grand son / nephew or another Sasson – by name Amery gave us the Balfour in part . He was thrown out of Iraq court for corruption He made it to Raj's India and planted the seed of opium That soon ate up all the available fertile lands of north India . The opium made him rich made India poor corrupted British Raj and led to Chinese deprivations rebellion and to communism
@neutral Regardless, Jews (definition as provided and all three facets) are the most coherent group globally. They can muster the most coordination, the strongest drive, the detachment and loyalty, add as needed,WorkingClass , says: March 26, 2019 at 11:50 pm GMTSince everyone here on unz likes thinking in bursts, to the matter. That makes for success. No reason to whine about for the loosing party, the WASP, traditional US elites. If some other group has ambitions, it should acquire that type of quality identity.
Islam is a poor enemy, as Jews see them as target practice, so should other entities maybe.
Western European descend Whites, and the ambition of enlightenment, (for one, all individuals across ethnic and religious lines being equals), should stow their ambitions of principle until they are in charge. That will require appropriating the same acerbic mindset of the Jew, and not whine publicly about the teacher. White elites have sold out, they are burdened by a commoner population that far exceeds any asset value. To disconnect their base, also made them hostages of Jew elites.
From the point of view of the Euro-descend commoner, non-Jew, unpriviledged, as long as they see themselves as genuine and belonging to the system, the US, and not the trash they are treated as, as long as the non-Jewish middle classes continue their egocentric quest for scraps, they deserve the Gaza they are converted into. No Jew should be blamed for pushing an outsider into demise. The tactics are in the open for grabs, Whites (non-Latino, non-Jew) have only themselves to blame for their demise.
I have always thought that Bibi is an ass hole elected by ass holes. So I guess I'm in agreement with this article.
Mar 15, 2019 | www.project-syndicate.org
Mitchell A. Orenstein Authoritarian nationalists such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán win support not only by attacking immigrants, but also by delivering economic policies that benefit the poor and middle class. Western analysts and, more important, Western leaders need to learn this lesson before it's too late.
On March 20, the European People's Party, the conservative bloc in the European Parliament, will decide whether to expel Hungary's ruling party, Fidesz. The EPP has been slow to censure Fidesz and Hungary's autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orbán, for its assault on democracy and rule of law. Yet, Orbán's Western critics have been equally slow to understand the social and economic policies that underpin his popularity.
Consider the bold set of family policies that Orbán announced on February 10. So far, the verdict in the West on these policies, which are aimed at addressing the country's low fertility rate and further reducing immigration, has been thunderously negative and all but blind to their effectiveness in entrenching Orbán's support among Hungarian voters.
Western analysts fail to recognize that authoritarian nationalists such as Orbán win support not only by attacking immigrants, but also by delivering economic policies that benefit average people. Mainstream political parties in the West need to learn this economic lesson fast if they want to compete against their own populist challengers.
Orbán is keen to connect his nationalist message to generous and popular social policies, while encouraging Hungarian women and families to have more children. Hungary's current fertility rate of 1.45 children per female is below replacement rate. And its population has been shrinking since 1989, mirroring declines in other former communist countries that used to provide extensive social support to families.
The plan's centerpiece is a lifetime exemption from personal income tax for women who bear and raise four or more children (Orbán and his wife have five). This and other policies in the new package will have a real impact on all families in Hungary. Women under 40 who marry for the first time and have worked for at least three years will be eligible for a $36,000 "childbearing" loan at a discounted rate, which will be forgiven as they have children. Larger families can apply for an $9,000 government grant toward the purchase of a seven-seat automobile. Grandparents taking care of children will be eligible for leave from work and benefits. And the government will create 21,000 new subsidized childcare places.
Leading Western media, analysts, and politicians have been almost universally critical of the plan, thereby falling right into Orbán's trap. The Economist , a longtime advocate of the free-market economic policies that have impoverished many in Eastern Europe while producing great wealth for a few and higher living standards for a middle-class minority , predictably criticized Orbán's plan for being too expensive. The new measures are "unlikely to give birth to a baby boom" and could "swell an economy that is close to overheating, and inflate house prices."
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Journalist Adam Taylor echoed these sentiments in The Washington Post , arguing that Orbán's policies will "barely move the needle on birthrate and may represent a poor return on investment." We have heard this same Western critique for decades: helping people is too expensive and does not work, paying for houses will only make them pricier, and it's better to rely on markets than on public policies.
But Orbán's critics ignore the examples of Poland and Russia, which also have implemented natalist policies in recent years. Russia's fertility rate is up to 1.75 children per female, from a low of 1.17 in 1999, partly owing to a grant program for new parents. Poland, too, has achieved higher birth rates since 2015 after introducing the massive Family 500+ initiative , which enables parents to pay for school supplies, clothes, and vacations. Both schemes were criticized as being too expensive, but Poland's public deficit has fallen , not risen. Rather, these policies have stimulated economic growth while dramatically reducing child poverty and increasing school enrollment.
Although free-market attacks on bold new social programs are no surprise, some of the sharpest criticism of Orbán's policies has come from the left. Progressives strongly dislike the fact that many of his proposals target women in a way that seems to advance a conservative, pro-family agenda.
To The Guardian 's Afua Hirsch, for example , "the idea that assistance for those in poverty is conditional on obedient reproduction is verging on the dystopian." Similarly, Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele, interviewed on Public Radio International , warned that, "Women are going to bear the burden of Orbán's failed economic policies." And Swedish Social Affairs Minister Annika Strandhäll said that, "This kind of policy will harm the autonomy for which women have struggled for decades."
These analysts are right that Orbán's policies are designed to encourage women to marry, buy houses, bear more children, and stay in Hungary. But their criticism misses the mark in important ways. Overall, these proposals are not coercive. Nor do they seek to keep women barefoot and homebound. Instead, Orbán's plan is designed to help women manage their work-life balance. For that, it should be celebrated, not excoriated.
Consider the lifetime income-tax exemption for women with four or more children. The primary beneficiaries of this program will be women who work, because those with no income will gain no advantage. In two-parent families where both partners have similar or equal earning potential, it may make sense for the woman to work tax-free, or run the family business, while the man stays at home with the children.
Likewise, giving grandparents childrearing benefits helps women to enter the labor force. So does subsidized childcare. And although the new loan programs do encourage women to have children, they also may enable them to buy a home. In short, these policies provide state support for women's unpaid labor.
Like it or not, some of Europe's boldest new social-policy initiatives are coming from its most illiberal governments. The negative reactions of mainstream opinion leaders in the West show how unprepared they are to do battle with Orbán and others for voters' hearts and minds. The populist right is pressing the rhetoric and policies of social democracy into the service of authoritarian nationalism. If the West cannot see or understand the appeal of this, it will be unable to fight back.
Mar 09, 2019 | www.unz.com
kerdasi amaq , says: March 7, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT
Why would only blacks object to existence of these monuments? What about the purported victors of that war? They could have objected but did not. The people attacking these monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war, as I see it.opaque windows , says: March 9, 2019 at 11:44 am GMTThis disrespect for civility must be punished.
Icons of outstanding accomplishment seem nearly always to be about war.. and the political figures that made the Oligarchs filthy rich prosecuting a war that killed millions. The more dead, the bigger the statute.
Where are the monuments to Watson and Crick, Newton, the persons that discovered penicillin, the engines that convert energy from one form to a more usable other form or statutes of the persons that founded our great universities or the persons that discovered how to capture electricity and make available in every household?Few icons to those that have made the quality of our lives better are ever produced, Why?
Probably because the war mongers would have none of that.. Oligarchs own 90% of the press, the media, and
means of communicating their wars, no damn invention that makes life better for the displicibles is going to get into the way of profit making wars that fund so much of Economic Zionism.Consider the recent invention at the U of Australia where hard work discovered 2,200 different places in the world, where a combination of sunlight and wind energy can produce and store sufficient energy to supply 24/7 all the energy the entire world needs on the power grid. Not a word of it in the media. Soon I expect to see a monument to the shock and awe bastards?
The Guardian
HollyOldDog gimmeshoes 13 Jul 2015 20:40
The Georgian authorities have asked Interpol to put a Red notice on Mikheil Saakashvili as the request to Ukraine to return him for trial in Georgia was refused.ww3orbust PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 20:22That does not detract from the fact that the Ukrainian cabinet has been chosen by the US state department. Natives of the US, Georgia and Lithuania were hastily granted Ukrainian citizenship in order to maintain an iron grip on Ukraine, while accusing Putin of appointing majors or governors - in his capacity as head of state?ww3orbust 13 Jul 2015 20:16Amazing, nothing at all mentioned by the BBC. It does not fit in to their narrative to see the country descend into a new stage of anarchy, between the people who murdered police and protesters on Maidan square, and the US state department installed cabinet. Presumably if Right Sector refuse to disarm and continue torturing civilians and murdering police, the BBC will continue to ignore it and focus instead on its Russo-phobic narrative, while accusing Russia of propaganda with the self-righteous piety that only the BBC are capable of. Or god forbid, more stories about what colour stool our future king has produced this week.jgbg Omniscience 13 Jul 2015 18:42jgbg Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 18:26Diverse Unity sounds much better than Nazi
The thing is, Ukraine is unique in allowing their Nazi thugs to be armed and have some semi-official status. Everywhere else (including Russia), governments are looking to constrain the activities of Nazis and prosecute them where possible.
If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.
Them and Svoboda. If it had just been Orange Revolution II, with a simple change of Jewish oligarchs in charge, there might have been some complaints but little more. It is the Russian-hating far right that has brought about the violence and everything that has happened since.
PrinceEdward GreatMountainEagle 13 Jul 2015 18:22
Last I heard, Ukraine owes China billions for undelivered Grain.
HollyOldDog gimmeshoes 13 Jul 2015 18:11
jgbg PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 17:54But the Euro Maidan press is just an Ukrainian rag that invents stories to support its corrupt government in Kiev.
Vatslav Rente , 13 Jul 2015 17:44I forget the article, but in the comments I mentioned that multiple Georgians were being appointed to high level positions by Kiev, and some Russophobe called me a liar.
Not a few days later, Shakashvilli was appointed governor of Odessa. An ex-president of another country, as governor of a province in another one! Apparently, none of the millions upon millions of Ukrainians were qualified for the job.
Sakashvilli's former Minister of Internal Affairs in Georgia, Eka Zguladze, is First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Of course, the Georgian people removed these chumps from power the first chance they got but the Ukrainian electorate haven't had any say in the appointments of foreigners in their country.
Well ... when it comes to Ukraine, the need to stock up on popcorn. This bloody and unpredictable plot is not even in the "Game of Thrones." And this is only the middle of the second season.
Today Speaker of the "RS" Andrew Sharaskin, said: Sports Complex in Mukachevo where the shooting occurred, was used as the base of the separatists DNR.
- A place 1,000 kilometers from Donetsk! But it's a great excuse to murder the guard in the café and wounded police officers.
I think tomorrow will say that there have seen Russian Army tanks and Putin - 100%
"Ukraine is part of Europe" - the slogans of the Maidan in action...jgbg gimmeshoes , 13 Jul 2015 17:42
Laurence Johnson, 13 Jul 2015 17:18Pravyi Sektor were not wrong. However, you cannot have armed groups cleaning up corruption outside the law...that only works in Gotham City.
Right Sector weren't trying to clean up corruption, they were simply trying to muscle in on the cigarette smuggling business. If Right Sector cared about crime and public order, they wouldn't be driving around, armed to the teeth, in vehicles stolen in the EU. (In the video linked in the article, all of their vehicles have foreign number plates. At least one of those vehicles is on the Czech police stolen vehicle database: http://zpravy.idnes.cz/pravy-sektor-mel-v-mukacevu-auta-s-ceskymi-spz-fqj-/zahranicni.aspx?c=A150713_102110_zahranicni_jj)
Right Sector are no strangers to such thuggery - remember their failed attempt to extort a casino in Odessa?
The EU and the US have stated on many occasions that there are "No Right Wing Nationalists" operating in Ukraine and its simply propaganda by Putin.So there shouldn't be anything to worry about should there ?
Stas Ustymenko hfakos 13 Jul 2015 15:15
Yes, yes. You seem to tolerate Medvedchuk and Baloga mafias way better, for years. Transcarpathian Region is the most corrupt in all of Ukraine (which is quite a fit). What we see here is a gang war in fatigues.
tanyushka Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 15:14
sorry i posted the same above... i was just to hasty.. sorry again...
in the main picture of the same article it's interesting to notice the age of most of the conscripted soldiers... they are in their 30's, theirs 40's and even in their 50's... it's forced conscription, they are not volunteers... while all the DPR & LPR soldiers are real volunteers...
an uncle, the father of a cousin, was conscripted in Kherson... my cousin had to run away to South American to say with an aunt to avoid conscription... many men are doing it in Ukraine nowadays... not because they are cowards but because they don't want to kill their brothers & sisters for the benefit of the oligarchs and their NATO masters (and mistresses...)
did you know that all the conscripts have to pay for their own uniforms and other stuff, while in the National Guard and the oligarchs batallions everything is top quality and for free... including bulletproof vests and other implements courtesy of NATO
Demi Boone 13 Jul 2015 15:13
Well finally they reveal themselves. These Ukraine Nationalists are the people who instigated the anarchy and shootings at Maidan and used it as an excuse to wrongfully drive out an elected President and in the chaos that followed bring in a coup Government which represents only West-Ukraine and suppress' East-Ukraine. You are looking at the face of the real Maidan and not the dream that a lot of people have tried to paint it to be.
Stas Ustymenko MartinArvay 13 Jul 2015 15:11
Many Right Sector members are indeed patriots. But it looks like the organisation itself is, sadly, much more useful for providing thugs for hire than "justice".
BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:20
But seriously, the naval base is probably the reason, it is too important for some interests to have a less-reliable (Ukrainian) in charge, this is a job only for the most trusted poodles. If things had gone differently, the tie-eatimng chap would have been appointed Mayor of Sebastopol.
BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:15
There appears to be a Quisling-shortage in Ukraine at present.
Stas Ustymenko obscurant 13 Jul 2015 13:32
More accurately, Kolomoyskiy is Ukrainian oligarch. Who happens to be ethnically, culturally and, by all accounts, religiously, a Jew.
Stas Ustymenko Kaiama 13 Jul 2015 13:24
Ukrainian Volunteer Corps of the Right Sector fighting in Donbass is two battalions. How is this a "key organization"? They are a well-known brand and fought bravely on some occasions, but the wider org is way too eager to brandish arms outside of combat or training. They will be reigned in, one way or another, and soon.
GameOverManGameOver Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 12:02
Shh shh shh. This news does not exist yet in the western media, therefore it's nothing but Russian propaganda.
Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 11:54
EugeneGur , 13 Jul 2015 11:21It gets worse - soldiers from the UA are now refusing to follow orders in protest against the total anarchy sweeping the chain of command, and their lack of rest and equipment.
Jeremn, 13 Jul 2015 11:16Finally, the Guardian decided to report the actual new after satisfying itself with ample discussion of the quality of Russian cheeses. Right sector "helped" to fight "separatists"? Really? Does Alec Luhn know that there are currently two (!) RS battalions at the front and 19 (!) inside Ukraine? They are some warriors. Now they are occupying themselves fighting as criminals they are for the control of contraband.Tensions have been rising between the government and the Right Sector militia that has helped it fight pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
At the ATO zone, they help consists of plundering, murdering and raping the local population. They enter a village, take everything of value from houses and then blow them up. They rape women and girls as young as 10 years old. They've been doing this for more than a year, and we've been telling you that for more than a year. But apparently in the fight against "pro-Russian separatists" everything is good. These crimes are so widespread, even the Ukrainian "government" is worried this will eventually becomes impossible to deny. Some battalions such as Shakhtersk and Aidar have been officially accused of crimes and ompletely or partially reformed.
Examples:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR50/040/2014/en/
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bfb_1413804655Stas Ustymenko Jeremn 13 Jul 2015 11:14Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources, 19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look at the US-Ukraine Business Council. It bring NATO, Monsanto and the Heritage Foundation under one roof:
You'd be surprised, but I like Bandera (controversial as he was) way more than I trust some people who wrap themselves in his red-and-black Rebel banner. Yarosh included. Banderite rebellion ended 60 years ago. Its major goal was establishing a "united, free Ukrainian state"; by contrast, stated ultimate goals of the Right Sector are way murkier; I'm not sure even most of the movement's members are clear on what these are.
With present actions, Right Sector has a huge image problem in the West. If it will come to all-out conflict, no doubt the West will back Poroshenko government over a loose confederation of armed dudes linked by the thin thread of 30ies ideology (suspect even then). And the West will be right.
Stas Ustymenko Nik2 13 Jul 2015 11:03
Methinks you're way overselling a thug turf war as "major political event. Truth is, the region has been long in the hands of organized crime. The previous regime incorporated and controlled almost all organized crime in the country, hence no visible conflict. Now, individual players try to use temporary uncertainty to their advantage.
Right Sector claims they were trying to fight the smuggling, but this doesn't sound plausible. The word is, what's behind the events is struggle for control over lucrative smuggling between two individuals (who are both "businessmen" and "politicians", members of Parliament). Both are old-school players, formerly affiliated with Yanukovitch party. One just was savvy enough to buy himself some muscle under Right Sector banner. Right Sector will either have to straighten out its fighters (which it may not be able to do) or disappear as a political player. I fail to see how people see anything "neo-Nazi" in this gang shootout.
PaddyCannuck Cavirac 13 Jul 2015 10:21
tanyushka Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 10:10Nobody here is an apologist for Stalin, who was a brutal and cruel despot, and the deportations of the Crimean Tatars were quite indefensible. However, a few observations might lend some perspective.
1. Crimea has been invaded and settled by an almost endless succession of peoples over the millennia. The Crimean Tatars (who are of Turkic origin) were by no means the first, nor indeed the last, and cannot in any meaningful sense be regarded as the indigenous people of Crimea.
2. The Crimean Tatars scarcely endeared themselves to the Russians, launching numerous raids, devastating many towns, including the burning of Moscow in 1571, and sending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Russians into slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
3. The deportations took place in 1942 - 1943 against the backdrop of World War II, when a lot of bad stuff happened, including -
4. The American (and also Canadian) citizens of Japanese ethnicity who had their property confiscated and were likewise shipped off to camps. Their treatment, if anything, was worse.Sevastopol, Pearl Harbor. What's the difference? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
http://rt.com/news/207899-un-anti-nazism-resolution/
http://www.un.org/en/ga/third/69/docs/voting_sheets/L56.Rev1.pdf
do these links answer your question?
Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West, Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire...Nik2 6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:53
Not exactly. By now, BBC has made good coverage of these events in Ukrainian and Russian languages, but not in English. It looks like BBC considers that Western public does not deserve the politically sad truth about armed clashes between "champions of Maidan Revolution" and "new democratic authorities, fighting corruption". Western public should not be in doubt about present-day "pro-European" Ukraine. And "The Guardian" still has only one article on the issue that could be a turning point in Ukrainian politics. This is propaganda, not informing about or analyzing really serious political events.
VictorWhisky 13 Jul 2015 09:51
This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian mongrels.
Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them with their private foreign mercenary force.
Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds, no doubt with promises of power sharing.
So madame Nuland was perfectly willing to get in bed with the Ukrainian NAZI devils (her Jewish friend should be proud) and when the dirty deed was done, she is now turning against Ukrainian nationalists in the attempt to have outside forces in control of Ukraine. Madame Nuland is not as intelligent or capable as portrayed, because if she was, she would have known Ukraine has a very delicate and very complicated political structure and history with nearly half the country speaking Russian and more loyal to the Russians than to the US.
An intelligent person familiar with Ukrainian history would know any attempt of placing a US stooge in Kiev would certainly result in a civil war.
She no doubt got her position not by intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor, Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. That intelligent idiot's policies resulted in the death of 3 million Vietnamese and 50,000 young Americans. Does madame Nuland intend to sacrifice that many Ukrainians to prove her ultimate stupidity?
Jeremn Luminaire 13 Jul 2015 09:51
The conscripts didn't want to shoot their fellow Ukrainians. The nationalists don't believe the people in the east are their fellow Ukrainians.
Jeremn DrMacTomjim 13 Jul 2015 09:43
Yes. But meanwhile the Atlantic Council tells us this is why more Ukrainians admire nationalists.
Because they were lovely guys, evidently, and their "popularity" has nothing to do with armed thugs beating you up if you say anything against them (or the state prosecuting you for denying or questioning their heroism).
Jeremn jezzam 13 Jul 2015 09:35
Ukrainian media, reporting Ukrainian government official:
12 police dead in two days, 180 wounded with gunshot wounds.
Still Kremlin lies?
Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 09:30
Thank God Ukraine is finally free and democratic. The old autocratic regime actually had the gall to make running street battles illegal - but those dark days are in the past. In the liberated Ukraine you are free spend the dollar a day you get paid on a bullet proof vest so the rampant Nazi street gangs don't kill you.
Jeremn SHappens 13 Jul 2015 09:26
You'd be surprised, there are Bandera-lovers in the UK too. There's a Bandera museum. And there is this lot, teaching Christian values to children. And telling them that Bandera was a hero. Future Right Sector supporters being crafted as we type.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:24
The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. Luckily, the Russians have liberated Crimea so piracy on the high seas isn't an option for the Ukrainians.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:18
Apparently, UAVs generously supplied to Ukrainians by the Canadian taxpayers are being put to good use smuggling cigarettes into Slovakia.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:12
The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are in order for such dedication. The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved to the temptation to report news. Too bad.
aucontraire2 13 Jul 2015 08:36
Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing. False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a say.
SomersetApples 13 Jul 2015 08:25
The country is bankrupt; the Kiev putschists are selling off the country's assets to their New York allies, the oligarchs and Nazis are at war against each other and the illegal putschist government and now toilet mouth Nuland is back on the scene. Looks like a scene form Dante's Inferno.
todaywefight Polvilho 13 Jul 2015 07:54
Which Russian invasion will this be the of he approximately 987 mentioned by Poroshenko and our man Yatz...or are you referring to the people of the AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA's (yes that was what was called after the 1994 referendum) massive wishes to (like Donbass) go against a government who illegally dismissed an elected president a wish that was reflected on a referendum which was allowed by their constitution 18(7)
Bosula Scepticbladderballs 13 Jul 2015 07:38
Yes. Most of the protesters are good people who just want a better deal in life.
monteverdi1610 13 Jul 2015 06:54
Remember all those CIF threads when those of us who pointed to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine were immediately called ' Putinbots ' ?
PS/ Apologies would be the order of the day , perhaps ?Sturney 13 Jul 2015 06:49
Apparently this conflict is over. Temporarily over. Anyway in ever-contracting economy, in a Mariana trench between Russia and EU, in the most totalitarian country in history, such conflicts will continue. Since Nuland tossed yeast in the outhouse nobody can stop fermentation of sh*t. Help yourself with some beer and shrimps. I am looking forward when these masses splash out to EU, preferably to Poland. Must be fun to watch. (Lipspalm)
Justin Obisesan 13 Jul 2015 06:33
In the run-up to the Euro 2012 football tournament, jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine, I remember how the media in this country worked themselves into a frenzy harping on about the presence of violent neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. After the removal of Mr Yanukovych from office, the same media organisations changed their tune by describing any talk of neo- Nazis in Ukraine as "Russian propaganda". The Western media coverage of the Ukrainian crises has been so blatantly pro-Kiev and anti-Donbass that their claims of impartiality and objectivity cannot be taken seriously anymore.
Jeremn jgbg 13 Jul 2015 06:16It is fine when they are shooting at Donetsk, but not so good when they use the same tactics in western Ukraine.
Azov are the same, violent neo-Nazi thugs given authority, and this article notes that PrivatBank is the bank that services requests for donations to the Azov funds, using J P Morgan as intermidiary.
Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces. They favour ethnic cleansing.
Jeremn William Fraser 13 Jul 2015 06:10
The people who support Bandera are in western Ukraine. They are the ones who say Stalin starved the Ukrainian people.
Trouble is, in the 1930s, western Ukraine belonged to Poland.
It was the Russians, eastern Ukrainians and other Soviet people who starved, not the western Ukrainians.
Kefirfan 13 Jul 2015 06:02
Good, good. Let the democracy flow through you...
Pwedropackman SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:53
It will be interesting to see which side the US and Canada will support. Probably Poroshenko and the Oligarchs because the Right Sector is not so happy about the ongoing sales of Ukraine infrastructure to US corporates.
SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:14
Harpers' babies are out manifesting, supporting the good guys:
"Supporters of Ukraine's Right Sector extremist group rallied in Ottawa Sunday amid the radicals' ongoing standoff with police in western Ukraine."
The rally outside the Ukrainian embassy was organized by the Right Sector's representative office in the Canadian capital, 112 Ukraine TV channel reported, citing the Facebook account of the so-called Ukrainian Volunteer Corps.
careforukraine 13 Jul 2015 05:09
I wonder how long it will be before the us denounces nazi's in ukraine? Kind of seems like we have seen this all before. Almost like how ISIS were just freedom fighters that needed our support until ?..... Well we all know what happened there.
Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 05:04
If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.
GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 04:41
Yes, I agree, they do wreck the economy. That was my point. Russia want's strong economies to do business with, not broken economies that only ask for financial aid.
Like I said, no evidence of Russian troops in Donbass and South Ossetia asked for the presence of Russian troops to deter the Georgian government from trying another invasion.
And organisations like CIS are meant to expand economic ties. Just like the EU I suppose. They function in pretty much the same way with everyone getting a chance to lead. So I don't know why that should be a bad thing. Since the EU is not interested in admitting Russia why can't Russia go to other organisations?
VladimirM Dmitriy Grebenyuk 13 Jul 2015 04:26
It's a poisonous sarcasm, I think. But I've heard that RS accuse the Ukrainian government of being pro-Putin as the government accuse them of being Russian agents. Surreal a bit.
stewfen FOHP46 13 Jul 2015 04:24
The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they succeeded
GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 03:54
I'll admit that frozen conflicts could be useful to Russia. But only from a security point of view. And why not, exactly? NATO is Russia's biggest threat, so it would make sense for the government to want to avoid it expanding any further. I understand your misgivings since you're speaking from the position that NATO should expand to deter Russi I mean 'Iran', but surely you understand that Russia wanting to prevent that makes logical sense? Sure, it's at someone else's expense but let's not pretend that big countries doing something at someone else's expense is a new and revolutionary concept reserved only to Russia. And the Georgian conflict dates back to the very early 90's.
From an economic point of view though, no sense at all. Frozen conflicts usually bring economic barriers. Believe it or not Russia's priority isn't expansion, but the economy. And trade with it's neighbours is an important element of the Russian economy. It's very hard to trade with areas that are in the middle of a frozen conflict. So in that sense the last thing Russia would want are profitable areas in a frozen conflict around it's borders hampering it's economic growth.
And none of this has anything to do with Marioupol.
Debreceni 13 Jul 2015 03:38
The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian!
Kaiama PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 02:50
We don't know if PS were also doing it as well or just poking their noses into someone else's business. Who started it? I doubt the correct answer will ever be known. Two unsavoury groups arguing about an illegal business. The problem is that the MP is an MP whereas PS is a national organisation.
DrMacTomjim 13 Jul 2015 02:04
"Note to Ukraine: Time to Reconsider Your Historic Role Models" Someone wrote this a bit late.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/note-to-ukraine-time-to-r_b_7453506.htmlDrMacTomjim hisimperialmajesty 13 Jul 2015 02:01
"neo-Chekists" That's new to me.... Are you sure they are not "Just doing their jobs" ? Did you read the Nafeez Ahmed piece someone linked ? Here (if you didn't) https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092
And this from Foreign Affairs https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2015-02-16/obamas-libya-debacle
It's never the US....it's never the West..... (you know, to balance things) : )
todaywefight 13 Jul 2015 01:53
If any one on the other side, the dark side, ever thought that these lot will hold hands with any one, lay down their arms and sing Kumbaya, uou are either utterly naive or willfully ignorant. Apparently, these lot have 23 battalions, armed to their teeth, the added bonus for the Privy Sektor is that , due to expedience and cowardice , they have just made legal and incorporated into the Ukrainian army, Kyiv is in a highway to nowhere.
Incidentally, unlike the maidan demonstrations which essentially were only in Kyiv there are demonstrations in more than a dozen cities, and have established dozen of check points already and Yarosh a member of the VT. have clearly instructed them to fight if necessary.
GameOverManGameOver Omniscience 13 Jul 2015 01:35
So? Yes there are nationalists in Russia, just like everywhere else. You get a gold star for googling. Shall I get some articles with European and American nationalists to parade around to make a vague point? If you want I can get you an article of Lithuanians dressed up as the Waffen SS parading around Vilnius. That's Lithuania the EU and Nato member. Funny how EU principles disappear when it's one of their own violating them.
You seem to be missing the point entirely. While all countries have their nationalists, those nationalists are a very small minority, have no power, have no popular support, have no seats in government, usually derided by the majority of the population and they certainly aren't armed to the teeth roaming around the country killing, torturing and kidnapping people with the blessing of their government
HollyOldDog Joe way 13 Jul 2015 00:09
The Right Sector were / are Ukrains Storm Troopers who have had more advanced training by the Americans. If the Right Sector turn on the Kiev Government they will be difficult to defeat, and who knows if the civilian population of Ukraine may join in the 'fun' by ousting the current unpopular Ukrainian government.
sorrentina 12 Jul 2015 23:35
this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi.
annamarinja jgbg 12 Jul 2015 23:31
The threshold has been guessed impatiently by the US neocons (while the provocateur Higgins/ Bellingcat fed the gullible the fairy tales about Russian army in Ukraine). The US needs desperately a real civil war in Ukraine, the Ukrainians be damned. Just look what the US-sponsored "democracy on the march" has produced in the Middle East. Expect the same bloody results in eastern Europe.
annamarinja obscurant 12 Jul 2015 23:25
perhaps you do not realize that your insults are more appropriate towards the poor Ukrainians that have been left destitute by the cooky-carrying foreigners and their puppets in Kiev. The Ukrainian gold reserve has disappeared... meanwhile, the US Congress has shamed the US State Dept for collaborating with Ukrainian neo-nazis. Stay tuned. But do not expect to hear real news from your beloved Faux News.
annamarinja quorkquork 12 Jul 2015 23:14
the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony.
Bud Peart 12 Jul 2015 22:59
Well we always knew it would end this way. With a stalemate in the war with the East the Right wing paramilitaries and private oligarch militias (whom the west funded and trained) have gone completely feral and are now in fighting directly with whats left of the Ukrainian National Army. This is pretty much the rode to another breakaway in Galacia which would effectively end the Ukraine as a functional state.
The government should move as fast as possible to get a decent federal structure (copy switzerland) in place before the whole of the West goes into revolt as well.
DelOrtoyVerga LostJohnny 12 Jul 2015 22:38
That is what you get when you put fascists in your government.
I rather reword it to
That is what you get when you enable and rely on thugish pseudo-fascist radical para-military groups to impose order by force and violence against dissident segments of your own population (which is armed to the teeth probably by Russia)
Bosula Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 22:37
What do you think it is?
There were several people identified directly or indirectly in this BBC story whose stories should have been formally pursued by legal authorities in Kiev.
If you lived in the West you would understand that we call these references as possible 'leads' - you follow these 'leads' and see where they take you. That is what Western police do.
The story says that Kiev didn't want to follow up any of these points. Why? What harm could this do?
You state that you do not understand the point that this BBC journalist was making. But I have in a fair way tried to to explain the point that the BBC was making.
This story caused quite a stir went it came out - and the BBC chose to stick with it and support their British reporter. In an edited and shorter form the story is still on the BBC - the editing is also acknowledged by the BBC.
Do you think the BBC should have blocked or not published this investigative piece?
If so - why?
And why hasn't Kiev followed up these issues?
Have I addressed your point yet?
HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 21:34
I am just watching a program recorded earlier. Hiroshima: The Aftermath. I have got past the part when the Japanese 'survivors' had to drink from the pools of Black Rain ( highly radioactive) and watched the part when American Army Tourists visited the city to take a few photos ( no medical help though) while gawking at the gooks. In fact the Japanese civilians recieved no medical assistance at all from the Americans. The commentator just said that they were just there to study the effects of nuclear radiation on a civilian population. These nuclear bombs were just dropped on Japan to save One Day of the surrender of the Japanese forces.
The next documtary I will watch another day is the sinking of the Tirpitz by the RAF using Tallboy bombs. At least this had a useful pupose in helping to stop the destruction of the North Atlantic convoys, sending aid to Russia. That aid along with the rebuilding of the Soviet Armies helped the Soviet Union to destroy the invading Nazi forces and provided a Second Front to the Western Allies to invade Normandy. A lot of good can be achieved when the East and West work together - maybe avoiding the worst effects of Global Warming but the Americans only seem to want to spend Trillions $ building more powerful nuclear weapons. Is this all that America has now, an Arms Industry - I can see it now, cooling the planet with a Nuclear Winter.
HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 20:33
The USA caused the chaos in Ukraine so they must pay the billions of $ to fix it then leave Ukraine alone.
6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:29
One of the amusing features of the Soviet media was the long silences it maintained on possibly embarrassing breaking news until it became clear what the Party Line was. Eventually, a memo would go out from Mikhail Suslov's office to various media outlets and the silence would be broken. At least everyone knew exactly how that system worked. What is happening with the British media is much more murky.
The beeb/graun seem to be the Pravda/Izvestia, whilst the torygraph is a sort of Trybuna Ludu - ie real news very occasionally appears in it.
6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:08
So, after a mere 24 hours the Graun ran a story on Mukachevo. The Torygraph actually had the nerve to run the AFP wire report more or less straight away. The BBC are still keeping shtum.
The Beeb/Graun complex have well and truly had the frighteners put on them.
PrinceEdward Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 20:07
There's no doubt. I agree that the MP was probably running cigarettes, but also Right Sektor was going to muscle in.
If you asked somebody 3 years ago if Ukraine would be rocked by armed bands with RPGs and Light Machine Guns fighting in towns, they would have thought you were crazy.
This isn't Russia, this is the Ultranats/Neo-Nazis.
PrinceEdward obscurant 12 Jul 2015 20:05Right, it's the people in Donbass who bury 14th SS Division veterans with full honors, push for full pensions to surviving Hiwi and SS Collaborators... not those in Lvov. Uh huh.
BMWAlbert 12 Jul 2015 20:0411 months of investigations by the newKiev regime, attempting to implicate the the prior one for the murder of about 100 people in Kiev early last year was unsuccessful. There may be better candidates here.
fragglerokk ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 19:55
It always amazes me that the far right never learn from history. The politicians and oligarchs always use them as muscle to ensure coup success then murder/assasinate the leaders to make sure they dont get any ideas about power themselves. Surprised its taken so long in ukraine but then the govt is barely hanging onto power and the IMF loans have turned to a trickle so trouble will always be brewing, perhaps theyve left it too long this time. Nobody will be shedding any tears for the Nazis and Banderistas.
hisimperialmajesty Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 19:54
Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc. Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative!
Kaiama gimmeshoes 12 Jul 2015 19:53
If you think Pryvi Sektor want to "clean up" then yes, but not in the way you imagine - they just want the business for themselves.
Geordiemartin 12 Jul 2015 19:51
I am reminded of AJP Taylor premise that Eastern Europe has historically had either German domination or Russian protection.
The way that the Ukrainian government had treated their own Eastern compatriots leaves little reason to believe they would be welcome back into the fold and gives people of Donbass no reason to want to rejoin the rest of the country.
If government is making an effort to reign in the likes of Right sector it is a move in the right direction but much much more will be needed to establish any trust.
Some Guy yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:45
just because they are nazis doesnt mean they are happy about doing any of this... now. look at greece and the debacle that has unfolded over the past week has been . the west ukraine wanted to be part of the euro zone and wanted some of that ecb bail out money. now they are not even sure if they could skip out on the bill and know they are fighting for nothing . russia gave them 14 bil dollars . the west after the coup only gave the 1 bil
Andor2001 Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 19:44
According to the eyewitnesses the RS shot a guard when he refused to summon the commanding officer. It was the beginning of the fight.
Andor2001 yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:41
Remember Shakespeare "Othello"? Moor has done his job, Moor has to go.. The neo-Nazis have outlived their usefulness.
Bosula caaps02 12 Jul 2015 19:39
The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will easily find it. The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from investigating Maiden shooters.
Maybe the BBC is telling us a lie? The BBC investigation is worth a read - then you can make up your own mind.
Bosula William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 19:29
Kazakhstan had the highest percentage of deaths from Stalin's policies in this period when he prevented the nomad herders moving from the mountains to the planes to take advantage of the benefits of seasons and weather. Stalin forced the nomads to stay in one area and they perished in the cold of the mountains or the heat of the summer plains (whichever zone they were forced to stay in).
Some of my family is Ukrainian and some recognise that Stalin's policies weren't specifically aimed at Ukrainians - the people of Kazakhstan suffered the most (as a percentage of population). Either way, there is no genetic difference between Slavs or Russian or Ukrainian origin in Ukraine or Russia - they are all genetically the same people. This information should be better taught in Ukraine.
The problem is that it would undermine the holy grail story of right wing nationalism in Ukraine.
quorkquork annamarinja 12 Jul 2015 19:27
There are already jihadist groups fighting in Ukraine! IN MIDST OF WAR, UKRAINE BECOMES GATEWAY FOR JIHAD
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/26/midst-war-ukraine-becomes-gateway-europe-jihad/Havingalavrov obscurant 12 Jul 2015 18:33
It's been one of the biggest mistakes ( although Ukraine's military started in a desperately poor condition ) , to allow militia groups to get so powerful. Right sector should not have arms and guns... The national Ukraine military should, If members of Right sector want to fight , they should leave Right sector and join the army.
This was and will happen if they don't disband such armed groups.
annamarinja silvaback 12 Jul 2015 18:18
have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia (next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language. She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe.
Bev Linington JJRichardson 12 Jul 2015 18:10
Ukrainians shot down the plane. East, West does not matter as they were all Ukrainians before the government overthrow. Leaders of the new government could not look past some Ukrainian citizens ethnicity, instead of standing together united, they decided to oppress which lead to the referendum in Crimea and the rise of separatists in the East.
jgbg Chirographer 12 Jul 2015 17:53
And for the Pro-Russian posters the newsflash is that could also describe the situation inside the Donbass.
It certainly describes the situation in Donbass where Right Sector or the volunteer battalions are in charge. In Dnepropetrovsk, Right Sector would simply turn up at some factory or other business and order the owner to sign document transferring the enterprise to them. In other cases, they have kidnapped businessmen for ransom. Some people have simply disappeared under such circumstances.
The Ukrainian National Guard simply break into homes left empty by people fleeing the war and steal the contents. Such was the scale of looting, the Ukrainian postal service have now refused to ship electrical goods out of the ATO area unless the senders have the original boxes and receipts.
jgbg AlfredHerring 12 Jul 2015 17:45
jgbg caaps02, 12 Jul 2015 17:34Maybe Kiev just needs to bomb them some more.
Putin promised to protect the Russian speaking people in Ukraine - but he hasn't really done that. His government has indicated that they would not allow Kiev to simply overrun or obliterate the people of Donbass. Quite where their threshold of actual intervention lies is anyone's guess.
The "pro-Russian" government that you refer to was only elected because it promised to sign the EU trade agreement. It then reneged on that promise...
Yanukovych's government was elected the previous one was useless and corrupt.
Yanukovych wanted to postpone the decision to sign for six months, while he attempted to extract more from both the EU and Russia. Under Poroshenko, the implementation of the EU Association Agreement has been delayed for 15 months, as the governments of Ukraine, the EU and Russia all recognised that Russian trade (with the favourable terms which Ukraine enjoys) are vitail to Ukraine's economic recovery. Expect that postponement to be extended.
.... severely and brutally curtailing freedom of speech and concentrating all power in the hands of Yanukovich's little clan...
As opposed to sending the military to shell the crap out of those who objected to an elected government being removed by a few thousand nationalists in Kiev.
There was no "coup".
An agreement had been signed at the end of February 2014, which would see elections in September 2014. The far right immediately moved to remove the government (as Right Sector had promised on camera in December 2013). None of the few mechanisms for replacing the president listed in the Ukrainian constitution have been followed - that makes it a coup.
The Maidan protesters were not armed
This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina - the video is still on the BBC website.
....the interim government that was put in place by the parliament in late February and the government that was elected in May and Oct. of 2014 were and are not fascist.
The interim government included several ministers from Svoboda, formerly the Socialist Nationalist Party of Ukraine. These were the first Nazi ministers in a European government since Franco's Spanish government that ended in the 1970's. In a 2013 resolution, the EU parliament had indicated that no Ukrainian government should include members of Svoboda or other far right parties.
pushkinsideburn vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 16:45
There has been a marked change in rhetoric over the last few weeks. Even CiF on Ukraine articles seems to attract less trolls (with a few notable exceptions on this article - though they feel more like squad trolls than the first team). Hopefully a sign of deescalation or perhaps just a temporary lull before the MH17 anniversary this week?
pushkinsideburn calum1 12 Jul 2015 16:38
His other comments should have been the clue that arithmetic, like independent critical thinking, is beyond him.
normankirk 12 Jul 2015 16:19
Right sector were the first to declare they wouldn't abide by the Minsk 2 peace agreement.Nevertheless, Dmitry Yarosh, their leader is adviser to Ukraine's Chief of staff. Given that he only received about 130,000 votes in the last election, he has a disproportionate amount of power.
pushkinsideburn sashasmirnoff 12 Jul 2015 16:13
That quote is a myth https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-cia-owns-everyone-of-any-significance-in-the-major-media.t158/
Though doesn't mean it's not true of course
greatwhitehunter 12 Jul 2015 15:47
As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured . In the long term no body would be able to live with the right sector or more precisely the right sector cant share a bed with anyone else.
sashasmirnoff RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 15:44
"When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?"
This may be why: "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - former CIA Director William Colby
Alexander_the_Great 12 Jul 2015 15:43
This was so, so predictable. The Right Sector were the main violent group during the coup in 2014 - in fact they were the ones to bring the first guns to the square following their storming of a military warehouse in west Ukraine a few days before the coup. It was this factor that forced the Police to arm themselves in preparation.
Being the vanguard of the illegal coup, they then provided a useful tool of manipulation for the illegal Kiev government to oppress any opposition, intimidate journalists who spoke the truth and lead the war against the legally-elected ELECTED governments of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Having failed in the war against the east, western leaders have signalled the right sector has now outlived its usefulness and has become an embarrassment to Kiev and their western backers.
The Right Sector meanwhile, feel betrayed by the establishment in Kiev. They have 19 battalions of fighters and they wont go away thats for sure. I think one can expect this getting more violent in the coming months.
SHappens jezzam 12 Jul 2015 15:40
Putin is a Fascist dictator.
Putin is not a dictator. He is a statist, authoritarian-inclined hybrid regime ruler that possesses some democratic elements and space for opposition groups. He has moderate nationalist tendencies in foreign affairs; his goal is a secure a strong Russia. He is a patriot and has a charismatic authority. Russians stay behind him.
ploughmanlunch samuel glover 12 Jul 2015 15:31
'this notion that absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master script drawn up in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome'
Agreed. As is everything is Russia's fault.
ConradLodziak 12 Jul 2015 15:26
This is just the latest in a string of conflicts involving the right sector, as reported by RT, Russian media and until recently many Ukrainian outlets. The problem, of course, is that Porostinko has given 'official' status to the right sector. Blow back time for him.
CIAbot007 William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:06
Yes, Russia (USSR) from the USSR foundation had been forcing people of the then territory of Ukraine to identify themselves as Ukrainians under the process of rootisation - Ukrainization, then gave to Ukraine Donbass and left side Dniepr and Odessa, Herson and Nikolaev, and then decided to ethnically cleane them.. It doesn't make sense, does it? Oh, wait, sense is not your domain.
annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:05
let me help you with arithmetics: 72 years ago Europe was inflamed with the WWII. There was a considerable number of Ukrainians that collaborated with Hitler' nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)
Now moving to the present. The US-installed oligarchs in Kiev have been cooperating closely with Ruropean neo-nazis (the followers of the WWII scum): http://rt.com/news/155364-ukraine-nazi-division-march/
In short, your government finds it is OK to glorify the perpetrators of genocide in Europe during the WWII.
Nik2 12 Jul 2015 15:04
These tragic events, when YESTERDAY, on Saturday afternoon, several civilians were unintentionally wounded in gun battles in previously peaceful town near the Hungary and Slovakia borders, vividly exposes Western propaganda. Though mass media in Ukraine and Russia are full of reports about this from the start, The Guardian managed to give first information exactly 1 day later, and BBC was still keeping silence a few minutes ago. Since both sides are allies of the West (the Right Sector fighters were the core of the Maidan protesters at the later stages, and Poroshenko regime is presumably "democratic"), the Western media preferred to ignore the events that are so politically uncomfortable. Who are "good guys" to be praised? In fact, this may be the start of nationalists' revolt against Ukrainian authorities, and politically it is very important moment that can fundamentally change Ukrainian politics. But the West decides to be silent ...
annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 14:59
Do your history book tell you that the Holodomor was a multiethnic endeavor? That the Ukrainians were among the victims and perpetrators and that the whole huge country had suffered the insanely cruel policies of multiethnic bolsheviks? The Holodomor was almost a century ago, whereas the Odessa massacre and the bombardments of civilian population in east Ukraine by the neo-nazi thugs (sent by Kiev), has been going during last year and half. Perhaps you have followed Mr. Brennan and Mrs. Nuland-Kagan too obediently.
foolisholdman zonzonel 12 Jul 2015 14:58
zonzonel
Oops, the presumably fascist govt. is fighting a fascist group.
What is a poor troll to do these days??
Antiukrainian copywriting just got more difficult, perhaps a raise is needed? Just sayin.What's your problem? Never heard of Fascist groups fighting each other? Never heard of the "Night of the Long Knives"? Fascists have no principles to unite them. They believe in Uebermenschen and of course they all think that either they themselves or their leader is The Ueberuebermensch. Anyone who disagrees is an enemy no matter how Fascist he may be.
samuel glover ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 14:55
Y'know, I'm no fan of the Russophobic hysteria that dominates English-language media. I've been to Ukraine several times over the last 15 years or so, and I'm sorry to say that I think that in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution -- with regret and cynicism.
That said, this notion that everything, absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master script drawn up in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome. Most post-revolution regimes purge one end or the other of the current ideological wings. Kiev has already tangled with the oligarch and militia patron Igor Kolomoisky. So perhaps this is another predictable factional struggle. Or maybe, as another comment speculates, this is a feud over cigarette tax revenue.
In any case, Ukraine is a complex place going through an **extremely** complex time. it's too soon to tell what the Lviv skirmish means, and **far** too soon to lay it all on nefarious puppetmasters.
TheTruthAnytime ADTaylor 12 Jul 2015 14:49
The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country,...
Is the CIA their country? So far they've only seemed to serve the interests of American businesspeople, not Ukrainian interests. Also, murdering eastern Ukrainians cannot really be considered such a great service to Ukraine, can it?
annamarinja ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:44
Maidan was indeed a popular apprising, but it was utilized by the US strategists for their geopolitical games. The Ukrainians are going to learn hard way that the US have never had any interest in well-being of the "locals" and that the ongoing civil war was designed in order to create a festering wound on a border with the Russia. The Iraqization of Ukraine was envisioned by the neocons as a tool to break both Russia and Ukraine. The sooner Ukrainians come to a peaceful solution uniting the whole Ukraine (for example, to federalization), the better for the general population (but not for the thieving oligarchs).
vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 14:38
"Couple of hundred Right Sector supporters demonstrated in Kiev?" Come on! Over the last week, there have been enough of videos of thousands of people in fatigues trying to block access to government buildings and shouting rather aggressive demands. The entire battalions of "National Guard." This is much bigger than just 100 people on a peaceful rally. Ukraine might be heading towards Maidan 3.0.
ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:26
The situation in Ukraine has been unravelling for months and this news broke on Friday evening.
The Minsk II cease fire has not been honoured by Poroshenko, who has not managed to effect any of the pledges he signed up to. The right sector who rejected the cease-fire from the start are now refusing the rule of their post coup president in Kiev.
Time for Victoria Nuland to break out the cookies? Or maybe it's too late for that now. The country formerly know as Ukraine is turning out to be another outstanding success of American post -imperial foreign policy.
Meanwhile in UFA the BRIC's economic forum is drawing to a close, with representatives from the developing world and no reporting of the aspirations being discussed there of over 60% of the world's population. It's been a major success, but if you want to learn about it, you will have to turn to other media sources - those usually reported as Russian propaganda channels or Putin's apologists.
The same people who have been reporting on the deteriorating situation in Kiev since the February coup. Or as Washington likes to call it a popular up rising.
Dennis Levin 12 Jul 2015 13:29Canadian interviewed, fighting for 'Right Sector'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j65dBEWd7go
The Right Sector of Euromaidan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yFqUasBOUY
Lets reflect for a moment on the Editorial directives, that would have 'MORE GUNS' distributed to NAZIS..
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propaganda
The Guarn publishes, 'Britain should arm Ukraine, says Tory donor' - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/britain-should-arm-ukraine
Al Jazeera says,'t's time to arm Ukraine' - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/02/arms-ukraine-russia-separ