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From Wikipedia:
Many critics of trade liberalization, such as Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Susan George, and Naomi Klein, see the Washington Consensus as a way to open the labor market of underdeveloped economies to exploitation by companies from more developed economies. The prescribed reductions in tariffs and other trade barriers allow the free movement of goods across borders according to market forces, but labor is not permitted to move freely due to the requirements of a visa or a work permit. This creates an economic climate where goods are manufactured using cheap labor in underdeveloped economies and then exported to rich First World economies for sale at what the critics argue are huge markups, with the balance of the markup said to accrue to large multinational corporations. The criticism is that workers in the Third World economy nevertheless remain poor, as any pay raises they may have received over what they made before trade liberalization are said to be offset by inflation, whereas workers in the First World country become unemployed, while the wealthy owners of the multinational grow even more wealthy.
Anti-globalization critics further claim that First World countries impose what the critics describe as the consensus's neoliberal policies on economically vulnerable countries through organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and by political pressure and bribery. They argue that the Washington Consensus has not, in fact, led to any great economic boom in Latin America, but rather to severe economic crises and the accumulation of crippling external debts that render the target country beholden to the First World.
Many of the policy prescriptions (e.g., the privatization of state industries, tax reform, and deregulation) are criticized as mechanisms for ensuring the development of a small, wealthy, indigenous elite in the Third World who will rise to political power and also have a vested interest in maintaining the local status quo of labor exploitation.
Some specific factual premises of the critique as phrased above (especially on the macroeconomic side) are not accepted by defenders, or indeed all critics, of the Washington Consensus. To take a few examples,[29] inflation in many developing countries is now at its lowest levels for many decades (low single figures for very much of Latin America). Workers in factories created by foreign investment are found typically to receive higher wages and better working conditions than are standard in their own countries' domestically-owned workplaces. Economic growth in much of Latin America in the last few years has been at historically high rates, and debt levels, relative to the size of these economies, are on average significantly lower than they were several years ago.
Despite these macroeconomic advances, poverty and inequality remain at high levels in Latin America. About one of every three people - 165 million in total- still live on less than $2 a day. Roughly a third of the population has no access to electricity or basic sanitation, and an estimated 10 million children suffer from malnutrition. These problems are not, however, new: Latin America was the most economically unequal region in the world in 1950, and has continued to be so ever since, during periods both of state-directed import-substitution and (subsequently) of market-oriented liberalization.[30]
Some socialist political leaders in Latin America are vocal and well-known critics of the Washington Consensus, such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador. In Argentina, too, the recent Peronist party government of Néstor Kirchner undertook policy measures which represented a repudiation of at least some Consensus policies (see Continuing Controversy below). However, with the exception of Castro, these leaders have maintained and expanded some successful policies commonly associated with the Washington Consensus, such as macroeconomic stability and property rights protection.
Others on the Latin American left take a different approach. Governments led by the Socialist Party of Chile, by Alan García in Peru, by Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, and by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, have in practice maintained a high degree of continuity with the economic policies described under the Washington Consensus (debt-paying, protection to foreign investment, financial reforms, etc.). But governments of this type have simultaneously sought to supplement these policies by measures directly targeted at improving productivity and helping the poor, such as education reforms and subsidies to poor families conditioned on their children staying in school.
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Apr 19, 2021 | www.unz.com
Tucker Carlson Mentions Replacement in the Context of Immigration. Hatred Ensues. KEVIN MACDONALD APRIL 10, 2021 3,200 WORDS 396 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit 7 Share Share 1 Email Print More 8 SHARES Share to GabThe ADL, always attuned to any indication that their subjects are getting restless, is insisting that Tucker Carlson be fired. What brought on their ire was Tucker's use of the word 'replacement' in the context of a discussion of Joe Biden's Open Border policy. Mentioning replacement in the context of immigration is pretty much in the same category as doubting that all races have the same potentialities or the official holocaust narrative. Be prepared for hatred. Tucker, as quoted in The Hill :
"I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term 'replacement,' if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate," Carlson said. "But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it. That's true.
Of course it's true, and what's being replaced is the traditional White population of the country. But Tucker couldn't say that without even more outrage. So he made it all about the current electorate, which is certainly not just White people.
"I mean, everyone's making a racial issue out of it. Oh, the, you know, white replacement? No, no, this is a voting rights question," Carlson added later, saying changes to the population "dilute the political power" of current registered voters.
This is disingenuous but I suppose it's what you have to say to keep your job in the mainstream media -- and even that might not be enough. Carlson's statement is consistent with his repeated assertions of color-blindness, and he's careful to restrict his comments to illegal immigration. His argument is completely color-blind: "every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter" -- an argument that would apply to any American citizen no matter what their race. "How dare you think I care particularly about White voters!" But isn't it obvious that such an argument would also apply to legal immigration?
Of course the ADL immediately labeled his comments as "white supremacy":
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1380528052061544455&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Farticle%2Ftucker-carlson-mentions-replacement-in-the-context-of-immigration-hatred-ensues%2F&sessionId=bae20299ec2ff4eb2bcb0b7849d5e1eb3c8a0d73&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=500px
Not clear how replacement theory is "anti-Semitic," but I suppose that Greenblatt considers anything he dislikes as anti-Semitism. After quoting Greenblatt's tweet, The Hill noted that "the ADL head explained that the "Great Replacement" theory "is a white supremacist tenet that the white race is in danger by a rising tide of non-whites," linking to a Daily Beast article saying the whole idea was a "racist lie." But how much of a "racist lie" is it when the White population is steadily dwindling, probably to around 60 percent, and the left wants to dramatically increase the rate at which it is dwindling?
Greenblatt also emailed Fox News, writing "Carlson's full-on embrace of the white supremacist replacement theory on yesterday's show and his repeated allusions to racist themes in past segments are a bridge too far. Given his long record of race-baiting, we believe it is time for Carlson to go." This assertion that Carlson is making a "full-on embrace of white supremacist replacement theory" is a bald-faced lie, but obvious lies seem to be more and more common in high places these days -- witness Biden's lie about the new Georgia voting laws as "Jim Crow on steroids." A full-on embrace of "white supremacist replacement theory" would at least reference a specific concern for White people losing political clout. Instead, Carlson religiously repeats his mainstream conservative, color-blind mantras firmly rooted in individualist ideology ("every time they import a new voter "). Officially, he could care less about White people as White people. One wonders if Fox would stand by their most popular talking head if he did come out and just say it. I am pretty sure he believes it.
Officially, Carlson's heart is bleeding for all those Black, Brown, and Asian citizen-voters whose political clout is being diluted. But of course, that would be wildly inaccurate, particularly in the age of identity politics where non-Whites are strongly encouraged to identify with their racial group and do all they can to advance its interests. The collective power of non-Whites is being increased by immigration and everyone knows it, and White political power is decreasing in an age when hatred of Whites is becoming increasingly obvious -- at a time when Critical Race Theory is dominating the educational establishment and corporate board rooms. CRT is a theory that essentially says it's fine for non-Whites to hate Whites while at the same time encouraging White guilt about the supposed sins of their ancestors. One can only imagine the horrors that await a politically powerless White minority.
And it's not just White political power that is waning. There is clearly a program to replace Whites as part of the American elite.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1380156593074008066&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Farticle%2Ftucker-carlson-mentions-replacement-in-the-context-of-immigration-hatred-ensues%2F&sessionId=bae20299ec2ff4eb2bcb0b7849d5e1eb3c8a0d73&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=500px
Given the voting behavior of non-Whites, it doesn't make much sense to say that America's non-White voters are being replaced when they are being "replaced" by more non-White voters, although I suppose one could make the argument that the traditional American Black population will have less political clout given that the preponderance of immigrants are from Latin America and Asia. But in any case, they ain't White , and the ADL and the Democrats are quite well aware that all non-White groups strongly skew Democrat. In general, the Democrats are in favor of increased legal immigration, amnesty for illegals, and non-enforcement at the border, all of which are on the table with Biden in the White House and a Democrat Congress. Putting these ideas into law along with allowing no-ID voting would give Democrats more or less immediate and permanent hegemony given that Texas and Florida are the largest destinations of immigrants -- as noted in my comments on the January 6 "insurrection," The Left Will Now Enact Permanent Hegemony. " Their strategy also includes packing the Supreme Court , in case some of their laws are challenged; Biden is already laying the groundwork by establishing a commission packed with a super-majority of liberals .
Biden's immigration plan calls for an increase in "diversity" visas to 80,000 from 55,000 and has an emphasis on family unification -- a code word for chain migration and a bedrock of Jewish attitudes on immigration since the 1920s and continuing up to the 1965 immigration law ( here, p. 283) and beyond. What this means is that one lucky visa recipient from, say, Africa, could bring in his immediate (likely large) family and when they became citizens, they could bring in their brothers and sisters outside the quota limit, who could in turn bring in their spouses and children, etc. All these new people would be able to immigrate outside the quota system for legal immigrants. And all could become citizens.
Tucker Carlson Is a Mass Murdering Terrorist!
Comment on the left has explicitly compared Carlson's mild comments to the manifesto of the Christchurch and El Paso murderers.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1380671618876207106&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Farticle%2Ftucker-carlson-mentions-replacement-in-the-context-of-immigration-hatred-ensues%2F&sessionId=bae20299ec2ff4eb2bcb0b7849d5e1eb3c8a0d73&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=500px
I found the above clip from The Daily Show on Max Boot's Twitter feed . Boot, former neocon (i.e., a liberal-leftie masquerading as a conservative active in promoting U.S. fealty to Israel and moving the GOP to the left on social issues). And now, because of obsessive Trump hate, now is firmly and explicitly ensconced on the left at The Washington Post. Boot wrote that Carlson "the top-rated host on Fox "News" Channel, has been attracting attention for a while with his vile rhetoric against immigrants. Yet now he's reached a new low."
As the left-leaning Media Matters for America has chronicled , Carlson has a long history of ugly statements. He has called Iraqis " semiliterate primitive monkeys " and said that Afghanistan is "never going to be a civilized country because the people aren't civilized." He has complained that an influx of poor immigrants " makes our own country poor and dirtier and more divided ." He has repeatedly described immigration as an " invasion ," and called the urgent threat posed by white supremacists a " hoax " and "a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power."
And that new low is that Tucker said something a mass murderer had said, implying, I guess, that if Hitler said the sky is blue, it would be extremely racist for anyone else to say it.
The Guardian noted in 2019 that there were already disturbing parallels between Carlson's rhetoric and that of white supremacist killers in El Paso, Tex., and Christchurch, New Zealand. For example, in one of his books, Carlson wrote: "When confronted or pressed for details, [proponents of diversity] retreat into a familiar platitude, which they repeat like a zen koan: diversity is our strength. But is diversity our strength? The less we have in common, the stronger we are? Is that true of families? Is that true in neighborhoods or businesses? Of course not."
And here is what the fiend who killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques said in his manifesto: "Why is diversity said to be our greatest strength? Does anyone even ask why? It is spoken like a mantra and repeated ad infinitum . But no one ever seems to give a reason why. What gives a nation strength? And how does diversity increase that strength?"
On Thursday night, Carlson moved even closer to white supremacist ideology by explicitly endorsing the Great Replacement theory, which holds that shadowy elites are orchestrating a plot to replace native-born White people with immigrants of color. The New Zealand shooter's manifesto was literally headlined "The Great Replacement," and the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville chanted "Jews will not replace us."
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Apr 19, 2021 | www.unz.com
Tucker Carlson Doubles Down on Replacement, Explicitly Mentions White Replacement, and Targets the ADL's Hypocrisy(!) KEVIN MACDONALD APRIL 14, 2021 2,400 WORDS 411 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit 13 Share Share 2 Email Print More 15 SHARES Share to GabIn a previous article I noted that Tucker Carlson's comments on 'replacement' in the context of immigration had unleashed a torrent of hatred from the ADL and the liberal media. When the ADL goes after public figures, the usual response is groveling apology in a typically futile effort to prevent getting ostracized or fired. After all, the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt had tweeted that Carlson's comments were "anti-Semitic, racist, and toxic." Accusations of racism -- and especially anti-Semitism -- are pretty much a death sentence for anyone so accused.
So I was gratified that Carlson didn't back down. Indeed, he doubled down, with a 20-minute opening monologue elaborating on exactly why the Democrat Party is completely wedded to importing a new electorate and has been doing so for decades. He also mentioned that Whites (and Blacks) are being replaced as voters, that the entire project is immoral, and he called out the hypocrisy of the ADL. As he notes, it's not about compassion as usually advertised, but about power. And everyone with any brains knows it.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/h0e4QjoJ4wc?feature=oembed
To date, Carlson's monologue is the most powerful and most explicit statement in the mainstream media that Whites -- as Whites -- have an interest in immigration. Indeed, a vital interest. In making his argument, he discussed states like California and Virginia that have become reliably Democrat because of immigration, and he mentions Vermont that is now blue because of disenchanted New Yorkers who brought their politics with them when they moved there. He says the same thing is happening to Montana and Idaho as yoga instructors, Google vice-presidents, and assorted rich White folks leave California for greener pastures. It will happen to your state. And the result will be permanent hegemony of the left because the imported electorate are reliable clients of the Democrat Party. 'Client' is the right word (from the Latin for 'dependent') because these people come to the U.S. for better pay and all the free stuff -- medical care, welfare if they have children, and the promise of eventual citizenship and the right to bring in their relatives. This description applies at least to the Mexicans, Central Americans, and Africans who have flooded our shores (that IQ thing again). They remain toward the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder and dependent on the government. Hence reliably Democrat. California went from being the envy of the world to having poverty levels on par with Mississippi. Without explicitly mentioning Whites, he notes that the middle class is leaving in droves, resulting in the cost of a U-Haul being five times higher for people leaving the state as for entering. He portrays the middle class as one of the victim groups of the Great Replacement as America is transformed into a society with a hostile, ultra-wealthy elite who are politically supported by a dependent mass of Democrat voters.
Tucker also doubled down on his voter-replacement logic, but this time he was explicit about White people's vote being replaced, noting that Whites went from 90 percent of Californians to 30 percent since 1960, which means that how White people vote matters much less than it used to. It's shocking to hear someone in the mainstream media claim that Whites and their vital interests are victims of the immigration tsunami. One can easily imagine a situation where, even if White Californians woke up (far too many are still drinking the Kool-Aid), they couldn't win a statewide election. And that's the whole point. Permanent hegemony.
But because the interests of Whites are definitely not supposed to be paramount, he emphasized that Blacks in California have also been losing political clout rapidly, with very large declines in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. In my previous article, I noted that the voter replacement argument doesn't apply so much to Blacks because the people replacing them have pretty much the same politics. But I stand corrected. Identity politics has changed everything. Black Californian politicos like Maxine Waters, Willy Brown, and Kamala Harris may well become a thing of the past. Harris was replaced by Alex Padilla, a Latino, after being elevated to the vice-presidency, a result that was not warmly greeted by the Black political establishment.
California progressives had pushed [Gov. Gavin] Newsom to appoint Representative Barbara Lee [who is Black] or another like-minded Democrat. Mr. Newsom was also under pressure to appoint a Black woman to take the place of Ms. Harris, the only Black woman in the Senate. Representative Karen Bass and Ms. Lee were at the top of that list. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus strongly backed Mr. Padilla. The L.G.B.T.Q. community and Equality California lobbied for Robert Garcia, the mayor of Long Beach. Black Women United, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, and a range of Black elected officials pushed for Ms. Bass or Ms. Lee.
As Blacks become less of a demographic force, they will also become less of a political force. There will be less official sympathy for Black issues like BLM, reparations, dealing with criminals, and centering on Black grievance in the educational system.
Tucker also did some dog-whistling on Jewish involvement by mentioning Michelle Goldberg's NYTimes op-ed, " We can replace them, " which celebrates replacing the White electorate by doing a screen shot of Goldberg's statement: "The potential is there; Georgia is less than 53 percent non-Hispanic White." He didn't mention Goldberg's ethnicity, but anyone who knows anything about the media knows she is a strongly identified Jew writing for a Jewish-owned publication that is the crown jewel of the elite liberal-left media. As Tucker noted, Goldberg is "a New York Times columnist, not some QAnon blogger."
The left pretends that demographic replacement is an obsession on the right, but in fact, it's an obsession on the left. "It's the central idea of the modern Democratic Party." So true. And so refreshing to hear it in the mainstream media.
As always, the left pretends that their plan to replace the White population is a moral imperative. In 2019 then-Senator Harris condemned Trump's plan to deport illegals on the basis that Trump was trying to "remake the demographics of the country"; she tweeted that such actions are "deeply reprehensible and an affront to our values." Of course, the left would never think of remaking the demographics of the country!
What's immoral -- and obviously so -- is the left's scheme to remake the electorate in opposition to the legitimate interests of the traditional White majority. Tucker confronted the issue head-on, turning the tables on the leftist moralizers by framing their actions as "cheating." This is an important message for Whites to hear. What is happening to the White population of America is profoundly immoral. It's an important message because we Whites are uniquely prone to framing our actions in moral terms. As often discussed here, a major weakness of uniquely individualist culture characteristic of the West is that individualists are highly prone to forming moral communities rather than kinship-based communities typical of the rest of the world. It's a very exploitable weakness, and our hostile elites have taken full advantage by defining the legitimate interests of Whites as immoral, as Greenblatt and Harris do. Moral communities are fine as long as they serve the community's interests, and in the long history of the West, they have indeed been a strength. But the problem now is that the people who define the moral communities of the West since World War are the hostile elite who have shaped academic and media culture, i.e., strongly identified Jews and Jewish-owned mainstream media like the New York Times. So now a substantial proportion of Whites think it's a moral imperative to replace the White population. No other culture anywhere at any time has ever felt a moral imperative to replace its founding population.
However, the best part about Tucker's monologue was that he confronted the ADL directly by highlighting their lack of principle. Confronting any powerful Jewish organization is virtually unheard of in American media and political culture where groveling, apologies, and firing are the norm. And he chose a particularly glaring weakness in Jewish rationalizations of the adversarial culture they have championed in the U.S.: Jewish hypocrisy in claiming the moral high ground in America by insisting that any opposition to immigration is racist and hence immoral, while legitimizing Israel's ethnocentric immigration policy because it threatens the legitimate interests of its Jewish population. In fact, these activist Jews are consummate ethnic nationalists -- exactly what they condemn in White Americans. White Americans deserve just what the ADL and the rest of the activist Jewish community want for Jews, a safe homeland that remains theirs.
Granted, Carlson didn't mention that the ADL was leading the charge against him, but anyone paying the least bit of attention to this episode knows damn well that the ADL is leading the campaign against him. Carlson quoted from the ADL website:
With historically high birth rates among Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants now living around the world, Jews would quickly be a minority in a bi-national state, thus ending any semblance of equal representation and protections. In this situation, the Jewish population would be politically -- and potentially physically -- vulnerable. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the Jewish population to expect the state of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and national identity and become a vulnerable minority in what was once its own territory.
This is another recurrent theme on TOO -- that the traditional White majority will become a hated and oppressed minority ( 58 articles ) because of the immigration of non-Whites in a culture dominated by an elite with a long history of hatred toward the White majority of the U.S. We already see a multitude of examples of hatred toward Whites emanating from the elite media, liberal-left politicians, and just ordinary non-Whites (like this one from James Edwards on Twitter), and hate crimes against Whites are ignored or quickly buried. Why would anyone think this will stop if and when Whites become a minority? It will increase. But the ADL thinks that Jews, who have been and continue to be the leading force enacting a multicultural United States, beginning with their influence in passing the 1965 immigration law , should retain sovereignty in Israel because ceding sovereignty would be dangerous for Jews. This is massively hypocritical, as Tucker implies, and he invited Greenblatt on his show to explain why the same principles that he champions for Israel should not exist in the United States. I rather doubt that will happen.
In fact, Greenblatt repeated his attacks on Carlson in a letter to Fox News , demanding that he be fired while never mentioning that Carlson had broached the hypocrisy of the ADL. Pretty clearly he wants to avoid the issue like the plague. Fox News CEO Lachlan Murdoch responded with a typical mainstream media mantra: "Fox Corporation shares your values and abhors anti-semitism, white supremacy and racism of any kind." But he rejected the argument that Carlson had endorsed "anti-semitism, white supremacy and racism," retreating to Carlson's original voting rights argument. Always a safe move to refuse to avoid issues that vitally affect White America by presenting them in non-racial terms.
In his letter to Murdoch, Greenblatt claimed that Carlson "did not accidentally echo these talking points; he knowingly escalated this well-worn racist rhetoric. At a time of intense polarization, this kind of rhetoric galvanizes extremists and lights the fire of violence."
Intense polarization indeed. That's what happens when there is a powerful attempt to dispossess the founding population of the country. Ultimately the polarization is a result of Jewish activism which has been a necessary condition for the immigration and multiculturalism that is tearing the country apart.
Greenblatt thinks that Tucker's message will galvanize "extremists." Let's hope that it does indeed galvanize the White population. In any case, it's important for Carlson to not let this issue drop. It was courageous of him to broach the issue, but it needs to be repeated, just as the messages of the left on race and multiculturalism are continually repeated on TV, movies, print media, and throughout the educational system.
The message of White replacement is powerful. As I noted in Chapter 8 of Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition :
Individualists are less naturally ethnocentric, and the left has created a culture that encourages Whites to inhibit expressions of ethnocentrism while encouraging non-Whites to be ethnocentric. Because the media is dominated by the left and because even the conservative media is terrified of appearing to advocate White interests, explicit messages that would encourage Whites to become angry and fearful about their future as a minority are rare [and when they occur, they are subjected to vicious attacks, as has happened to Carlson]. Indeed, the media rarely, if ever, mentions that Whites are well on their way to becoming a minority. And this for good reason: Whites in the United States and in Canada who are given explicit demographic projections of a time when Whites are no longer a majority tend to feel angry and fearful. They are also more likely to identify as Whites and have sympathy for other Whites. [1]
In other words, while I have emphasized the ability of the higher brain centers to inhibit ethnocentrism, explicit messages indicating that one's racial group is threatened are able to trigger ethnocentrism. This is especially important because many Whites live far from the areas of their countries undergoing the demographic shifts. Their day-to-day life of living in an essentially White environment hasn't changed while the population centers of New York, California, Toronto, and Vancouver have changed beyond all recognition from what they were 50 years ago. An obvious inference to be made is that pro-White activists should appeal to Whites' higher brain centers with explicit messages emphasizing these transformations.
White replacement is our most powerful message. Let's hope Tucker continues to repeat it. We certainly will.
Note
[1] H. Robert Outten, Michael T. Schmitt, and Daniel A. Miller, "Feeling threatened about the future: Whites' emotional reactions to anticipated ethnic demographic changes," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38 (2011): 14–25.
goldgettin , says: April 15, 2021 at 4:12 am GMT • 3.9 days ago
Robert Dolan , says: April 15, 2021 at 4:27 am GMT • 3.9 days agoGo Tucker Go.There is a lot of room to advance on this front. It shouldn't take much more to expose the complete hypocrisy of their argument,but what has being right got to do with it? We're talking about trillions upon trillions of "wealth,"not, "debt" and the self absorbed,egotistical materialists will do everything under the sun to continue ignoring reality,i.e.humanity.Money is "the GOD"and nobody should get in the way of "the PROPHET$" that assumed divine authority after the black book was written.Gold, diamonds,private jets,yachts,islands and lots of "faithful followers" to do all the work. They will assassinate anything that threatens "THIS"religion,good luck.
follyofwar , says: April 15, 2021 at 5:23 am GMT • 3.8 days agoTuck has the moral high ground ..not only are we being replaced ..but Greenblatt's buddies GLOAT openly about our replacement ..that doesn't really seem like being a light unto the nations.
Apex Predator , says: April 15, 2021 at 5:26 am GMT • 3.8 days agoFor a long time, Tucker has been more than just a political talk show host. He's become a Man on a Mission; even more so since Biden's enablers stole what was left of our "democracy," and fixed November's election. Will Fox fire him due to growing Corporate and Jewish pressure, or will the Murdoch's continue to have the guts to back him?
No one can know for sure. But Tucker, to a large extent, has Fox News over a barrel. He's even recently expanded his reach, with his newest show on the subscription based Fox Nation, where he is able to do long form interviews without commercial interruption. The Murdoch's must be keenly aware that, if they fire their number one ratings star, they've just flushed their consistently most watched cable news network down the toilet.
There's another huge issue, never mentioned on TV except with derision, that I'd love to see Tucker address one day soon: SECESSION! It's the only way forward.
stevennonemaker88 , says: April 15, 2021 at 7:07 am GMT • 3.8 days agoI think ol' Tucker may have bit off more than he can chew on this one. He touched the 3rd rail pretty strongly on live TV and Big Jew doesn't like that whatsoever. Given that Israel is supported by both right leaning Neocons and the more liberal Jonathan Greenblatts of the world his days may truly be numbered now.
Nicolas Bonnal , says: Website April 15, 2021 at 7:15 am GMT • 3.8 days agoTucker does a good job of poking holes in idiotic liberalism. However, I think it is interesting that almost no one mentions the elephant in the room, which is that whites went from a fertility rate of 3.7 to 1.7 in the space of 60 years. Americans in general started murdering their babies, and swallowed all the jewish lies and "isms" hook, line and sinker. That is why you have lost your country. The brown tide is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. The problem is a nation given over to greed, foolishness, and perversion.
Anonymous [124] Disclaimer , says: April 15, 2021 at 7:15 am GMT • 3.8 days agoBravo Kevin et bravo Tucker. Ceux qui vont mourir vous saluent.
https://nicolasbonnal.wordpress.com/stevennonemaker88 , says: April 15, 2021 at 7:16 am GMT • 3.8 days agoSince she first appeared as a talk show host on MSNBC during Obama's first presidential campaign, Rachel Maddow has been bragging about how Democrats were going to ascend to a permanent majority in the Congress and permanently control the presidency by virtue of unhindered "minority" migration into this country. The concept had been floated before by numerous analysts and even termed the "Reconquista" which Hispanic spokespersons enthusiastically embraced as the rightful recovery of their stolen patrimony from the Gringos.
I distinctly recall Maddow gloating about this anticipated outcome night after night while she demeaned the incipient shrinkage of a "rump Republican Party" to complete irrelevance when this desired scenario came to pass. She spoke excitedly about recruiting not only the tidal wave of Hispanic migrants into the Democratic fold to cohabit with the long loyal blacks, but also assumed that every foreigner, including all Orientals, East Indians, Middle Easterners and Black Africans should naturally ally with the liberal Dem philosophies: literally every immigrant but White Europeans (the "Eurotrash") would be a part of the coming new Democratic Golden Age.
Nobody on the left ever thought of calling her and her bigoted ideas to be "racist," and she is never called out for being "racist" when she spouts her totally hysterical over-the-top Russophobia (or is "Russophrenia" a more correct descriptor?). Why doesn't the ADL pick a bone with her while they are attacking Tucker Carlson who has always been much less excitable and far more logical that Maddow even when she is sober and not fixing mixed drinks on air.
brabantian , says: April 15, 2021 at 7:27 am GMT • 3.7 days agoI am also amazed that he pointed out the hypocrisy of Israel and the ADL live on the air!
Tucker is on fire. He's gone radical on covid, too, suggesting the US government knows the vaccines don't work and is intentionally hiding that, with a conspiracy behind the idea of demanding people continue to wear masks and stay apart (this article takes that negatively):
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-goes-full-tinfoil-hat-maybe-the-vaccine-doesnt-work-and-theyre-not-telling-you-thatScreenshot of some of the recent Tucker statements relevant to above article (should be able to click to enlarge)
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Apr 19, 2021 | www.msnbc.com
A newly formed "America First Caucus" in Congress, supported by a few far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives, is looking to recruit new members with an old set of arguments.
These white nationalist tropes found a receptive audience in the American people.
Its platform, now circulating in Washington, is little more than a retread of the white nationalist screeds of the 1910s and 1920s.
"America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon traditions," asserts the section on immigration. "History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country."
A century ago, these same sorts of arguments about the "Anglo-Saxon" character of the United States and the threat that "foreign" elements would bring to its politics and culture were quite widespread.
... ... ...
The popular panic over immigration and the pseudo-scientific justifications for nativism and racism came together in the push for the National Origins Act of 1924, a quota-based measure that drastically reduced immigration from southeastern Europe and banned all Asians from immigrating entirely.
Kevin M. KruseKevin M. Kruse is a professor of history at Princeton University. A specialist in modern American political, social and urban/suburban history, he is the author and editor of several books, including "White Flight" (2005), "One Nation Under God" (2015) and "Fault Lines: A History of the United States since 1974" (2019). He grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and earned his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his master's and doctoral degrees from Cornell University.
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Mar 27, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Mar 24 2021 22:11 utc | 56
The EUP is cutting its own throat trying to bully China. I see the move was made as soon as Blinken arrived and began spreading lies about both Russia and China. I know China and Russia would like these rogue nations to uphold their honor by obeying the UN Charter, but it seems too many have caught the Outlaw US Empire's disease and now want to return to their Colonial ways. If the EUP ends up trashing the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China, many individual European nations are going to be very angry. China won't mind if that's what the EUP does as is explained here :
"After China announced sanctions on 10 individuals and four entities from the EU as a countermove to EU's unilateral sanctions against China, some people from the EU reacted strongly, claiming China's countermeasures were "unacceptable." The European Parliament canceled a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China. Some members of the European Parliament warned that the lifting of Chinese sanctions should be a condition to promote talks on CAI. Voices that support to block the agreement in an attempt to punish China have been hyped by some anti-China forces.
"Yet those forces should be told that the CAI between China and the EU is mutually beneficial, rather than a gift from the EU to China. If the European Parliament wants to obstruct the deal, taking it as a bargaining chip in interactions with China, it should first reach a consensus among European countries. If they all agree, let's just take it as negotiations between China and the EU never took place last year. But don't blackmail China with the case. China despises such ugly deeds."
China's saying essentially that it will forego the benefits of trade if it isn't properly respected and doesn't care if the EU's dire economic condition worsens because it can't stand up for itself in the face of the world's #1 Bully, which is exactly the same line Russia has taken.
Lurk , Mar 25 2021 1:33 utc | 74
@Norwegian | Mar 24 2021 21:19 utc | 46
It is not just Jens Quisling, half (or more) of the European political elite are USA proxies.
Take for example the European green parties.
I am pretty sure that the Dutch green party is at its core a NATO/military intelligence operation. It was created as a merger of three parties, all of whom had a distinct pacifist and socialist signature. The new party, GroenLinks ("GreenLeft") has forgotten all of that and has limited itself to churning out Big Climate slogans. The party leader is an obviously hollow puppet in the image of Justin Trudeau. His opinions are handed to him by advisors in the shade.
A few years ago, an MP for GroenLinks, Mariko Peters was enthousiastically promoting more military missions in Afghanistan. She was also a board member of the "Atlantische Commissie", the local Dutch chapter of the Atlantic Treaty Organisation (the USA chapter is the more well-known Atlantic Council). If you study her antics and associations more closely, it is pretty obvious that there is nothing green or left about this lady and that she is an obvious atlanticist diplomat/spy type.
Currently, there are no political parties in the Netherlands that are critical of NATO. This used to be very different not even a very long time ago.
About the German green party I know a bit less, but I trust well-informed members of the CDU when they point out the NATO dirt on Die Grüne:
Green Party is an 'arm of the US elites' & doesn't care about German interests – Merkel's ally to RTWhat the article does not mention is the association, reputedly for a six-figure salary) of former Grüne luminary Joschka Fisher to the Nabucco pipeline project (competing with ns2). Fischer is also a member of the council on foreign relations and a founding member even of the European chapter ECFR.
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Mar 22, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Mar 21 2021 19:30 utc | 37
The face of the Asian immigrant to the USA:
Ying Ma: "All Chinese Americans should denounce China for infecting the world with the China virus."
Contrary to the previous immigrants - who were economic immigrants (not religious immigrants, as the official history of the USA states) - the post-war immigrants to the USA are all political immigrants. They're the remnants of South Vietnam, Kuomintang, South Korea, Mensheviks, Refuseniks, Zionism, Batista's Cuba, Latin American comprador elites. I remember that once Hugo Chávez or the then president of Ecuador claimed that in Florida alone were more than 2,000 wanted people (most of them compradores and generals) enjoying political refugee status.
The only exception to the rule are the Mexican immigrants and some Central American immigrants (El Salvador, Guatemala in some cases), which had their economies dollarized or devastated by the advent of NAFTA, and were by chance close to the USA's territory.
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Mar 18, 2021 | www.wsj.com
Your editorial "The Semiconductor Shortage" (March 13) is right that government action is not needed to correct the short-term supply-demand imbalance causing the global chip shortage, but wrong that the U.S. can "prod" its way to stronger domestic semiconductor production and more secure chip supply chains in the long term. Global competitors haven't passed the U.S. as a location for chip manufacturing by prodding. They've done it by funding ambitious government incentives to lure semiconductor production to their shores.
As a result, only 12% of global manufacturing is now done in the U.S., down from 37% in 1990.
... ... ...
John Neuffer
President and CEO
Semiconductor Industry Association
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Feb 05, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com
Stakeholders consist of "customers, suppliers, employees, and local communities" in addition to shareholders. But for Klaus Schwab and the WEF, the framework of stakeholder capitalism must be globalized. A stakeholder is anyone or any group that stands to benefit or lose from any corporate behavior -- other than competitors, we may presume. Since the primary pretext for the Great Reset is global climate change, anyone in the world can be considered a stakeholder in the corporate governance of any major corporation. And federal partnerships with corporations that do not "serve" their stakeholders, like the Keystone Pipeline project, for example, must be abandoned.
...T ake one David Campbell, a British socialist (although non-Marxist) and author of The Failure of Marxism (1996). After declaring that Marxism had failed, Campbell began advocating stakeholder capitalism as a means to the same ends. His argument with the British orthodox Marxist Paddy Ireland represents an internecine squabble over the best means of achieving socialism, while also providing a looking glass into the minds of socialists determined to try other, presumably nonviolent tacks.
Campbell castigated Ireland for his rejection of stakeholder capitalism. ... Ireland's more-radical-than-thou Marxism left Campbell flummoxed. Didn't Ireland realize that his market determinism was exactly what the defenders of "neoliberalism" asserted as the inevitable and only sure means for the distribution of social welfare? "Marxism," Campbell rightly noted, "can be identified with the deriding of 'social reform' as not representing, or even as obstructing, 'the revolution.'" Like so many antireformist Marxists, Ireland failed to recognize that "the social reforms that [he] derided are the revolution."
Ireland and Campbell agreed that the very idea of stakeholder capitalism derived from companies having become relatively autonomous from their shareholders. The idea of managerial independence and thus company or corporate autonomy was first treated by Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means in The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) and after them in James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution (1962). In "Corporate Governance, Stakeholding, and the Company: Towards a Less Degenerate Capitalism?," Ireland writes of this putative autonomy: "[T]he idea of the stakeholding company is rooted in the autonomy of 'the company' from its shareholders; its claim being that this autonomy can be exploited to ensure that companies do not operate exclusively with the interests of their shareholders in mind."
This apparent autonomy of the company, Ireland argues, came about not with incorporation or legal changes to the structure of the corporation, but with the growth of large-scale industrial capitalism. The growth in the sheer number of shares and with it the advent of the stock market made for the ready salability of the of the share. Shares became "money capital," readily exchangeable titles to a percentage of profit, and not claims on the company's assets. It was at this point that shares gained apparent autonomy from the company and the company from its shareholders.
Moreover, with the emergence of this market, shares developed an autonomous value of their own quite independent of, and often different from, the value of the company's assets. Emerging as what Marx called fictitious capital, they were redefined in law as an autonomous form of property independent of the assets of the company. They were no longer conceptualized as equitable interests in the property of the company but as rights to profit with a value of their own, rights which could be freely and easily bought and sold in the marketplace .
On gaining their independence from the assets of companies, shares emerged as legal objects in their own right, seemingly doubling the capital of joint stock companies. The assets were now owned by the company and by the company alone, either through a corporation or, in the case of unincorporated companies, through trustees. The intangible share capital of the company, on the other hand, had become the sole property of the shareholder. They were now two quite separate forms of property. Moreover, with the legal constitution of the share as an entirely autonomous form of property, the externalization of the shareholder from the company had been completed in a way not previously possible.
Thus, according to Ireland, a difference in interests emerged between the holders of the industrial capital and the holders of the money capital, or between the company and the shareholder.
Nevertheless, Ireland maintains, the autonomy of the company is limited by the necessity for industrial capital to produce profit. The value of shares is ultimately determined by the profitability of the company's assets in use. "The company is, and will always be, the personification of industrial capital and, as such, subject to the imperatives of profitability and accumulation. These are not imposed from the outside on an otherwise neutral and directionless entity, but are, rather, intrinsic to it, lying at the very heart of its existence." This necessity, Paddy argues, defines the limits of stakeholder capitalism and its inability to sustain itself. "The nature of the company is such, therefore, as to suggest that [there] are strict limits to the extent to which its autonomy from shareholders can be exploited for the benefit of workers or, indeed, other stakeholders."
Here is a point on which the "neoliberal" Milton Friedman and the Marxist Paddy Ireland would have agreed, despite Ireland's insistence that the extraction of "surplus value" at the point of production is the cause. And this agreement between Friedman and Ireland is exactly why Campbell rejected Ireland's argument. Such market determinism is only necessary under capitalism, Campbell asserted. Predictions about how companies will behave in the context of markets are only valid under current market conditions...
Despite this insurmountable "neoliberal"/Marxist impasse, the notion of stakeholder capitalism is at least fifty years old. Debates about the efficacy of stakeholder capitalism date to the 1980s. They were stirred up by Friedman's rejection of the "soulful corporation," which reached its peak with Carl Kaysen's "The Social Significance of the Modern Corporation" in 1957. Kaysen viewed the corporation as a social institution that must weigh profitability against a broad and growing array of social responsibilities: "there is no display of greed or graspingness; there is no attempt to push off onto the workers or the community at large part of the social costs of the enterprise. The modern corporation is a soulful corporation." Thus, in Kaysen, we see hints of the later notion of stakeholder capitalism.
Likely, stakeholder capitalism can be traced, although not in an unbroken line of succession, to the "commercial idealism" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Edward Bellamy and King Camp Gillette, among others, envisioned corporate socialist utopias via incorporation. For such corporate socialists, the main means for establishing socialism was through the continuous incorporation of all the factors of production. With incorporation, a series of mergers and acquisitions would occur until the formation of a singular global monopoly, in which all "the People" had equal shares, was complete. In his "World Corporation , " Gillette declared that "the trained mind of business and finance sees no stopping-place to corporate absorption and growth, except final absorption of all the World's material assets into one corporate body, under the directing control of one corporate mind." Such a singular world monopoly would become socialist upon the equal distribution of shares among the population. Stakeholder capitalism falls short of this equal distribution of shares but gets around it by distributing value on the basis of social and political pressure.
Interestingly, Campbell ends his argument, rather undogmatically, by stating unequivocally that if Friedman was right and "if these comparisons [between shareholder and stakeholder capitalism] tend to show exclusive maximization of shareholder value to be the optimal way of maximizing welfare," then "one should give up being a socialist." If, after all, the maximization of human welfare is really the object, and "shareholder capitalism" (or "neoliberalism") proves to be the best way to achieve it, then socialism itself, including stakeholder capitalism, must necessarily be abandoned.
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Jan 15, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Jan 15 2021 18:20 utc | 113
Trump is engaging in the declassification of documents, one of which is the 2018 US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific that's provided at the top of Pepe Escobar's essay, "Trump's not-so-secret plan for containing China," that was published yesterday:
"These are the Top 5 items – with no euphemistic softening:
•Maintain as sacrosanct US 'primacy,' code for uncontested military power
•Promote the Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia)
•Fully support the (failed) Hong Kong color revolution
•Demonize everything connected to Belt & Road
•Invest in 'the rise of India'"On the military front, things get way trickier: The imperative is to prevent Beijing, by all means necessary, from 'dominating the first island chain' – that is, the island ring from the Japanese archipelago to Taiwan all the way to the northern Philippines and Borneo. Moreover, 'primacy' should also be maintained in the 'area beyond.'
"So once again this is all about naval containment."
That's followed by an excellent graphic showing the first and second Island Chains. Of course, China isn't really worried:
"The 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party falls next July 23. The day before the declassification of Indo-Pacific, President Xi Jinping outlined his – and the CCP's – vision for the almost three decades culminating in 2049, the hundredth anniversary of the People's Republic of China.
"Here are Xi's Top Three – in a nutshell:
•Keep calm and carry on, despite the ravaging effects of Covid-19, unrelenting Western – especially American – hostility, and the trials and tribulations of the crumbling US Empire
•Focus on domestic development, in all areas
•Focus on China's priorities; then, whatever happens, the world outside will not be able to interfere.
•Solidify its own 'primacy' in the South China Sea while diversifying trade and development strategic options all along Belt and Road"I tried to locate where Xi made this statement Pepe cites, but was unsuccessful, and Pepe provided no link. The essay closes with an economic forecast for China that Biden won't be able to do much about. Indeed, this article details how much damage Trump's Trade War did to the US economy and how it would benefit from Biden's ending it:
"The multi-year trade war with China under the Trump administration resulted in a peak loss of 245,000 US jobs, Reuters reported Friday, citing a study commissioned by the US-China Business Council, a business group representing major US firms with operations in China.
"In an escalated scenario, meaning a significant China-US decoupling, the US GDP could shrink by $1.6 trillion over the next five years, resulting in up to 732,000 job losses in the US by 2022 and 320,000 fewer jobs by 2025, according to the study. A gradual scaling back of tariffs, however, is likely to boost growth, resulting in an additional 145,000 jobs by 2025."
As I wrote when Trump announced his Trade War, the Outlaw US Empire would be much better off if it joined with China rather than trying to fight it, and now the results are in. Too bad this report will likely be suppressed. The article looks at Biden's position and concludes with an infographic detailing trade flows between China and the Outlaw US Empire.
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Jan 11, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
LittleWhiteCabbage , Jan 11 2021 15:19 utc | 128
@84:
As sometimes said: don't sweat the small stuff.
This "We are all Taiwanese now" stunt is Pompeo's act of petty spite for getting outfoxed in the Hong Kong colour revolution play.
Empire's useful idiots were let loose to trash the hapless city, fired up by the Western propaganda machinery.
Now Beijing is putting the stock on those pompous minions with the National Security Law, and their foreign masters can't do nuffin' except squeal human rights and apply some nuisance sanctions.
The West fails because it looks at China through ideological lenses and sees Communists, who can fall back on 5000 years of statecraft to push back at interlopers.
Beijing's moves can be likened to two classic strategies.
1. Zhuge Liang fools the enemy to fire all their arrows at straw men, which become ammunition against them.
2. The Empty City strategy. Invaders take over an ostensibly abandoned city, only to be trapped inside.
Global Times is cantankerous and sometimes risible, but even a broken clock is right, twice a day.
So when it says that crossing Beijing's red line on the Taiwan issue is not in the island's best interests, the incoming BiMala administration should take note.
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Jan 03, 2021 | nationalinterest.org
Under Barack Obama, the containment of China -- the "pivot to Asia" -- took the form of what might be called trilateralism, after the old Trilateral Commission of the 1970s. According to this strategy, while balancing China militarily, the United States would create trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade blocs with rules favorable to the United States that China would be forced to beg to join in the future. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was intended as an anti-Chinese, American-dominated Pacific trade bloc, while the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) sought to create a NATO for trade from which China would be excluded.
Obama's grand strategy collapsed even before the election of 2016. TTIP died, chiefly because of hostility from European economic interests. In the United States, the fact that the TPP treaty was little more than a wish-list of giveaways to U.S. finance and pharma interests and other special-interest lobbies made it so unpopular that both Hillary Clinton and Trump renounced it during the 2016 presidential election season.
Trump, like Obama, sought to contain China , but by unilateral rather than trilateral measures. The Trump administration emphasized reshoring strategic supply chains like that of steel in the United States, unwilling to offshore critical supplies even to allies in Asia and Europe and North America. This break with prior tradition would have been difficult to pull off even under a popular president who was a good bureaucratic operator, unlike the erratic and inconsistent Trump.
The Biden administration, staffed with Obama veterans , may be in effect a third Obama term. Biden may seek a détente with China on some issues. But Democratic foreign policy elites as well as Republicans view China more harshly than they did four years ago. The most likely scenario, then, is an attempt to restore Obama's trilateral strategy of building the biggest possible coalition of allies against China.
An emphasis by the Biden administration on alliances may succeed in the case of the U.S.-Japan-Australia-India "Quad" (Quadrilateral alliance). The UK may support America's East Asian policy as well. But Germany and France, the dominant powers in Europe, view China as a vast market, not a threat, so Biden will fail if he seeks to repeat Obama's grand strategy of trilateral containment of China.
Democratic foreign policy elites are much more Europhile and Russophobic than their Republican counterparts. In part this is a projection of domestic politics. In the demonology of the Democratic Party, Putin stands for nationalism, social conservatism, and everything that elite Democrats despise about the "deplorables" in the United States who live outside of major metro areas and vote for Republicans. The irrational hostility of America's Democratic establishment extends beyond Russia to socially-conservative democratic governments in Poland and Hungary, two countries that Biden has denounced as "totalitarian."
In the Middle East, unlike Eastern Europe, a Biden administration is likely to sacrifice left-liberal ideology to the project of maximizing American power and consolidating the U.S. military presence, with the help of autocracies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Any hint of retrenchment will be denounced by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment that lined up behind Biden, so do not expect an end to any of the forever wars under Biden. Quite the contrary.
Michael Lind is Professor of Practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of the University of Texas at Austin and the author of The American Way of Strategy. His most recent book is The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite.
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Jan 03, 2021 | failedevolution.blogspot.com
As Monbiot points out:
First of all, both capitalist factions in this civil war seek the " deconstruction of the administrative state. " And actually, the administrative state could be deconstructed much more efficiently through super-national formations like the European Union. The European Union institutions have been taken over by powerful banking and corporate lobbies. And these are taking advantage of the legislative power of those institutions in order to promote more deregulation and destroy the administrative power of nation-states. As the Corporate Europe Observatory reported in 2016:
The only way really to understand Brexit is as the outcome of a civil war within capitalism. There are two dominant forms of capitalism. One you could describe as house trained capitalism. This is corporations and rich people who are prepared to more or less go along with democracy, as long as democracy doesn't get out of hand and actually represent the interests of the people, but as long as it's a sort of thin and narrow form of democracy, they'll go with it. What they want is stability. They want regulations which protect their market position from rougher and dirtier companies who would otherwise wipe them out. They're happy with the administrative state.
And then there's another faction who could be described as capitalism's warlords. These are people who don't want any constraints in their way at all. They see taxation as illegitimate, they see regulation as illegitimate. In their unguarded moments, they reveal that they see democracy as illegitimate. People such as Peter Thiel, the guy who founded PayPal says actually democracy and market freedom are incompatible. The conflict should be resolved in favor of this thing he calls the market. Τhe market is an euphemism for the power of money. And they believe that that power should be unmediated, that it should be able to do whatever it wants without anyone standing in its way. And they see as their enemy house trained capitalism. And this is really where the power lies within.The whole Brexit debate, is on the one side, the august institutions of capitalism, like the Confederation of British Industry, saying this is terrible, we don't want this to happen at all. And on the other side, the oligarchs from the City, very powerful people who are funding dark money think tanks and other lobby groups, saying we want to clear it all out of the way. In Steve Bannon's words, " we want the deconstruction of the administrative state ". And it's a second group, the warlords of money who have won.
Since Jean-Claude Juncker took office as President of the European Commission in November 2014, there has been an even greater deregulation push, not just on specific rules and laws which should be scrapped, but on how decisions are made about future laws. Under Juncker, fundamental changes in policy-making are being introduced which will put major obstacles in the way of new regulations aimed at protecting the environment or improving social conditions. When David Cameron was renegotiating the terms of the UK's membership of the EU with European Council President Donald Tusk, a greater European emphasis on deregulation was one of the four priority areas. To pile on the pressure, Cameron and the UK government spearheaded an appeal from 18 other member states, demanding quantitative targets, meaning that for every new regulation put in place, a certain number of other regulations should be removed. [...] As presented here, Cameron and the European Commission – together with big business - share a common approach on the deregulation agenda.That's why the "house trained capitalism", as Monbiot describes it, wants the UK to remain member of the EU. And, in fact, it's rather contradictory to say that this capitalist faction is "happy with the administrative state" when at the same time supports a super-national organization whose ultimate goal is to eliminate the administrative power of the nation-states.
Monbiot describes the pro-Brexit capitalist faction as " capitalism's warlords ... people who don't want any constraints in their way at all. They see taxation as illegitimate, they see regulation as illegitimate. In their unguarded moments, they reveal that they see democracy as illegitimate. " Yet, these are common characteristics with the "house trained capitalism" faction. That's because both capitalist factions in previous decades were functioning as a united force through the complete domination of neoliberalism. A domination which was evident not only in an economic and a political level, but also in a cultural level, especially in the Western world. And that's why, as we wrote recently, both the liberal elites and the far right (as representatives of the capitalist factions), are seeing the real Left as the primary threat which must be dealt at all costs, after all.
We need to understand that this civil war between the capitalist factions does not come out of any substantially different ideological or political approach. Essentially, it's only a tough bargain. Capitalists just pick sides to negotiate terms and secure their position in the post-capitalist era, which already looks like a kind of 21st century corporate feudalism. Yet, we would completely agree with Monbiot's remark that " What happens to us, to the citizens of the UK, is of very little interest. We're just the grass that gets trampled in this civil war. "
As we already pointed out , the level of ruthlessness of this capitalist war can also be identified in the behavior of the US political class against the American people. It's astonishing that, inside this terrible situation, where thousands die from the pandemic, millions lose their jobs and live under extreme insecurity, no one is willing to offer anything. Both Democrats and Republicans have turned the oncoming election into a political bargain and they don't even try to hide it.
Inside this ruthless capitalist war, people have become almost irrelevant. What only matters for the political puppets is to secure the interests of the capitalist faction they represent. The rampageous bulls of capitalism are fighting each other in an arena in which democracy has now turned into dust under their violent clatters. Therefore, we would also certainly agree with Monbiot's conclusion: We need a political economy which is good for the people, the people who live today, the people of future generations, good for the rest of the living world and is actually governed by the people themselves. Not by this kind of capitalism or that kind of capitalism. These corporations or those oligarchs. A democracy which responds to people not just once every four or five years, but every day, when we have participation as well as representation. We need a system that transcends both of these warring factions, and puts the people in charge.https://www.youtube.com/embed/s5VgkCb8lYI Related: Brexit: let there be blood among capitalists and may the real Left finally
- Godfree Roberts 1/1/21 05:46
No wonder China is the Official Enemy.
REPLY- Anonymous 4/1/21 01:45
In fact it is exactly like the last civil war englanders had, the local big fish in a small pond don't want any outsiders making decisions or competing with them.
In 1642 ancestors of the current englander ruling elite became concerned that James Stuart, then Charles Stuart were not only encouraging types established in that ever so provincial Scots Court to compete for valuable contracts, they were taking instruction from some eyetalian in Rome when there was perfectly good advice available from the Archbishop of Canterbury. They knew that the archbish would give sound advice because they, the englander elite had selected & promoted him themselves.
The EU is the stuarts with the pope, and england's established hierarchy realised pretty soon after entry into the old EC that 'johnny foreigner' who they assumed would bow to the englander elite's superior insight & worth was doing no such thing. Often, they believed the rejection was just pure spite done out of envy of england's 'success' lol.
Once it became certain that neither the french or the germans would kowtow, the strategy to extricate england from the eu was begun. Types like johnson the tele's man in Brussels filled englander media up with lies & beatups - all horror stories about eurocrats etc.
Why wouldn't the mugs believe this tosh? They had swallowed some fantastic yarns spread by the media which kept conservative control of england for decades, eu= evil would be no different and it wasn't.
There are sound reasons for leaving the eu but this brexit business addresses none of them, if anything it exacerbates things like sweatshop labour as Poles expect pay and conditions that people in some commonwealth states will not. Plus they will be easier to control with no 'schengan nonsense' as they'll all be on temporary work visas and can be sent home if they are troublemakers supporting organised labour or the like.
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Dec 27, 2020 | newleftreview.org
24 DECEMBER 2020 HISTORY
Jesus of Nazareth lived in a time of political turmoil. Between the lines of the Gospels, which are our main source of information about him, this comes through loud and clear. But it is never brought to the surface. The last thing that the writers of the Gospels wanted was to drag in politics. They wanted to extract Jesus from his real historical situation and put across a universal message, which could apply to anybody. Above all, they did not want to tie Jesus in with the fate of the Jewish people who, at the time of writing, had just been crushed by the Roman legions after a bitter resistance war.
However, the actual situation in which Jesus lived is plain enough. In 63 BC Palestine was conquered by a Roman army, led by Pompey, and made part of the Roman province of Syria. Pompey, accompanied by his military staff, strode into the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple, which had been defended by its priests after the reigning king had opened the gates of the city to the invaders. From that moment on, until the final showdown 133 years later in 70 AD, the history of Palestine is mainly a history of Jewish resistance to Roman rule. It was a hopeless resistance which took place during a time which fundamentally was one of Roman expansion. Jesus of Nazareth lived right in the middle of this period and, despite his well-known attachment to the other-worldly, he could hardly have been blind to what was going on.
Palestine's strategic role
The situation was not an easy one for the Romans. Palestine – Judea, as the Jewish part of it was called – was one of a chain of small states, stretching from Armenia down to Egypt, which formed a buffer zone between Rome and the Parthian Empire to the east, based in Persia. Palestine was a crucial link in the chain because it bordered Egypt, granary of Rome. Parthia was the second major power of the region and it was never conquered by Rome. Indeed, it several times inflicted defeats on the Roman legions, routed them and captured the eagles which were their battle standards. So Palestine was a sensitive area. A Jewish uprising could count on Parthian support. Indeed, in 40 BC, only about twenty years after Pompey's invasion and not very long before the birth of Jesus, this was exactly what happened. The Roman puppet regime was overthrown and a new king installed, with Parthian support. The Parthians, moreover, unlike the Romans, took care not to desecrate the Temple. Their position was more or less like that of the Indians in Bangladesh, a foreign power aiding a national movement for its own purposes.
The Romans reacted quickly. They ditched the old lot of puppets and brought in a new candidate, Herod, who was about 30 at the time. Herod's father had been the strong man, main pro-Roman in the old regime. Herod himself had been military governor of Galilee, the northern part of Palestine. When the Parthians came in he managed to escape to Egypt and eventually got to Rome. There he was crowned king of Judea. With full Roman backing he returned, taking Jerusalem with the help of the legions in 37 BC, and promptly executed the rebel leaders. The anti-Roman king, Antigonus, was crucified, the first of tens of thousands who were to be executed in this way by the Romans or their puppets. Once on the throne, Herod stuck to it until his death in 4 BC.
It is not certain exactly when Jesus was born. All we can say is that it was during the reign of the Emperor Augustus, who died in 14 AD, and that during Jesus' adult life Augustus' successor Tiberius was on the throne. Jesus may have seen the end of Herod's reign, as an infant. Certainly the events which followed Herod's death must have impressed him, either as childhood memories or as stories which were told him as he grew up.
Herod's death
Herod's death produced a crisis. Herod had been servile to the Romans and cruel and extortionate to his own people. He was loathed and hated. Naturally, when he died there was general rejoicing and the national movement came to the surface again. There had already been rumblings shortly before the end of his reign. A student demonstration, more or less led by two Pharisees, Judas and Matthias, had culminated in the tearing down of the Roman eagle which Herod had displayed in the Temple to please his masters. The ringleaders were burned alive. When Herod finally died, there was an uprising in Jerusalem. The procurator, Sabinus, the top Roman official in Palestine, immediately moved troops into the capital to maintain law and order and also to seize Herod's treasury. During the festival of Pentecost, fighting broke out between pilgrims to the Temple and these Roman troops. Sabinus was pinned down in the garrison.
At the same time, there was another armed uprising in Galilee, led by a partisan leader called Judas, known as the Galilean, whose father had been executed by Herod for insurgency. This was a large-scale uprising in which the partisans took Herod's palace in Sepphoris and seized the arms which were stored there. Sepphoris was only a few miles from Nazareth, where Jesus spent his childhood. About an hour's walk away, in fact. The Romans had to send two legions, that is, twelve thousand troops, down from Syria to suppress these revolts and rescue Sabinus. During the fighting the Temple was badly damaged and Sepphoris was completely destroyed. When the Romans had restored order they crucified 2,000 rebels.
Twice the size of Northern Ireland
Palestine is a comparatively small country. Herod's kingdom of Judea was not much bigger than Wales, about twice the size of Northern Ireland. It did not extend so far south as Israel does today but it covered a fringe of what is now Syria and Jordan. The population, about five million probably, was not homogenously Jewish. The Jews were concentrated in the Jerusalem area – Judea proper – and in Galilee, to the north, where they were fairly recent settlers. In between was Samaria, where the Samaritans lived. The Samaritans had their own religion which was a variant of Judaism. For example, they did not recognise the Temple, but had their own holy place on a mountain in Samaria. In the towns there were a number of Greeks and Hellenized Syrians or Phoenicians, who had first come in the wake of Alexander's armies and now identified with the Romans. Herod had encouraged further immigration of Greeks and had built a number of new towns for them, including a new port and capital, Caesarea, which nationalistic and pious Jews would not live in because it was dominated by irreligious monuments, such as a theatre and a racetrack.
The divided country, split by national and religious differences, had some of the features of Northern Ireland or Cyprus. The Jewish national movement took a religious form; it was religion which bound the nation together. The leader s of the Zealots, as the guerrilla partisans were known, were often ultra-religious and religion was one of the two main issues around which opposition to the Roman occupation crystallised. There were riots over the pagan eagle desecrating the Temple, as described above: later, after the Romans had adopted direct rule, there were more riots under Pontius Pilate over the same issue. There were uprisings in the late thirties, only a few years after the crucifixion of Jesus, when Emperor Caligula wanted to put up a statue of himself in the Temple. Ten years after that there was a big riot when a Roman soldier on guard on a roof overlooking the Temple made an obscene gesture to the pilgrims.
Imperialist taxes
The second issue was economic: the Roman tax appropriations. Rome did not tax its own citizens but relied on wringing what it could out of subject peoples. The system was laid down officially and then the actual tax-collection was left to private enterprise, on something like a tender basis. Roman troops backed up the tax-collectors. Naturally tax-collectors were regarded as collaborators with the Romans and there were frequent attempts to sabotage the system and boycott it. Quirinius's census in 6 AD was designed by the Romans to help implement tax-collection and it provoked widespread resistance and armed struggle, which was not subdued for some time, right during the childhood of Jesus. Once again Galilee was a focus of the revolt, but this time there was heavy fighting in the south as well, led by a shepherd called Athronges. Thousands were killed by the Romans during this period.
Direct rule starts
The census was particularly resented because it marked the beginning of direct rule by Rome. The puppet regime was abandoned by the Romans shortly after Herod's death. His son was exiled after the Procurator was given full powers, in Judea at least. In Galilee and in South-East Syria, the Golan Heights area, two other sons of Herod were allowed to stay on as autonomous rulers. Generally speaking, the Romans changed Procurators quite rapidly. Pontius Pilate, who lasted nine years, from 27 to 36 AD was an exception to the rule. Pilate was intensely hated and this loathing shows through all the Jewish source documents which remain. He was both harsh and corrupt. When he took money from the Temple treasury there were massive demonstrations against him. He suppressed them by putting troops into the crowd in plain-clothes, and with concealed weapons, who suddenly leapt into action at a given signal. In the Gospels, there are references to the killing of Galileans, always troublemakers, and to riots in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus's death, while the word used to describe the two 'thieves' crucified with Jesus is the same generally used to describe guerrillas, rather like 'bandits'.
The Pharisees and armed struggle
However, the real struggle built up from the forties onwards, culminating in the full-scale national uprising in the sixties. At the same time, the national struggle began to cross-cut with an increasingly overt class struggle. The traditional ruling class in Judea consisted of an interlocking bloc formed by large landowners and the hereditary high-priestly families who controlled the Temple. The Sadducees were members of this bloc. They were challenged as religious authorities by the Pharisees, who were rigourists, organised on a strict entry basis into cells, led by scribes, graduates in theology, but also including elements from artisan and even labouring backgrounds. It was the Pharisees who welded the Jewish nation together into a religious-political force. Many of the Zealot leaders were Pharisees who had decided to move into a phase of armed struggle.
The mass of Zealots however, came from the people, from small towns and villages. This period was one of an overall movement in the countryside towards large estates, throwing small peasants, many of them in debt, off the land. There were a large number of slaves in Judea at the time and these made up part of the guerrilla armies. There was also an increasing number of hired hands, who are often mentioned in parables in the Gospel. The surplus of labour meant that they were usually employed on a casual basis. There was naturally a drift from the country into the towns and an increasing amount of employment in small craft industries.
Jesus and the apostles came from artisan families; Jesus was a carpenter, working with lumber imported from Lebanon and many of the apostles were fishermen, owning their own boats. We know from other sources that the fishing industry was thriving in Galilee at the time and there was investment in pickles for use in exporting fish. Jesus did not come from the masses, who were either living off charity – there was an efficient dole system in operation – or else were day labourers or slaves. Neither, of course, did he come from the priestly caste or from a rich business or land-owning background. He was a petit-bourgeois.
Kidnapping and assassination
The ruling class throughout this period became increasingly compromised with the Romans. It was the Roman Procurator who appointed the High Priest, usually a matter for bribery. In return, the High Priest acted as a Quisling, maintaining law and order in Jerusalem, a sensitive area for Romans, with his own Temple police and handing over troublemakers for trial. Yet at the same time, the Temple and its High Priest were the main symbols of national consciousness. In the end, class feelings came out into the open. Zealots kidnapped a Temple official and, like Tupamaros, held him ransom for the release of political prisoners. Assassination of collaborators was stepped up, until a High Priest was struck down too.
When, in the sixties, resistance gathered momentum, there were particularly troubled economic circumstances. For years extensions to the Temple had provided employment in Jerusalem and these suddenly halted. After riots, the programme was set in motion again in the form of paving the city streets. At the same time, there were complaints that the high-priestly families, who had equipped themselves with armed gangs, were marauding in the countryside extorting 'tithes' on which they had no claim. Matters came to a head in 66 AD when, after a huge tax boycott, the Roman Procurator looted the Temple treasury to make up the deficit. There was an immediate Zealot uprising. The Roman's main force withdrew and the remnant left behind were massacred. One of the first acts of the Zealot regime was to destroy the record of debts – freeing the masses from the grip of moneylenders and landlords. A new High Priest was elected by lot, which fell to a peasant, an impoverished member of the priestly caste, an act regarded as outrageous by ruling class opinion.
The left is isolated
During the four years between 66 and 70 AD there was all-out war. A whole Roman expeditionary force, comprising two legions and several thousand auxiliaries, was wiped out. The Romans lost over 5,000 infantry and 480 calvary. This victory led to the setting up of a national Government, representing all aspects of religious opinion, both Sadducees and Pharisees, and even Essenes, the monastic group who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Zealots opposed this Government, which they regarded as class-based and potentially collaborationist. They were quite right.
The Jewish commander in Galilee, Josephus, who was a Pharisee, spent more time harassing the Zealots than preparing defences against Rome. When the Romans arrived, under Vespasian, he capitulated on the spot and became an open collaborator. Later he wrote a history of the events to justify his completely treacherous role. The backbone of resistance was led throughout by the Zealots who fought to the last in Jerusalem and then in the mountain fortress at Masada. When the Romans took Jerusalem in 70 AD, under Titus, hundreds of thousands were butchered and the city levelled. Josephus recounts how at one point the Romans ran out of wood for crosses and, when they had enough, had to search for empty spaces to put more crosses up in. It is in this context, that the crucifixion of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels must be seen.
Where did Jesus stand?
It can hardly be believed that he was as oblivious to what was going on around him as the Gospel writers make out. Roman reprisals must have struck the families of Jews known to him in the area. One of Jesus's own disciples, one of the Twelve, was Simon the Zealot, who presumably participated in one of the uprisings.
Reading the Gospels, the picture presented in the main is that of a passive collaborator. Although Jesus was condemned and executed by Pontius Pilate, every effort is made to clear him of any real responsibility. Crucifixion was not a Jewish method of execution. It was the Roman punishment for political crimes. Spartacus was crucified, for instance. Whereas the Jews had responsibility for ordinary crimes and for religious offences, the political crimes went to Pilate. Yet the Gospels claim that Pilate washed his hands of the affair, protested Jesus's innocence, could see no wrong in him and was only pressured into crucifying him by the High Priest and his lobby.
Jesus himself is represented in a pro-Roman light. For example, he is described as friendly with tax-collectors and collaborationists. He heals the child of a Roman centurion. He advises, not simply going along with the authority of Rome under duress, but going twice as far as required. And, of course, the most important incident recounted concerns the payment of tax. 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's'. In the Gospels, this is presented as a particularly cunning reply which outwitted the Pharisees who asked it. In fact, it is not at all equivocal. It plainly supports the payment of taxes to Rome. The whole question of taxation was the burning issue of the day. On this issue, Jesus took a pro-Roman stand and backed the claims of the Imperial power.
Keeping Jesus clear of Judaism
The counterpart of this pro-Roman attitude of the Gospels is the persistent denigration of the Pharisees. The Zealots, as such, play no part in the Gospel story at all. They are simply suppressed verbally, as the Romans suppressed them militarily. But the Pharisees are very much in the forefront. They are used as straw-men who feed Jesus the straight lines which enable him to score off them. The purpose of this, as far as the Gospels are concerned, is clearly to distinguish Jesus and the Christian community from the Jews and the Jewish cause. In almost every case, it is a disagreement with Judaism which is stressed, so that Jesus can be distanced from his own people. Stories like that of the Good Samaritan are heavily promoted to the same end.
A number of scholars have tried to rescue Jesus from this Pro-Roman presentation, especially in recent years when, after Auschwitz and Belsen, commentators on the Gospel have at long last become sensitive to its anti-Jewish bias. In particular, the episode of Jesus's trial has been gone over in detail and it has been admitted that Rome and not the High Priest was responsible for his execution – as a political offender.
Pilate was not a weak administrator who was likely to allow the High Priest's lobby to pressure him against his better judgement.
Pacifist sentiment
This line of reasoning has led some writers to go as far as claiming that Jesus was actually pro-Zealot and sympathetic to armed struggle. This interpretation means discounting the great slabs of pacifist sentiment which fill the Gospels as nothing but post-Fall of Jerusalem PR, put in by the fawning Evangelists, eager not to rub Rome the wrong way. In contrast, episodes like driving the money-changers out of the Temple are stressed and the fact that Jesus was arrested by an armed patrol and one of his disciples drew his sword and resisted arrest. Indeed, Luke describes how Jesus apparently instructed his disciples to buy swords just before the arrest, though he quickly adds that two would be enough.
It is certainly true that there are patches of anti-Roman material in the Gospels which may get closer to the attitude of Jesus, or at least the early followers, than the Gospel writers do. For example, the story of the Gadarene swine seems to have an anti-imperialist gibe hidden away in it. Jesus exorcises an evil demon, who is called 'Legion', and the demon then enters a herd of pigs who plunge over a cliff. The Roman occupation troops were known as 'pigs' by the Jews, so the moral is pretty clear. But conversely, there is a definite strain of anti-Temple feeling in a Jesus's preaching. He is critical of a number of Temple institutions, particularly the financial institutions, and more than once criticises the various ways the Temple made money: donations, taxes, commercial transactions and so forth.
Above all Jesus did not in any way advocate violent resistance to the Romans, but believed that it was necessary to undergo a spiritual change in readiness for the coming of the Kingdom. He conceived of this change in a way which brought him up against the Pharisees, because he was an anti-traditionalist in his attitude to the Jewish religious Law. Ethically, he was a purist, but not in a legalistic way. Judging from his numerous parables about vineyards, labourers and husbandmen, he was fully satisfied with the existing relations of production, including slavery, and the general economic set-up, though he was distrustful of the rich. He seems to have felt that the Temple should not be in any way a secular institution, either commercially or politically.
Jesus not subversive
In itself, there was little that was subversive in Jesus's preaching and, in this sense the Gospel writers were right to portray him as a passive collaborator. But his fate was sealed when he began to attract crowds, partly because of his feats of healing, partly because he was a compelling orator. The Gospels several times tell how he tried to get away from the crowds and give them the slip, anxious about the outcome, as well he might be.
Pontius Pilate's last official act for example, in 36 AD, only two or three years after Jesus's execution, was to massacre a crowd of Samaritans who expected a revelation on their Holy Mountain. Anybody who gathered large crowds was in danger of being halted in their tracks for political reasons. In Rome the careers of sports and theatre stars were abruptly stopped when they began to acquire supporters who were too vocal or demonstrative.
Religions of the oppressed
It is quite usual for messianic and prophetic religious movements to spring up in times of political upheaval. Jesus can be compared with the new movements which sprang up as part of the response to the advance of European imperialism: Peyotism and Ghost-dancing among the American Indians, Ringatū among the Maoris, Hòa Hảo in Vietnam. These movements attempt to break out of the confines of an apparently hopeless historical predicament, by stressing a glorious other-worldly role for the followers of their prophet. In a time of political turmoil, they appear dangerous to the authorities, anxious to suppress anything which might develop into a threat, usually cynical and ignorant, and inclined to err on the side of ruthlessness rather than mercy. They are put down and, if the circumstances are right, a new cult based on the prestige of martyrdom springs up.
The man in the middle
The real strength of Jesus's preaching lay in his ability to respond to conflict without being sucked into it. He was the man in the middle. Not only was he in the middle of a class conflict but of a national liberation struggle. He was able to find something to say which made sense to all kinds of people without ever coming down on one side or the other. This still is his strength. The discontented, the disaffected, the wretched of the earth could respond to him. So could tax-collectors and Roman soldiers. In part, this was because he chose out of preference to speak in riddles and parables, to tell stories rather than make statements. But partly too it was because he had a talent for the ring of truth, for words which sounded right, which pushed everyone a little bit further together. He walked a verbal tightrope which he wove as he went along. And he could back it up with a quotation every time. It is precisely because he had this ability to reconcile conflicting aspirations, that he sometimes seemed subversive. But in the long run anything that covers over contradictions by appealing to both sides always favours those in power, and Christianity still does.
First published in the left weekly 7 Days , 22 December 1971. An offshoot of Black Dwarf , the paper ran from October 1971 to March 1971; it is available at the Amiel Melburn Trust internet archive under Creative Commons license .
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Dec 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
WastedTalent , Dec 22 2020 20:11 utc | 82
I would'nt have thought that a socialist sympathizer would be an enthusiast for the "level playing field". The neo-liberal Thatcherite freedoms of the single market have led to much unemployment in Europe. Freedom of capital and freedom of labour work to the benefit of transnational corporations and much to the detriment of ordinary working people. Much of the liberal left in Britain now insists that we must remain locked in to this neo-liberal straight jacket. https://www.thefullbrexit.com/quit-single-market
psychohistorian , Dec 22 2020 21:22 utc | 85
@ james | Dec 22 2020 19:58 utc | 80 who wroteSome Random Passerby , Dec 22 2020 22:01 utc | 86
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@ Maff | Dec 22 2020 16:05 utc | 68.. thanks maff.. i stand corrected... i thought the city wanted brexit.. it appears that is wrong...
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Maff qualified their claim with the "almost" adverb "all" and provided no linked backing or specifying the "corporation, bank, financial institution and media outlet" camps. I still believe that The City of London Corp wanted Brexit, but silly me, I still think those that own global private finance run the West/world.85bevin , Dec 22 2020 23:10 utc | 90I'd say you're both correct. Several banker types have profited nicely on Brexit so far. Others clearly have not or stand to lose out. Rees Mogg is an excellent example of the Brexit disaster capitalist lackey.
For long time I viewed the city as homogeneous, but the last five years have taught me otherwise.
The question I have is was it always like this (well concealed), or is it another side effect of the west turning in on itself?
James it was a very large majority that wished to leave.
And this is entirely consistent with the history of the EU and its predecessors (The Common Market): the Irish also voted to leave, then, after great pressure and an almost unanimous front including almost all the political parties and fire threats of retribution, the vote was reversed.In France and the Netherlands where the EU's neo-liberal constitution was put to a vote it was defeated in both countries. In this case though, as I recollect, the matter of approving the Constitution was simply taken out of the electorate's hands. The barely revised rejected constitution was then approved in the form of a treaty which of course was not put before the electorate.
The reality is that the EU is both a stalking horse for Washington and a hedge against democracy. It is a neo-liberal project established to ensure that private property should not be threatened by a potentially egalitarian electorate. It is essentially anti-democratic a recreation of the Hapsburg empire complete with parliaments/talking shops without sovereign power and directed by unelected commissioners.
This month's New Left Review has a marvelous article-some 19000 words long, by Perry Anderson which reveals the EU's nature in great detail. I gave a link a week or so ago.
The problem with much discussion of this matter is that it is a subject on which a radical socialist and a conservative banker can both agree that the EU is a bad thing. I, a radical socialist, because I believe that the state must take control over the commanding heights of the economy and ensure that such horrors as homelessness and poverty are ended. The conservative financier because he believes that the City of London, which he and his class have defended from socialist regulation over the years, ought not to be controlled by bureaucrats in Brussels or the European Central Bank.
The millions of working class Englishmen and women who voted to leave the EU anticipated that the procedure of doing so would be orderly, sensible and transparent. They were not voting for Boris and his banker friends but for a revival of manufacturing, progressive taxation, nationalised, rather than profit taking, utilities and natural monopolies and a restoration of trade union and civil rights, the right to strike for example.
The truth is that the world is a very big place and there are plenty of countries who would eagerly embrace offers from the UK to enter into trade agreements formal or informal: Venezuela, Cuba and Iran all spring to mind. But Russia and China are also obvious potential partners. And what such countries have in common is that they would not seek to interfere in the UK's internal politics and to dictate the limits within which political parties there can operate. In this they differ from the EU, joined at the hip with NATO which is always under US command. We have just seen in the surgical defenestration of Jeremy Corbyn and his replacement by a Zionist member of the Trilateral Commission how the EU/US axis, acting through the tame media and employing the agency of the swollen security establishment (where the first loyalty is to the Empire and Washington), arrogates to itself the right to decide just how far the British people will be allowed to go.
In this matter that means that they will, at a pinch, be allowed to leave the EU but that the Special Relationship (US Occupation) is sacrosanct and NATO is forever.
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Dec 02, 2020 | www.unz.com
Increasingly America does not compete with China, but strongarms it because it cannot compete. For example, in Five G China is ahead in technology, manufacturing capacity, and turnkey systems. Unable to produce an equivalent product, Washington banned Huawei Five G in the US and has twisted arms to keep countries that it controls from using Huawei. Seeing that Huawei had very attractive smartphones that would have competed with Apple, it banned these also. What America can't do, it seeks to keep anybody else from doing.
WSJ: "US vs. China in Five G: The Battle Isn't Even Close
HONG KONG -- By most measures, China is no longer just leading the U.S. when it comes to 5G. It is running away with the game. China has more 5G subscribers than the U.S., not just in total but per capita. It has more 5G smartphones for sale, and at lower prices, and it has more-widespread 5G coverage. Connections in China are, on average, faster than in the U.S., too By year's end, China will have an estimated 690,000 5G base stations -- boxes that blast 5G signals to consumers -- up and running across the country ."
Techies can argue C band versus millimeter waves but I will bet that the Chinese, nothing if not commercially agile, will have Five G up and running in factories and the IoT and everywhere else while American pols rattle on about how China is an Existential Threat and the Pentagon needs more money for Space Command and diversity is more important than schooling anyway.
The shifting balance may already be visible. For example, America used to make superb aircraft such as the SR-71 and the F-16. Now it has the F-35, an engineering horror. The Boeing 737 MAX, its flagship product, has been grounded internationally because of poor engineering, second-rate software, and corporate lying about both.
America invented the microcircuit, and once dominated its manufacture. Today, American companies cannot make the seven nanometer chips now used in high-end telephones, and certainly not the five nanometer chips now coming online. Neither can China. Both countries buy them from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, Interestingly, the Taiwanese are genetically and culturally Chinese. Washington has strongarmed TSMC into ceasing to sell to Huawei -- the US still can't make high end chips. Recently it strongarmed TSMC into agreeing to build a semiconductor fab in Arizona. Because America can't.
Then there is TikTok, a hugely popular Chinese video app that threatened to break America's lock on social media. Unable to compete, Washington decided simply to confiscate it on grounds that it might be used to spy on Americans. (Chinese intelligence is deeply interested in your daughter's video of her cat.)
Parenthetically, technology seems to be shifting toward East Asia, with America being less ahead in things in which it is ahead and behind in others. Did I mention demographics?
Achmed E. Newman , says: Website November 30, 2020 at 5:37 am GMT • 1.3 days ago
You can't argue with the real engineering going on over there, especially the Civil Engineering. When you don't have a thousand tax-payer-supported bureaucrats from a hundred different agencies and even "Non-Governmental Organizations" blocking every thought you have, it's hard to get things done. There's no doubt that the huge military spending on "democracy for the world" and the squandering of the huge amount of goodwill and power accumulated at the end of the Cold War is part of America's problem (thanks NotSoFast). Mr. Reed never mentioned the increase in regulation and taxation by the Feral Beast that has turned America into a Can't-Do country.
It's a great photo essay on the amazing engineering advances out of China, but, as usual, Fred gets major things wrong.
I don't know what the deal is with Mr. Reed's repetitive harping on Americans' concern for intellectual property rights. The Chinese will do fine without our help now, but it's the theft of the IP of American engineering that has gotten them this far so fast. Why would you not be concerned with your ideas being stolen? Not giving your stuff away for free is not the same as trying to "cripple development. That's water under the bridge now but stupidity by Mr. Reed nonetheless.
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Nov 07, 2020 | www.unz.com
Frank frank , says: November 7, 2020 at 9:33 am GMT • 8.1 hours ago
@Beckow ow quality Indian workers far less interesting to the profiteers that then get the same low quality code and have to pay white/east Asian male wages.John Achterhof , says: November 7, 2020 at 12:50 pm GMT • 4.8 hours agoIt's funny how the tech companies are all about diversity until it means higher costs.
It will also be funny when the token blacks people hiring programs by the tech companies mean that peak-diversity signaling, token hire Jamal realizes he'll be working with nothing but Indians that hate anyone would who is not brainwashed by Jewish propaganda and speak nothing but Hindi to each other and whom you can't understand when they actually try to speak English,
@Beckowbomag , says: November 7, 2020 at 12:56 pm GMT • 4.7 hours agoExcellent analysis, entirely plausible. Lacking any survey of broad opinion, I'm apt to project my own view as Trump's Waterloo: that while the political damage of poorly managing the pandemic was mostly washed out by the emerging view that the economic damage (including the rioting) of the severe course favored by the left has been more harmful than the virus, a decisive fraction of his core demographic nevertheless arrived at the view – despite the ceaseless scolding insistence of this by much of mainstream media – that their president is indeed glaringly ill-suited for public office.
@BeckowOld and Grumpy , says: November 7, 2020 at 1:00 pm GMT • 4.7 hours agoClearly helping the white male workers has not been a priority. So he lost.
So, the choice was between someone who did nothing, and someone who promised to take even more away from them.
Such voters stay home as a protest, not go out and actively make things worse for themselves.
Suspect that their non-votes were harvested by the Machine.
PolarBear , says: November 7, 2020 at 1:40 pm GMT • 4.9 hours agoPerhaps it is due to living near Philly, but there is always fraud. Democrats are good at it, and Republican Inc. loves it. Can't have any honest, straight shooter interrupt the long standing political graft. Of course the Donald isn't really an honest man. Had he kept that 5% of the 2016 white male vote, any cheating would have been impossible. But hey we have still have Israel first with President Kamala. Whew on that. However I don't look forward to being uncomfortable in my house due to the Paris Accords mandates.
In defense of Maga, there are so many professional agitators in their ranks besides Qanon. Call them dumb, but they really desperate for something called hope. Maybe that is the reason I tend to think Trump was the bait to reel them in for the sporting catch and kill.
@prime noticer Trump's a business man, not a career politician like Biden or Hillary. The system wants the latter. Soros funds BLM, antifa, ect. It's safe to say the system was against Trump. Much of his own party of sellout politicians weren't with him. Trump got through the cracks once, the deep state wasn't going to let that happen again. To get 8 years in office you have to be a total puppet. The Bush's, Clinton, and Obama were all hand-picked puppets. Trump wasn't in the club. Trump as President was an accident they had clean up, even if he was more than willing to betray the White men that voted him in and submit to the beast.Trinity , says: November 7, 2020 at 2:18 pm GMT • 4.3 hours agoTMJ , says: November 7, 2020 at 2:34 pm GMT • 4.0 hours agoIt is obvious why (((they))) wanted Trumpstein out, Trumpstein, despite being a cuckold to the Zionist was threatening to bring our brave young men and women home, protect our borders, and his base was about 98% White at the lowest. And many of those were common everyday working class Whites, you know, the people who really made America great, the people who actually grow food, build buildings, work and produce automobiles in factories, drive trucks, you know jobs that are REAL JOBS, JOBS THAT ACTUALLY PRODUCE SOMETHING.
(((They))) didn't really hate Trump, they hated the typical Trump voter. Actually it has already been pointed out, Trump did very little for the average White other than give them hope, he really didn't deliver that much. Trump became uber popular by just giving the people crumbs, now can you imagine how popular a man or woman will be when they come out of nowhere and give the people the hundred per cent truth. It will take a fearless man or woman, someone with nothing left to lose, because that is the way it has always been. I NEVER expected Trump to do much, after all, this guy is the typical NYC businessman, think of who this guy has had dealings with in his lifetime, hell, look at his in-laws. For all his, "I am not a politician" rantings, Trump spent his life around politicians and pictures are all over the place with Trump & Bill Clinton golfing together, Trump and Ghislane, Trump & Epstein, Trump with his friend Baby Nut&Yahoo, etc. Sounds like the typical politician to me. Trump was NEVER a man of the people and it will take a real man of the people to set things right in America.
@Ano4 emonized, censored, attacked, and even murdered. I am glad to have sat this one out, between who knows how many men like me and those 5% we brought this supposed contest to a standstill and caused a nation of cope.Trinity , says: November 7, 2020 at 4:58 pm GMT • 1.6 hours agoWignats gave him 2016 and we turned 2020 into a shitshow in answer to his betrayal. Trump only has himself to blame for doing almost nothing to stop censorship, clean up the FBI/DOJ, prosecute Antifa, end birthright citizenship, end H1B, so many other opportunities squandered. Trump supporters should start working toward something productive for their interests.
Emslander , says: November 7, 2020 at 5:24 pm GMT • 1.2 hours agoHarris/Biden like Trump/Pence are Israel Firsters, so really all this hoopla over a transition is not really called for when you think about it. Matter of fact, the 1st and 2nd Amendment will continue to be under attacked just like it was with Trumpstein, now more than ever. Anti-White racism will continue until Whites start standing up for their rights the same way as everyone else. Trumpstein was never the savior for America, face it. Maybe things will become so bad IF Harris/Biden take over that this country and Whites will gain a spine again. Until then, new boss, same as the old boss, more or less. Still as bad as the Orange Man was, IF you are "White" and voted for Harris/Biden, you have to be legally retarded. Thanks to all the WINOs and white traitor trash out there. Brilliant you bunch of retards.
Zarathustra , says: Next New Comment November 7, 2020 at 5:40 pm GMT • 54 minutes agoA nice splash of cold water on the sadly losing side in the 2020 election. What you say is mostly true. There are some significant points you don't acknowledge, such as the idea that massive numbers of mailed ballots will certainly result in unauthorized votes being counted. It's hard to say how many that is, but I suspect, like you, that it can't have made a difference of hundreds of thousands across all the states necessary for a Trump victory.
Blame the phony virus for most of these results and I insist that shutdown policies have been a gross overreaction designed to make Trump powerless to campaign.
Finally, one simply has to admit that Trump was unprepared to be an effective President and never learned how. Saying things that sound populist over and over isn't governing.
We have a nice wall that's 400 miles long down on the Mexican border and that's about it. At some point in the fast approaching future, it will have a plaque on it saying, "I am Ozymandias Trump. Look on all that I survey."
Ghali , says: Next New Comment November 7, 2020 at 5:56 pm GMT • 38 minutes agoWell?
What kind of pathetic miserable 17 intelligence agencies, with support of democratic party and Judenpresse would be , if they would not be able to fix the election such way that their mischief cannot be found. And on top of it Covid with mail in voting was a surefire help.
.
But than you sleep in the bed you make.Very misleading and dis-informative post. It ignores the Democrats' history of fraudulent elections and manipulation of Americans. From the beginning and before the elections, the Democrats said that they will do everything to remove Trump from the White House, by violence if necessary.
In reality, the only times the Democrats won fair elections were by JFK and Obama recently. The reasons were because of the efficient and highly successful advertising campaigns (propaganda) to manipulate Americans. In fact, Obama won a prize for his efficient advertising campaign to con Americans and "win" the elections. He was far more criminal than his predecessors.
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Nov 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kooshy , Nov 1 2020 20:46 utc | 31
Like the petrodollars, WTO better known as globalization, was formed in 1995 after the fall of Eastern blocks ,to dominate and control the world trade in US fiat currency specially when China with her cheap skilled labor was to become major world manufacturers of goods. Basically like oil America agreed not to impose tariff on goods they consumed if you trade and exported on their fiat currency which costed US nothing to produce. Obviously unlike oil trade this globalization of trade in US dollar could not work, since unlike oil trade America couldn't politically dominated and control the good manufacturing countries, like it could, with small oil producing countries. The period of free trade in goods and energy is coming to an end, therefore US needs to lower her standards of living, or to go to major wars with other resources hungry powers to continue colonizing the third world resources and labor. Either way the end result will be the sam as for, not so Great Britain, ottomans, Spanish, Persian empires, the only obvious difference shorter empire.
Kooshy
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.unz.com
anon [340] Disclaimer , says: October 23, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT
The CCP has finally capitulated. ((( Wall Street ))) is taking over Shanghai:
https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/wall-street-comes-to-shanghai-as-shackles-loosened/
I guess it's mission accomplished. Trump can loosen his witch hunt of Huawei and end the tech/trade war now. Or maybe he won't. Maybe the eventual goal is still the toppling of a government that the Chosenites have no hand in electing through "democracy".
Meanwhile, I'm sure more corrupt CCP elites will take full advantage of the selling out of their country, sleep(invest) with the enemy, get rich/richer, emigrate to the US, push their kids into our elite high schools and colleges, and turn us more and more like the dog-eat-dog, corrupt hellhole from whence they came.
So much for a government that looks out for its people. The CCP is as self-serving as the US Congress critters or the EU. The only difference is they don't need the charade of elections to install themselves in power.
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
c1ue , Oct 23 2020 15:31 utc | 120
@vk #110
You do realize that H1B is literal indentured servitude, right?
And that its purpose is nothing more than cheap(er) labor for the tech companies?
I know many people on H1B, as well as several people who specialize in H1B "hiring".
The good news: many of these people are smart and capable.
The bad news: they're stuck at the companies they start at for 7 years or more - and are paid significantly (20% to 50%) under "market". If they leave, their green card process starts anew even assuming they find another H1B sponsor.
More bad news: there are also a significant number of "body shops" who do nothing but enter the lottery for H1B visas, then auction off the "wins" to the tech companies. The H1B people in these situations are far worse off because they work for the "body shop", not the tech company.
Most importantly: H1B, even at its peak, brought in less than 200K people (188K by law).
In comparison: in 2017 - legal immigration was
Family and Immediate Relatives: 748,746
Employment: 137,855
Refugees and Asylees: 146,003
Diversity and Other: 94,563
Total Visas Issued: 1,127,167
Over 1.1 million people came in legally without the H1B.
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Sep 29, 2020 | www.unz.com
vot tak , says: September 28, 2020 at 10:36 am GMT
Federal judge blocks Trump's effort to ban TikTok from US app stores
https://www.rt.com/usa/501873-tiktok-ban-court-injunction-trump/
" A US District judge has made an 11th hour intervention to block a federal government order prohibiting downloads of TikTok from app stores by American users.
US District Judge Carl Nichols issued a preliminary injunction, which would allow the popular app to still be on offer in Apple and Google stores, shortly before the ban was supposed to come into force on Sunday midnight. Earlier in the day, Nichols allowed a 90-minute hearing, where a lawyer representing TikTok made the case for it remaining available to users in the US.
Last week, a judge in California blocked a similar order ousting the WeChat app from American stores hours before it was supposed to take effect."
What a bummer. Looks like your neocon handlers took a couple of hits, whitney. No doubt those judges were agents of The B.L.M.
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Sep 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
by Tyler Durden Sat, 09/26/2020 - 23:15 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
It was a week ago that Beijing made clear it won't be signing off on the messy and mired in confusion proposed Oracle-TikTok deal, citing that it would harm its "national security interests," which is exactly the same reason given by Trump for trying to shut TikTok down in the first place.
China's state-run Global Times is out with a new editorial Saturday indicating that Beijing will stick to protecting TikTok "at all costs" . The theme of "compromised" national security is still being presented as the crux of the matter.
" China is prepared to prevent Chinese firm TikTok and its advanced technologies from falling into US hands at all cost ," Global Times introduces.
Getty ImagesThis even if that should mean the hugely popular app "risks being shut down in the US, because allowing the US to seize the firm and its technology will not only set a dangerous precedent for other Chinese firms, but also pose a direct threat to China's national security , Chinese experts said on Saturday, a day ahead of a court battle in the US over a ban of the app."
Again, interestingly this seems to be the mirror image argument the Trump administration has harped on for much of the past year, especially on Huawei. GT's argument continues:
More importantly, for Beijing, the case goes way beyond just a mafia-style robbery of a lucrative Chinese business and cutting-edge technologies , but a threat to its national security, because the US could find loopholes in those technologies to launch cyber and other attacks on China and other countries to preserve its hegemony, the experts added.
Voicing the communist government's rationale further, GT cites an expert at the China Electronics Standardization Institute Liu Chang, who says "What the US wants, we definitely cannot give."
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1308324951540158465&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fchina-protect-tiktok-all-cost-against-mafia-style-robbery-us-threat-national-security&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890 NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
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"From the perspective of both the company and the Chinese government, this cannot be allowed to happen ," he said. y_arrow 1 Pliskin , 18 hours ago
Srbutterfly , 13 hours agoAmerican Pirates looking for more stuff to steal..no surprises there!
Go and make your own stuff，piss-ant Yanks!
...And get the message into your thick skulls，the whole World hates you!
TheRapture , 19 hours agoExcept for Israel.
LEEPERMAX , 20 hours agoThe USA has abandoned Ronald Reagan and free trade, and morphed into an incompetent rogue state that behaves like the Mafia. Tik Tok, Huawei, etc. The U.S. can't compete fairly, so it cheats, steals and launches "regime-change" wars.
R.I.P, America.
HoyeruNew , 18 hours agoThe CCP is nothing but A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION with that pompous clown Xi JinPig as their despicable ringleader.
Criminals, all of them.
Srbutterfly , 13 hours agoits called projection.
kleptomistic , 19 hours agoThe ccp is an extension of the imperial system, they are no better off than when the emperors were calling the shots.
kleptomistic , 19 hours agoTikTok is "cutting edge technology"? Exactly what is this app capable of? It must really be something since it's worth billions and everyone is fighting over it.
HoyeruNew , 18 hours agoInstalling TikTok is literally like handing your phone to the CCP.
You give them total control of your phone...to listen/watch...to track you...to upload your address book so they know everyone you know...you also allow them to upload stuff to your phone.
Suey Cidal , 18 hours agoprove it. BTW< I hear USA is STILL looking for Saddam's weapons of mass distraction.
Yen Cross , 18 hours agoIt is valuable as a distraction, keeping the sheep believing the lie that China and USA are independent countries and that they are not both owned by the same rich fuktards.
Ex-Kalifornian , 12 hours agoLets look realistically at the situation. China is not cheap for manufacturing, has zero interest honoring 'favored nation' trade status, and is definitely NOT a developing third world country.
The Chinese love to gamble, yet call themselves, "long game" players?
Tic Tok is a fad. Just an information gathering scheme.
halcyon , 15 hours agoOur society would be better off if we had no social media, so just ban it and make everyone that more productive.....
Good for them
**** Silicon Valley/NSA spy monopoly.
At least this way we'll have a spy duopoly, with one of them free of Israel's UNIT 8200 backdoor crap, and we can make them compete against each other.
Monopoly and no choice is the worst possible choice.
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Sep 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Home / Articles / Inside Amy Coney Barrett's Race To Lose Inside Amy Coney Barrett's Race To Lose
President Trump will make his latest SCOTUS selection Saturday. Amy Coney Barrett ( MSNBC )
SEPTEMBER 23, 2020
|7:32 AM
CURT MILLSDonald Trump is not a religious Christian.
The president is not an evangelical Christian; he's not Catholic. Unlike the previous national Republican standard-bearer, he is not a Latter Day Saint. And despite unassailable status as a Vladimir Putin puppet, he's interestingly not joined the Orthodox Church, which the Russian strongman has in some ways empowered. When Donald Trump speaks about his Presbyterianism, he speaks about it as I do: awkwardly, as an exoticism from America's mainline past.
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838
"I'm a Protestant, I'm a Presbyterian," Trump said in June 2015, the day after descending the escalator in Manhattan. There are entertaining reads of Trump as a sort of lunatic optimist, owing to a childhood association with the Americana positive thinker Norman Vincent Peale -- that he is a devotee of something akin to the "The Secret," (released back when the future president was hawking Trump Vodka). But one look at the commander-in-chief's acerbic Twitter feed tells us if he is an insistent positive thinker, he's a hidden one.
The status of America's Christians as obvious rubes has been a familiar refrain of the Trump presidency. It is as it was then, if with a different flavor, during the last Republican White House. But now they're being outright had, so goes the thinking. Unlike with the born-again, younger Bush, the Religious Right's embrace of Trump -- a divorcee egoist who shares beds with adult film stars -- should tell you all you need to know. In many cases, goes the argument, it tells you a story of an immoral minority, if the debacle at Liberty University this summer is any indication, and as traditional Christianity is ever more sidelined from culture. This is the death rattle.
So you'll have to forgive convinced Christians their jubilation on Saturday as Trump nominates his third Supreme Court justice in three-and-a-half years. It's already more than George W. Bush did in two terms, ditto his father, and if the White House and Republicans are successful in the Senate -- as looks likely -- Trump will instantly surpass both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in his impact on the Court. You'll have to pardon the country's dumb set for thinking to themselves maybe, just maybe they made the right bet four years ago.
My sources in the capital are unanimous: President Donald Trump is likely to name Amy Coney Barrett, 48, to the Supreme Court on Saturday. She is from Louisiana; she went to Notre Dame Law; she is a favorite of American Catholics; she is the mother of seven children. She's poised to succeed the woman she replaces, Ruth Bader Ginsburg , in icon status, just for the other side.
Karleonard • 10 hours ago • edited
Tom Riddle • 10 hours agoI like how everyone who writes about Trump feels the urge to proclaim they're morally superior to him. To idiots like Mills, adultery is a bigger moral sin than killing thousands of people in wars that are based on lies, which is why the "born again Christian" George Dubya Bush is morally superior to Trump in their eyes despite Bush's obvious war crimes.
Grinning Cat Karleonard • 9 hours ago • edited"The status of America's Christians as obvious rubes has been a familiar refrain of the Trump presidency."
"so you'll have to forgive convinced Christians their jubilation"
No matter how many times ya'll claim it, "Christian" is not synonymous with "Trump Supporter". Many, many Christians are against Trump. The existence of the Black church alone should be enough to disabuse even the most unobservant pundit of the idea that to be a Christian is to be a Republican. We are Christians too, which is why we are not Trump supporters.
Kent • 6 hours agoBush lied, people died...
I tend to think conservative Christians will once again be disappointed with the Court. Ms. Barrett has said repeatedly that her religious beliefs have no influence on her interpretation and understanding of the law and the Supreme Court's role in it. Overturning Roe v Wade, an almost 50 year old decision at this point, is extremely unlikely regardless of who is on the Court.
While I would like to see it overturned myself and returned to state jurisdictions, I just don't see how that can happen at this point.
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Sep 22, 2020 | www.rt.com
We're no longer in the century of humiliation! Why China will not cave in to Trump's state extortion over TikTok 22 Sep, 2020 15:05 Get short URL
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images/Chesnot ; REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque 7 Follow RT on
Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia. The battle over TikTok is all because the US finds the idea of a Chinese social media app gaining global acclaim as intolerable and a threat to its own monopolies in Silicon Valley.
Did I miss the announcement that The Apprentice has got a new episode out? You know, the one where Donald Trump shouts " You're fired! " to TikTok's owners in Beijing? Oh, wait, that's not a reality TV show – it is reality. At least in his mind.
Were it not so serious, you would have to laugh at this week's flip-flopping antics of the former TV show host turned president of the USA.
On Sunday, he stated he was giving his " blessing " to a deal between US giants Oracle and Walmart and ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner. ' TikTok-Oracle Deal Wins Trump's Approval ,' read the headline on Bloomberg.
ALSO ON RT.COM Colonialism 2.0: US assault on TikTok is latest step in building monopoly on hearts & minds of internet-connected worldBy Monday, he had made a U-turn, demanding that the Chinese firm cede control of its US operations completely, or he would ban the popular platform. ' Trump Says ByteDance Can't Keep Control of TikTok in Oracle Deal ,' said Bloomberg.
Initially, the deal reported by the media involved the two US companies taking a 20 percent stake in the creation of a new venture, TikTok Global, which would see its data managed by the American stakeholders. But now the White House has seemingly reverted to its old position of demanding that ByteDance, or as it puts it, " China ," cedes " complete control" of the application in the US, including the handover of its technology and algorithm. Under the headline 'Say 'No!' to US robbery of Tik Tok,' China's Global Times stated the country will "not accept an unequal treaty that targets Chinese companies. "
Trump's actions concerning this app, irrespective of the eventual outcome, should be understood not as legitimate " national security concerns, " but a clear attempt to subjugate and humiliate China for his own political and electoral gain, as well as to maintain American primacy over technology and global social media.
His approach has been infused with his classical ' Art of the Deal ' approach so beloved of fans of The Apprentice . It essentially involves pushing a given target to the brink in an attempt to extort an outcome on terms favorable to him. Beijing, however, sees painful historical parallels in Trump's conduct, and is prepared to rise to the challenge.
ALSO ON RT.COM Banning TikTok gives Trump cheap anti-China points but undermines his free speech chops in war with Twitter and GoogleThere is a period in China's history, roughly dating from 1830 to the 1950s, which is popularly referred to as the " century of humiliation. " It describes an era when the country was subjugated to political and economic exploitation by Western powers and forced to accept agreements on unequal terms, particularly by Britain, France, Germany and Japan, amongst others.
The era is commonly defined to have begun with the commencement of the opium wars, whereby the British Empire waged war against the Qing Dynasty in order to open up its markets by force to export opium, resulting in the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to accept British demands and the subsequent annexation of Hong Kong.
The legacy of the century of humiliation has a deep influence on how China perceives its relations with the rest of the world today, particularly the West. To Beijing, the Trump administration has sought to forcefully confront and contain China on multiple fronts, especially in the field of technology and trade, in ways reminiscent of the bad old days.
The US evidently does not accept China on equal terms, and once having believed trade and engagement would " reform " the country towards America's image and preferences, the impetus has now shifted to Washington attempting to stifle the country's rise and force changes to its political-economic system.
This is where TikTok comes into the picture. The claim that the popular video application is a threat to US national security should not be taken seriously – it's a platform used by young people to post videos, mostly of them doing silly dances.
Washington has a way of whipping up fear and hysteria in order to manufacture consent for its aggressive foreign policies. There is no serious evidence TikTok has engaged in any wrongdoing. Instead the impetus is geopolitical: the US finds the idea of a Chinese social media application gaining global acclaim as intolerable and a threat to its own monopolies in Silicon Valley. The Trump administration's response to any Chinese initiative which challenges or outgrows US capabilities is simply to attempt to crush it by coercive force.
ALSO ON RT.COM The new media elite will stop at nothing to protect their profits. They're rapacious monopolists, and we are their foodIn this case, however, an outright ban on an application as popular as TikTok (it has around 80 million users in the US) would be politically damaging for Trump. Which is why he has sought to utilize state force with the view to extorting the app into American ownership. The fact that the proposed venture is called TikTok Global is an obvious indicator that the new " US " version of the platform would quickly aim to compete with and make obsolete ByteDance's market in the rest of the world.
Little wonder then that, in line with the rest of the administration's policies, China perceives the attempt by Trump to extort TikTok as an attempt to start a new century of humiliation. Their judgement is correct. Once again, a Western power believes that China ought only to exist on terms which are tolerable to the West, and that the way to "handle" the country involves attempting to subjugate it into accepting unequal agreements.
But this is 2020, not 1920. China will no longer be treated in this way or approve any deal which extorts ByteDance's business. Beijing would rather see TikTok banned in America than have it stolen from them through Trumpian coercion.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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Sep 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Beijing Says "No!" To Washington's Attempted "Robbery" Of TikTok by Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2020 - 11:30 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email PrintIn what is perhaps the most compelling sign yet that Beijing has put the kibosh on the Oracle-TikTok deal, the Global Times on Tuesday published a scathing editorial attacking President Trump for attempting a "robbery" of TikTok and violate China's "dignity."
The paper's editorial writers echoed claims made in an editorial published more than six weeks ago by the People's Daily - that Beijing would never tolerate Trump transferring majority ownership of TikTok to the US. Furthermore, as Kyle Bass explained earlier, anything that would require the company to fork over its content-recommendation algorithm is an instant deal breaker. Beijing has previously said it would rather shut down TikTok US than hand the business to the Americans.
Writers explained that by turning over source code from TikTok to Oracle, Americans would also gain insight into the operations of Douyin, TikTok's counterpart built for the Chinese market (which, remember, runs on an entirely separate, cordoned-off internet).
Throwing Trump's words back in his face, the writers insisted Beijing didn't appreciate the president's characterization that the new TikTok would have "nothing" to do with China.
Because even more than money, China must have the credit. Like Bass explained, the CCP is fighting a narrative war against the US.
And in case the point wasn't clear, the Global Times editor, Hu Xijin, drives it home with a tweet.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1308324951540158465&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fbeijing-says-no-washingtons-attempted-robbery-tiktok&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
Here are some more excerpts courtesy of Bloomberg :
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890
- "China as a big country will not accept blackmail from the US," the Global Times said
- "Nor will it hand over control of an outstanding high-tech Chinese company to extortionists"
- "We cannot let these Chinese companies be arbitrarily slaughtered by the US"
- "We are ready to fight resolutely against the bullying and gangster-like logic of the US"
Read the editorial below:
* * *
It was reported Sunday, Beijing time, that US President Donald Trump approved a deal in principle between TikTok's parent company ByteDance, and Oracle and Walmart. The main content of the deal was later disclosed. From the information provided by the US, the deal was unfair. It caters to the unreasonable demands of Washington. It's hard for us to believe that Beijing will approve such an agreement.
Although people can have various interpretations, some articles in the agreement show what the problems are.
For instance, American citizens will take up four of the five board seats for TikTok Global and only one can be Chinese. The board of TikTok Global would include a national security director, who will have to be approved by the US.
Oracle will have the authority to check the source code of TikTok USA and updates. As the TikTok and Douyin should have the same source code , this means the US can get to know the operations of Douyin, t he Chinese version of TikTok.
TikTok Global will control the business of TikTok around the world except China. It will block IP from the Chinese mainland to access it. This means the Americans can take control of the global business of TikTok and reject Chinese to access it.
It is clear that these articles extensively show Washington's bullying style and hooligan logic. They hurt China's national security, interests and dignity. ByteDance is an ordinary company in China. The US suppresses it with all its national strength and forces it to sign a deal under coercion. China, also a major country, will not yield to US intimidation and will not accept an unequal treaty that targets Chinese companies.
When Trump said he had approved the new TikTok deal, he noted the new company would have "nothing to do" with China and would be fully controlled by the US. On Monday, he said Oracle and Walmart would have total control of the service; otherwise, "we're not going to approve the deal."
It seems this is not his campaign language, but the Trump administration's real attitude toward restructuring TikTok. Washington is way too confident and has underestimated China's determination to defend its basic rights and dignity.
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The US is a big market. If the reorganization of TikTok under US manipulation becomes a model, it means once any successful Chinese company expands its business to the US and becomes competitive, it will be targeted by the US and turned into a US-controlled company via trickery and coercion, which eventually serves only US interests.
If China surrenders, which country in the world can resist? The US encirclement of TikTok and the global huntdown of Huawei are stifling the hopes of high-tech companies around the world for having world-class technologies and independent development. Once Washington succeeds, the US will enjoy global technological hegemony forever.
China will not accept this kind of bullying arrangement of the US. The US is taking discriminatory action to squeeze TikTok. In an era when countries have concerns about network data security, US internet giants set up branches around the world. But does any one of them hand over its control to companies of the host country? Which company's board members must be approved by the government of the host country?
Washington's huntdown on TikTok is creating problems for US internet companies worldwide. With cyber security increasingly becoming a common issue, there must be countries that will imitate the US to take action against American companies. The precedent set by the US will eventually hurt its own companies.
Issues concerning global internet data security should be addressed in a fair, reasonable and effective manner. China has put forward an eight-point proposal for this. The US seeks its own interests in a hegemonic way, and attempts to maintain its technological hegemony under the guise of cyber security. This cannot be accepted by international society, including China. It's hoped the US returns to globalization from "America First," and retake the universal commercial values that will not only benefit itself but also others.
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Sep 19, 2020 | abcnews.go.com
Starting Sunday, downloads of the massively popular video app TikTok and the messaging app WeChat will be banned in the United States, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced Friday morning.
The department said in a statement that the move was necessary to "safeguard the national security of the United States."
President Donald Trump issued twin executive orders in August, saying the apps would shut down by Sept. 20 if they were not sold to U.S. owners. The admin claimed the Chinese Communist Party was using data collected through these apps to "threaten the national security, foreign policy and the economy of the U.S."
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview on Fox Business News Friday morning that these new rules announced this morning were in connection with the executive orders issued in August and are "separate" from the ongoing negotiations between TikTok and tentative U.S. buyers including Oracle and Walmart.
Ross said that "for all practical purposes" WeChat will be shut down in the U.S. as of midnight Monday with the new Commerce Department ruling.
MORE: For Chinese Americans, WeChat ban threatens to upend business and community "TikTok is more complicated," Ross added, saying that essentially a deadline for a deal with a U.S. buyer has been extended until Nov. 12. In the meantime, updates will be barred in the app.
"Basic TikTok will stay intact until November 12," he said. "If there is not a deal by November 12 under the provisions of the old order then TikTok also will be, for all practical purposes, shut down."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo separately weighed in on the news while traveling in Guyana on Friday.
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Sep 11, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com
Stephen Miller vs. CNN's Jim Acosta: You Have Revealed Your "Cosmopolitan Bias" Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date August 2, 2017https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.409.0_en.html#goog_1283031682
White House counselor Stephen Miller and CNN's Jim Acosta clash at the Wednesday press briefing focused on the administration's new immigration proposal:
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Aug 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Trump Team Assures Big Tech Lobbyists That WeChat Ban Won't Impact China Business
A little over a week ago, we shared how President Trump's decision to expand the scope of his crackdown on Chinese tech firms to include WeChat, Tencent's ubiquitous platform for everything from payments, to messaging to e-commerce sent a wave of panic through American multinationals like Apple who depend on the Chinese market for growth, and feared being essentially shut out due to an oversight by the administration.
The backlash has been just as intense as could be expected. In a quintuple-byline story published Friday afternoon, Bloomberg reported that an army of corporate lobbyists are working with Team Trump to try and find a way to restrict WeChat's use in the US without hamstringing every American company that depends on the app to connect with Chinese consumers.
According to sources from within the West Wing, the administration is still "working through the technicals" of how they're going to restrict WeChat in the US while allowing American companies to liaise with it in foreign markets.
The Trump administration is signaling that U.S. companies can continue to use the WeChat messaging app in China, according to several people familiar with the matter, two weeks after President Donald Trump ordered a U.S. ban on the Chinese-owned service.
The administration is still working through the technical implications of how to enforce such a partial ban on the app , which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd., one of China's biggest companies. A key question is whether the White House would allow Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google to carry the app in its global app stores outside of the U.S., according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Over the past week, lobbyists went into "overdrive" and started harassing White House and Commerce Department staffers about Trump's order, and the "logistics and intention of the WeChat executive order." Now they're pushing to "narrow" the scope of the looming ban.
"We are talking to everyone who will listen to us," said Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council, whose group represents companies including Walmart Inc. and General Motors Co. "WeChat is a little like electricity. You use it everywhere" in China, Allen said.
We imagine the administration will come around on the "downsides to an expansive interpretation of the order." Because the last thing Trump needs is a selloff in big tech large enough reconcile S&P 500's valuation with the S&P 500 ex-FAANG.
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- All Comments 18
YesWeKahn , 3 hours ago
aberfoyle_crumplehausen , 1 hour agoWechat is just junk, people used to do a lot more business in china without it, I think these tech firms are bought by the ccp
LetThemEatRand , 3 hours agoAmerica is turning Fascist under Trump right in front of our eyes. Fascism: merging of State and Corporates. Full stop. You can't argue this, don't even try.
hoytmonger , 2 hours agoBig tech depends on a communist country for growth. Let that sink in.
holyvanguard , 3 hours agoA communist country is better at business than the US.
Let that sink in.
NIRP_BTFD , 3 hours agoXi and Trump should stage a photograph to reinact a classic Winne the Pooh scene.
inhibi , 3 hours agoRiddle me this. How the hell does the USA want to ban apps? I can install every possible apk on my device. If google takes apps out of their store i just install them with an alternative app store or just download them somewhere else.
philipat , 2 hours agoThat's you and me and the few tech minded folks out there.
99% of the users get what the store bought phone gives them. This is just trying to rattle China's market.
Lets be honest: the real issue, as you have touched upon, is the complete monopoly of OS and app stores by Google and Apple.
HedgeJunkie , 3 hours agoYou expect Gubmin to understand that?
Or that these things work both ways and China will surely tit-for-tat with restrictions on US Companies, probably starting with Apple?
Still, there's an election coming.............
cr1stal , 3 hours ago**** 'em all, ban it totally, let their vastly inflated values inflate more.
BeePee , 3 hours agoyou have no idea how globalism works. they dont go oh i have 1000 billion so ill let a few beady eyed devil worshippers who just dropped out of harvard cooking school accrue a few hundred million. a disruptive autistic clown is about as welcome as he would be in the opium fields of the golden triangle
DeathMerchant , 14 minutes agoThis is what I will miss about the exiting of the Trump administration. Standing up to CCP China.
After Biden's inauguration, all this will roll back, money goes into Hunter Biden's account. China will roll over us. Yes, there will be some agreements, none of which will be honored by CCP China.
Kamala will be jocking one of the young male interns at the VP mansion. Apparently she is very adept at penis stimulation.
I guess we'll get what we want, or at least deserve. Trans bathrooms everywhere. There are no longer male or female identities. To heck with science, sexuality and gender is just a perspective. Crime really doesn't go up if you don't consider it a crime.
Who gives a rats about Chinese consumers ?? Lobbyists should not even be permitted to be in or communicate with anyone in DC.
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Aug 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Richard Steven Hack , Aug 11 2020 2:21 utc | 58
Leaked Documents Reveal What TikTok Shares with Authorities -- in the U.S.
A glimpse at what the social media platform does in the U.S. underscores that data privacy issues extend beyond China.
Experts familiar with law enforcement requests say that what TikTok collects and hands over is not significantly more than what companies like Amazon, Facebook, or Google regularly provide, but that's because U.S. tech companies collect and hand over a lot of information.The documents also reveal that two representatives with bytedance.com email addresses registered on the website of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a fusion center that covers the Silicon Valley area.
And they show that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security actively monitored TikTok for signs of unrest during the George Floyd protests.
The number of requests for subscriber information that TikTok says it receives from law enforcement is significantly lower than what U.S. tech giants reportedly field, likely because police are more accustomed to using data from U.S. companies and apps in investigations. TikTok enumerates its requests from law enforcement in a biannual transparency report, the most recent of which says that for the last half of 2019, the company received 100 requests covering 107 accounts. It handed over information in 82 percent of cases. Facebook, by contrast, says it received a whopping 51,121 requests over the same period, and handed over at least some data in 88 percent of cases.
That last sentence... That's *why* Facebook exists. As does Google and Twitter and the rest of the social media giants.
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Aug 08, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Home / Articles / Economy / All About The Chips: Taiwan Is Next Battleground For Trade Fight ECONOMY , WORLD All About The Chips: Taiwan Is Next Battleground For Trade Fight
Vital tech production could put the island back at the center of intensifying Sino-American relations. Global dependence on Taiwan-made memory chips is risky business. (By Shutterstock/stockwars)
AUGUST 8, 2020
|12:01 AM
MARSHALL AUERBACKThe media likes to dabble in war-game fantasies between the 21st-century great powers China and the U.S., but it's a distraction from the hybrid economic warfare that is underway -- from Trump's tariff hikes to the shores of the advanced economy.
Here in a nutshell is the problem facing the United States. The country that used to be a world leader in all forms of high tech, especially semiconductor chips, now spends its time redesigning chocolate chips. By contrast, Taiwan, officially a "rogue province of China," but in reality operating as an independent nation of 23 million people, ranked 20th as a world economy (right behind Switzerland), is now a leading global player in the production of semiconductor chips. As such it has emerged as the key supply link to a multiplicity of American and Chinese high-tech companies at a time when the Trump administration is working hard to cut China's access to Taiwan's semiconductors.
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838
For all of China's significant technological advancements, the country still lags in the production of semiconductor chips.
Memory chips are principally made by Samsung, SK Hynix (South Korea), and Micron (USA). Intel also makes some memory chips for its own use. Memory chips are a big issue for China. Beijing has deployed considerable fiscal resources into producing them and last year set a goal of producing 5 percent of the world's total production by the end of 2020.
That's ambitious. It's one thing to produce memory chips, another to get a usable "yield," i.e., the percentage of output that actually works. It is a singularly challenging industry in which to attain industrial self-sufficiency.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is a " fabless chip maker " that produces customized semiconductor chips for use in various types of electronics, such as digital cameras, smartphones, and the new technologically sophisticated "smart" cars. They also produce chips for the military, and for 5G base stations. China's leading telecom equipment manufacturer, Huawei, was a large customer, but the Trump administration has now mandated that all semiconductor chip manufacturers using U.S. equipment, IP, or design software will require a license before shipping to Huawei, which has forced TSMC to stop taking fresh orders from Huawei, as it uses U.S. equipment in its own manufacturing processes, such as LAM research and Applied Materials.
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The wisdom of so many companies relying on manufacturing facilities located in Taiwan is debatable. Intel and Micron locate fabs around the world, in part to diversify risk (earthquake, weather, politics) and to access skilled labor pools. Intel has long had production facilities in Ireland, Israel, and China itself; it has also purchased Israeli companies for their research and development. But it also has retained significant production facilities still in the United States. Similarly, Micron has fabs in Boise Idaho, Utah, and Manassas, Virginia (right near the CIA and Pentagon.)
TSMC is important because it is pretty much the only place to get processor chips fabricated, unless you're Intel. In that regard, Intel's recent 2nd quarter earnings announcement that its planned launch of the company's next generation of chips will be delayed by six months is most concerning. News of the production delay (which now pushes the production of the company's latest central processing unit (CPU) -- aka the "brains" of the laptop -- out to early 2023) generated considerable market anxiety, as evidenced by the 17 percent fall in the share price in the wake of the disclosure. From a long-term perspective, however, the more alarming aspect is Intel's decision to consider outsourcing its manufacturing capacity, a sharp break from the company's historic practice.
Intel has been one of the few leading American high-tech companies that has hitherto largely resisted the panacea of offshoring its production. Much of this is a product of the corporate culture established by former CEO Andy Grove, who had warned that Silicon Valley risked "squandering its competitive edge in innovation by failing to propel strong job growth in the United States," according to a New York Times op-ed by Teresa Tritch written shortly after his death. Tritch explains that:
in [Grove's] view, those lower Asian costs masked the high price of offshoring as measured by lost jobs and lost expertise
Mr. Grove contrasted the start-up phase of a business, when uses for new technologies are identified, with the scale-up phase, when technology goes from prototype to mass production. Both are important. But only scale-up is an engine for job growth -- and scale-up, in general, no longer occurs in the United States. "Without scaling," he wrote, "we don't just lose jobs -- we lose our hold on new technologies" and "ultimately damage our capacity to innovate."
Intel's decision comes at a time when American policymakers are finally beginning to appreciate the adverse economic and strategic consequences of such moves. Were Intel to follow through on its outsourcing threat, it too would further exacerbate America's strategic reliance on Taiwan for customized semiconductor manufacturing, as well as undermining the impact of recent legislative attempts to rebuild the country's semiconductor manufacturing capacity.
By contrast, economic competition that degenerates into out-and-out war would be a disaster for all sides. As David Arase, resident professor of International Politics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, recently contended in the Asia Times, "Even an unsuccessful invasion of Taiwan would cause a supply chain disruption." By the same token, actively upgrading diplomatic relations with Taiwan to something akin to the old mutual defense treaty that existed prior to Washington's recognition of Beijing in 1979 as the one sovereign government representing China, would almost certainly provoke a more aggressive response from Beijing.
U.S. goals should be far more modest: not to underwrite the freedom aspirations of another country (even a vibrant multi-party democracy such as Taiwan) but, rather, to fix a key vulnerability in the global supply chain that currently renders the U.S. so reliant on Taiwan. Even TSMC has implicitly acknowledged its own geographical shortcomings, as it has recently announced plans to build a new $12 billion chip manufacturing facility in Arizona. Consider this a form of political risk insurance.
A full-scale defense of Taiwan would cost thousands of lives, and potentially entrench the U.S. military in a long-term quagmire; it would also represent a logistical nightmare in terms of supplying such a force over so many thousands of miles (versus an opposing Chinese army a mere 100 miles away .) To say nothing of the risks posed to numerous substantial American multinationals already operating in China.
A key conceptual problem that our policymakers and business leaders have today is an addiction to 19th-century concepts that are anomalous in the context of a 21st-century economy. David Ricardo's " comparative advantage " -- that "refers to an economy's ability to produce goods and services at a lower opportunity cost than that of trade partners" -- has less relevance at a time when such advantage can be largely created as a byproduct of state policy. Countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and now China itself, can dominate targeted industries by subsidizing them aggressively. Because of increasing returns to scale, there is a winner-take-all pattern in which, at any given time, one nation tends to dominate a huge global market share of the underlying product -- since the 1970s, Japan, South Korea and China in that order. It also creates huge employment opportunities in high-quality jobs for the countries as they scale up production. This was also a key insight of Andy Grove .
None of these countries had a natural "comparative advantage" in semiconductor production; they just followed the classic pattern of subsidizing their growth via substantial government support, relentlessly driving down cost inputs to push other marginal manufacturers out of the industry.
The incessant focus on market share usually comes at a cost of short-term profitability (a no-no for Wall Street, which focuses on quarterly earnings as intently as an audience waiting for the white smoke to emerge from a papal election). However, businesses usually recoup these costs later once they've established dominant market share.
Semiconductors are a high value-added manufacturing platform industry that has a significant multiplier effect on the domestic economy. It represents an area that should be prioritized by the U.S., not de-emphasized (as Intel's proposed move threatens to do). The road back to manufacturing relevance is a long one, but the perpetuation of the current policy risks exacerbating longstanding pathologies in the U.S. economy, while simultaneously creating new national security vulnerabilities.
Taiwan is a vibrant multiparty democracy that constitutes a model of economic development. But those virtues could be threatened if we try, shortsightedly, to turn it into a U.S. protectorate to address problems that should be resolved much closer to home.
Marshall Auerback is a market analyst and contributor to the Independent Media Institute .
Steve Smith Fazal Majid • 6 hours agoTSMC's Arizona fab is tiny compared to its 12 Taiwan ones, and more of a sop to the Trump administration than a serious effort to diversify. The jugular vein of the semiconductor industry is within easy reach of China's missile arsenal, and indeed the Chinese military can be said to have been designed specifically for the task of retaking Taiwan.
Tradcon • 11 hours agoChina might not even need to invade. If they blockade Taiwan--air and sea--and threaten to destroy ships and aircraft trying to enter or leave Taiwan, they can stop chip export.
It's similar to Iran saying, "Either everybody can export oil from the Gulf or no one can." China would say, "Either everyone can import chips from Taiwan or no one can. And China is in a much better position to enforce its will than Iran.
L RNY • 10 hours agoThe reaction to Auberback's refutation of comparative advantage would be extreme depending on who was reacting. The field of economics is like a cult, with a lot of groupthink and academic homogeneity. In this way failed consensuses are continued and alternatives, even if they have a good historical track record, are railed against as heterodox and fringe.
Its amazing how in just two or three decades we forgot about basically all of US economic history and policy history up to that point.
donthomson1 L RNY • 3 hours agoI completely agree that a supply chains including those for memory chips in Taiwan must be diversified but it is of paramount importance that Taiwan not be left weakened and vulnerable to mainland China by these shifting supply chains because any weakness in Taiwan will be an invitation for Beijing to exploit...and if Beijing exploits that invitation then they could take that invitation all the way to an invasion which will be a detriment of all other nations in the Pacific. Right now China is focused on Hong Kong, Taiwan and India....with Hong Kong and Taiwan gone the China will push its aggressive hegemony to Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, etc.
I also complete agree that we (the US, Japan and any other asian nation that will join) need a treaty protecting Taiwan's independence from mainland China but the very first thing the US should do prior to such a new treaty is to get other nations to start using the name Taiwan again on their maps, plane flights, UN, etc because as you know Beijing has been doing everything possible to not just get nations and businesses to stop recognizing Taiwan and to even stop using its name in an attempt to erase both the existence of Taiwan and any distinction that Taiwan is separate from mainland China. The recognition of Taiwan and the use of its name must be reinforced everywhere in the world as part of the first step in negotiating a security treaty for Taiwan.
Fazal Majid • 18 hours agoThe USA has a one China policy and recognises the Chinese Government as the Government of China. It's true that it once recognised the Government of Taiwan as the Government of China. It's a completely new policy you're proposing of splitting China into 2 (or more?) states. That needs war, as it would if China was proposing to break up the USA, and the USA would lose a non-nuclear war.
The USA could win a nuclear war but would lose a lot of its population. I don't know how seriously we should take the US estimate of 90% within a year by starvation and disease with just an EMP attack. Mexico, Canada and Cuba might accept many US refugees even though they would also suffer damage. Not all of the area of those countries would suffer EMP damage. Other countries might also provide some charity.
Mexico, Canada and Cuba could be rewarded for their charity by dividing the USA between them. That would be a powerful incentive and remove a country fond of wars of aggression. A USA that poses no threat to anybody could continue to exist and be called Hawaii. [email protected]
Steve Smith Fazal Majid • 6 hours agoTSMC's Arizona fab is tiny compared to its 12 Taiwan ones, and more of a sop to the Trump administration than a serious effort to diversify. The jugular vein of the semiconductor industry is within easy reach of China's missile arsenal, and indeed the Chinese military can be said to have been designed specifically for the task of retaking Taiwan.
Tradcon • 11 hours agoChina might not even need to invade. If they blockade Taiwan--air and sea--and threaten to destroy ships and aircraft trying to enter or leave Taiwan, they can stop chip export.
It's similar to Iran saying, "Either everybody can export oil from the Gulf or no one can." China would say, "Either everyone can import chips from Taiwan or no one can. And China is in a much better position to enforce its will than Iran.
L RNY • 10 hours agoThe reaction to Auberback's refutation of comparative advantage would be extreme depending on who was reacting. The field of economics is like a cult, with a lot of groupthink and academic homogeneity. In this way failed consensuses are continued and alternatives, even if they have a good historical track record, are railed against as heterodox and fringe.
Its amazing how in just two or three decades we forgot about basically all of US economic history and policy history up to that point.
donthomson1 L RNY • 3 hours agoI completely agree that a supply chains including those for memory chips in Taiwan must be diversified but it is of paramount importance that Taiwan not be left weakened and vulnerable to mainland China by these shifting supply chains because any weakness in Taiwan will be an invitation for Beijing to exploit...and if Beijing exploits that invitation then they could take that invitation all the way to an invasion which will be a detriment of all other nations in the Pacific. Right now China is focused on Hong Kong, Taiwan and India....with Hong Kong and Taiwan gone the China will push its aggressive hegemony to Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, etc.
I also complete agree that we (the US, Japan and any other asian nation that will join) need a treaty protecting Taiwan's independence from mainland China but the very first thing the US should do prior to such a new treaty is to get other nations to start using the name Taiwan again on their maps, plane flights, UN, etc because as you know Beijing has been doing everything possible to not just get nations and businesses to stop recognizing Taiwan and to even stop using its name in an attempt to erase both the existence of Taiwan and any distinction that Taiwan is separate from mainland China. The recognition of Taiwan and the use of its name must be reinforced everywhere in the world as part of the first step in negotiating a security treaty for Taiwan.
The USA has a one China policy and recognises the Chinese Government as the Government of China. It's true that it once recognised the Government of Taiwan as the Government of China. It's a completely new policy you're proposing of splitting China into 2 (or more?) states. That needs war, as it would if China was proposing to break up the USA, and the USA would lose a non-nuclear war.
The USA could win a nuclear war but would lose a lot of its population. I don't know how seriously we should take the US estimate of 90% within a year by starvation and disease with just an EMP attack. Mexico, Canada and Cuba might accept many US refugees even though they would also suffer damage. Not all of the area of those countries would suffer EMP damage. Other countries might also provide some charity.
Mexico, Canada and Cuba could be rewarded for their charity by dividing the USA between them. That would be a powerful incentive and remove a country fond of wars of aggression. A USA that poses no threat to anybody could continue to exist and be called Hawaii. [email protected]
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Aug 05, 2020 | www.unz.com
vot tak , says: August 4, 2020 at 9:40 am GMT
US' Goal Was Not to Force Sale of TikTok US, but Ban App, China's ByteDance Says in Internal Letter
The israeli's american colony has literally been reduced to the level of the Jewish mafia organised crime gangsterism.
"Either give us control of your business or we run you out of town".
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Aug 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kali , Aug 3 2020 17:57 utc | 1
The Trump administration is working to dispossess the Chinese company ByteDance by blackmailing it to sell its valuable TikTok business to a U.S. company for a bargain price. This to the benefit of yet unknown people.
False allegation over the security of TikTok user data were used to threaten the prohibition of the video app in its U.S. market. In the U.S. alone the app is used by more than 80 million people. It plays an important part in the youth culture and music business. Faced with a potential close down of its prime business in one of its most profitable markets ByteDance had no choice but to agree to negotiate about a sale.
ByteDance declined an offer by two of its U.S. based minority investors to buy the business for $50 billion as that price was far below its presumed value. The White House stepped in to find a new buyer with enough change to pay for a deal. As the largest social media companies - Facebook, Apple, Google and Twitter - are already under congressional investigations for their monopoly positions in U.S. markets none of them could be the potential buyer. Facebook has in fact just launched a rip-off of the TikTok product under the name Reels. It is trying to poach TikTok 'creators' for its own service. Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg has warned of Chinese competition. He would be the biggest winner should TikTok be thrown out of the U.S. market.
The White House finally came up with Microsoft as a potential buyer. But Microsoft has historically been unsuccessful in the social media business. It also does other business with China and is reluctant to get involved in a move that could damage that business.
Despite Microsoft's lack of interest President Trump personally pressed for a shotgun marriage. The Democrats are supporting him in this. But neither ByteDance nor Microsoft really want to make the deal.
ByteDance would prefer to move the TikTok business into an independent company :
TikTok could become totally independent from its Chinese owner ByteDance to continue operating overseas, according to a source who has been briefed on the discussions.But the source said that despite reports that the video-sharing platform would be taken over by Microsoft, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming and investors were reluctant to sell to the US company.
...
[I]f it is able to continue operating in the US, the board of ByteDance will agree to a complete spin-off for the overseas version of the app, which operates under the name Douyin in China.The new entity would keep the TikTok name, but will have different management and will no longer answer to ByteDance.
"Except for Zhang Yiming, almost all those in the room favour such a spin-off," the source said. "The mood is kind of: 'the founder will be out and the house will be ours'.
"But even for Zhang himself, there's really no other option because the app will be killed if you don't let it go."
The spin-off would cover all markets except China where a ByteDance owned app similar to TikTok is run under the name Douyin. A sale to Microsoft would only include the markets in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. (Note that Britain is the only member of the 5-eyes club missing here.)
That Microsoft is not really wanting the deal can be gleaned for the convoluted statement it issued yesterday. This is clearly unprecedented language in a public company's communication:
Following a conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Donald J. Trump, Microsoft is prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok in the United States.Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President's concerns. It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury .
Microsoft will move quickly to pursue discussions with TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, in a matter of weeks, and in any event completing these discussions no later than September 15, 2020. During this process, Microsoft looks forward to continuing dialogue with the United States Government, including with the President.
The discussions with ByteDance will build upon a notification made by Microsoft and ByteDance to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
...
Microsoft may invite other American investors to participate on a minority basis in this purchase.
...
Microsoft appreciates the U.S. Government's and President Trump's personal involvement as it continues to develop strong security protections for the country.This ass kissing of Trump is not what Microsoft is used to do. Satva Nadella was clearly pressed into publishing this. Such a statement would usually include language about increasing shareholder value or better user experience. This statement has none of that standard sweet talk.
The stock market seems to believe that a takeover of TikTok would be profitable for Microsoft :
biggerI have my doubts that Microsoft can successfully run a social network business. This one would be restricted to just four countries and it would likely lose access to the continuing development of the app. Where is the potential growth for such a restricted application?
And how will China react if Microsoft takes part in the U.S. raid of ByteDance's business? While China is only contributing some 2% to Microsoft's overall revenue the company's biggest R&D center outside of the U.S. is in China . It contributes to its global success:
"[There has been an] explosion of innovation in China," [Microsoft President Brad] Smith said. "One of the things that we at Microsoft have long appreciated is the enormous ingenuity of the engineering population of China."Microsoft's X-Box game station as well as other hardware it sells is at least partially developed and produced in China . Some of Microsoft's Chinese engineers might have there own ideas on how China should retaliate to the attack on a successful Chinese company. The Trump administration sees that danger and it is pressing Microsoft to get rid of all its relations with China:
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested on Monday that Microsoft could divest its holdings in China if it were to buy TikTok."So the question is, is Microsoft going to be compromised?" Navarro said in an interview with CNN. "Maybe Microsoft could divest its Chinese holdings?"
Leaving China would surely damage Microsoft's long term business. For a global company that country is a too big potential market to be left at the wayside.
But the real question about the mafia raid on ByteDance is who is destined to profit from it.
Today Trump said (vid) that if Microsoft closes the deal a substantial amount should be paid to the Treasury because his administration 'enabled the deal'. He likely didn't consult a lawyer before making that wrongheaded statement.
But who are the "other American investors" who are invited "to participate on a minority basis in this purchase". Reuters had already reported that 'minority investor' clause. Is the wider Trump family involved in this?
Why is that term so important for Trump that Microsoft has felt a need to repeat it in what is essentially a public terms letter addressed to Trump?
Posted by b on August 3, 2020 at 17:47 UTC | Permalink
I know B says this is about stealing, but maybe this is about sending China a message about how it does business in general. As you should know by now, China disallows many American apps in China. Is this a message to China about how America and maybe American allies will do business with them from now on? First Huawei and now Tik Tok and next who knows what? It looks to me like the message to China is: Follow the Golden Rule, which is not "whoever has the most gold rules" but is instead "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
OJs_White_Bronco , Aug 3 2020 18:09 utc | 2
One Too Many , Aug 3 2020 18:50 utc | 10Hey Kali, China DOES NOT need the US but what you are seeing is a violation of business norms. You say China doesn't allow many apps from entering its market is not the same as the US trying to blackmail a successful Chinese app that have already entered the US market. Since you mentioned Huawei; they own almost the entire 5G technology so either you pay directly or indirectly irregardless if the US bans them or not
One Too Many , Aug 3 2020 18:58 utc | 12Facebook at one time was operating in China. In 2008-2009 terrorists were using Facebook to coordinate attacks in Xinjiang province. When the Chinese government demanded the information Facebook declined to provide citing privacy issues. After that Facebook was banned.
Jackrabbit , Aug 3 2020 19:01 utc | 15Posted by: Kali | Aug 3 2020 18:52 utc | 11
"For example Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Google--maybe they want complete control over what their populations hear or says online?"
If that's the case why is it not illegal in China to have a VPN? How many strawmen are in that diatribe you just posted? I can only knock down one at a time.
karlof1 , Aug 3 2020 19:15 utc | 18Is the dispute over Tik-Tok really about protecting American citizens?
Non-US companies collect a lot of info about US citizens and citizens of other Western countries via internet apps and other means. And much info is available for sale as well.
Seems more likely that the forced sale is really about protecting the Western establishment and US power-elite. A massive social network is a threat to their control because it could be used to spread anti-US govt messages. Mostly to younger people who are already very cynical (as we can see from the protesting) and thus more willing to accept it as true or reflecting a truth.
Trump impersonator Sarah Cooper got started on TikTok .
Although Sarah's comedy is not a threat to the US power-elite, one can easily imagine messaging that would be:
- USA threatens war against a country and suddenly everyone in USA gets messages that depict Trump/USA as a bully and that create sympathy for the good people of the target country.
- Messaging that decries the harsh and unfair treatment of political prisoners (Assange?);
- Messaging that calls into question the legitimacy of a US Presidential election.
- Messages that mock Trump's blaming China for the pandemic by describing the Trump Administration's inept response to the pandemic.
<> <> <> <> <>PS Where's the libertarian mob complaining about government control? Those astro-turfed bullsh*ters are not really interested in issues that they are not paid to be interested in.
!!
Clueless Joe , Aug 3 2020 19:37 utc | 22Gee, seems the Chinese have a very different view of it all :
"As TikTok's global market influence was skyrocketing, the company was suppressed by the US government. Again, this shows how difficult it is for companies from China to go global. ByteDance said in a statement that it is "committed to becoming a global company." But Washington will not easily let the company off just because of its good wishes.
"The US' decoupling from China starts from killing China's most competitive companies. In the process, Washington ignores rules and is unreasonable. Although suppressing Huawei and TikTok also incurs losses to the US, the suppression can still be implemented in the US. This is because such suppression echoes the sense of crisis instigated by some US elites when facing China's rise.
"Huawei and ByteDance can only provide limited protection to themselves via legal means. But we should not overestimate the US' sense of justice. The country has shown us too many examples of politics overwhelming everything else....
"Huawei has advanced equipment, and ByteDance sells services to the world through unique concepts and technologies. The two companies are pioneers worldwide. They have brought a sense of crisis to US elites, which shows that China's top companies have the ability to move to the forefront of the world in technology. It reflects the power of China as an emerging market. As long as such power continues to expand, these top Chinese companies can eventually break through US suppression.
"By banning Huawei, the US would lag behind in 5G technology. By banning TikTok, the US would harm its own internet diversity and its belief in freedom and democracy. When similar things happen time and again, the US will take steps closer to its decline. The US is a pioneer in global internet and has created Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But in recent years, the US' internet structure has been rigid.
"Rising stars such as ByteDance continue to emerge in Chinese internet sector, showing huge vitality. China knows its deficiencies, strives to become stronger, and adheres to opening-up to the world. The US, however, is gradually being shrouded in arrogance, seclusion and a negative attitude. Chinese people should not be discouraged by temporary setbacks, or our weaker position in the China-US confrontation. What's important is that China's trend of faster-pace progress has not changed....
"The COVID-19 pandemic is an important issue, clearly showing us that the US has fallen into a type of systematic chaos. This will severely limit its ability to indefinitely upgrade and exert pressure on China. Many of the US practices, including banning TikTok, show the country's weakening competitiveness. Can't Facebook just come up with a more powerful app and beat TikTok in the market? The problem is Facebook cannot do it. It can only resort to the brute force of US politics."
As you read, China takes this very differently. It sees the inability of Outlaw US Empire firms to compete and thus seek protection as suggested here :
"Western countries' social media platforms have long dominated, and only a handful of Chinese firms that have entered the arena in recent years have won popularity. TikTok has seen record-high downloads across the world. Per data from an industry analysis platform Sensor Tower in April, TikTok had been downloaded more than 2 billion times globally .
"The US' plan to ban TikTok follows the same logic as its crackdown on Chinese tech firm Huawei. The US has been limiting the 5G frontrunner for years, essentially the result of evolving relations between China and the US-led Western world.
" TikTok and Huawei are not isolated cases. Chinese high-tech firms that expand overseas will encounter different levels of barriers as China develops into a new tech power, giving rise to concerns from countries that feel threatened by Chinese technology .
"The US will not allow a social media platform that enjoys high popularity among younger generations to be operated by a foreign company, especially when the countdown to its presidential election ticks on. Banning TikTok now is, to some extent, also a move by Trump to control public voices after groups of young American TikTok users reportedly upstaged his first large-scale public rally amid the COVID-19 pandemic by registering for tickets and failing to attend.
"With the election drawing near, a plunging second-quarter GDP at negative 32.9 percent, and the world's largest number of coronavirus infections, it is likely the Trump administration will continue rolling out new and even harsher measures to antagonize China and attempt to block it economically." [My Emphasis]
How much revenge and the election play into the drama are unknown, but we know Trump is soft-skinned and very vindictive; Tulsa was a huge embarrassment. Can't compete; erect a tariff wall to protect your weak companies--the Outlaw US Empire demands China "open up" while it closes up instead. As the headline of the first item screamed, "Banning TikTok reflects Washington's cowardice."
Gotta love the stupid Western capitalists.
First, it was "Let's all invest in China, do a lot of business and move all our factories there because we'll make a shit-ton of $$".
Then, it's "Oh, they're too big and powerful, we need to stop trading and making any kind of business with them".
As some clever guy said about these short-sighted idiots more than a century ago, they're selling the rope with which to hang them.
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Aug 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Aug 2 2020 15:04 utc | 8TikTok ban demonstrates barbaric act of rogue US: Global Times editorial
China has never banned US high-tech companies from doing business in the country. What the Chinese government demands is that what they do in China should comply with Chinese law. That's all . It was some US companies that refused to comply with Chinese laws. Google used to have a position in the Chinese market. It itself pulled out of China a decade ago, while other companies were accused in the US of kowtowing to China when they tried to design their specific versions for the Chinese market. This leaves no US internet giant currently operating in China.TikTok operates in the US in full compliance with US laws and is completely cut off from Douyin, its Chinese equivalent. Users in the Chinese mainland cannot register for TikTok even if they bypass the so-called great firewall . TikTok does not violate any US law but fully cooperates with the US administration.
The US claim that TikTok threatens its own national security is a purely hypothetical and unwarranted charge - just like the groundless accusation that Huawei gathers intelligence for the Chinese government. This is fundamentally different from China's refusal to allow the original versions of Facebook and Twitter to enter China and require them to operate in accordance with Chinese laws.
In just three paragraphs, the Global Times killed two myths: that a "great firewall" exists and that China censorship things from the West (i.e. that the Chinese people is "living in the darkness").
I had a teacher who traveled to China recently. He went to a local bar (100% Mainland Chinese) as soon as he landed. He was having difficulty accessing Google (I think it was either Gmail or Google Drive). He tried, tried, tried but couldn't do it. When the locals there realized he was trying to access Google products, they promptly and calmly told him he should use VPN because Google didn't operate in China. No drama, no fear of a local police officer suddenly coming to the place to arrest them.
They know what Apple, Google and Facebook are. It's just that China has better local options for the same product.
--//--
New cold war will not stop US decline
Bingo.
donkeytale , Aug 2 2020 20:25 utc | 45
ptb , Aug 2 2020 20:28 utc | 46Not that globalization is a one way street by any means.
It comes to light that at least 125 US companies owned or invested in by Chinese entities, including Chinese SOE, received hundreds of millions in PPP loans backed by the US SBS.
This level of capitalust interconnection between elite investors and governments belies all the heated talk of cold war by politicians on both sides as well as useful idiots the world over.
Why even favorite Chinese PR flack Pepe Escobar recently characterized the Stupidity Trap aka Thucydides Trap as childish nonsense.
@karlof1 32
"If this is also national security, then US national security is synonymous with hegemony."
That is precisely the problem. Unfortunately, the current US economy has become dependent on advantages arising from unrivaled geopolitical power. Take it away too suddenly, and there would be a painful economic transition to become a normal nation again.
... ... ..
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Aug 02, 2020 | www.msn.com
Live: Watch NASA astronauts splash down near Florida in a SpaceX Crew Ground beef recall 2020: JBS Food Canada recalls more than 38,000 pounds of meat
Pompeo: Trump taking action on Chinese software firms 'in coming days'
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that President Trump would soon take action against Chinese software companies that the administration believes present a national security risk for Americans.
© Greg Nash Pompeo: Trump taking action on Chinese software firms 'in coming days'
"President Trump has said, 'enough,' and we're going to fix it," Pompeo said on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures." "And so he will take action in the coming days with respect to a broad array of national security risks that are presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party."
The comments come on the heels of Trump's announcement on Friday that he was prepared to sign an executive order to ban TikTok, a Chinese-owned short-form video app, from operating in the U.S.
Pompeo on Sunday asserted that Chinese-owned software companies doing business in America were "feeding data directly" to the government in Beijing and that the practices amounted to "true national security issues." He specifically named TikTok and WeChat, a Chinese-owned messaging and social media app.
"They are true privacy issues for the American people. And for a long time, a long time, the United States just said, well, goodness, if we're having fun with it, or if a company can make money off of it, we're going to permit that to happen," Pompeo added, noting that officials have been deliberating on a decision for months now.
TikTok, which has become especially popular among teens in recent years, has gained relentless scrutiny from the Trump administration and members of Congress overs its relationship with ByteDance, a Chinese firm. Lawmakers have voiced concerns that Americans' information is not secure in the hands of TikTok, considering Chinese laws that require disclosures of sensitive data upon request by the government.
TikTok has strongly pushed back against allegations about its handling of user data in recent days, with the company's CEO releasing a statement rebuking "rumors and misinformation." The company also sent a letter to leaders on the House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday rebutting allegations about its data practices.
"TikTok is not available in China," the letter said. "We store Americans' user data in the US, with back-up in Singapore, with strict access controls for employees. We have never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked. Any allegations to the contrary are unfounded."
TikTok has not directly commented on Trump's stated plans to bar the app's use in the U.S. Though TikTok's U.S. general manager, Vanessa Pappas, said in a video on Saturday that the company is "here for the long run." The company has also highlighted the 1,000 people in the U.S. it has hired, noting that it plans on adding another 10,000 employees in the country in the future.
After Trump's comments on Friday, reports surfaced that Microsoft was in talks to purchase the short-form video app, which boasts roughly 100 million American users.
Asked about that possibility and whether it would end any opportunity for Chinese surveillance, Pompeo said on Fox News that the administration "will make sure that everything we have done drives us as close to zero risk for the American people."
Multiple GOP Senators have voiced support of the prospect of a U.S. company purchasing TikTok to avoid an outright ban. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a tweet Sunday that a "trusted" U.S. company buying the app would be a "positive and acceptable outcome."
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Aug 02, 2020 | www.unz.com
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: August 1, 2020 at 3:21 am GMT
@anonJudeo-Christian could indicate a common origin and whatever little they may have in common as the result, but "values" can't be part of it. Judaism and Christianity don't have common values, in the sense of ethics or morality.
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Jul 29, 2020 | www.unz.com
Feelings don't care about facts. The mass hysteria that's gripped the Western world after the death of George Floyd can't be explained in rational terms. Police are shooting fewer unarmed black men each year, and most of the shootings are justified. Police are more likely to shoot a non-threatening white than a non-threatening black. In the Floyd case specifically, there's nothing that shows racial bias by police officers, and Floyd was on drugs and resisting arrest . Minneapolis police procedure allowed neck pressure in some circumstances. Former police officer Derek Chauvin's conduct wasn't extraordinary. But the facts are almost irrelevant. We're dealing with faith , religious ecstasy. We're in the midst of BLMania.
Collective frenzies aren't new. Almost every American knows about the Salem witch trials, during which Christians claimed they saw demons and devils. Evil had to be rooted out, whatever the cost. Arthur Miller's fictional re-telling in The Crucible , originally meant to criticize McCarthyism, now reads like a satire of SJWs .
In 1536, Anabaptists took over Münster, Germany, and tried to establish a divine kingdom. Would-be prophet Jan Matthys cannot have been a charlatan; he must have believed he was chosen by God, because he rode out almost by himself to attack a besieging army. He was instantly killed, but that didn't shake the faith of his followers. In 1917, hundreds of people in Fátima, Portugal, claimed they saw the sun dance in the sky. The Catholic Church, which often debunks alleged visions and miracles, declared this "worthy of belief."
Still, because of the doctrine of Original Sin and man's fallen nature, Christians are reminded not to " immanentize the eschaton " and seek heaven on earth. If Christians are delusional, can go only so far. "Secular" movements have no such restraints. During the last century, tens of millions were butchered in Russia, China, Cambodia, and other places in the name of the Brotherhood of Man, with the revolutionaries often creating cults of personality to replace older faiths and heroes. The Revolutionary Communist Party, which can be found burning American flags around the country, has its own cult of personality around leader Bob Avakian .
During the French Revolution, a "Cult of Reason" was established, with Robespierre as high priest. Busts of the assassinated revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat replaced crucifixes in some churches. During the Spanish Civil War, anarchists burned churches, shot at statues of Jesus, murdered clergy, and desecrated the dead to pave the way for a new order. The Communards executed Archbishop Georges Darboy during the Paris Commune and destroyed the original Vendôme Column because it glorified empire. The famous French protests of May 1968, which strongly influenced the current intellectual climate, had a utopian, religious flavor. Would-be revolutionaries destroyed property as they spray-painted the following slogans:
Ann Coulter analyzed mobs in her 2011 book Demonic . She heavily cited Gustave Le Bon's famous 1895 book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind . Miss Coulter said a mob is "an irrational, childlike, often violent organism that derives its energy from the group" and is "intoxicated by messianic goals." One chapter is called "Imaginary Violence From the Right Vs. Actual Violence From The Left." This is especially prescient. CHAZ/CHOP "security" in Seattle murdered a black teenager and wounded another because they thought right-wing paramilitaries would attack any second (no one has been arrested for these shootings). As cities burn, NBC reports that "an expert" thinks the real threat is "far right" violence.
The "messianic goal" Miss Coulter wrote of is human equality. The premise is that if existing social institutions are removed, a natural and authentic human equality will emerge. Even the past must be destroyed to make this possible. The French Revolution remade the calendar, with 1792 as Year Zero. All culture and history from the past was irrelevant because everything was to be built anew. Rousseau famously wrote that "man is born free and everywhere is in chains." This comes from assuming that man is a blank slate and that people are born equal. If there is inequality, it can only be because of unjust institutions or exploitative social forces.
Who is the boogeyman? Many once believed it was the Church: Voltaire's " infâme ." Some blamed kings; Jefferson's post-revolutionary writings show paranoia about "monarchial" tendencies. Many believe capitalism is the enemy, but I'd argue that most progressives today believe the fundamental problem is "whiteness."
What is whiteness? Psychology Today says it's "an unfairly privileged exclusionary category, based on physical features, most notably a lack of melanin." Many others who study "whiteness" say something similar. Whiteness is a social construct used to justify domination, slavery, and economic exploitation today.
There are three obvious objections to this.
This is clearly not true . Third, it assumes that those with power use white racism to exercise privilege. However, almost every powerful corporation openly supports Black Lives Matter and opposes white racial consciousness. Though "whiteness as property" is a common theme in "whiteness studies," there are benefits to being labeled non-white, which is why some whites fake their racial identity and some groups organize politically so the government won't call them white."Whiteness" has become the explanation for all "the evils of the modern world."
Critical race theorists are right to say that "whiteness" is socially constructed; what they fail to understand is that they created its modern meaning.
Most race realists, Identitarians, and white advocates know Susan Sontag's quote that the "white race is the cancer of human history." She also said America, which is "the culmination of Western white civilization," is guilty of causing global suffering. The full context is even more revealing: "The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world."
In this sentence, she concedes three things that would be politically incorrect today. First, Western civilization is white civilization . Second, despite the pathetic claims of some journalists and academics , Sontag recognized that white civilization isn't simply built on domination of non-whites, and that it has produced things of great value. Third, Sontag admits that some (if not all) progressive accomplishments such as "the emancipation of women" are products of "this particular civilization." "Morgoth's Review" made this same point , noting that when progressives try to destroy "whiteness," they are dynamiting the foundations of their own liberal, universal worldview.
However, Sontag still thought white civilization was irredeemable because it "eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads" and threatens the planet. Whiteness wasn't cancer just because it was bad. Sontag meant that whiteness, like cancer, grows, metastasizes, and consumes. It never seemed to occur to Sontag that this universalizing, homogenizing force "eradicated" authentic European cultures too. If "Western culture" is Netflix, Amazon, and Hollywood, I'm with the Third World anti-imperialists.
Still, at least Sontag recognized that whites had a real culture, at least in the past. Her intellectual successors are worse. They accepted her view the whiteness is cancer while denying any value to our culture and our standards. Instead, " Whiteness Studies " and "Critical Race Theory" criticize "white" civilization because of its standards. The National Museum of African American History and Culture identifies objective, rational linear thinking, cause and effect relationships, and hard work to be "whiteness" and therefore "racist." Everything can therefore be "racist" or in need of "decolonization," including math , grammar , grades , SAT and ACT tests , bar exams , and artificial intelligence .
This ends in denying truth itself. Claire Lehmann found a slide at an education conference in Washington that said that "if you conclude that outcomes differences [sic] by demographic subgroup are a result of anything other than a broken system, that is, by definition, bigotry." Actually, bigotry is "obstinate or intolerant devotion to one's own opinions and prejudices." We've now come full circle, and define bigotry as not being bound by opinions and prejudices. The way many academics and journalists talk about whiteness is worse than anything Susan Sontag said.
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This is the thinking of a fanatic religious sect, like the one Jim Jones led . "We were too good for this world," Jones said before the infamous mass suicide. While progressives haven't yet gone that far, they clearly enjoy the feeling of "woke" moral righteousness, which has replaced the sense of being "elect" that some Protestant sects once provided . Much as the French revolutionaries replaced saints with Jacobins during the Terror, today's woke disciples are creating their own saints, with "Big George" Floyd taking the place of Christ. Insufficient adulation for Floyd cost one priest his job. BLMania is even consuming the churches themselves.
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Black Lives Matter is more sacred than the American flag or Christ. Federal agents , police , military , athletes , politicians , and many others all genuflect before BLM. Many would never bow before God. This new, powerful faith even has a liturgical calendar and a hymn built on a sacred myth.
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Worse, because this creed is impervious to truth, it must always seek new scapegoats (or devils) for egalitarianism's continuing failure. Despite the constant funding, programs, and repression, equality never arrives. The late Lawrence Auster's " First Law of Majority/Minority Relations In Liberal Society " holds that "the more egregiously any non-Western or non-white group behaves, the more evil whites are made to appear for noticing and drawing rational conclusions about that group's bad behavior." Likewise, the more blacks fail, the more fictional portrayals of black superiority must be created, from Black Panther to Black Is King . And the more whites give, the more fiercely they must be accused of bigotry for wanting good schools , classical music , or even video games left alone.
The egalitarian revolution is a Permanent Revolution. BLMania will constantly devour its children . It will continue until it is stopped by superior power. Even Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility and high priestess of the Anti-Racist Church of the Damned , is no longer pure enough.
Linguist John McWhorter Says 'White Fragility' Is Condescending Toward Black People ," NPR, July 20, 2020 " White Fragility is real. But 'White Fragility' is flawed ," Washington Post, June 18, 2020 " Is the Anti-Racism Training Industry Just Peddling White Supremacy? " by Jonathan Chait, July 16, 2020The late Noel Ignatiev , editor of Race Traitor , famously said that "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity." However, he said that this wasn't a call to violence against whites. "When we say we want to abolish the white race, we do not mean we want to exterminate people with fair skin," he said . "We mean that we want to do away with the social meaning of skin color, thereby abolishing the white race as a social category." I question this. If I cited Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People to deconstruct Jewish identity, religious claims, and Israel, one might rightly suspect I had an anti-Jewish motive.
Still, let's assume Ignatiev was sincere. Could we "abolish the social meaning of skin color" today? Skin color is more important as a social category than at any other time in decades. Those with power may say whites are just a "social construct," but they have no trouble telling who is white and who is not when it comes to affirmative action. The media view almost all economic, political, and cultural issues through a racial lens. Indeed, with a separate black "national anthem ," graduation ceremonies , and separate events for non-whites , we're seeing the return of segregation. It may even be the beginning of America's breakup along racial lines.
"Wokeness" holds that whites are racist no matter what we do. "White racism" is the new original sin. Fighting one's own racism is a lifelong struggle -- one that ultimately can't be won. "Whiteness" is also responsible for great evil. If all whites are racist and "whiteness" is evil, isn't it best just to eliminate whites? Some whites may even want to join this racial death drive, exhausted, ashamed, and despairing after decades of relentless anti-white propaganda . Even those whites who don't want to surrender psychologically may see no hope, and become a " defeated and despairing race ," in Steve Sailer's words.
This new faith even has holy sites and sacred rites. The site of George Floyd's killing is now a shrine , with white activists declaring it "holy ground." According to journalist Michael Tracey , the unwashed police generally do not enter this sanctum sanctorum .
At one BLM rally, white liberals flaggelated themselves:
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In Bethesda, Maryland, the white congregation repeated after the priest:
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And of course, the mantric chants of "Black Lives Matter" and "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" are familiar refrains:
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What can we call this death-cult? Some leftists, including Ignatiev, called for "abolishing" the white race. It's tempting to call it " Abolitionism ." However, this word is forever linked with (whites) ending slavery. Some leftists may eventually use the term, but it will never catch on. Still, it is useful because of its vivid history. Many 19th century abolitionists were not peaceful idealists but blood-crazed fanatics , who cloaked their dreams of war and slaughter in apocalyptic, Biblical language. John Brown, whose band began its infamous raid on Harpers Ferry by killing a free black man, is the primary example.
The creed's violence, militancy, and destructiveness lead me to call it Eradicationism. Like some Christian sects, whites who embrace it want collectively to abandon the world, if not through suicide then by failing to reproduce. Instead of making the world better "for ourselves and our posterity," they will expunge their blood guilt by ending their line. White Saviors share a curious mix of self-hatred and self-exaltation, something we see when white protesters post themselves indulging in BLMania online.
Eradicationism will be with us for some time. Regardless, our course is clear. Facts are important, but statistics don't move mountains. Faith does. We must act with faith in victory , in service to a great ideal. Our Western tradition tells us to do our duty to uphold the cosmic order . This chaotic time will be an opportunity for racial rebirth. Steel yourself against this death cult that has hijacked our civilization. Reject BLMania. We were meant for something great. We shouldn't fear this time of struggle, which is demonstrating what we've been warning of all along. We should welcome it. The American experiment in equality couldn't have ended any other way.
American Citizen 2.0 , says: July 29, 2020 at 10:01 pm GMT
Curmudgeon , says: July 29, 2020 at 11:40 pm GMTGood summary of the points we are all familiar with by now.
"Whiteness" has become the explanation for all "the evils of the modern world."
If black people weren't so bad at practically everything, we wouldn't have to play this game where everyone goes overboard to avoid talking about race realism, or scientific racism. India encountered White Western Civilization, basically absorbed parts of it, and came out the other side as the people they always were. Same with China. Same with Japan. Same with Mexico. Etc. The Western World has also encountered other civilizations as the weaker party to an extent, and likewise absorbed or fought back, and came out the other side still being themselves. The Mongols and the Ottoman Turks, just to name a couple of examples, both enslaved white people. We are not all sitting around moaning about it centuries later and saying that's why we can read or do math. That realization forces people down a path where they have to believe against all the evidence that there was something extremely different about the way white people treated black people for them to turn out this way. And as a corollary that there is something very different about white people that makes them uniquely evil.
Or, alternatively, you could just think about your own actual experiences with real black people you have met in life and notice that you generally have to talk to them like they are special needs children and they are really really dumb and aggressive. And then it all makes sense.
Baxter , says: July 30, 2020 at 2:24 am GMTGood summation, other than pretending George Floyd was killed by police. Drug overdoses are suicide.
American Citizen 2.0 , says: July 30, 2020 at 3:03 am GMTWe are witnessing something extraordinary, the death of what some call 'liberal progressivism' or what I prefer to call 'American atheistic humanism.' It's a hell of a thing to watch. What's next is anybody's guess. It's going to get much worse before it gets better. I'd like to share some of the things I do to maintain strength and sanity.
1 exercise and work out.
2 do not watch television.
3 associate with non-cucked Catholics and practice the Faith
4 read voraciously, especially the classics and lives of the saints.
5 flirt with women regularly (not the fat ones)
6 set aside resources for 'fallout.' If and when shit hits the fan I'm prepared for a long winter.
This list could be a expanded. These are the big things I've integrated into my daily life.@BaxterJustvisiting , says: July 30, 2020 at 4:39 am GMTGood list. My list:
1. Exercise
2. Never watch television
3. Read books written before the "Woke" era and never any book written by a Jew, not even Ben Shapiro. I always google the authors before I read anything.
4. Use bookmarks instead of search for the vast majority of the content you look at online. Search is a tool Silicon Valley uses to "recommend" woke content.Of course, these rules only apply in the current times of information warfare where everyone is trying to demoralize you and subvert anything you think is valuable.
JesusMary 137 , says: July 30, 2020 at 4:40 am GMTAnyone who has traveled a bit has come across ruins of formerly great (or small) civilizations.
Here is a small one in central Arizona we have visited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuzigoot_National_Monument
That civilization lasted for approximately 280 years, and disappeared without a trace around 1400 AD.
As you walk around the ruins of an obviously civilized people, there is one question that goes through everyone's mind.
What happened?
This was before there were settlers from Europe, and the land is empty for many miles around so there are no obvious enemies anywhere to be found.
It is unlikely that an earthquake or flood or other natural event destroyed the city–there seems to be no physical evidence to support that. Perhaps there was a long dry period (since this is Arizona) but long enough to destroy the entire civilization?
Then there is the little voice in your head that says the most likely explanation–"They must have destroyed themselves, probably based on some horrible ideology or religious fervor."
Bottom line–insanity is toxic, and can destroy a civilization.
There is no arguing with insanity, there is no negotiating with insanity, there is no solution for insanity.
Civilizations must have the will to remove the insane people from the territory before they destroy it–or they will become just another forgotten ruin on the landscape.
mkr , says: July 30, 2020 at 5:38 am GMTThe hatred for whiteness in America comes from 70 years of massive number of Jews who in many parts of the country dominated public schools and universities in teaching and leadership positions in academia.
Bas , says: July 30, 2020 at 5:50 am GMTBlack person to white person: "your ancestors enslaved my ancestors"
White person to black person: "your ancestors along with the Arabs enslaved my ancestors in the Ottoman Empire for over 400 years up until the 1800s"
White person to black person: "you have never been a slave and neither have I"
White person to black person: "all white majority nations have outlawed slavery, have outlawed segregation, have enshrined equal rights into law, and have outlawed the taking of land by force"
White person to black person: "many black majority nations have not outlawed slavery, have not outlawed segregation, have not enshrined equal rights into law, and still take land by force"
White person to black person: "man up like my ancestors did and go to Africa and free the slaves, put your blood, sweat, and tears on the land and get it done like my ancestors did"
White person to black person: "you can't blame white people for black criminality and for black underperformance in society, most black people are not criminals and many black people perform and overperform in society, so stop being racist towards white people and take responsibility and build something"
Biff , says: July 30, 2020 at 7:24 am GMTThe unemployed. Without hope and nothing to show for, members will do anything to proof thy can. In history famous for doing the ting attacking the unarmed, on orders. Controlling is their hidden desire. Makes them the ideal public servant. Handicapped only by lack of the brain part called working IQ. In war of times of change, needed badly by ones who own a little of that stuff wile steering the ship named state..
Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: July 30, 2020 at 7:29 am GMTIt seems some people(such as this author) are viewing the current situation through one prism, and I think it has multiple causations.
1.Militarized police abuse of the general population is real – especially the poor(soft targets). As incidents pile up, resistance grows.
2.Funding by various political entities are responsible for the political strengthening of BLM and other groups as controlled opposition and used as divide and conquer tactics.
3.The progressive left is low hanging ripe fruit for the former, especially after the election of Donald Trump.
4.An education system pumping out SJW's at an exponential rate.
5.Now just add poverty and depravity from a lockdown.
George Floyd or no George Floyd the current situation(or new religion) was just a matter of time.
What to do? Running away comes to mind .
RobF , says: July 30, 2020 at 7:48 am GMTThis anti-whiteness among Liberal whites reminds me of old Gnostic cults. They sought to overcome the flesh to achieve heaven on earth. Some took it so far as to avoid reproduction. I don't think any took it so far as to adopt the children of other races.
idealogus , says: July 30, 2020 at 9:03 am GMTIt is a privilege to read UNZ everyday. It is important for everyone who is kind at heart, reading this article and others who are concerned about this actual insanity made sane, is nothing more than a movement to draw foolish people, black, white and everyone else, to drink just another flavor of Koolaid, into self-selecting their genetic discontinuation in the New World. It is a sublime process supported by the powers that be – to thin the hierd. Don't be alarmed by this. All shall pass. BLM is a part of the culling process – and you may or may not be aware of it: opioids & legal & illegal drugs, obesity, dumberism, political extremism on either side, China/Russia bashing, J bashing, and so on. Stay sure-footed. Understand the motivations of the PTB, and truly understand WHY they must take action for the good of the human race. It is only thru these operations, the wiser among us can & must understand why the human herd must be culled. And if you have a problem with that, please do stand first in line with the many lines & flavors of protesters, refuseniks & freedom fighters. The New World will truly be a better place for better human beings. Anyone who wants to get in to the New World & must first qualify with kind-heartedness, a strong obligation responsibility to better oneself & the community in which we live in. Forget all the political terms of democracy, freedom, liberty, capitalism, & such. It will simply be a New World where people are healthy in mind, body & soul. The crazies, psychopaths & criminals will not survive. It will be a much better world. And, the Powers that be are creating every sort of selection process to sift thru humanity's strata. If you are possibly fit for the New World, this comment will ring bells – and all will be clear to you. If not, go ahead and disagree with me . G*d bless you – for we will in time bow (or made to bow) to our Master(s). If you can't accept that, well, you're not likely to make it, and neither will your progeny . Please discern.
@American Citizen 2.0 rey.Stephen Paul Foster , says: Website July 30, 2020 at 11:33 am GMT
BLM handlers know this and that is why it encourages ANTIFA and BLM to group together and at the same time discourages for decades any attempt by whites to associate in leagues, groupings, unions, sindicats etc. Look what hapenned to Proud Boys.
The second in which 100 whites joined together the ruling elite put the leaders in prison and dismembered the white group.
United we surely stand, divided guaranteed to fall.
We must learn from the Jews – tribalism, fight for our kind no matter what.
They do not give a shit if you exercise, don't watch tv, read books etc. You are not a threat to them.
A threat is 1000 sheep + one lion.Hartnell , says: July 30, 2020 at 12:38 pm GMTIn the last year of his Presidency (2015) Barack Obama in an interview made the following observation:
Obama: "What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives -- you know, that casts a long shadow. And that's still part of our DNA that's passed on. We're not cured of it."
Interviewer: "Racism"
Obama: "Racism. We're not cured of it."Few, if any of the cognoscenti who constantly lecture Americans 24×7 on the ubiquity of "racism" and daily pounce on yet another politician or celebrity who breaks the strict rules of "Diversity-Speak," bothered to decode the President's remarks so that the average American might get a sense of what he was in for. They can be boiled down to: "Racism has always been the defining feature of American life and will be far into the future." What then, we might wonder, is the "cure," and who gets to say that it has been successful and the patient is whole and released from treatment?
Obama chose the wrong metaphor. His view of race is better expressed in theological terms. "Racism" is America's "original sin." It was, and still is, committed exclusively by white people, and no matter what metaphor you care to use, consider it a permanent fixture of American society. "We shall overcome someday." But, sorry Pal, not today. With sin comes guilt, and white America now finds itself confronted with guilt, virtually unlimited guilt.
http://fosterspeak.blogspot.com/2019/02/racism-its-time-to-repudiate-guilt.html
@Miro23 motherland. Imperialism has been a long term disaster for the West.Stupid white people – Yes, yes, people here blame the Jews but let's be honest here, if it was the Jews who helped contribute, who happily lapsed it up and performed the dance? The stupid white people! Had the stupid white people been more intelligent, they would have put two and two together and stopped the madness along time ago. Instead they are worshipping George Floyd.
Look, I'm no leftie liberal. I want white people to survive and prosper. But honestly, I see alot of sins and ultimately stupidity at the white man's feet. I blame him more then anyone else.
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Jul 30, 2020 | www.scmp.com
Curtis also stuck close to the main theme of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's high-profile China policy speech last week by arguing that the India border clash and sovereign debt financing used for Belt and Road Initiative projects "fits with a larger pattern of PRC aggression in other parts of the world". Pompeo called for "a new grouping of like-minded nations" to counter China.
Accusing Beijing of "selling cheap armaments and building a base for the 1970s-era submarines that it sold to the Bangladesh Navy in 2016", Curtis also committed to stronger relations with Dhaka.
"We're committed to Bangladesh's long-term success because US interests in the Indo-Pacific depends on a Bangladesh that is peaceful, secure, prosperous healthy and democratic," Curtis said. "We continue to encourage the Bangladeshi government to renew its commitment to democratic values as it prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence, next year." Big Tech tangles with US lawmakers in antitrust showdown 30 Jul 2020
While the India-China border clash, pressing of maritime claims in the South China Sea, and increasing military and economic pressure on Taiwan may have helped to push countries in the region to cooperate more, Washington will not necessarily benefit, said Ali Wyne, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute.
"China's actions in recent months have compelled many of its neighbours to try and bolster their military capabilities on an accelerated timeline and to intensify their security cooperation with one another," Wyne said.
"For at least two reasons, though, it is unclear that those neighbours would be full participants in a US-led effort to counterbalance China.
"First, geographical proximity and economic dependence constrain the extent to which they can push back against Beijing's assertiveness without undercutting their own national interests," he said. "Second, many of them are reluctant to make common cause with the United States in view of the transactional diplomacy that it has pursued in recent years." China's foreign minister calls on other nations to resist US and stop a new cold war 29 Jul 2020
China's embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
However, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday called Washington's increasingly hard line against the Chinese government "naked power politics". In a phone call with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday, Wang said the Trump administration's strategy was to "constantly provoke China's core interests, attack the social system chosen by the Chinese people and slander the ruling party that is closely connected with the Chinese people," according to state news agency Xinhua.
"These actions have lost the most basic etiquette for state-to-state exchanges and have broken through the most basic bottom line of international norms," he said, warning that "the world will fall into a crisis of division, and the future and destiny of mankind will also be in danger".
https://www.youtube.com/embed/c3uzkXgW4yY?rel=0&mute=1&playsinline=1&frameborder=0&autoplay=0&embed_config=%7B%22relatedChannels%22%3A%5B%22UC4SUWizzKc1tptprBkWjX2Q%22%5D%2C%22adsConfig%22%3A%7B%22adTagParameters%22%3A%7B%22iu%22%3A%22%2F8134%2Fscmp%2Fweb%2Fchina_policiespolitics%2Farticle%2Finstream1%22%2C%22cust_params%22%3A%7B%22paid%22%3A1%2C%22scnid%22%3A%223095250%22%2C%22sctid%22%3A%22326745%22%2C%22scsid%22%3A%5B%2291%22%2C%224%22%2C%22318198%22%5D%2C%22articletype%22%3A%22DEFAULT%22%7D%7D%2C%22nonPersonalizedAd%22%3Atrue%7D%7D&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scmp.com&widgetid=2 US House of Representatives sends Uygur Human Rights Policy Act to Trump's desk for approval
US House of Representatives sends Uygur Human Rights Policy Act to Trump's desk for approval
Curtis was less sanguine about how much Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian republics were resisting China's influence, citing an emphasis by governments in the region on the economic consequences of strained ties with Beijing by protesting the treatment of Muslim minorities in China's far northwest.
China's internment of Muslim Uygurs in the Xinjiang region has drawn international condemnation. The UN has estimated that more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps there for political re-education, but Beijing claims they are vocational training centres aimed at countering religious extremism.
"With regard to the Central Asian countries, I think they're concerned about China's economic influence in their countries, and therefore they very much hedge their comments about the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang province," Curtis said, but added that she expected public condemnation of China in Pakistan and Bangladesh to mount over the issue.
"There has been reticence, which has been disheartening, but I think as these countries see China trying to trying to increase disinformation campaigns you'll start to see pushback from the South Central Asian countries and more speaking out about the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang," she said. Join the Singapore Property Festival - a virtual exhibition organised by the South China Morning Post on August 1 to explore a wide range of affordable luxury residential and commercial real estate assets in Singapore, perfect as relocation and investment options. Get property project highlights and market insights from Info Session webinars and LIVE 1-on-1 chats with property taxation, immigration and investment experts. Register for your FREE PASS now.
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Jul 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
A Significant Decline Is Coming For The U.S. james , Jul 27 2020 18:10 utc | 1
by Passer by
In response to several comments in the last open thread (slightly edited).
Actually there is even some real, and not only relative, decline for the US, for example US life expectancy is dropping. This is a pretty bad sign for a developed country. Same for the UK by the way.
On the issue of China gaining during the Covid crisis, they gained in raw power, for example gained in GDP relatively to the US. And they gained in debt levels too, relatively, as US debt levels exploded due to the crisis. Now you have V-shaped recovery in China and poor, W-shaped double dip recovery in the US. With far more debt added.
Of course there is the issue of public relations and soft power. On the one hand the US blamed China for the pandemic, but on the other hand it embarrassed itself due to its poor performance in containing the pandemic, compared to other countries. And the US lost points around the world due to rejecting WHO right in the middle of the pandemic. Europe and developing countries did not like that at all. Don't forget that Covid also weakened the US military, they have problems with it, including on ships and overseas bases, and even broke the biggest US exercise planned in Europe for the last 30 years. And the pandemic in the US is still raging, its not fixed at all and death rates are increasing again.
Here for example, the futurologists from Pardee Canter that that China gained during the crisis, in raw capabilities. Future research and relative power between countries is their specialty :
Research Associate Collin Meisel and Pardee Center Director Jonathan Moyer use IFs (International Futures) to explore the long-term impact of COVID-19 in China in this Duck Of Minerva blog post" "Where broad measures of material capabilities are concerned, the picture is clear: COVID-19 is closing the gap in relative capabilities for the U.S. and China and accelerating the U.S.-China transition. Through multiple long-term forecast scenarios using the International Futures tool, Research Associate Collin Meisel and Pardee Center Director Jonathan Moyer explain on the Duck of Minerva blog that China is likely to gain approximately one percent of global power relative to the U.S. by 2030 due to the economic and mortality impacts of COVID-19. This share of global power is similar to the relative capabilities of Turkey today.On the issue of the USD, Stephen Roach also says that there will be a significant decline in the medium term. And the argument is pretty logical - if the US share in the global economy is declining (and it will be declining at least up to year 2060), and if the level of US debts is reaching all time high levels, then the USD will decline. I agree with that argument. It is fully logical.
On the chip/semiconductor issue. David Goldman is skeptical that the US will be able to stop China on this :
The chip ban gives the world an enormous incentive to circumvent the USBasically Huawei still has advanced suppliers, from South Korea and Japan. And some of them are refusing to yield. The problem for the US is that China is the world's biggest semiconductor market and biggest chip importer on the world , which gives enormous initiative for private businesses to circumvent US made equipment in order to export to China. Then also China is stashing large quantities of chips. By 2025, it should be able to replace foreign production with homegrown. So these bans are lose lose situation for both the US and China - yes, this will cause come costs to China up to 2025. But it will also lead to US companies, such as Qualcomm, to lose the Chinese chip market, which is the largest in the world, and there is nothing to replace it.These are hundreds of billions of losses for the US due to gradually losing the most lucrative market. Thus, in relative terms, China does not lose from these games, as the US will pay a large price just as China. It is lose-lose situation, but in relative terms the same. US loses just as China loses. And do not forget that China warned that a full US attack on Huawei will lead to Boeing being kicked from the country, which is becoming the biggest aviation market in the world, and will lead to hundreds of billions of losses for that company too, and will probably burry it under Airbus. China needs lots of planes up to 2028, when they will replace them with their own, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Elevating Airbus over Boeing, which already has big troubles, will be a significant hit for the US aerospace industry.
So China has cards to play too. On the issue of the US getting some countries to ban Huawei, it is again lose - lose situation - that is both the US and some of its allies will lose due to using more expensive 5G equipment and will lose more time to build their networks. So China loses, and US and some allies lose, but in relative terms things remain the same between them power-wise, as they both lose. Do not forget that Germany said that it will continue to use Huawei equipment, and this is the biggest economy in Europe:
Germany's three major telecommunications operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica have been actively promoting 5G in recent years. They implement the "supplier diversification" strategy and use Huawei equipment in their networks among other vendors. Peter Altmaier, German minister of economy, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on July 11 that Germany would not exclude Huawei from the country's 5G network rollout. "There can only be an exclusion if national security is demonstrably at risk. However, we will strengthen our security measures, regardless of which country the products come from," said Altmaier. "There is no change in Germany's position," a spokesperson of the country's Interior Ministry told local broadcaster ARD on July 16.So we can say that probably half of Europe will be using Huawei. Still, as you said, a large part of the world will exclude it. Maybe half of world's GDP. Unfortunately things are not perfect. One bright spot in that is that Huawei is betting on emerging markets, and emerging markets have higher growth rates than western markets - that is, they will matter more in the future.
I would agree that the US is harming China, but the damage is not large IMO, as these are mostly lose lose situations where relative power stays the same. And with time, there will be significant damages for the US too, such as losing the biggest chip and aviation markets and the empowerment of Boeing competitors such as Airbus.
So its not too bad in China. Thus, after mentioning all of this, I do not think that Pompeo is smelling blood and moving for the jugular, its not such a situation as China is not that vulnerable, it is more likely to be US elite anger due to the US weakening and China gains during the Covid-19 crisis.
On Hong Kong China had no options. It was a lose-lose situation. If they allowed everything to stay as it is there would be constant color revolution there and they will be constantly in the media. Maybe it is better to stop this once and for all. They hoped that the Covid crisis will give them cover to do this. It did not work very well.
Unfortunately it is right that the Trump strategy of bullying works many times. Supposedly there should be costs for the US in soft power and world opinion, but we are not seeing them.
I guess most of the world is too cowardly and prefers to go with the flow. They will abandon the US only after the US lost anyway. Well, it is not an easy situation. Still, the US reactions are very strong and hateful precisely because things are still not good for it and its decline is continuing, regardless of some tactical victories, where in some cases it is a lose lose situation anyway.
The data shows a significant decline incoming for the US.
- 2019 China 1,27 times bigger in GDP/PPP
- 2030 China 1,8 times bigger in GDP/PPP
- US debt to GDP 2019 80%
- US debt to GDP 2030 125%
- US debt to GDP 2050 230 %
The Highway Trust Fund (HTF) will be depleted by 2021, the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund by the beginning of 2024, the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) trust fund in the 2020s, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) Multi-Employer fund at some point in the mid-2020s, and the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund by 2031. We estimate the theoretically combined Social Security OASDI Trust fund will run out of reserves by 2031.
- Military budget (before Covid estimates, Trump budget) 2019 3,2 % of GDP - 2030 2,5 % of GDP (Could drop to 2,3 % of GDP due to Covid)
- Civilian discretionary spending (before Covid estimates) 2019 3,2 % of GDP - 2030 1.8 % of GDP (drop to all time low) (Could drop further due to Covid)
That is not to mention the big divide in US society, and the ongoing Covid crisis, which is still not fixed in the US. But is largely fixed in China. Do you see the decline now? They have a big, big reason to be worried. A significant decline is coming for the US.
Posted by b on July 27, 2020 at 17:53 UTC | Permalink
thanks for highlighting 'passer by's post b... i agree with them for the most part... it reminds me of a game of chess where pieces are being removed from the board.. it is a lose- lose, but ultimately, it is a bigger loss for the usa down the road... for whatever reason the usa can't see that the financial sanctions, bullying and etc, only go so far and others work around this as we see with russia, iran, venezuala and china in particular...
the one comment i would view differently then passer by is this one - "Unfortunately it is right that the Trump strategy of bullying works many times. Supposedly there should be costs for the US in soft power and world opinion, but we are not seeing them." i think the usa is losing it's position in terms of soft power and world opinion but you won't be reading about it in the western msm.. that is going to come out later after the emergence of a new reality is very clear for all to see... the trump strategy is really more of the same and it is like a medicine that loses it's power over time and becomes ineffective - sort of like antibiotics...
O , Jul 27 2020 18:34 utc | 7
Kadath , Jul 27 2020 18:46 utc | 8In other words the western oligarchs will lose out to the eastern oligarchs in the Great Trade War under the cover of a fake pandemic.
Or perhaps the global oligarchs in general just want the world to follow more in the Chinese model where the population is more agreeable to total surveillance, social credit scores and even more out right fascistic government/corp model under the cover of a fake pandemic.
O , Jul 27 2020 19:10 utc | 16Re: James #1,
With respect to "bullying works", in international diplomacy it usually does since weaker powers have more to lose in a direct diplomatic crisis with a larger power. This is not to say that they won't push back, but they will be far more strategic in where they do. In essence, weaker powers have fewer "red lines" but they will still enforce those, while greater powers have more "red lines", because they have more power to squander on fundamentally insignificant issues. However, weaker states will still remember being abused and oppressed, so when the worms turns while they won't be the first to jump ship, they will be more than eager to pile on and extract some juicy retribution once it is clear they will not be singled out. I suspect the Germany will be the bellwether, when (if) Germany breaks from the US on a key aspect on the transatlantic relationship that will be the signal for others to start jumping ship. If Nordstream 2 go through, then there will be a break within 5 years; if Nordstream is killed, then the break might be delayed for 5 years or more but there will still be a break when the US pushes Germany to support the next major US regime change war in the Middle East.
blum , Jul 27 2020 19:11 utc | 17The engineered collapse is being called the "Great Reset" by many outlets already. The covid nonsense is just a cover for it. Instead of Saudi Arabian terrorist it is a basically a harmless coronavirus. Just in the days immediately following 911 the "terrorist'' threat was so overhyped that security theater was employed everywhere. Now sanitation theater is the new act in town.
karlof1 , Jul 27 2020 19:24 utc | 19Where does anyone get these numbers about military spend as a % of gdp? Have you listened to Katherine Austin Fitts on Corbett Report?
Posted by: oglalla | Jul 27 2020 18:27 utc | 4If you could dig through the linked Committee for a Responsible Federal Budge links for me. I'd appreicate it a lot. ;)
http://www.crfb.org/blogs/major-trust-funds-headed-insolvency-within-11-yearsLong time not heard anything from Katherine. You feel I should check both her and Corbert on Gates, I suppose?
Jackrabbit , Jul 27 2020 20:48 utc | 29Article discussing political fallout from info provided @11.
Andrei @14--
Good to see your comment. Lots of anecdotal evidence nationwide about store closures and many vacancies in business centers, particularly within economic engines of NYC and elsewhere along the East Coast. IMO, lots of self-censorship by business media while the reality reported by Shadowstats goes ignored. As for losing the status of #1 economy, that was always going to occur once China or India became a moderately developed economy. It just happened that China is far more efficient politically which allowed it to become #1. And until India improves politically, it will continue to lag behind numerous smaller nations. Too bad there isn't a place where one can bet on the great likelihood that the Outlaw US Empire will outperform all nations in the production of Bullshit and Lies.
Mark2 , Jul 27 2020 21:13 utc | 39I also disagree with the comparison between USA and China gdp and other statistics.
China is not simply competing against USA but against the Empire: 5 eyes, NATO, Euro poodles, Israel and the Gulf States and others like Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, India.
Anyone that is minimizing the conflict and the advantages of one side vs another is doing a disservice.
Cold War I lasted 40 years.
!!
jadan , Jul 27 2020 21:50 utc | 54CitizenX @ 26
Agree with your tone and content.
Particularly the third from last paragraph. I think people are missing by choice the growing ground-swell of public opinion US wide as this blog shows, a multi-faceted detereation of US political morals and legality.
Combined with a world wide growing awareness of how deranged American leaders now are.
Haterd consumes itself as dose greed.
My ear to the ground tells me, the protests at present are growing some in full sight some not.
This is not buseness as usual. Then return to normal. The mood now is -- -- - let's settle this thing once and for all, let's get the job done.
So my personal opinion ? we will see a US regime chainge faster than a lot here predict. Much faster.O , Jul 27 2020 22:23 utc | 68Passer by is correct, no doubt, thanks to incompetent leadership in the US, but this economic horse race doesn't matter.
What matters above all is that nations should hold it together, "it" being sustainable, survivable support systems capable of providing for mass populations.We have failed that test here in our encounter with this pandemic. We have failed to develop a sustainable financial system. We have failed to meet any sort of environmental goals. We don't even have environmental goals! Our electoral system doesn't work, either, proof being the election of this idiot atavistic rich boy. If anyone thinks the election of Trump reflects the will of the majority of Americans, they are part of the problem.
China is in deep trouble. The CCP's greatest challenge is simply to hold "it" together. The Party has to perform economic miracles or the country will collapse. Those groups not satisfied with life in the PRC have no outlet for their voices to be heard. They cannot protest. They are under the strict control of an increasingly sophisticated but tiny elitist clique that is only 6.5% of the total population. This clique will not relinquish power and permit more democratic expression. On the contrary, more and more suppression of dissidence of any sort will happen. The social scoring system is an especially insidious program of social control. China's collectivism has turned the country into an ant hill. It is extremely productive, but people are not ants.
Passer by is looking at the world through a keyhole.
O , Jul 27 2020 22:28 utc | 69Nightmare' conditions at Chinese factories where Hasbro and Disney toys are made
Investigators found there were serious violations at the factories which were endangering workers.In peak production season, employees were working up to 175 overtime hours per month. Chinese labour law restricts monthly overtime to 36 hours per month, but the report alleged factories would often ask local governments to implement a "comprehensive working hour scheme" to override existing legislation.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/07/nightmare-at-chinese-factories-making-hasbro-and-disney-toys.html
Jackrabbit , Jul 27 2020 22:39 utc | 72One wonders if China will run into the same problems of the US in the not too distant future?
"The End of Sweatshops? Robotisation and the Making of New Skilled Workers in China"
Over the past four decades China has undergone a process of massive industrialisation that has allowed the country to achieve remarkable economic growth. Because of its large manufacturing capacity based on a seemingly unlimited supply of cheap migrant labour in light industries, China has come to be known as the 'workshop of the world'. However, since the early 2000s the country's labour market has experienced a remarkable transition from labour surplus to a shortage of labour, which has led to sustained increases in the wages of ordinary workers. In such a context, since 2015 robotisation has become a driving policy for industrial upgrading for manufacturing in China, with the slogan 'replacing human workers with industrial robots' (机器换人) frequently appearing in media reports and official policy documents.
karlof1 , Jul 27 2020 22:59 utc | 74karlof1 @Jul27 21:50 #55
Thank you for clarifying that.
The early date of "full spectrum dominance" (1996 not 2010) suggests to me that the doctrine was related the "end of history" thinking of that time. USA Deep State believed its own propaganda.
It also strengthens my case for the proximate cause for the current conflict originating in 2014 when the US Deep State suddenly realized the threat that Russia and China Alliance posed to their plans for global domination.
Not only had they believed their own propaganda but they had overreached with their attempt to force Russia to capitulate and had been distracted by Israel interests that wanted to use USA for the greater Israel project.
!!
When I wrote my economic analysis paper on China in 1999, it was quite clear that the 21st Century was going to become the Asian Century as the Outlaw US Empire would be eclipsed by Asia's economic dynamism. 20+ years later, my prediction holds true, and it's even stronger now than then with Russia's resurgence. Both outcomes clearly go against the 500+ years of Western Global Hegemony and goads numerous people. For students of history like myself, what's occurring isn't a surprise thanks to the West's adoption of--or should I write forced indoctrination into--the Neoliberal political-economic philosophy, which is akin to that of Feudalism since it benefits the same class as that of the Feudal Era. China too was once Feudal and suffered a massive Civil War that destroyed much of its structure, a conflict known to the West as The Taiping Rebellion that lasted almost 14 years, from 1850-1864. One might say that was the first half of China's overall effort to overthrow Feudalism and Western Imperialism, as the second half began in 1927 and finally concluded in 1949. That amounts to a large % of years for a newbie nation like the USA; but for a nation like China inhabited by humans for over 1.3 million years and with 4,500 years of recorded history, it's really just another Dynastic Rollover--something inconceivable to non-Asians.Hoarsewhisperer , Jul 27 2020 23:00 utc | 75In reality, China's a conservative nation, culture and society with a several thousand year ethos of Collectivism, although that allowed a significant divergence in social stratification due to the ruling Feudal ways. Those who have read The Good Earth have an excellent grasp on the nature of Chinese Feudalism, which was embodied by the Kuomintang or KMT--as with Feudal lords, KMT leaders were deemed "Gangsters" by US Generals and diplomats during and after WW2. General Marshall wrote in 1947 it was clear to him that the KMT would lose to the CPC, that there was no good reason to throw good money after bad, and it would be best for the USA and the West to accept the fact of a Communist China (all noted by Kolko in his Politics of War ). Contemporary China when compared to China as depicted in 1931 by Pearl Buck is one of the most amazing human achievements of all time, and the conservative Chinese government intends to keep it that way through a series of well thought-out plans. That's the reality. It can be accepted and worked with as numerous nations realize, or it be somehow seen as unacceptable and fought against in what will prove to be a losing effort since all China need do is parry the blows and reflect them back upon its opponent using skills it developed over several thousand years. It would be much easier to join China than fight.
It's misleading to assess the National Military Capability of various countries in $US terms. The West's M-IC is privately owned and puts shareholder profit before all else. And the owners of the Western M-IC also own the politicians who facilitate and approve the rip-offs.VietnamVet , Jul 27 2020 23:40 utc | 83China and Russia's M-IC are owned and controlled by The People via the government and can therefore get $2+ of value for every $1 invested. For example, one can buy some very nifty twin-engine bizjets for less than half the price USG pays for a flying Batmobile (F-35) - a glorified hot-rod with guns.
Jackrabbit , Jul 28 2020 0:26 utc | 87There is definitely a decline in the USA. Deaths of despair and from the coronavirus are too great to ignore anymore. 150,000 dead and counting are not nothing. The Western Empire has fallen. The U.S. federal government failed. The Imperialists are quarantined at home.
The question is if the 19th century North American Empire from Hawaii to Puerto Rico survives. The Elite have bet it all on a vaccine or patentable treatment to give the Pharmaceutical Industry billions of dollars. However, quick cheap paper monoclonal antigen tests would make testing at home before going to work or school practical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Sv_pS8MgQ
This would end viral transmission and the pandemic. No drug jackpot for the 10%. Instead public health is ignored as Americans die. The silence is deafening. The protests in the Pacific Northwest are not about slavery. They are about the 90% of Americans being treated as disposable trash.
Richard Steven Hack , Jul 28 2020 0:37 utc | 89VietnamVet | Jul 27 2020 23:40 utc | 83
150,000 dead and counting are not nothing. The Western Empire has fallen.
No offense VV but I can't help thinking that you (and maybe some others) are talking past the issue.To be clear, the issue is this: Will the West's decline play a role in the US/Empire's ability and willingness to confront Russia-China? Or is the oft-heard refrain that US/Empire can not 'win' against China (implying that they shouldn't/won't bother trying!) because of its decline (usually attributed to 'late-state capitalism') just wishful thinking?
Virtually everyone here has agreed that the West - especially USA - hasn't fought the virus correctly and with vigor. And virtually everyone agrees that there has been a relative decline in USA/West and in some areas an absolute decline.
IMO what is ignored is that:
- from the perspective of the US 'Deep State' or Western power-elite the failure to fight the virus is a net positive if the repercussions are blamed on China (in addition to other 'positives' from their perspective: saving on cost of care to elderly, boosting Big Pharma profits, etc.) -
In fact, deliberate mistakes and mounting only a token effort (as we've seen) is exactly what we should expect from a craven power-elite that want to further their interests;
- the overall decline, while troublesome - especially to the ordinary blokes who get the short end of that decline - is not yet significant enough to prevent USA/Empire from countering the Russia-China 'upstarts' aggressively.
I likened the hopefulness of the anti-Empire crowd about Western decline to their hopefulness they previously expressed regarding Turkey. "Erdogan is turning east!" proved to be wrong.!!
Richard Steven Hack , Jul 28 2020 1:12 utc | 92Posted by: Andrei Martyanov | Jul 27 2020 19:01 utc | 14 Within last 10 years China built surface fleet which in terms of hulls (and "freshness") rivals that of the US. US economy would have it bottom falling off if it tried to accomplish a similar task.
Nice to see you here again. Yes, I mentioned the relative navy building in the previous open thread. China's navy will exceed US capability by 2050 and be on parity by 2030-2040 according to reports I've read. That's just ten years to twenty years from now.
Result: US gets kicked out of the South China Sea and has to share the Pacific, Indian Ocean (as will India with gnashing of teeth) and even the Med with China. China will undoubtedly project naval power all the way to the Med in support of BRI in the Middle East.
jadan , Jul 28 2020 1:30 utc | 95Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 27 2020 20:43 utc | 27 There is decline, and while it has been mostly relative it is also accelerating - but that hasn't significantly constrained USA/Empire's response to the upstarts.
I agree. US military power isn't going away in ten years or twenty. China may achieve parity at some point (and can do serious damage now). But that doesn't obviate the fact that, short of nuclear war, the US is still in a position to throw its weight around and will continue to do so until forced back by a (hopefully conventional) military defeat of serious proportions, i.e., not just "give up and go home". And economic woes won't change that as long as the taxpayer can be fleeced - and they will be, for at least a few more decades.
Seer , Jul 28 2020 1:40 utc | 96@ 62 A.L. "Would it be a surprise to you than there are many many protests in China at the grass root level everyday?"
There are indeed protests all the time, which is the fire under the local Party leaders that keeps them dancing. Usually the protests are against local corruption or mismanagement and are not serious. People can get what they want this way. Each year at the general Party gathering, however, special note is taken of "mass incidents", that is, protests on a larger scale, and overtly political events such as those in the Uighur province of Xinjiang and in Hong Kong. Any protest that challenges the control of the Party is not permitted. The current protests in the US could not happen in China because they challenge political orthodoxy. The Chinese don't just roll over on command for the CCP to scratch their bellies and the Party knows just how volatile the political situation could be if mishandled. China is developing into the ultimate surveillance state. There are lots of Chinese like that little guy that stood down the tank at Tienanmen in 1989. Eventually that guy is going to say: "There is some shit I will not eat!" The Party knows this.
Cyril , Jul 28 2020 1:43 utc | 98Several years ago (close to 10) I noted that the US would be bringing back US companies from China, that it would actually subsidize their relocation. It's only logical. I saw China as becoming hostile to US corporations: in light of how things are going today it's the US govt becoming hostile toward US companies in China. Make huge profits and then get free money to return back to the US: and be welcomed as victorious troops arriving back from some glorious war.
It's Musical Chairs. As the music plays more and more chairs are being removed. Capitalism has been the most efficient economic system in which to trigger an economic collapse. WTF did people think would happen with basing economic systems on the impossible, basing on perpetual growth on a finite planet. All of this was readily foreseeable using SIMPLE MATH.
Economies of scale in reverse...
Daniel , Jul 28 2020 1:51 utc | 101@jadan | Jul 27 2020 21:50 utc | 54
China is in deep trouble. The CCP's greatest challenge is simply to hold "it" together. The Party has to perform economic miracles or the country will collapse.
How do you square your dire prediction of China's collapse with the Edelman trust barometer of 2019 (warning: PDF file), where China scores 88 on the trust index and the US scores 60?
O , Jul 28 2020 1:51 utc | 102The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that all the "leading" western countries are unable to handle even a relatively moderate public health crisis. The neoliberal economic model considers any aspect of society that isn't generating a profit as ideologically unsound and targets these areas for "reform" (i.e. privatization).
Sometimes this is done outright, as when a public utility or service is sold to a private, for-profit operator (e.g. British Rail in the UK). But when the government thinks the public will resist and push back it is done by stealth, usually by starving the targeted service/organization of funds and then farming out parts of it to for-profit companies in the name of "efficiency", "innovation", "resilience" or some other neoliberal doublespeak concept (they all mean only one thing of course: PROFIT). This is currently happening to the US Postal Service.
Every public healthcare system in the so-called "advanced" nations encompassed by the EU/NATO and Five Spies has been underfunded and subjected to stealth privatization for decades. Furthermore, people in neoliberal societies exist to serve as fodder and raw material for "the economy" (i.e. the plutocrat or oligarch class) and there is no mechanism to deal with emergencies that can't be milked for a profit. Hence, the half arsed, incompetent, making-it up-as-they-go-along response to COVID-19 that simply writes off older and sick people as expendable.
Neoliberalism began as a US/UK project, that's why poverty, crime, inadequate health care and social services etc. and governmental and societal dysfunction generally is more advanced there than in, say, Canada and Germany.
So, yes, the US is in decline, maybe even collapsing, but that doesn't mean the imperial lackey countries are immune to the forces tearing apart the United States. They are just proceeding down that road at a slower pace. If the US falls, the west falls...globalization takes no prisoners.
I live in Canada where sometimes people get a bit smug about how great everything is here compared to the US. In British Columbia, for example, opiate overdose deaths are at a record high and have killed many many more people than COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Housing in cities like Vancouver is increasingly unaffordable, there aren't enough jobs that pay a living wage, permanent homeless camps exist in city parks, there are entire blocks where people who live in their vehicles park etc.etc.
The reality is that it's the west that is in decline, not only the United States.
Schmoe , Jul 28 2020 2:04 utc | 105China is developing into the ultimate surveillance state.
Posted by: jadan | Jul 28 2020 1:30 utc | 95But don't you see, dear jadan, it is for the good of the people, if only the rest of the world could see the benevolence of Big Brother we would all be much happier at least that is what the thought police has told me to think. One government, one heart, one mind. Long Live the PRC revolution./s
Peter AU1 , Jul 28 2020 2:54 utc | 108Amidst all of the nonsense in the discussion section of the following link, I believe there are some germane comments from individuals that work in the semiconductor space that touch on some of the challenges China's chip industry faces. link
This article notes the substantial challenges TSMC and Samsung would face it they tried to build a cutting edge chip facility without US cooperation: can-tsmc-and-samsung-build-a-production-line-for-huawei-without-us-equipment
I hope their hiring of 3,000 experienced chip engineers accelerates their learning curve. Developing a chip industry on a moment's notice, let alone competing with Samsung and TSMC, is no small chore.
One item not mentioned in the above article is whether China could build many consumer components based on domestic 14nm (or larger) technology. Given China used to spend more importing chips than oil, I assume that even less advanced chips used for TVs, etc. as opposed to cellphones, would be very helpful for China's consumer electronics manufacturing.
They are also making some strides in the flash memory and CPU space, but production quantities are still very low.
ptb , Jul 28 2020 2:55 utc | 109Lose lose China loses less?
Health, education, infrastructure, research and development. The backbone of prosperity. These will all continue no matter trade war or cold war but barring hot war. There must be a doubling time for this - something like an R0. Cold war and sanctions will only serve to increase R&D
US mistakes, hubris ect move in the opposite direction, mistakes multiplying mistakes.
Peter AU1 , Jul 28 2020 3:20 utc | 113@Schmoe 105
thanks, interesting. Here is a complementary tho less detailed article on some of the same topics I ran across recently: China Speeds Up Advanced Chip Development [semiconductorengineering.com]One important point, clearly visible in the tables in the seekingalpha article linked by Schmoe, is that the ultra-small 14nm/7nm stuff is for specialized (but strategically important) applications. Most consumer electronics, industry, and everything else is 40-60nm and up, although of course smaller has benefits to older applications in improve power (i.e. mobile applications and servers) and cost (higher density/wafer)
gepay , Jul 28 2020 3:46 utc | 114ptb
US as an one excuse for its current hostilities against China is 'intellectual property' theft. Makes me think of ninja Chinese sneaking around removing peoples brains.
But back to semiconductors. One of China's biggest imports is chips, mostly made by machines using US tech. Many industries are highly specialized and it often makes sense from small community level to national and global level to by a product from those that specialist in that product.
China has been content to buy chips, but that will now change due to necessity. Yankistan can now expect to get its brains hacked, but I am also reminded of the Scientists in the Manhattan Project being the ones to pass on much information to the Soviet Union.
Yankistan will be leaking like a sieve. I guess that's why both oz and the poms are beefing up their secret police laws. Wont be long before we are getting shot trying to run through checkpoint charlie to the free east.John A Lee , Jul 28 2020 4:04 utc | 115It is clear that the US is in decline. It is clear the US military is bloated and overpriced but it can still turn most countries into rubble (even without using nuclear weapons) and has done a few recently. Mostly the US uses its reserve currency status and control of financial networks to punish countries that do not go along with its program. Can you say sanctions. but as Hemingway said about bankruptcy - it happens slowly and then all at once - is probably how it will continue to go. It is even losing its technological advantage. Boeing used to be the leader and made reliable planes. Now they sometimes fall out of the air. Things like high speed railways used to be the kind of thing the US did well. Now California can't get one built. China has built thousands of miles of them. Russia built a 19 kilometer bridge to Crimea in 2 years after 2 years of planning. It appears to be competently built on time and on budget. Do you really think this could happen in the USA now? In the 70s the US was the leader in environmental actions. I wonder if the present day Congress could even pass bills comparable to the Clean Air ACT or the Clean water bill. US national politics are a mean joke. Our choice this year for President - two 70+ old white men with mental issues. Our health system is overpriced. Medical bills are one of the main reasons for personal bankruptcies. As others mentioned the US life expectancy is falling. As Dmitri Orlov who watched the Soviet Empire fail said - Empire hollowed out the Soviet Union till it failed, I see it doing the same thing in the US.
Peter AU1 , Jul 28 2020 4:31 utc | 116The current 'adjustment' in the USD & living standards is just what the doctor ordered to allow elites to roll out "tech wave 2" - there is precious little gain to be had from further staffing & wages cuts to the average shit-kicker, so now the bourgeoisie, medicos, architects, academics, writers plus all the rest of the tertiary educated types who blew hundreds of thousands on an education guaranteed to keep them employed, are about to be tossed on the scrap heap.
We already know from previous stunts such as 911 & the 2008 'global financial meltdown' that those most disadvantaged by this entirely predictable destruction of lives will be easily diverted into time-wasting and pointless arguments about the real cause of the mess.
This will allow the elites to use that diversion to funnel all federal funds into subsidising the capital costs of the retooling, as both parties have begun to with the despicable CARES Act, supported by the mad christian right in the senate, as well as the so-called socialists in the Congress squad.
All the Cares Act does is inject capital into big corporations, boosting their stock price & leaving citizens to lose most of their unemployment benefit. Citizens get evicted from their homes. This time it will be tenants as well as home owners.
Both of those factions of elite enablers are going to create a great deal of noise and crass finger pointing. The squad will jump up and down about this being a deliberate attack on citizens by the elite while senate fundies will claim that this 'retooling' is the result of unreasonable pay & working conditions demands by the communist unions.
What should be a universal expression of disgust will be reduced to just another culture war.
Neither will ever admit that it is far too late to be worrying about cause, it is time to concern themselves with effect, because to do so would create focus back on where the money was going at time when it is important to be saying "everyone is hurting, including the elites". Fools.
Eventually when the deed has been done assorted scummy senators & creepy congress people will announce "It is time to move on" That will be a signal that treasury tanks are dry, the elites have gotten everything which wasn't nailed down so now the citizens can roll clawing & scratching in the mud.
I have no doubt that will be the direction of discussion here as well, it is much easier to sit at a keyboard digging out obscure 'facts' that 'prove' one point of view or another, than it is to leave the keyboard behind and put work into resisting the elites and in doing so forcing a change that is more citizen friendly.
Antonym , Jul 28 2020 5:29 utc | 119gepay
With the return of Russia to the geo-political arena, US can no longer destroy counties at will through conventional weapons nor color revolutions and AQ freedom fighters.
Trump decided to go nuclear, so Russia placed its nuclear umbrella over it allies.
US can no longer destroy countries at will. It can attack a country and risk ensuring its own destruction.
So back to hybrid war and proxie war ... but now the field is narrowed down to five-eyes and in the case of China - India.
So to keep Russia out, yankistan has to rely on conventional war and hybrid war, though we are looking at a country where the lunatics are in charge of the asylum so anything could happen.aquadraht , Jul 28 2020 5:36 utc | 1215G, who wants this?
The MNCs producing it, the MSS, NSA and GCHQ, the IoT idiots and all authoritarians on the globe. Consumers are happy with 3G: many don't even have 4G reception - give that to them.
With IoT more unemployment, more electricity and Internet dependency, more chance of hacks or natural disruptions (solar flares), more 1984.
More is not always better at all.
Antonym , Jul 28 2020 5:40 utc | 123Just read an "opinion piece" demonstrated how remote from reality are not only people like Pompeo from a"liberal" commentator:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pompeos-surreal-speech-on-china/ar-BB17bk0t
The Chinese Communist Party wants a tributary international system where smaller countries are deferential to larger powers, instead of a rules-based international order where small countries enjoy equal rights.HAHAHA!
William Gruff , Jul 28 2020 16:19 utc | 160The US/UK declining won't bother most billionaires with those passports: they just buy any other. Stuck are the millions of others.
Equally "China" ascending brings joy for all billionaires around the globe holding stock depending on Chinese near monopolies, including Anglo-es.
Some middle class Chinese are beginning to see that dying "rich" is is very limited goal, as zero can be taken to the Here After and the price for this Now is too high. Money is not everything. Welcome to this select club, Chinese brothers and sisters. Sure, a bit is good to live but amassing is a waste of precious time and attention.
juliania , Jul 28 2020 16:23 utc | 161The US lacks the capacity to erect an "economic wall" that can stop China's development. Trump's "trade war" was an attempt to do just that, and America got steamrolled.
To be sure, the US can attempt even more irrational and desperate acts such as trying to seize assets owned by Chinese people and organizations in the US, but that would be America shooting itself in the head rather than just the foot.
The US simply does not posses the ability to "take the wind out of China's sails" . That is not something that is within America's power to accomplish without going kinetic by, for instance, trying to enforce a naval blockade of China's maritime transport routes. At this point there are no economic measures America can take that will not do vastly more damage to America than to China. Both trade war and bio attack were the best options America had, and America has suffered grievously from those efforts with relatively minimal impact on China. China's economy remains fundamentally strong while America's economy is devastated.
As for disrupting China's international development efforts, America has been trying its hardest for years now with the only impact being minor delays in China's plans. The only way to truly disrupt China's international development efforts would be to offer a better deal, but America no longer has anything to offer that is better. The only option left to America to delay the BRI for longer would be a kinetic one, and the door is closing on that.
foolisholdman , Jul 28 2020 16:38 utc | 165jack rabbit @ 81,
Your item 1. reads:
from the perspective of the US 'Deep State' or Western power-elite the failure to fight the virus is a net positive if the repercussions are blamed on China (in addition to other 'positives' from their perspective: saving on cost of care to elderly, boosting Big Pharma profits, etc.) -It will not be possible to blame China, simply because no one believes the US press any longer, and there is no convincing the woman or man on the street that US handling of the virus has been in any way competent. We may not understand its virulence, and we perhaps don't understand yet how to cope with it, but the example of China has been clear from the earliest moments, and that speaks louder than any false rhetoric can claim.
We know what we have been experiencing in comparison with others who acted with celerity, and that basically was what was needed. The US chose to go it alone, at its peril. It stuck by a set of rules it had made for itself in these last years - rules which have not benefited the people at large. It all comes down to that.
uncle tungsten , Jul 29 2020 2:13 utc | 197O | Jul 27 2020 21:33 utc | 49
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chinese_labour_unrestCare to comment on that.
I would not quote a Zionist dominated source like Wikipedia on anything politically sensitive and the article you refer to is in any case 10 years out of date. However if you read it it refers to two foreign-owned firms, and it mentions that there are (In 2010)plans to double wages in the next ten years which has happened. The article also states"
Strikes are not new in China. Chinese authorities have long tolerated limited, local protests by workers unhappy over wages or other issues.[40] The Pearl River Delta alone has up to 10,000 labor disputes each year. In the spring of 2008, a local union official described strikes as "as natural as arguments between a husband and wife".[41] The Chinese government sought balance on the issue; while it has recently repeated calls for increased domestic consumption through wage increases and regulations, it is also aware that labour unrest could cause political instability.[42][43]Which indicates to me that the suicides alerted the government to the fact that these firms were making the lives of their workers miserable and took steps to improve the control of them. They obviously realized that the Union officials had been bought by the management. I wonder how the British government or the USG would have reacted? What I am certain about is that the MSM would have been much less enthusiastic about reporting it.In response to the string of employee suicides at Foxconn, Guangdong CPC chief Wang Yang called on companies to improve their treatment of workers. Wang said that "economic growth should be people-oriented".[44] As the strikes intensified, Wang went further by calling for more effective negotiations mechanisms, particularly the reform of existing trade unions. At the same time, authorities began shutting down some websites reporting on the labour incidents, and have restricted reporting, particularly on strikes occurring at domestic-owned factories.[46][47] Guangdong province also announced plans to "professionalize union staff" by taking union representatives off of company payroll to ensure their independence from management influence.
Antonym , Jul 29 2020 5:07 utc | 198karlof1 #86
IMO, taking a good look at Brazil's situation provides close to a mirror image for those within the Outlaw US Empire having trouble seeing clearly. Too often we forget to look South at the great sewer and its misery US Imperialism's created. It may be getting defeated in Eurasia, but it's winning in Latin America.That sewer of misery was running full flush during Susan Rice's rise through the ranks.
National Security Adviser to Obummer 2013 - 2017,
US Ambassador to the UN 2009 - 2013
Do read the rest:And well beyond South America.
Now she is close to seizing the prize of VP to Biden. She is a iron war horse of formidable capacity and mendacity given her past roles. She has few redeeming features. She will conform exactly to the dictats of the permanent state and she will easily step right over Joe Biden as he either falls or is taken down at the most opportune time.
What drole sense of humour thought of this - the hapless Trump squeezed between two black American presidents. Seems like something the Clintons dreamed up.
kiwiklown , Jul 29 2020 5:39 utc | 200David Dayen's New Book Exposes the Dirty Hands of Wall Street Driving Monopoly Power in U.S. https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/07/david-dayens-new-book-exposes-the-dirty-hands-of-wall-street-driving-monopoly-power-in-u-s/
New York Times Rewrites the Timeline of the Fed's Wall Street Bailouts, Giving Banks a Free Pass
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/07/new-york-times-rewrites-the-timeline-of-the-feds-wall-street-bailouts-giving-banks-a-free-pass/class="posted">Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 28 2020 22:30 utc | 191
"It was asked upthread if the US citizenry would trade its no-longer existing Superpower status for decent living standards.... There're only two forces keeping the American people from attaining freedom from the above fundamental fear and having lifelong security: The Duopoly and its Donor Class, the Rentier Class of Feudalistic Parasites that are the enemy of virtually all humanity."
The US citizenry will choose decent living standards in a heartbeat, but the present arrangement for eating off the labour of deplorables is just too profitable for the Duopoly & Donor Class to be permitted to change for a couple decades more.
Perhaps they will move on when there is no more meat on the American corpse, or when they have built up a sufficiently large group of useful idiots in China to begin eating off the backs of deplorables with Chinese characteristics.
Anything is possible, with the right amount of moolah, even overcoming Confucian morals. Joshua Wong comes to mind, who not only does idiotic, but actually looks idiotic.
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Jul 27, 2020 | www.voltairenet.org
USA: The slippery slope of egalitarian racism by Thierry Meyssan
The reactions to the murder of black George Flyod by a white policeman do not refer to the history of slavery in the United States, but - like the systemic opposition to President Trump- to a profound problem in Anglo-Saxon culture: Puritan fanaticism. The domestic violence that rocked this country during the two civil wars of Independence and Secession must be remembered in order to understand current events and prevent their resurgence. Beware: in the United States, the political class now preaches egalitarian racism. All equal, but separate. VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 14 JULY 2020 عربي DEUTSCH ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΆ ESPAÑOL FRANÇAIS ITALIANO PORTUGUÊS TÜRKÇE
The Anglo-Saxon Puritans
- It could be humour, but unfortunately it is a puritanical slogan to be taken at face value: "Black Men are an endangered species".
About four hundred members of the Church of England fled their country where they were considered fanatics. They took refuge in Leiden, Holland, where they were able to live according to the Calvinist tradition, or more precisely the Puritan interpretation of Christianity. Probably at the request of King James I, they sent two groups to the Americas to fight against the Spanish Empire. The first founded what was to become the United States, the second was lost in Central America.
Later, the Puritans took power in England with Lord Cromwell. They beheaded the Papist King Charles I, established an egalitarian Commonwealth and colonized Ireland, massacring Catholics en masse. This bloodthirsty experiment was short-lived and discredited for a long time the idea of a General Interest ( Res Publica ) in the eyes of the English.
The 35 Pilgrim Fathers set out from Leiden, stopped in England, and then crossed the ocean on the Mayflower . They arrived in North America in 1620 to practice their religion freely. During their voyage, they signed a Covenant in which they vowed to establish a model society (strict observance of the Calvinist faith and cult, intense community life, and unfailing social and moral discipline). By creating the Colony of Plymouth, they hoped to build the "New Jerusalem" after fleeing from the "Pharaoh" (James I) and crossing the "Red Sea" (the Atlantic). After a year, they thanked God for their epic, which is commemorated each year as Thanksgiving. [ 1 ] They established their capital city 60 kilometers north, in Boston. Their community veiled its women, practiced public confessions and corporal punishment.
- The logo of the very powerful Pilgrim's Society: the Pilgrim Father is depicted alongside the British lion and the American eagle.
These events are not only myths that every American should know, they shape the political system of the USA. Eight out of 45 presidents (including the Bushes) are direct descendants of the 35 "Pilgrim Fathers". Despite the arrival of tens of millions of immigrants and institutional appearances, their ideology remained in power for four centuries, until the election of Donald Trump. A very closed club, Pilgrim's Sociey, brought together, under the authority of the English monarch, very high British and American personalities. It set up the "Special Relationship" between London and Washington and, among other things, provided many secretaries and advisers to President Obama.
Many ceremonies planned this year for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower have been cancelled due to the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, in particular the conference that the former British National Security Advisor was to give at Pilgrim's Society. Bad tongues assure that the epidemic will end the day after the US presidential election, if Donald Trump loses it, and that the festivities can then take place.
There are two cultures that have always been opposed in the United States among Christians: Calvinists or Puritans on the one hand, and Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans on the other. While some "denominations" among the eight hundred US churches resolutely line up on one side, most are crossed by both because Puritanism has no defined theological corpus. It is rather a way of thinking.
The War of Independence began in 1773 with the Boston Tea Party. Its first actor was John Adams, another direct descendant of one of the 35 "Pilgrim Fathers" and second president of the United States. While the call for independence was made by the political journalist Thomas Paine based on religious arguments although he himself did not believe in anything.
In a way, the War of Independence was a continuation in the Americas of Lord Cromwell's British Civil War (the "Great Rebellion"). This conflict would resurface a third time with the Civil War, which, it should be remembered, had nothing to do with slavery (both sides practised it at the beginning of the war and both sides repealed it during the war to hire former slaves into their armies).
The Puritans lost in England with Cromwell's Republic, but won the next two times in the United States. Historian Kevin Phillips, who was Republican electoral adviser to Republican Richard Nixon (descendant of a brother of one of the 35 "Pilgrim Fathers"), has studied this conflict at length over the centuries. [ 2 ] It is on the basis of this data that he imagined the strategy of "Law and Order" in the face of the segregationist Democrat George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election; a strategy that Donald Trump has taken up again for the 2020 election.
All this to say that appearances are deceiving. The dividing lines are not where the rest of the world thinks they are.
US Evangelism
The Puritans have always supported absolute equality, but only among Christians. They long forbade Jews from entering the civil service and massacred the Indians they claimed to love. During the American Civil War, they extended their egalitarianism to blacks (unlike the Puritans in southern Africa, who defended apartheid to the end), giving rise to the false myth of a war against slavery. Today, they defend the idea that humanity is divided between equal and, if possible, separate races. They are still reluctant to call them interracial marriages.
With time, and particularly in the 19th century, another current of thought arose within American Christianity: evangelism. These are Christians of all denominations who try to get closer to the original Christianity of which they know little. So they rely on the sacred texts. Like the Puritans, the Evangelicals are fundamentalists, i.e. they give the Scriptures the role of a divine word and interpret them while refusing any contextualization of the texts. But they are much more pragmatic. On everything, they have a position of principle, but when faced with a problem, they act in conscience and not according to the rules of their community.
It is very easy to make fun of the grotesque convictions of the Evangelicals against the theory of evolution, but this is of little importance and they abandon it when necessary. It is much more significant, but unfortunately rarer, to denounce the puritanical vision of a humanity divided into distinct, equal, but separate races. Yet this has serious consequences on a daily basis.
The Puritans remained the masters of U.S. politics until 1997, when Libertine President Bill Clinton issued an executive order banning all expressions of religious faith in federal institutions. The result was a shift in religion from the Administration to the private sector. All major corporations accepted prayer groups in their workplaces. This shift favored the public emergence of Evangelicals at the expense of Puritans.
The Return of Puritan Fanaticism
- During the riots outside the White House, President Trump went to St. John's Episcopal Church to present himself, Bible in hand, as the defender of the religious beliefs of all Christians in the face of Puritan fanaticism.
The conflict between the Puritans and the rest of society is today taking a radical and religious turn. It opposes two mentalities, one idealist, egalitarian within their community and fanatical, the other sometimes even more extravagant, agreeing on inequalities, but realistic.
Puritan Hillary Clinton hesitated to become a Methodist pastor after her failure in the presidential election [ 3 ]. She sinned a lot (her affair with Vince Foster), was punished by God (her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky) repented (within the Pentagon Family [ 4 ]) and was saved. She is sure that she was chosen by God and takes pride in her violence against non-Christian peoples. She supports all wars against the "enemies of America" and hopes to see the return of Christ.
On the contrary, Donald Trump shows no interest in theology, has only an approximate knowledge of the Bible and a summary faith. He has sinned as much as anyone else, but boasts of what he has achieved rather than repenting of his sins in public. He doubts himself and compensates for his feeling of inferiority with excessive egotism. He loves to compete with his enemies, but does not want to destroy them. In any case, he embodies the will to restore the greatness of their country ("Make America Great Again!") rather than to pursue wars always and everywhere, which makes him the champion of the Evangelicals against the Puritans. He offers the opportunity for Christians to reform themselves rather than convert the world.
In the 2016 election campaign, I asked the question, "Will the United States reform or tear itself apart? " [ 5 ] In my view, only Donald Trump could allow the USA to continue as a nation, while Hillary Clinton would provoke a civil war and probably the dissolution of the country on the model of the end of the USSR. What has happened since the death of George Flyod shows that I was not mistaken.
- Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election campaign.
Hillary Clinton and Democratic Party supporters are imposing their ideology. They fight against lies and destroy statues like their Puritan ancestors burned the Salem witches. They develop an absurd reading of their own society, denying social conflicts and interpreting inequalities only in terms of so-called distinct human races. They disarm the local police and force "white" personalities to apologize in public for enjoying an invisible privilege.
In the Russian case, the discontinuation of the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the presidential pardon granted to Donald Trump's former advisor, Roger Stone, sparked angry protests from Puritans. Neither man harmed anyone, but they dared to lie to the FBI to keep him out of the White House.
The mayor of Minneapolis (the town of George Flyod) was publicly humiliated for refusing to disband the "racist" city police. While Seattle City Council has just cut its city police budget in half. This does not bother the upper social classes living in private residences, but deprives those who cannot afford private security guards.
The Associated Press , then the New Yok Times , the Los Angeles Times and soon almost all US media, decided to write Black with a capital letter when referring to "race" [ 6 ], but not White in the same way. Indeed, the fact of writing White with a capital letter is a distinctive sign of the white supremacists [ 7 ].
The Pentagon considered renaming its military bases with the names of southern personalities accused of being "racist" and sent an e-mail to all civilian and military personnel of the US Army denouncing as "extreme right" the claim that there is only one human race. Although these initiatives have provoked a strong reaction from the trumped-up GIs and have failed, they mark a very dangerous escalation [ 8 ].
All these decisions demonstrate a loss of collective rationality. Thierry Meyssan Translation
Roger Lagassé
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Jul 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Jul 26 2020 17:41 utc | 17
Recap from today's Global Times where the argument is to continue to stay the course and counterpunch in the typical martial arts fashion, as this op/ed from today's Global Times says :
"Chinese analysts said Sunday the key for China to handle the US offensive is to focus on its own development and insist on continued reform and opening-up to meet the increasing needs of Chinese people for better lives. In the upcoming three months, before the November US presidential election, the China-US relationship is in extreme danger as the Trump administration is likely to launch more aggressions to force China to retaliate, they said."
Stay the course; Trump's shit is just an election ploy. However,
"The US' posturing is serving to distract from domestic pressure over President Trump's failure in handling the pandemic when Trump is seeking reelection this year, Chinese observers said. However, the Trump administration's China stance still reflects bipartisan consensus among US elites, so China should not expect significant change in US policy toward China even if there is a power transition in November, which means China should prepare itself for a long fight."
Don't stray from the Long Game. An international conference was held that I'll try to get a link for. Here's GT's summation:
"According to the Xinhua News Agency on Saturday, international scholars said at a virtual meeting on the international campaign against a new cold war on China on Saturday that 'aggressive statements and actions by the US government toward China poses a threat to world peace and a potential new cold war on China goes against the interests of humanity.'
"The meeting gathered experts from a number of countries including the US, China, Britain, India, Russia and Canada.
"Experts attending the meeting issued a statement calling upon the US to step back from this threat of a cold war and also from other dangerous threats to world peace it is engaged in.
"The reason why international scholars are criticizing the US rather than China is that they can see how restrained China remains and the sincerity of China to settle the tension by dialogue, even though the US is getting unreasonably aggressive, said Chinese experts.
"Washington has made a huge mistake as it has chosen the wrong target - China - to be 'the common enemy or common fear' to reshape its declining leadership among the West. Right now, the common enemy of humanity is COVID-19, and this is why its new cold war declaration received almost no positive responses from other major powers and even raised concern, said Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, on Sunday."
Today's Global Times lead editorial asked most of the questions everyone else's asking:
"People are asking: How far will the current China-US confrontation keep going? Will a new cold war take shape? Will there be military conflicts and will the possible clashes evolve into large-scale military confrontation between the two?
"Perhaps everyone believes that China does not want a new cold war, let alone a hot war. But the above-mentioned questions have become disturbing suspense because no one knows how wild the ambitions the US ruling team has now, and whether American and international societies are capable of restraining their ambitions."
IMO, the editor's conclusions are quite correct:
"The world must start to act and do whatever it can to stop Washington's hysteria in its relations with China.
"Right now, it is no longer a matter of whether China-US ties are in freefall, but whether the line of defense on world peace is being broken through by Washington. The world must not be hijacked by a group of political madmen. The tragedies in 1910s and 1930s must not be repeated again ."
Trump is elevated to the same plane as Hitler and Mussolini, and the Outlaw US Empire is now the equivalent of Nazi Germany and the Fascist drive to rule the world--a well illustrated trend that's been ongoing since 1991 that only those blinded by propaganda aren't capable of seeing. I think it absolutely correct for China to focus its rhetoric on the Outlaw US Empire's utter failure to control COVID, which prompts some probing questions made from the first article:
"Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told the Global Times on Sunday that there is wide consensus among the international community that the COVID-19 pandemic is the most urgent challenge that the world should deal with. Whether on domestic epidemic control or international cooperation, the US has done almost nothing right compared to China's efforts to assist others and its successful control measures for domestic outbreaks .
"In response to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 'new Iron Curtain speech' at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on Thursday declaring a new cold war against China, Shen said, ' We can also ask 'is Pompeo an ally of coronavirus?' Because he wants to confuse the world to target the wrong enemy amid the tough fight against the pandemic, so that the virus can kill more people, especially US people, since his country is in the worst situation .'
Shen said, 'In 2018, US Vice President Mike Pence already made a speech which the media saw as a new 'Iron Curtain speech,' and in 2020, Pompeo made a similar speech again, which means their cold war idea is not popular and brings no positive responses from its allies, so they need to try time and again. Of course, they will fail again.'" [My Emphasis]
Wow! The suggestion that Trump, Pompeo, Pence, and company want to "kill more people, especially US people" seems to be proven via their behavior which some of us barflies recognize and have discussed. Now that notion is out in the public, internationally. You don't need Concentration Camps and ovens when the work can be done via the dysfunctional structure of your economy and doing nothing about the situation.
Shen provides the clincher, what Gruff, myself, and others have said here:
"'So if we want to win this competition that was forced by the US, we must focus on our own development and not get distracted. The US is not afraid of a cold war with us, it is afraid of our development .'" [My Emphasis]
My synopsis of both articles omitted some additional info, so do please click the links to read them fully.
karlof1 , Jul 26 2020 18:02 utc | 19
Sputnik offers this analysis of the China/Outlaw US Empire issue , where I found this bit quite apt from "Alexey Biryukov, senior adviser at the Centre for International Information Security, Science and Technology Policy (CIIS) MGIMO-University":
"'The US is fighting with a country that is developing very rapidly, gaining power, increasing its competitiveness in areas where previously there was undeniably US leadership. Attempting to neutralise a global competitor is the main goal of Americans. Neutralising China's rapid, dynamic development is the essence of the American strategy . Meanwhile, China is interested in developing friendly relations with all countries. Recently, it presented the idea of building a community of common destiny for humanity. That's what Sino-American relations should be built around . It would seem that the pandemic should have brought people together around the idea of building a prosperous world for all, not just someone. But the Americans didn't understand that: they started looking for the guilty ones. This is the favourite strategy of Anglo-Saxons, Americans including, to look for the guilty . As a result, they found their main competitor – China'". [My Emphasis]
That is the "guilty ones" that aren't within the Outlaw US Empire. Many more opinions are provided in the article, but they all revolve around the one theme of Trump's actions being motivated by the election and his morbidly poor attempts to corral COVID.
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Jul 26, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
ET AL July 23, 2020 at 4:41 am
MARK CHAPMAN July 23, 2020 at 7:44 amEuractiv+Neuters: French limits on Huawei 5G equipment amount to de facto ban by 2028
https://www.euractiv.com/section/5g/news/french-limits-on-huawei-5g-equipment-amount-to-de-facto-ban-by-2028/French authorities have told telecoms operators planning to buy Huawei 5G equipment that they won't be able to renew licences for the gear once they expire, effectively phasing the Chinese firm out of mobile networks, three sources close to the matter said.
####Quelle surprise that they fall in to line too. No doubt €µ will say something different to Beijing that France values 'friendly ties' with China, but the die is cast. It must be tempting for Beijing to kill two birds with one stone by pulling the plug on UK NPPs as France's EDF is also the project lead. The anti-China crowd want it out of any European NPPs likewise. We'll see
What a triumph for the global bully. Well, as I have said before – marry in haste, repent at leisure. European countries which commit to an inferior network just for the privilege of having Uncle Sam spy on their every move instead of the Chinese will have many years to ponder their gutlessness. The USA knows now that is in a fight to the finish, and will want to consolidate as much of the globe as possible under its solid control. But those who are in thrall will regularly be reminded who is the boss, with forced concessions to American objectives, so let's have no more of this 'sovereignty' pap. If you're in, you're ALL in.
It will mess up Huawei's plans and give the iPhone a new lease on life, but it will also sharpen the division between East and West in terms of networks and smartphones. iPhones will be bigger in the west as Huawei fades from competition, but iPhones should all but vanish from the shelves in Asia, which was the growth market, especially China. Loyal American ally Japan might become a bit of an outlier in its own region. Washington will have a much harder time spying on China as the demand for American electronics dries up. What goes around comes around, and the search will be on for neutral companies from whom you can buy a cheap smartphone to use while you're going from one side to the other, which can draw on the networks of both. America has been successful to a significant degree in excluding a competitor who makes a superior product – which, by the bye, goes completely against the blabber America spouts about a level playing field and trade based on merit – but I am confident it will not go unanswered by China and American products in China will suffer as a consequence.
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Jul 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Musum , 8 hours ago
QABubba , 8 hours agoOne good turn deserves another.
Maybe fat Pompeo knows he's on his way out and desperate to make a lasting mark on the geopolitical stage on behalf of the West Point mafia and his brothers-in-arm at the Jweish mafia.
Haboob , 7 hours agoQuit stealing Russian consulates, Chinese consulates, etc.
It serves no purpose.
Salisarsims , 7 hours agoClosing diplomacy with nations as USA shrinks on the world stage shows America's juvenile behavior.
Haboob , 7 hours agoWe are a young twenty something nation what do you expect but drama.
me or you , 9 hours agoIt is funny how the young and arrogant always think they are right and have manifest destiny over the old and wise. The young never listen to the old and as the story goes they are defeated everytime. China is older than America, older than the west, they understand this world we are living in far more than we do.
To Hell In A Handbasket , 9 hours agoHe is right!
The world has witnessed the US is not more than a banana Republic with a banana healthcare system
To Hell In A Handbasket , 8 hours agoI love seeing how gullible the USSA dunces are susceptible to hating an imaginary enemy. Go on dunces wave the star spangled banner, and place the hand over the heart, you non-critical thinking imbeciles. I told you fools years ago we are going to invoke the Yellow Peril 2.0, and now we are living it. China bad, is just as stupid as Russia bad, while the state stenographers at the MSM netowrks do all in their power to hide our rotten behaviour.
Who falls for this ****? The poorly educated, and the inherently stupid.
No, it's called nationalism or self preservation.
What are the citizens of the US suppose to do,
You are wrong on so many levels, but ultimately the Chinese have beaten us at our own rigged game. When I was riling against unfettered free-markets, and the movement of capital, that allowed the west for centuries to move into undeveloped foreign markets and gain a stranglehold, I was called a communist, and a protectionist.
While the USSA money printing b@stards was roaming around the planet like imperialists, and their companies was not only raping the planet, but gouging foreign markets, the average USSA dunce was brainwashed into believing USSA companies were the best.
Now these same market and economic rules we the west have set for the last several hundred years no longer work for us, we want to change the rules. Again, my point is "where was you on this position 5-10-20-30 years ago?" I've always seen this outcome, because logic said so. To reject our own status quo, and return to mercantilism, makes us look like the biggest hypocrites ever.
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Jul 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Jul 24 2020 21:09 utc | 46
The American Revolution was a catastrophe for its economy, which had to endure decades of reconstruction. In order to neutralize the threat of the British Empire, it stroke multiple trade deals with it.
The USA is home to the father of protectionism: Alexander Hamilton. He stated that a national industry in its infancy should be protected from its more mature competition. The USA followed his advice and protected its nascent industry from the British threat.
When the British Empire begun to degenerate, the Americans used the cheap British capital in excess in the financial markets to build up their infrastructure, specially their railways. Australia did the same.
The Founding Fathers did what they had to do in order to protect their country and make it flourish. When the ideology of the time stated they shouldn't, they invented a new ideology that stated they should. And the could: when the British and French tried to destroy the USA through a sea embargo, they responded in kind (Embargo Act of 1807) and prevailed; they did not cave in to the then imperial powers.
So, I don't understand why so many Americans are offended with China. The capitalist world tried to keep China poor and as a raw material exporter, sweatshop conglomeration. China didn't accept this, and decided to fight back. The result is here for all of us to see.
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Jul 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
O , Jul 24 2020 19:30 utc | 17
The Issue:
"Much of the focus of the Trump administration's trade dispute with China has centered on the size of the U.S. bilateral trade deficit. Most economists agree that this focus is misdirected, and that the existence or size of bilateral trade deficits should not generally be a matter of concern or a target of public policy. Instead, there is bipartisan agreement regarding a different problem at the core of trade issues with China: China's persistent misappropriation of foreign technology. Forced technology transfer occurs when foreign multinational companies have to provide strategically significant technology to an indigenous entity they do not control in order to gain access to the massive Chinese market."
https://econofact.org/what-is-the-problem-of-forced-technology-transfer-in-china
The western oligarchs want the Chinese oligarchs to be more fair, in particular Huawei to transfer their tech the other way in order to play in western markets.
"The global business community would generally prefer that business with Huawei could just go on as usual. Huawei and its affiliates are the acclaimed leaders in 5G technology, and the rest of the commercial world wants to have access to that technology, and also to be able to interoperate with it. In other words, to the extent that western companies agree with the US administration the risks, they have decided that the rewards outweigh those risks and are willing to accept them -- as most recently evidenced by the news yesterday relating to how many US components are finding their way into Chinese handsets."
https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-changes-its-patent-story/
Furthermore, Houston is one the main cities where total 5g tech is being implemented first along with L.A and Chicago.
Houston's a player in the race for 5G dominance
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/techburger/article/Houston-s-a-player-in-the-race-for-5G-dominance-14484221.php
O , Jul 24 2020 19:38 utc | 18
Forced Tech Transfers Are on the Rise in China, European Firms Say
The practice has become more widespread despite official assurances from Beijing it would be stoppedIs the US right to cry foul about forced technology transfer to do business in China – and what is Beijing's position?
Foreign companies' concerns about having to share their tech secrets are among the matters being discussed in ongoing US-China trade talks
Beijing's draft foreign investment law could legislate against the practice, but businesses are sceptical about enforcementThis is about trade and tech not lame inconsequential quarantine rules.
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Jul 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
How NATO-Member Turkey Reverted Back To Being An Islamic Dictatorship by Tyler Durden Mon, 07/20/2020 - 02:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The gradual process of Turkey's becoming an Islamic sharia-law country , again, is no longer so gradual . It has taken a sudden and sharp rightward turn, into Islamic-nationhood. Turkey's Hagia Sophia, which had been "the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520," has now been officially declared by the Turkish Government to be, instead, a mosque.
On July 10th, the BBC bannered "Hagia Sophia: Turkey turns iconic Istanbul museum into mosque" and reported that the biggest , oldest, and the most important, cathedral in all of Orthodox Christendom -- and the world's most important Byzantine building, which was constructed as the Saint Sophia Cathedral by the Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian I in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the year 537, and which stands on the site that had been consecrated in the year 325 by the Roman Emperor Constantine (and which cathedral was relabelled the Hagia Sophia "museum" in 1935 by Turkey's Constitutionally secularist Government) -- has now become, officially, at last, designated, by the restored Islamic Government of Turkey, a Muslim house of worship, a mosque, a Muslim house of worship.
This signals the end of Turkey's being ruled by a secular Government, which it had been, ever since 1923. It is the end of Turkey's secular Government and the restoration of the Islamic Mehmed the Conqueror's 1453 order that it be a mosque . That ended the Byzantine Roman Catholic Empire, and started Islamic-ruled Turkey. It ended Constantinople and started Istanbul . Mehmet, however, allowed Christianity to continue, in the Islamic Ottoman Empire, but only as an accepted part of the Greek East ("Orthodox"), not as part of the Roman West (imperialistic) , Christianity (which he had just then conquered with the fall of Constantinople on that same date, 29 May 1453). And now, even the Orthodox Christians are being marginalized in Turkey, because the Hagia Sophia had been "for almost 1,000 years the most important Orthodox cathedral."
This is an act with huge international implications. It is an important event in human history.
Turkey's strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose entire actual education was only in Islamic schools though he lies about it and claims to have received a degree from a non-Islamic university , is in the process of transforming Turkey back again into a specifically Islamic type of dictatorship, a Sharia-law-ruled state. The secularist Turkish Republic that was instituted in 1923 by the Enlightenment-inspired Kemal Attaturk has now decisively ended. The widespread speculations that Erdogan has been aiming to restore Turkey to being the imperial nation and ruler of a restored Islamic Ottoman Empire are now decisively confirmed by this brazen act of insult to Orthodox Christians, and even to Roman Christians, because -- as Wikipedia notes -- "Justinian has sometimes been known as the 'Last Roman' in mid-20th century historiography." The Orthodox Church in America titles him as "Saint Justinian The Emperor" . However, Wikipedia also notes that Constantine XI Palaiologos, who was killed by Mehmet's forces on that date, 29 May 1453, was actually the last Roman Emperor. That ended the Roman Empire.
In other words: the Turkish Government's official change of Saint Sophia Cathedral, which Justinian had created in 537, into now and henceforth a mosque, is a taking ownership of, and a Turkish-Muslim declaration of supremacy over, a different religion's main house of worship. It's a historical dagger into the heart of Orthodox Christianity, as well as being an insult to Roman Christianity.
This is not merely an isolated act, either; it is, instead, something to which Erdogan has long been building. Erdogan's grab of land from secularist-ruled (committedly anti-sectarian) Syria , and his recent sending of troops to help conquer the formerly secularist Libya, which land had been turned into a hellish civil war by a U.S.-and-allied invasion in 2011 and which chaos there continues to this day, all are consistent with an understanding of Erdogan in which his foremost objective is a restoration of the Ottoman Empire. And the U.S. Government has supported this objective of his (but only as Turkey being a branch of the U.S. empire), and tried to get the EU to accept it.
The question now -- since the United States Government has been pushing against European resistance to accepting a military alliance with an Islamic dictatorship -- is whether continuation of the NATO alliance will be ended because of the path that Erdogan and the United States Government have jointly been taking to re-impose a decidedly Sunni Islamic dictatorship upon Turkey (by means of which, Turkey will serve as a wedge against both Shiite controlled Iran, and an increasingly Orthodox-dominated Russia). However, there has been a split between Erdogan and the U.S. regime, because he does not intend his restored Ottoman empire to be a part of the U.S. or any other empire. Erdogan's independent streak is what now threatens to break-up the Western Alliance -- the U.S. empire (which is actually the Rhodesist UK-U.S. empire ).
The United States Government has been preferring Erdogan's former political partner but now enemy, Erdogan's fellow Sunni Islamist Fethullah Gulen, who cooperates with the U.S. and is a CIA protégé (including rabidly against Shiite Iran and against Iran's main ally Russia). Gulen is passionately endorsed by America's aristocracy . The U.S. regime has been preferring Gulen to impose this transformation of Turkey into an Islamic U.S. satellite , because Gulen models his operation (and he has even described it in remarkable detail ) upon U.S. and UK 'intelligence' practices (CIA & MI6), whereas Erdogan has insisted upon an independent Turkey with its own nationalistic 'intelligence' organization -- a nationalistically transformed version of Turkey's existing MIT or National Intelligence Organization -- an 'intelligence' organization that's cleansed of what the CIA praises as "Gulen is interested in slow and deep social change, including secular higher education; Erdogan as a party leader is first and foremost interested in preserving his party's power, operating in a populist manner, trying to raise the general welfare ." (The CIA actually knows that this has nothing whatsoever to do with "trying to raise the general welfare" -- the U.S. regime's goal is to extend everywhere the U.S. empire, and Erdogan's Turkish regime has that same goal for the Turkish empire, which doesn't yet even exist, though it once did as the Ottoman Empire, and he wants to restore it.) Erdogan insists upon Turkey's not being merely a vassal-state or colony within a foreign-led empire, but instead the leading nation of its own empire, starting perhaps with gobbling up Syria and Libya , but extending ultimately more globally. There is a soundly documented article titled "Why Are Gulenists Hostile Toward Iran?" and it provides much of the reason why the CIA supports Gulen (they do largely because Erdogan isn't so obsessive against Iran -- which country America's aristocracy crave to conquer again, as they had done in 1953, and Erdogan doesn't support that as passionately as they require).
The question now for Europe is whether it wants to be again a participant in various aristocracies', and clergies', imperialistic designs, or instead to declare itself finally non-aligned and to lead thereby a new global non-aligned movement, not militaristically, but instead by providing, to the entire world, an anti -imperialistic and truly democratic model, a re-start and replacement of today's United Nations, and one that will reflect what had been Franklin Delano Roosevelt's anti -imperialist intention , and not Harry S. Truman's American-imperialist intention -- a start from scratch that has FDR's statements to guide it, and not Truman's actions to guide it (such as has been the case). Perhaps even the U.S., NYC-based, U.N. would ultimately sign onto that new international global federation; but the only basis upon which nations in the old U.N. should be accepted into its successor would be if the old U.N. were gradually to dissolve itself as its individual nations would, each on its own, sign onto the new one. Ultimately, this option must be made available to all Governments, to choose to either continue in Truman's U.N., or else join instead a new, and authentically FDR-based, authentically anti -imperialistic, replacement of it.
That is what this dictatorial Islamization of Turkey is really all about, and only Europe can make the decision -- no other land can. However, such a decision will only fail if any such organization as a new U.N. is to be at all involved in the particular national issues that now are so clearly coming to the fore in the transformation of Turkey into a Sunni Islamist dictatorship.
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The "international community" should have no say in Turkey's intranational (or "domestic") affairs -- regardless of whether Turkey is in or out of Europe. Sectarian and nationalistic concerns cannot rule in the formation of any authentically democratic new international order -- an authentically non -imperialistic international order. All such concerns, domestic concerns, must be strictly the domain of the authority and power of each one of the individual constituent units, each individual national Government itself controlling its own internal affairs. FDR was adamant about that. He was insistent that the U.N. not get involved in individual nations' internal affairs. The profoundly anti-FDR, "Responsibility to Protect" idea (which now has even acquired the status of being represented by an acronym "R2P" catch-phrase), has increasingly arisen recently to become a guiding principle of international relations, and must be soundly and uncompromisingly rejected in the formulation and formation of any replacement-organization -- any authentically democratic international federation of nations. Otherwise, everything would be futile, and there will be a WWIII. We are heading in exactly the opposite direction from that which FDR had intended -- which was to prevent any Third World War.
This decision will be made by the individual nations of Europe. Only they collectively hold this power. They will be able to exercise it only if they will terminate their alliances outside of Europe, and proceed forward no longer bound by external alliances, but instead become a free and independent European federation of European states. Only they, collectively , will be able to make this decision, as Europeans, for the entire world, regarding what the world's future will be. And only they will hold the ultimate responsibility -- and it's NOT the "responsibility to protect" . It is instead the responsibility to protect the future of the entire world . It's the responsibility to protect a future for the world. And if Europe fails it, then the world will inevitably move forward to WWIII, as it is doing. A new international order is needed, and only Europe can lead it, if Europe will.
In order for Europe to do that, Europe must first define itself. Is Turkey part of Europe? Is Russia? What is Europe? If Europeans won't be able to agree on that, then the world will continue to move forward towards WWIII, because the world will then have no center, it will continue to have only contending empires -- exactly what FDR had aimed to prevent .
Europe is the key. But will Europe's leaders place the key in the lock, and open, finally, the door to a non -imperialistic world? The present, U.S.-empire-aligned, Europe, won't do that. Turkey's action on the Hagia Sophia, which is an insult to all Christians, and especially to Orthodox ones, might finally force the issue -- and its solution.
Other than that, however, the official designation of the Hagia Sophia as being a mosque is entirely a domestic, Turkish, matter.
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Jul 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
How much would a Tech Cold War Cost?
That's the question DB's new tech strategist Apjit Walia asks in a new research report, in which he looks at the interplay between the Post Covid Tech Rally and the Tech Cold War, which have emerged as two of the most salient aspects of the current market dynamic. And with tensions between US and China continuing to rise and spread to other parts of the world, the strategist conducts a top-down analysis of the impact on the Global Information & Communications Technology sector from a full-blown cold war.
The report finds that the ensuing demand disruption, supply chain upheaval and resultant "Tech Wall" that would delineate the world into rivaling tech standards could cost the sector more than $3.5 Trillion over the next five years .
But before getting into the details, we update on the current state of the DB Tech Cold War Index. As Walia writes, a nuanced observation of the tariff and geopolitical issues between the US and China over the past few year suggest they are primarily a smaller strategy that is part of a larger Global Tech Cold War. To reduce the noise from the subjective geopolitical commentaries, DB created a systematic measure using machine learning to quantify the intensity of the cold war at any given point of time. It quantitatively analyzes and tracks the sentiment of the Tech Cold War globally. Not surprisingly, the DB Tech Cold War Index has been trending higher since 2016 with peaks coinciding with tit-for-tat measures by US and China on technology IP protection and counter measures. It made an all-time high in April 2020 with the Covid crisis fueling tensions and has spiraled higher since then. The political headlines are matching the sentiment among the populace. Recurrent surveys from April to June show that post Covid tempers remain at elevated levels with 41%+ of Americans and 35%+ of Chinese stating they will not buy each other's products. An election year in the US further complicates this geopolitical dynamic.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.396.0_en.html#goog_733289027
Cold War Impact on Global ICT Sector
US and China have been engaging in an increasing capacity since the 1970s and the level of integration between the two global tech regimes is unprecedented. The integration is a complex demand and labyrinthine supply chain network that has taken 40 years to develop. DB uses a top down approach to ascertain the level of revenues and supply chain links across the global ICT industries to China. To analyze and quantify this complex co-dependent Tech relationship between the two countries is a challenging task, the bank surveyed Tech managements, CTOs, Industry associations and supply chain experts globally. The estimate on the total impact is by no means a solid target but a reference point that should provide context if the cold war escalates significantly and decoupling picks up momentum. The bank's strategist quantifies the downside impact on the sector from a material escalation of the tech cold war, categorized under the following three broad categories:
- Loss of domestic Chinese demand
- Costs of shifting global supply chain currently located in China
- Higher operating costs due to emergence of two divergent tech standards (the "Tech Wall")
DB looks at a range of downside scenarios including one of a full-fledged tech cold war and estimate the total impact on the ICT sector from the three factors over a 5-year period to be around $3.5 trillion. And while the bank thinks that 5-8 years is an appropriate time period some supply chain experts believe the time to relocate the cluster of supply chain networks could take as long as 10 years.
Domestic Chinese demand
Globally, China has about 13% of revenues of the ICT sector amounting to around $730 Billion per annum. However, a significant part of this is demand from the Chinese tech sector that is re-exported after some value-add, assembly and packaging ("re-export demand") - this constitutes supply chain risk . To analyze domestic end demand from China that could be at risk if tensions escalate leading to IP restrictions, product bans and export-restrictions, DB looks at the underlying ICT industry groups and their varied re-export mixes from China. The range varies widely with Telecom services sectors that have minimal revenue exposure all the way to software services that have pure domestic Chinese consumption (low or no re-export). For majority of the ICT sector, the range falls between 25%-75% in re-export mix (semiconductors, electronic components, computer hardware, computer peripherals, electronic equipment sectors). The weighted average of the re-export demand mix for the whole ICT sector comes to 45%. Stripping that out of the total ICT revenues, one gets 55% in current organic Chinese end-demand or $400 Billion in revenues. In the worst case scenario of a full-fledged tech cold war, the ICT sector would stand to lose these revenues.
Supply Chain Risk
A transition out of Mainland China could take 5-8 years to achieve successfully. Lack of infrastructure, clustered networks and skilled labor in other countries versus China are major obstacles. Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines are the primary targets for this transition but most of them would need significant infrastructure upgrades to catch up with the Chinese supply chain cluster strength.
In most categories, exports outstrip imports, except for electronic components, where imports are 3x of exports. Electronic components, such as semiconductors are imported and used as inputs in consumer goods and communication equipment and exported out of China. While Electronic component manufacturers have the risk of end demand from China declining – e.g. semis used in communication equipment, majority of the supply chain costs would fall on the final goods manufacturers who use China as a manufacturing base. When they shift the supply chain outside, component manufacturers would simply shift the destination of where they ship components.
The supply chain risk of the ICT sector is estimated to be the built-up book value that is exposed to China that would require relocation in the event of disengagement. Although book value provides a decent lower bound measure for the capital
deployed in hard assets, it does not fully account for the economic value of the supply chain network, which may be quite costly to rebuild. To arrive at an estimate of the book value that is exposed to supply chain facilities in China, DB analyzed the revenues and Export/Import ratio of various categories of Tech goods. The book value of the ICT sector tied to China comes to approximately $500 billion.The average cost of rebuilding the supply chain will be approximately 1.5 to 2x of the book value based on feedback from Tech managements and supply chain experts. Using a sustainable capex rate, it would take 5-8 years to relocate the supply chains. The cost of a transition over a five year period would come to around $1 Trillion.
Tech Wall Risk
On top of the demand disruption and supply chain upheaval, it would be unavoidable for Tech companies to operate efficiently in a large part of the "Non Aligned" world without complying with the two rivaling global standards that would come up as the cold war heats up. The Tech Wall would entail rival internet platforms, satellite communication networks, telecom infrastructure regimes, CPU architectures, operating systems, IOT networks and payment systems with very little inter-operability or interaction. It would mean having to deploy two different communication and networking standards across several geographies to ensure inter-operability. In this new world order, these non-aligned countries would require companies to have dual standard compliance to operate there.
A divergence in standards could increase costs in multiple ways. Increased R&D, design, product development and related costs for manufacturers. Increased costs of compliance to different IP, networking, data privacy/localization regimes for corporates. Loss of interoperability of devices across geographies for consumer. For example, a high-end smartphone networking gear makes up ~10%-15% of the bill of materials. If phones had to support dual standards that cost could increase by ~30-70% and can add close to $100 for the end consumer. For lower end handsets costs would be high enough that manufacturers would probably choose to cater to a single standard based on geography. Corporations' compliance to different data localization, privacy rules as well as supporting multiple networking standards would increase costs by 2-3%.
The Tech Wall's impact on ICT sector could range between 2-3% in incremental costs (capex, labor) or $100-$150 Billion per year. After some time, these costs would get absorbed as economies of scale kick in, but that would take about 5 years to average out.
Second and third order effects:
There are also going to be cross effects and second order effects.
- One Belt One Road - Loss of market share for ICT would not only be limited to China but can extend to China allied OBOR markets. However there is a cross effect here - in markets adopting US standards, western ICT firms would gain share lost by Chinese firms. The net effect may be relatively small but would be marginally incremental.
- Economic downturn - These potential second order effects with substantial uncertainty and the actual impact would depend to a large extent on policy response - direct government spending, sector specific policy incentives and tax policy. While we estimate the potential impact of a full blown tech cold war at $3.5 Trillion over a five year period, the actual outcome will obviously be path dependent on how both countries approach the economic and geopolitical trade-offs.
- Second and third order effects : There are also going to be cross effects and second order effects. One Belt One Road - Loss of market share for ICT would not only be limited to China but can extend to China allied OBOR markets. However there is a cross effect here - in markets adopting US standards, western ICT firms would gain share lost by Chinese firms. The net effect may be relatively small but would be marginally incremental. Economic downturn - These potential second order effects with substantial uncertainty and the actual impact would depend to a large extent on policy response - direct government spending, sector specific policy incentives and tax policy.
In summary, while DB estimates the potential impact of a full blown tech cold war at $3.5 Trillion over a five year period, the actual outcome will obviously be path dependent on how both countries approach the economic and geopolitical trade-offs.
ICT Sector Correlations to Tech Cold War
The following chart shows ICT industry group's revenues to China, this includes sales of goods that are re-exported out of China after assembly for end consumption elsewhere.
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DB measured sensitivities of these industry groups to escalations between US and China. Using the DB Tech Cold War Index, the bank identified 15 major periods of sustained escalation in news intensity. These are periods where the geopolitical tech dispute news flow picks up from low initial levels and continues to grow in intensity until it reaches a peak, often coinciding with major news events or steps on either side. DB then computed the correlations of these global ICT industry stock returns with the DB Tech Cold War index over these episodes.
As the chart shows, the market is quite efficient. Industries in the right bottom quadrant are the ones with the higher revenue exposure to China and have the most sensitivity or negative stock price correlation to rising tensions. The hardware industries which predominantly have both revenue and supply chain dependence on China respond sharply to escalations. Industries with lower revenue exposure to China display defensive characteristics during rising tensions, and fall in the top left quadrant. Software and service display defensive characteristics as they have very limited revenue exposure to China. Telecom service providers have limited revenue exposure and their returns appear to be uncorrelated to escalation events.
The one surprising exception to this trend is the Semiconductor sector, standing out in the top right hand quadrant. Contrary to consensus opinion, the analysis shows that semiconductor stocks are reacting positively to rising cold war tensions despite the sector being the biggest point of contention in the conflict and high sales exposure to the Chinese market.
This could be driven by several factors. One of the explanations is inventory build that occurs when tensions rise and companies over order as they are concerned about supply chains clogging up . These orders could be viewed by the market as incremental demand.
Another factor could be the market considering the sector as defensive given its long term secular potential and the structural growth becoming less sensitive to business cycles. With digitization ramping up globally in the post Covid tech ramp, this structural dynamic of the sector starts to become self-reinforcing.
Anticipated policy support from governments given the centrality of the sector to nation states in geopolitical tech relevance is also touted as a driving factor in multiples. Clearly, Semis are key to retaining tech supremacy and form the backbone of any AI or Software enhancements to institutions and countries.
However, there remains one tail case scenario and that is in the event of disengagement and escalation of the cold war, Semiconductors will see significant market share and supply chain disruption that will be too big to be offset by government policy support and central bank liquidity. This scenario does not seem to have been factored in the current market.
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Jul 17, 2020 | news.yahoo.com
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday the United States was "deeply disappointed" in a ruling on Thursday by Europe's highest court that a trans-Atlantic data transfer deal is invalid because of concerns about U.S. surveillance.
Pompeo said in a statement that the United States would review the consequences and implications of the decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union that could disrupt thousands of companies that rely on the agreement.
"We are deeply disappointed that the Court of Justice of the European Union ... has invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework," Pompeo said.
"The United States will continue to work closely with the EU to find a mechanism to enable the essential unimpeded commercial transfer of data from the EU to the United States," he added.
The ruling effectively ends the privileged access companies in the United States had to personal data from Europe and puts the country on a similar footing to other nations outside the bloc, meaning data transfers are likely to face closer scrutiny.
The so-called Privacy Shield was set up in 2016 by Washington and Brussels to protect personal data when it is sent to the United States for commercial use after a previous agreement known as Safe Harbour was ruled invalid in 2015.
More than 5,000 companies have signed up to it but the Privacy Shield was challenged in a long-running dispute between Facebook and Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who has campaigned about the risk of U.S. intelligence agencies accessing data on Europeans.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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Jul 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
A. L. , Jul 15 2020 20:23 utc | 26
@19
That is correct. Backdoors were baked into every piece of equipment and random number generator the US and friends are able to influence. Hardware and software.
Read up on how cisco networking equipments were/are intercepted enroute for 'extra' attention by US Intel depending on where they're going to. With full assistance from cisco. Other manufacturer also play the same game.
This was the genesis of Huawei, to cut reliance on US network gear and it is also why China is doing its own silicon. Huawei with the Kirin which is an ARM based processor and also x86 via the AMD JV and VIA/Cyrix.
Fabs aside the Kirin can cut it with the best and the x86 are about 2-6 years behind but rapidly improving depending on who you ask.
Their achilles heel is the Fabs where China is about 2-3 generations behind. Today Huawei is relying on Taiwanese Fabs to produce its cutting edge chips to Huawei's design.
However, these are just a function of investment in research and time, China is well past the tipping point for self reliance and they'll get to parity and beyond soon enough. So the west's game is already lost.
Reading between the lines, when China is cut out of the west's networks who then could the 5 peeping Tom's look at? Yup, the serfs, and that's the game plan all along.
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Jul 16, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
MOSCOWEXILE July 15, 2020 at 7:58 am
MOSCOWEXILE July 15, 2020 at 7:59 amFat bully boy speaks for Bully Boy state:
"Today the Department of State is updating the public guidance for CAATSA authorities to include Nord Stream 2 and the second line of TurkStream 2. This action puts investments or other activities that are related to these Russian energy export pipelines at risk of US sanctions. It's a clear warning to companies aiding and abetting Russia's malign influence projects and will not be tolerated. Get out now or risk the consequences".
Pompeo speaking at a press conference today.
CAATSA -- Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act
So Russia and Turkey are "adversaries" of the USA?
In what way?
Do these states wish to wage war against the USA?
Is it adversarial to United States interest to compete economically with the hegemon?
MARK CHAPMAN July 15, 2020 at 3:51 pmLink to above:
Who cares? Really, is Pompeo still scary? If he has a functioning brain, he should realize that all these blatant efforts to reserve markets for America by sanctioning all its competitors out of the picture is having the opposite effect, and frightening customers away from becoming dependent on American products which might be withheld on a whim when America wants political concessions. 'Will not be tolerated' – what a pompous ass. Sanction away. The consequence is well-known to be seizure of assets held in the United States or an inability to do business in the United States. That will frighten some into submission – like the UK, which was threatened with the cessation of intelligence-sharing with the USA (sure you can spare it?) if it did not drop Huawei from its 5G networks. But others will take prudent steps to limit their exposure to such threats, in the certain knowledge that if they work, they will encourage the USA to use the technique again.
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Jul 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Tod , Jul 13 2020 20:05 utc | 18
The good news is that the unstoppable juggernaut of globalization has fallen to it's knees. Countries and societies around the world will have to look at ways they came become independent and self sufficient,at least to some degree. It's like "War of the Worlds" really, the best effort of humanity to contain the plague fails, but a random natural occurrence saves humanity from the brink of destruction. Hopefully some real scientists will be allowed to mitigate the medical disaster, but one thing is for sure, the grand plan of turning everyone into a nomad competing for pennies on the international market, for the sole benefit of the richest among the rich, is dead. Some really hard times are coming for the international nomads/ parasites, and hopefully humanity will move to some more beneficial culture, and have a real chance to survive as a species, in the long term.
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Jul 13, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
MARK CHAPMAN July 7, 2020 at 8:12 am
Again, probably not an urgent problem unless some existing Chinese aircraft in service are on their last legs and urgently must be replaced. In which case they could go with Airbus if the situation could not wait. China has options. Boeing does not.
The west loves to portray the Chinese as totally without ethics, and if you have a product they can't make for themselves, they will buy it from you only until they have figured out how to make it themselves, and then fuck you, Jack. I don't see any reason to believe the Chinese value alliances less than the west does, or are any more incapable of grasping the value of a give-and-take trade policy. The west – especially the United States – favours establishing a monopoly on markets and then using your inability to get the product anywhere else as leverage to force concessions you don't want to make; is that ethical? China must surely see the advantages of a mutually-respectful relationship with Russia, considering that country not only safeguards a significant length of its border from western probing, but supplies most of its energy. There remain many unexplored avenues for technical, engineering and technological cooperation. At the same time, Russia is not in a subordinate position where it has to endure being taken advantage of.
Trade is hard work, and any partner will maneuver for advantage, because everyone in commerce likes market share and money. But Washington has essentially forgotten how to negotiate on mutually-respectful terms, and favours maneuvering its 'partners' into relationships in which the USA has an overwhelmingly dominant position, and then announcing it is 'leveling the playing field'. Which means putting its thumb on the scale.
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Jul 13, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
ET AL July 13, 2020 at 8:45 am
MARK CHAPMAN July 13, 2020 at 10:49 amAntiwar.com : US Warns Iran and China Against Major Investment and Security Deal
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/07/12/us-warns-iran-and-china-against-major-investment-and-security-deal/State Dept vows to impose costs on both nations
####
Must. Pass. Foreign. Relations. Policy. Past. USDoS. First.Well that is unforgiveable for the Masters of the Universe(TM). No-one knows exactly what's in it except that it is substantial. Still, the USDoS is having a public aneurism tells us that they care a lot.Every time you "impose costs" on another country, you make more enemies and inspire more end-around plays which take you as an economic player out of that loop. And by and by what you do is of no great consequence, and your ability – your LEGAL ability, I should interject – to 'impose costs' is gone.
Sooner or later America's allies are going to refuse to recognize its extraterritorial sanctions, which it has no legal right to impose; it gets away with it by threatening costs in trade with the USA, which is a huge economy and is something under its control.
But that practice causes other countries to gradually insulate themselves against exposure, and one day the cost of obeying will be greater than the cost of saying "Go fuck yourself".
... ... ...
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Jul 08, 2020 | www.globaltimes.cn
Washington has almost destroyed the cooperation-centered major-power relations and is pushing the world back to confrontation between major powers.
The global geopolitical struggle has apparently become an irreversible trend. This will have a profound influence on the nature of international relations, fundamentally disturb globalization, and lead to undesirable consequences.
The US is too indulged in using geopolitical means to cope with challenges and pursuing its own interests. Following the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, Russia hoped to integrate into the Western world, but the US pulled geopolitical levers and imposed the most intense strategic pressure on Russia. As NATO expanded eastward, it not only incorporated all countries of the Warsaw Pact and the Baltic states, but also extended its hand to the Commonwealth of Independent States, such as Georgia and Ukraine, eventually prompting Russia to have no other options but to take countermeasures.
Now, the US is using its extreme geopolitical tools on China. It is making the ideological conflict with China more extreme, because it is the cheapest means to mobilize its allies against China. It supports all countries that have territorial disputes with China, incites them to adopt a hard-line approach toward China, and smears China's foreign cooperation to overthrow the world order. It aims to worsen China's external environment, and make people in other countries less willing to cooperate with China.
The world has to pay for Washington's ambition to strengthen its hegemony. What the US advocates is not simply decoupling from China, but urging the Western world and more countries to side with the US amid its clashes with China, and to contain China. China is the largest trading partner of more than 100 countries, and has a market almost as big as that of the US. The US not only stabbed China, but the current global cooperative system as well.
The world will suffer long-lasting costs. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is just the first wave. In the face of the raging pandemic, the US has blocked international cooperation. It has only two perspectives on the anti-virus fight - one from the upcoming presidential elections, and the other from international geopolitics. Its lack of a scientific perspective has become the biggest obstacle to international cooperation.
It is not hard to imagine that if China and the US, together with all major powers, join hands and coordinate strategies, the COVID-19 pandemic could have been much less severe than it is now, and the global economy could resume in a more orderly manner.
The US policy that favors major-power confrontation will surely drag down global economic growth, which will force countries to consume their own resources. Coupled with the destructive impact of the pandemic, global economic prosperity after the Cold War is, perhaps, coming to an end. The world will lose huge employment. The global economy will become politicized, and the concept of national security would play a leading role in irrelevant sectors such as the economy.
An arms race and intimidation will return to international relations. Age-old contradictions will be reinforced in the loss of a world order. Favorable opinions toward each other's society will be reduced. The passion for studying and traveling abroad will cool down. The lives of many people will change.
Unfortunately, those geopolitical maniacs in the US are ending the "good old days" since the end of the Cold War. We are likely to enter a new era with more hatred and the menace of war. Major countries would become more nervous, and the prosperity of small countries would become fragile. The US political elite behind such changes are bound to be shamed by history.
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Jul 05, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
ET AL July 2, 2020 at 4:36 am
The Grey Zone: Trump used looted Venezuelan public money to build border wall with Mexic
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/29/trump-stolen-venezuelan-money-border-wall-mexico/An estimated $24 billion of Venezuelan public money has been looted, and the Trump administration has used at least $601 million of it to construct a militarized wall on the US-Mexico border.
By Ben Norton
In his new book "The Room Where It Happened," former Trump administration national security advisor John Bolton boasted that the British government "was delighted to cooperate on steps they could take" to assist in Washington's coup efforts, "for example freezing Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England, so the regime could not sell the gold to keep itself going."..
####Remember that Juan Guan is recognized by 50 UN states as interim President of Venezuela. But it's not the number that counts, but who those countries are. It is an effective loading of more votes per country though the unofficial Law of the Jungle system that the democratic West employs.
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Jul 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Seer , Jul 3 2020 10:34 utc | 125
NemesisCalling @ 28
I agree that globalism is/will be heading into the dumpers, but I see no chance that US-based manufacturing is going to make any significant come-back.
The world's economy is in contraction. Although capital, what actual capital exists, will have to try and do something "productive," it is confronted by this fact, that everything is facing contraction. During times of contraction it's a game of acquisition rather than expanding capacity: the sum total is STILL contraction; and the contraction WILL be a reduction in excess, excess manufacturing and labor.
What market will there be for US-manufactured goods? US "consumers" are heavily in debt and facing continued downward pressures on income. China is self-sufficient (enough) other than energy (which can be acquired outside of US markets). Most every other country is in a position of declining wealth (per capita income levels peaked and in decline). And manufacturing continues to increase its automation (less workers means less consumers).
There will certainly be, especially given the eye-opener of COVID-19, a big push to have medical (which includes associated tech) production capacities reinvigorated in the US. One has to look at this in The Big Picture of what it means, and that's that the US population is aging (and in poor health).
More "disposable" income goes toward medical expenditures. Less money goes toward creating export items; wealth creation only occurs through a positive increase in balance of trade. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, death, the US will likely continue, for the mid-term, to export weaponry; but, don't expect enough growth here to mean much (margins will drop as competition increases, so figure downward pressure on net export $$).
Lastly, and it's the reason why global trade is being knocked down, is that the planet cannot comply with our economic model's dependency on perpetual growth: there can NOT be perpetual growth on a finite planet. US manufacturing requires, as it always has, export markets; requires ever-increasing exports: this is really true for all others. Higher standards of living in the US (and add in increasing medical costs which factor into cost of goods sold) means that the price of US-manufactured goods will be less affordable to peoples outside of the US.
And here too is the fact that other countries' populations are also aging. Years ago I dove into the demographics angle/assessment to find out that ALL countries ramp and age and that you can see countries' energy consumption rise and their their net trade balance swing negative- there's a direct correlation: go to the CIA's Factbook and look at demographics and energy and the graphs tell the story.
I'll also note that the notion of there being a cycle, a parabolic curve, in civilizations is well noted/documented in Sir John Glubb's The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (you can find electronic bootlegged copies on the Internet)- HIGHLY recommended reading!
All of this is pretty much reflected in Wall Street companies ramp-ups in stock-buy-backs. That's money that's NOT put in R&D or expansion. I'm pretty sure that the brains in all of this KNOW what the situation is: growth is never coming back.
MANY years ago I stated that we will one day face "economies of scale in reverse." We NEVER considered that growth couldn't continue forever. There was never a though about what would happen with the reverse "of economies of scale."
Make no mistake, what we're facing is NOT another recession or depression, it's not part of what we think as a downturn in the "business cycle," as though we'll "pull out of it," it's basically an end to the super-cycle.
We will never be able to replicate the state of things as they are. We are at the peak (slightly past peak, but not far enough to realize it yet) and there is no returning. Per-capita income and energy consumption have peaked. There's not enough resources and not enough new demand (younger people, people that have wealth) to keep the perpetual growth machine going.
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Jul 01, 2020 | www.unz.com
Jeff Stryker , says: June 30, 2020 at 5:59 pm GMT
@Rev. Spooner bout the Bill of Rights or the Constitution or community. Those are a joke to people whose money is made transnational.The lumpens who have never traveled out of their state have no concept of geographic dimensions. They have never even left home. They think everyone is as patriotic as them and will fight and die for their country and their community.
I assure none of the elite care a whit. Penthouses look the same from Manhattan to Tokyo.
Ask the Boers in South Africa or Polish in Detroit who did not "sniff the wind" in time.
The guy who has a gun loaded in his pocket as an insurance policy has a plan and it does not end well for the person who hit him.
The elites have two or three passports, own businesses overseas, own houses.
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Jun 24, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
JohnnyGL , June 22, 2020 at 6:25 pm
You inspired me to peruse the website of Current Affairs. I bumped into this https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/04/should-we-just-open-the-borders
A bit off topic, but, personally, I'd really appreciate it if the Current Affairs-Jacobin crowd would drop the childish open-borders fantasy stuff.
Marx himself figured out what the immigration game was all about back in the mid-1800s, why do those who purport to represent the working class seem so intent on unlearning what was patently obvious back then and continues to be so, today?
Yes, I get we all like to meet different people, learn up close about different cultures, cuisines, and all that, but let's be clear-eyed that there's a cost to those things. It comes in the form of rising rents/property prices and gentrification, disinvestment in the labor force (why train workers when you can just import replacements?), degradation in local environment.
Also, can we stop strip-mining the human capital of other countries?
Let's focus more on creating a right to 'stay in place' instead of 'freedom of movement' fantasy stuff which sounds more like a right to tourism or something weird like that.
Anyway, rant over
We need fewer Nathan Robinsons and a lot more Angela Nagles and Amber A'Lee Frosts
JohnnyGL , June 22, 2020 at 11:47 pm
Nathan Robinson on June 15th: "I don't believe the American left has lost its mind"
Also Nathan Robinson, June 19th:
https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1274112979819278342
"I have regretfully come to the conclusion that The Hill, owned by one of Trump's close personal friends, puts on Rising mainly for the purpose of trying to trick leftists into softening on Trump & see nationalist racists as preferable to moderate Democrats"
Wow that is flat out ridiculous how stupid does he think people are?
Mr. House , June 23, 2020 at 9:27 am
Have you talked to people in public lately? They can't understand how you can be against both republicans and democrats. Then spend the next hour trying to convince you to vote democrat. Orrrrr they storm off in a fit.
casino implosion , June 23, 2020 at 5:55 am
And Aimee Tereses and Anna Khachiyans.
JBird4049 , June 22, 2020 at 8:44 pm
Neoliberalism's support of very open boarders for both finance and labor arbitrage is assumed to be always good because the American and English nomenklatura and their apparatchiks implicitly. very often without any real thought, believe in the ideology of neoliberalism. So, while there is often manipulation by whatever hidden authority is doing it, most of the time there is no need. The writers have brainwashed themselves into ignorance. 2+2=5
anon in so cal , June 22, 2020 at 10:14 pm
One of the groups that suffers most from open borders is African Americans. If Blacks in Los Angeles, for example, lacked a college degree, they could nevertheless earn decent wages in various sectors including construction and janitorial work, as two examples. Illegal immigration ended that.
Daniel Raphael , June 22, 2020 at 9:11 pm
Borders are a problem only when capitalism prevails. Note the problems/objections you cited having to do with wages, property prices, and other "market" features that would not apply under socialism. When people rule themselves cooperatively and share the wealth that presently is stolen from them and used against them, the problem of borders will cease to be a problem.
The problem I have is that, even assuming you're correct, the utopian socialist crew somehow thinks that open borders is compatible, in the actual capitalist world we live in, with forwarding the interests of the working class. It's just not.
Anarcissie , June 22, 2020 at 10:34 pm
Certainly 'open borders' are not compatible with anyone's interests because they're a contradiction in terms. The capitalists see the border (the real border, not the mythical 'open border') as a kind of valve which can be opened or shut as their interests require. It also provides for ways of further disadvantaging certain portions of the working class and thus reducing their wages and eliminating their rights. So the institution of the border turns out to be a kind of variable form of coercion, as well as a myth to build racist and classist politics on.
Lambert Strether Post author , June 23, 2020 at 3:55 am
> So the institution of the border turns out to be a kind of variable form of coercion
Has it occurred to you that coercion works because it causes real harms?
GettingTheBannedBack , June 22, 2020 at 10:05 pm
The media is more fascinating by the day if you try not to take it seriously. Really.
Trying to deconstruct who is the real audience, what is the underlying message (aka dog whistle), how is the media doing plausible deniability, who is the real source (who is the piece written to serve) and what is the motivation for the piece could take whole PhDs to figure out sometimes.
And it's hard because I have biases, like everyone I guess, which can get in the way. Every few days I get a lightbulb moment on something and that is fascinating.
But at the bottom of every media pronouncement is the money, so follow the money and the power. Not so easy sometimes because the real hallmark of the powerful is the ability to pay for invisibility. My CEO used to say that he had no real power. Now, he knew how to operate.
Clive , June 23, 2020 at 4:05 am
Yes, this is now my approach. I still watch and read widely, but never (or hardly ever) in the expectation that I'll either learn something or get told anything even vaguely related to the unvarnished truth.
Much more interesting (but as you say, requiring adroit mental gymnastics and prone to all sorts of misdirection) is trying to work out the answers to the inevitable questions:
-- Why am I being shown this at this time ?
-- What narratives are intended to be constructed by this "story"?
-- Who is trying to influence me and why, into doing (or refraining from doing) what?
-- Is it a false-flag or should it be taken at face value?
-- Is it supportive of existing norms or trying to change them (or, the old favourite stand-by "controlled opposition")?
-- Is it organic (highly, highly unlikely) or is it the latest exciting instalment of the ongoing oligarch v. oligarch grudge match?
-- What messaging / influencing technique is being employed (fear, guilt, appeal to ethics, tribalism, family values et. al.)?The last is usually the most intriguing. Is this the family-favourite Soros v. Putin title fight? A Bill Gates v. Trump proxy war? The Clinton Democrats-in-name-only leftist faction v. whoever Sanders constituency actually is? Globalist Internationalism capitalists v. disaster capitalists?
I was going to write the following sentence at this point:
"Someone should publish " Top Trumps " (no irony intended) so we can all work our way around who's who in all this
But then, can you believe it, reality trumped me because some wisecracker beat me to it . Of course, the political power players Top Trumps pack really needs additional categories to make it realistic. "Number of SuperPACs", "$Billions Grifted", "Brown People in Far Away Places Blown to Pink Mist Total in Office", "Media Outlets Owned", "MSM Actors on the Payroll" etc. etc. etc.
Off The Street , June 23, 2020 at 9:58 am
+1
Your inevitable questions should be in school curricula.Tom Finn , June 23, 2020 at 12:40 pm
Thank you Clive for enunciating and listing so clearly the mental editing of reporting that I too have been doing for decades.
My only addition: __'Who profits from this being accepted.'arielle , June 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm
Cui bono?
Polar Socialist , June 23, 2020 at 5:00 am
There's a lot more recent papers on the issue than Marx. To put it shortly, it's almost impossible to separate the effect of immigration on wages from the effects of "free trade" and automatisation.
For example, in "The impact of massmigration on the Israeli labor market" in 2001 R.M. Friedberg concluded that wages actually went up, when Russians migrated en masse to Israel, though they did not migrate to seek employment.
Ottaviano and Peri in "Immigration and National Wages: Clarifying the theory and the empirics" and Card in "Immigration and inequality" state that the models used to estimate the wages are mostly too simple and very sensitive to how education levels are defined.
All economists seem to agree that in the least skilled or educated "class" the effect of migration is lower wages or raising unemployment, if wages are the only way for the economy to adjust.
I just don't think the issue is as clear cut as people make it to be.
Fireship , June 23, 2020 at 3:46 am
Robinson is continuing a great British tradition where mediocrities from the Mother country head for the colonies to wow the gullible colonists with their fancy ways. The guy is such a lightweight, like fellow grifting Brits Niall Ferguson or Louise Mensch.
Off The Street , June 23, 2020 at 8:24 am
Robinson could refer not to Fox, but to Fox Butterfield . That has a quaint, somewhat British-sounding aspirational upper class twit aspect that seems fitting. /s
geoff , June 23, 2020 at 11:20 am
Per wikipedia, Robinson moved with his family from the U.K. to the U.S. in 1995; he was born in 1989. He's almost entirely the product of an American upbringing and education. He hasn't dropped the accent because he doesn't want to. Frankly he's more of a Florida Man than a Brit imo. (I say this as an admirer.)
Donald , June 23, 2020 at 8:42 am
I generally like Nathan Robinson -- most of the time he writes long detailed heavily linked arguments that are worth reading and which I think most people here would agree with. He is not liked by mainstream Democrats.
I was very disappointed with his Taibbi piece. But I tend to be disappointed by nearly everyone at one point or another. When Robinson says he likes Taibbi, I think he is telling the truth. He just thinks Taibbi is wrong in this case, while I think it is Robinson who is wrong.
Fergus Hashimoto , June 23, 2020 at 2:15 pm
Why is everyone ignoring one of the most bizarre aspects of the Bernie Sanders campaign? That his campaign staff and most prominent supporters were mostly members and supporters of a small religious sect that comprises 1% of the US population, and they were not typical members of this sect, but instead the most extremist ones.
Moreover this small religious sect that comprises 1% of the US population causes one half of US terrorism deaths. Proof:
According to Wikipedia, between 2008 and 2016
right-wing terrorists caused 79 deaths
left-wing terrorists caused 7 deaths
jihadi terrorists caused 90 deaths
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States# Recent trends
Therefore Islamic terrorists actually killed MORE people than right-wing terrorists. Furthermore, if we assume that right-wingers make up 10% of the US population, and Muslims make up 1% of the US population, then per capita, Muslims accounted for TEN TIMES as many terrorism deaths as right-wingers did. Furthermore Muslims accounted for ONE HUNDRED TIMES as many terrorism deaths as non-Muslims did.
Bernie Sanders' campaign was run by Muslim extremists Faiz Shakir and Matt Duss.
But nobody seems to mind. Anyone who criticizes Islam is called a bigot. But Islam's holy book says: "Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are ruthless to unbelievers, merciful to one another." (Qur'an 48:29) Is that bigotry or is that not bigotry?
In 1946 the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, praised Amin al-Husseini, the leader of the Palestinian national movement, in the following words:
Germany and Hitler are no more, but Amin el-Husseini will fight on!
Source: Die Welt, Hamburg
https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article107737611/Von-Deutschland-lernen-heisst-erinnern-lernen.html
Bernie Sanders represents left-wing ideas and programs that are ANATHEMA to this small sect and ESPECIALLY to its extremist wing. Ideas like sexual freedom and religious freedom, freedom to criticize religions, equality among religions and non-religions, and equality between sexes, the idea that laws must be made by human beings elected by majorities through democratic elections instead of by some divinity who is obviously merely a social construct invented in order to exert tyrannical power over society. Those are all principles that flatly contradict Islam and its legal code, sharia law, which CAIR has been doing its utmost to protect from anti-sharia lagislation.
All of Bernie Sanders' most prominent supporters opposed ALL of his leftist ideas, because they want a theocratic state where binary sexuality is the norm and criticism of their sect is verboten.
They hopped onto the Sanders bandwagon and took control of it out of sheer opportunism, because they see Sanders as the path firstly to liquidating Israel and thus achieving one of the primary goals of the worldwide Islamist movement, namely to turn the Middle East into a homogeneous Muslim region, and secondly in order to seize key political positions in the political system of the US, DESPITE BEING SUCH A TINY MINORITY.
Matt Duss, Bernie Sanders' foreign policy adviser, is tightly linked through his family to World Vision, a Christian charity that for decades has funded the FDLP, a Palestinian terrorist group that is nominally secular, but in reality is Islamist. This is proved by the fact that when some of its members killed 4 rabbis in Jerusalem a few years ago, they yelled Allahu akbar. It was recently discovered that World Vision has financed Hamas with US government money. Moreover Matt Duss together with Faiz Shakir, Sanders' Islamist campaign manager, have campaigned in favor of sharia law, a legal system that claims divine authority and is a product of 7th century Arabian society.
By contrast, 20% of Americans are secularists who -- at least in theory -- strongly oppose the reactionary and obscurantist program of Bernie Sanders' principal supporters. But no prominent secularist appeared among Sanders' most important backers. Now why is it that Sanders relied principally on people who wholeheartedly oppose his program and ignored the vastly greater number of Americans who support freedom and equality?HotFlash , June 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm
Whut?
clarky90 , June 22, 2020 at 5:06 pm
"(The Era) Of McRevolutions and Bugmen "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEE2AZo4hDo
When your movement is sponsored by transnational corporations ..
Aumua , June 23, 2020 at 12:32 am
proto-fascism?
JBird4049 , June 23, 2020 at 3:10 am
Proto -fascism? I rather think it might be here already, but in an American guise.
(Sorry, I just couldn't decide where the sentences and paragraphs should be. Semicolons were the solution.)
As the United States is its own unique blend; utopian, socialistic, religious, fascistic, authoritarian or totalitarian, dysfunctional, increasingly hourglass shaped (oligarchy with skilled workers, tiny middle class, and massive poor class) like any very corrupt Third-World country; an increasingly oppressive police state trying to control a very diverse, well educated, skilled "rightsized" people, often armed and getting more so, with a large number retire military; everyone is angry or afraid and most know that it was laziness or stupidity or the race/social group/Russians/Chinese/Space Elves that turned the prosperity, power, and general competence of fifty into the economic hellscape, weakness, and near complete incompetence of today; it is increasingly obvious that it was the wealthy with the help of their courtiers and servants of the apparatchiks, and the intelligentsia/punditocracy.
Fear and self righteousness facing anger and desperation. What a situation to have.
anon in so cal , June 22, 2020 at 5:35 pm
Bookmarked for later. Nathan Robinson manages to insidiously smuggle Cold War propaganda into articles that ostensibly argue against Russiagate. He appears to be the most dangerous kind of propagandist.
Rod , June 22, 2020 at 5:47 pm
hooked by the headline
Read that Taibbi piece and boy does he have links -- to back his sound and clear narrative.
It seems like he always has a lot of research, way more than he makes his case withDrawing fire, as a tactic for the well prepared, can be useful.
Carolinian , June 22, 2020 at 5:57 pm
If NC wants to add a Media Whores Online section to Links or Water Cooler we won't object. Of course this would probably inspire PropOrNot part deux. Those MSM journalists can dish it out but not take it.
As I seem to recall MWO somewhat got the stuffing knocked out of it after 9/11. But when it was really rolling it seemed to embodied what the internet was for and why many of us took it up. Monica-gate followed by Bush v Gore offered a TINA media landscape begging to be debunked.
norm de plume , June 23, 2020 at 6:57 am
MWO published what might have been my first blog comment, really just an email, and it was on the Kaus affair, piling on with sarc mode set to high, another example of the 'hate' we were apparently guilty of. It was the daily visit then that NC is now. It was important. The creator remains a mystery, though Bartcop seems to deserve favouritism.
Looking at some of the MWO Wayback pages from 2002 took me back (though the whole of July when the Kaus thing blew is missing). Lots of familiar names – digby, Alterman, Marshall, Conason, Lyons, Pierce et al, all of whom I just stopped reading at some point, probably about the same time I ceased to have any respect for the Clintons.
Mel , June 22, 2020 at 5:59 pm
No "spook", huh? Then it's "secret squirrel", except they're hardly secret sitting there on NBC and CNN.
Lambert Strether Post author , June 23, 2020 at 3:48 am
> No "spook", huh? Then it's "secret squirrel",
I encountered "Secret Squirrel" in my travels, but I am a big Rocky and His Friends fan (or, rather, I stan Rocky and His Friends (?)).
shinola , June 22, 2020 at 6:05 pm
Thank you Lambert for the link to Taibbi's article Definitely worth a read.
EOH , June 22, 2020 at 6:06 pm
Color me skeptical when it comes to the wonders of Mr. Taibbi's observations. I find his narratives full of sound and fury as often as they are sound and clear. But, like Craig Murray or Glenn Greenwald, he can be a good read on the right topic. Sy Hersh and Thomas Frank, however, I have a lot of time for.
OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL , June 22, 2020 at 8:44 pm
By contrast I've always found that Taibbi always signifies something, but tries to do so in a way that might enable him to avoid being cancelled or deplatformed. Sy Hersh has no such concern. And last time I checked Thomas Frank was trying to signify to me that "maybe there is a case for Joe Biden". With more than 40 years' experience of the man, I utterly disagree.
ANTHONY WIKRENT , June 22, 2020 at 9:32 pm
"maybe there is a case for Joe Biden" is the headline and most of the article. It's deception. Read to the last paragraph if you want to see what Frank actually thinks of Biden. Quite a sucker punch! Though that does not fully capture the sticking and twisting of Frank's shiv.
EOH , June 23, 2020 at 11:53 am
But Frank says he came to assess Joe's mystique, not to bury it.
As for Joe Biden, consider the alternative of four more years of Mr. Trump's "malevolent incompetence" and intentional destruction.
integer , June 22, 2020 at 11:34 pm
Yes I think Taibbi knows a lot more than he puts forward in his articles. How could he not? Same with Frank, probably. Even Hersh censors himself, as evidenced by that recorded phone conversation about Seth Rich.
Chris , June 22, 2020 at 8:58 pm
The wonder of Mr. Taibbi's observations is that he's brave enough to keep making them. Real journalism is rare these days because our corporate organizations have removed journalists from the protected species list. Mr. Taibbi is just documenting the fallout from the officially sanctioned behavior that leads to people canceling those who are discussing actual injustice and real problems in our country. He's also trying, and failing, to show Team Blue fans that their inability to accept reality hurts their electoral chances. For example, the many attempts to scrub Hillary's problems from the media lead to a sense of complacency in likely Democrat voters and made people voting for her opponent highly motivated to turn out at the polls. Taking something like her "basket of deplorables" comment and not discussing why it was just as problematic as Mitt Romney's "48% of people who are voting for Obama don't pay income tax" comments was journalistic and political malpractice. It remains to be seen whether the many attempts to shield Biden using similar tactics will help or hurt him. Personally I think the Democrats will lose because they have rubber stamped the reduction of voting access so much in so many states that the people who would like to vote for them won't be able to vote. Which is a legitimately awful problem.
There are so many issues that Mr. Taibbi has discussed which bear repeating because unless you're getting your news from sites like NC you just don't see it. A recent Useful Idiots podcast episode that Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper did with Shahid Buttar noted that an interview that Mr. Buttar gave which mentioned corporate democrats supporting the re-approval of the Patriot Act under Trump was removed from YouTube and no reasons were given as to why that occurred. Stuff like that makes me think we're living on a spectrum between Brave New World and 1984, with class largely determining where you fall, and we have Cancel Culture people in media running around playing the role of Fireman from Fahrenheit 451 to keep the wrong people from asking too many questions regardless of class. As Mr. Buttar pointed out during his UI podcast interview, the algorithms that FB and YouTube use to remove content without due process catch all the videos of violent acts AND video evidence police abusing citizens. That's by design. But you wouldnt even know about it without reporters like Matt Taibbi.
Rod , June 22, 2020 at 10:18 pm
Yes, thanks for taking the time to encapsulate what Taibbi represents for me.
I admire his relentless pursuit of the 'how' our world is being spun out of control.Lunker Walleye , June 22, 2020 at 11:28 pm
Yes! Completely agree. Thanks. I heard the interview with Shahid Buttar. I'm hoping for more courageous journalists like Matt.
wol , June 23, 2020 at 8:45 am
Yesterday I heard the Useful Idiots interview with Cornell West. At the end I was spontaneously fist pumping.
Michael , June 22, 2020 at 6:43 pm
That is a very interesting story. Call me paranoid, but IMO we are witnessing the collapse of American society, where every institution is losing it's credibility for various reasons. Personally, I think it is a combination of increased oppression from the threatened rulers, resulting in increased conformity by its victims ((journalists and the public) This combined with the privatization of information, ( ie everything becoming paywalled) is aimed at the reduction of important information by making it unavailable. I fear all of this ends in a veil of tears. This can only lead to fascism, where only the current accepted narrative is permitted.
Jeremy Grimm , June 23, 2020 at 1:40 am
We face the criminal persecution and torture of Assange; the criminal persecution of Craig Murray; the recent debacle at TruthDig; the demise of the Weatherunderground, the growing numbers of pay walls and pop-ups pleading for money and email addresses all suggesting a most unhappy outcome for the future. The consolidation and control of the major media is old history. Reporters are becoming extinct. And there's the pollution of youtube, search engines, and social media. Our society is devolving -- it is being dismantled, vivisected before our eyes to no end but the end of social order.
I am not sure fascism is the result. We already live in what is technically a fascism where State and Business share the same bed.
I still haven't read Talbi's critique but will.
norm de plume , June 23, 2020 at 7:11 am
'The consolidation and control of the major media is old history. Reporters are becoming extinct. And there's the pollution of youtube, search engines, and social media'
There should be a public option for the provision of information (surely up there with food, water and shelter as an essential public good) that is not polluted. Of course it would be derided (and feared) by the wingnuts, the Borg and finance capital as a vehicle for progressive propaganda. Which it could well be given consistent polling indicating majority support for many if not most progressive positions. That of course means that the Democrats would hate it too.
Which segues into my next pipe dream: Abolish parties!
Waking Up , June 22, 2020 at 6:56 pm
Ellsberg, like, Seymour Hersh and Thomas Frank, has been drummed out of town.
Interesting that those with a conscience are the ones "drummed out of town". Guess that tells you everything you need to know about that "town".
As for Matt Taibbi, he is one of the VERY RARE journalists that I give the benefit of the doubt is actually telling the truth (even though I still verify) as I usually assume most "journalists" are lying (or trying to sell a particular story) and go from there. I also find his podcast with Katie Halper entertaining and informative.
Synoia , June 22, 2020 at 7:00 pm
where every institution is losing it's credibility for various reasons
They had credibility, when?
Before the Committee of UnAmericam Activities?
Before the Korean War?
Before the Dulles Brothers?
Before the Monroe Doctrine?
Manifest Destiny?
elspeth ham , June 22, 2020 at 7:09 pm
I read that article. I thought it was one of the best of his I've read. Hats off Matt Taibbi. As far as I'm concerned once we lose the complexity that inhabits a serious regard for the truth, we're done. I always appreciate being brought up short by my 'enemies.' It means they might not be as hideous as I'd thought.
ditto
farmboy , June 22, 2020 at 7:38 pm
being consistently lied to by TV reporters, print media, and politicians not only breeds cynicism, it births, welps, nurses, and rears. the limitation of news outlets until the explosion of social media meant they could be parsed out in narrow sets of ideas and language. Today big media is laid bare, McLuhan was so right, Today it is crucial to know ones own biases, allow opinion and research in opposition into my field of view. As a trader, I always searched for the refuting argument, chart, analysis that would tell me i was wrong, saved me a lot of money. Inflaming passions today is crucial to getting buy-in, not just voting, which is the tail trying to wag the dog. Taibbi has earned his stripes, fields critics on twitter at least, faithfully and honestly.
Sutter Cane , June 22, 2020 at 7:45 pm
I have been reading Taibbi since the eXiled. Robinson and Current Affairs I only found out about more recently.
I view Taibbi as a real journalist with a proven track record. Current Affairs often has some entertaining and thoughful content, but Robinson frankly seems to be more of a lightweight, especially in comparison to Taibbi.
He specializes in "takedowns" of right wing grifters like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson. Not exactly difficult targets. His turning on Taibbi, and more recently Krystal Ball and Rising, has been interesting to see. I don't know if he just grew tired of writing about only right wing types, or if he's trying to raise his own profile by attacking better-known left media figures (probably a bit of both). Either way, Robinson's shitck has gotten decidedly old.
bob , June 22, 2020 at 8:49 pm
But he has a hat and that oh so wonderful accent! How can you say that?
funemployed , June 22, 2020 at 8:53 pm
Robinson's not really an investigative reporter. More like a pundit for the over-educated left. So it's not really fair to compare him to people like Greenwald and Taibbi. He's also quite young, and every one his age has some big blind spots and youthful hubris that will (hopefully) shrink in time.
And of course his shtick got tired. Anyone who's job consists of basically writing 2-3 op-eds a week is gonna run out of new material real fast. In a marginally more sane world he'd have a nice job as the regular NYT lefty op-ed guy, and be pretty good at it I think.
In any case, he's a sincere young man who does seem to listen and learn. I mostly side with Taibbi in this kerfuffle, but maybe I wouldn't have 10 years ago. Given the large number of truly horrible people in the public eye these days, the vitriol towards young Nate seems a bit excessive. Frankly, if there's anyone who could get the PMC+DSA crowd to start questioning identitarianism, it's probably him (as I believe they constitute the near entirety of his readership), so lets work on helping him "recognize his own privilege" re: the working class instead of bashing him or questioning his motives.
Donald , June 23, 2020 at 8:49 am
I forgot about the attack on Krystal Ball. I didn't like that either, but another person I generally like, Adam Johnson, did the same.
I have just gotten used to the fact that there aren't going to be people I agree with on every important issue 100 percent of the time. This isn't irony or sarcasm -- I really am disappointed when otherwise smart and (IMO) clearly well intentioned people have opinions I think are wrong. But it is possible I am wrong. ( This is all painfully earnest, as corny as it sounds. )
PlutoniumKun , June 23, 2020 at 9:50 am
I think you have the correct approach. People are far too hair triggered about certain topics. A journalist has to churn out lots of copy, even the best will occasionally get it wrong, or just happen to express beliefs that don't match up with what i or anyone else believes. It is I think the sort of trap that IdPol people fall into – insisting on increasing levels of purity from those on their side, and immediately casting them out if they dare shift one inch from the narrative.
It should be possible to read and learn from good writers, even if you disagree with them. And it's very important that progressives learn and develop by listening to those who have respectful and intellectually coherent reasons not to buy into every precious shibboleth. I think its very important to have voices like Taibbi and Stoller, people who aren't afraid to make even fellow left progressives angry by taking strong positions.
Mammoth Jackstock , June 22, 2020 at 8:30 pm
As seen on TV, Frank Figliuzzi x Greenwald mistaking Figliuzzi's shingle advertising body-man services, for a Wurlitzer. "Figliuzzi" is "small son" in Italian, a euphemism for abandoned orphans, also known for working on behalf of the parents that raised them: The State. Perhaps Figliuzzi's booking agency has insight into clandestine media control. It's hard to decipher whether Taibbi's beef is that journalists' ethical lapses are not properly coordinated or whether the lapses are not authentic enough. Which is the same criticism leveled at the street demonstrators without acknowledging that higher levels of coordination and authentic anger potentiate more physical harm. Spontaneity is the x-factor in both pursuits. Last point. When the surveillance state is conceptualized as the ever-vigilant eyes of BLM and the feverish archiving of Journos, rather than the underworld of the Police State, the surveillance state-less becomes a mode for positive change. Vindication by security camera. Can one be baffled by hope?
Off The Street , June 23, 2020 at 8:29 am
That Mighty Casio has such a tinny little speaker anyway.
Briny , June 22, 2020 at 8:49 pm
Put simply, I refuse to be schooled by the ethically challenged MSM. Matt's doing important work here.
Edward , June 22, 2020 at 8:50 pm
"What the heck is the correct pejorative for a member of the intelligence commumity? "
The intelligence communities must have there own terms for these people. "Agents of influence"? Psychological warfare specialists? Propagandists? Minitrue Goodthinker?
I think the United States needs a mandatory high school class in "How to read propaganda". Americans are probably the most propagandized people on the planet.
Acacia , June 22, 2020 at 10:33 pm
I have heard the term "analyst", though it's far too neutral for their activities. "Operatives" or "henchmen" seems more fitting.
ChrisPacific , June 23, 2020 at 1:22 am
Praetorians, perhaps?
Edward , June 23, 2020 at 6:16 am
They are the president's secret army. They have avoided congressional oversight by securing their funding from the drug trade.
Edward , June 23, 2020 at 6:13 am
Some of the CIA are analysts, like Ray McGovern, albeit politicized ones. The CIA has different departments. The best word for the CIA is probably "disgrace" or "national shame".
Fazal Majid , June 23, 2020 at 3:56 am
Oxymoron
Donald , June 23, 2020 at 8:52 am
"Lying scum" works, but applies to others as well, so we need something more targeted.
Berto , June 22, 2020 at 9:17 pm
Would love to hear Taibbi explain why the NY Times spent the summer of 2016 pretending to care that Republicans pretended to care about Clinton's email protocols.
anon in so cal , June 22, 2020 at 10:25 pm
Speaking of the fake news NY Times, here is a good 2017 analysis of its decades-long mendacity and war propagandizing. Here is a snippet:
"The CIA's brazen intervention in the electoral process in 2016 and 2017 broke new ground in the agency's politicization. Former CIA head Michael Morell announced in an August 2016 op-ed in the Times: "I Ran the C.I.A. Now I'm Endorsing Hillary Clinton," and former CIA boss Michael Hayden published an op-ed in the Washington Post just days before the election, entitled "Former CIA Chief: Trump is Russia's Useful Fool." Morell had yet another op-ed in the Times on January 6, now openly assailing the new president. These attacks were unrelievedly insulting to Trump and laudatory to Clinton, even portraying Trump as a traitor; they also made clear that Clinton's more pugnacious stance toward Syria and Russia was preferable by far to Trump's leanings toward negotiation and cooperation with Russia."
https://monthlyreview.org/2017/07/01/fake-news-on-russia-and-other-official-enemies/
Off The Street , June 23, 2020 at 10:04 am
Note where so many seemingly-disreputable people end up, and why. There is money , whether to reward for past services, or to transfer in anticipation of legal defenses needed.
Money shows up in novel ways, like book deals and in plain old propagandizing ways, like pundit spots.
McWatt , June 22, 2020 at 10:23 pm
Matt Taibbi is a God that Walks the Planet!!!
Stay the course Matt. When this is all over, you'll be the last intelligent reporter standing.
Along with Katie!!!
.Tom , June 22, 2020 at 11:00 pm
Pejorative suggestion: apparatchik
integer , June 22, 2020 at 11:43 pm
And of course there really is such a thing as "Left Wing Hate" (for some definition of "left," I admit).
Glad to see this qualifier added. I suspect the language that is necessary to have meaningful discussions about political ideologies with people from different political tribes is purposely corrupted by the conservative and liberal media establishments, probably at the behest of the CIA.
Charlie , June 23, 2020 at 2:30 am
New (But really not new) Pejorative: American Nomenklatura.
Sound of the Suburbs , June 23, 2020 at 3:14 am
Einstein's definition of madness "Doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get a different result"
Do you remember the last time you let the robber barons and reckless bankers run riot in the 1920s?
No.
Do you remember the last time you used neoclassical economics in the 1920s?
No.
Do you remember how bad it was in the 1970s?
Yes.
Do you remember how bad it was in the 1930s?
No.During the 1920s there was a great consolidation of US businesses into often single companies that dominated every sector.
This time this has happened in the media.
About six corporations control the US media, and they make sure you hear, what they want you to hear.Sound of the Suburbs , June 23, 2020 at 3:53 am
A trip down memory lane.
We stepped onto an old path that still leads to the same place.
1920s/2000s – neoclassical economics, high inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, austerity, rising nationalism and extremism
1940s – World war.
We forgot we had been down that path before.I remembered where this path goes.
When the US needed an FDR, it got an Obama.
Now they've got Trump.
They've taken a more European approach this time.
Trying to maintain the status quo is not a good idea, they needed a New Deal.bwilli123 , June 23, 2020 at 3:46 am
Somewhat relevant. Don't threaten the narrative.
"Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex (@slatestarcodex deletes his blog after a @nytimes
reporter threatens to doxx him, which could ruin his career as a psychiatrist and raises serious safety concerns."Fazal Majid , June 23, 2020 at 4:07 am
Wow, that's truly despicable!
That said, anyone who believes the NYT was ever respectable, as in worthy of respect, not as in "mainstay of the establishment", needs only harken back to Pulitzer's role in fanning the Spanish-American War to understand how fundamentally depraved an institution it really is.
Off The Street , June 23, 2020 at 8:37 am
His name was known to many readers of Slate Star Codex, and they were too polite to repeat it. There is a decency and brilliance that would be sorely missed with any permanent silencing of his unique voice and views.
PlutoniumKun , June 23, 2020 at 9:44 am
Absolutely, its a brilliant blog, on so many levels. Its beyond belief that the NY would insist on publishing his real name, when there is absolutely no reason or public interest in doing so.
Off The Street , June 23, 2020 at 10:12 am
The NYT fancies itself an empire, dispensing and dispatching at will. Here is a Star Wars quote from Obi-Wan applicable to those that the Grey Lady targets, or even purposefully ignores:
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Ignacio , June 23, 2020 at 5:23 am
It is quite interesting, and positive, should I say, that nobody resorted to the argument of "lefty" thinkers destroying themselves as the perennial malaise of the left. Regarding the confrontation between Taibbi and Robinson it looks clear they do not represent 2 variations of the same camp: They inhabit completely different camps though, as an outsider, I am not able to establish clearly the limits between their audiences and their supporting platforms.
It strikes me, as very well pointed, the similarities that Lambert brougth from Taibbi in the ADDENDUM about the, IMO very likely, Trump reelection and the 2016 elections: he can easily run away with his errors and the liberals look poised to make similar mistakes in 2020 as they did in 2016. They learnt nothing and forgot nothing.
On this I really would like a well informed discussion on some news pieces that have seen linked here before indicating that Trump very much dislikes voting by mail "because of fraud" though my opinion is that he just wants the election turnout to be the smaller the better.
Philbq , June 23, 2020 at 7:21 am
Regarding the vast U.S. media propaganda machine, Chomsky famously said long ago that propaganda was MORE necessary in democratic societies. In a totalitarian regime, the government can control the public with force and violence, imprisoning or executing dissidents. But in a democratic society, citizens have the power to vote and change the government. Therefore, it is more necessary in a democratic society to control how the public thinks. Thus propaganda is the very essence of democracy. Propaganda ids thought control in democratic societies.
Philbq , June 23, 2020 at 7:24 am
That last line should have read: "Propaganda is thought control in democratic societies. "
David , June 23, 2020 at 9:21 am
There was a time when I went to the established media to learn things. Now, it feels more like checking in on an evolving soap opera with a baffling plot and inconsistent characters. There's a certain grim amusement in seeing the latest plot twist but that's about all. I get my actual information from sites like NC and specialist sites and newsletters by experts. I'm afraid that my gut reaction to clicking on a MSM story these days is: why is this bast**d lying to me?
PlutoniumKun , June 23, 2020 at 9:43 am
Likewise. The thing is, as a teenager back in the 1980's I'd read my Chomsky and a number of radical media writers. My eyes had been opened when I was around 15, home on holidays and bored watching afternoon TV when a particular incident occurred in NI. I remember watching open mouthed as the narrative was completely twisted around 180 degrees by the time of the evening news (I won't go into the details, but it started as 'brave mourners tackle terrorists who drove a car into a crowd saving many lives' into 'barbaric Republicans lynch two innocent soldiers who had lost their way' over the course of about 4 hours of reporting. But I still, up to a few years ago, as a default tended to believe what I read in the newspapers or watched on TV, unless I had a reasonably good reason not to do so. But no more. I don't really know whether things have gotten much worse, or I've just become more educated/cynical.
Ignacio , June 23, 2020 at 10:28 am
Fast forward to 2003, very much like the terrorist attacks in Atocha train station when Aznar phoned all the media to say "it is certain it was ETA" and so the publications in Spain went with this story. Thereafter, only the conservative media went on with a conspiracy theory with the Spanish police in collusion with ETA to maintain their narrative even when it was crystal clear it was a yihaddist attack.
So, regarding the media, it is the narrative what goes first and much more important than facts. No matter if it is a conservative or a liberal outlet, they will stick to their narrative. This has worsened with time.
larry , June 23, 2020 at 9:47 am
I love this quote, so let me be a stickler. The actual question is: Why is this lying bastard lying to me?. It was originally atributed to Louis Heron of the Times and channeled by Paxman in an interview at the end of his Newsnight career. Otherwise, I am depressed to say that I can do nothing other than agree with your view of the MSM in general, although there are a few journalists who appear to be doing what they should be doing even if they may not doing it as well as they probably could. As for the rest, some of them can't even write.
David , June 23, 2020 at 11:12 am
Yes, I'm not sure whether Heron actually said that (accounts differ) but I remember thinking when I first read it decades ago that it was silly: I spent a good part of my life preparing politicians for interviews, and, at least then, you made sure they were briefed to put the best spin on things, which is not the same as lying. But on subjects I was familiar with, I used to reckon that most jobbing journalists (ie not the deep specialists) would get things factually accurate about 50% of the time, and that the problems were more related to ignorance and preconceptions than active attempts to mislead. I don't think that's the case now. Journalists today, by contrast, actively tell lies, often for political reasons or to conform to groupthink.
John Mc , June 23, 2020 at 10:00 am
Taibbi is a national treasure. He is a funny, engaging writer who knows where the boundaries are involving spin, humor and articulating a precise message. The fact that he has been so clairvoyant about hundreds of issues (Political futility, Financial Crisis, Policing, and changes in Media) is due to his unique willingness to talk to people in all walks of life to understand the complexity of what he is writing about. And when he does not know something, he owns it. Connectivity to people, and his marriage to journalism all breed more and more trust (as well as puts a target on his back).
We live in a time of fracture (capital/labor, institutional decay, and the indelible scars of markets taking over our lives at every level) means we need people to cut through the noise, effectively -- reminding us of our fantastic thinking and proffering uncomfortable truths. And nowhere has this been more apparent than the NL core of the democratic party on the Left:
1. Russiagate Maddowers versus Mate-Blumenthal
2. Syria/Bolivia/Venezuela/Chile CIA media engineers vs The Grayzone and Greenwald
3. The Warren/Sanders rift. The Warren/Warren rift.
4. The night of 1000 Knives.
5. BLM and Democratic Party.
6. And left media puts out a hit against Taibbi – with very little serious discussion of Hate Inc..
7. Leftist Fractures – N Robinson vs Krystal Ball, Lee Fang, Taibbi and an academic accused of "bad research"
8. Attack on the show Rising – why would the left talk to the populist right canard.The left are playing a role in their own demise -- often at the behest of the NL center or in concert to a more individualistic lens, separate of that to ordinary people. Kyle Kulinski just did a 30 minutes on this too.
All in all, the group who needs to be shattered into a thousand pieces in the wind (the NL core of both parties) just got stronger this election cycle -- and in my mind the fractures on the left are just starting.
It did not have to be that way. Sickening to consider when you think about the opportunity we had in January.
Thanks Lambert for this article
Bruce , June 23, 2020 at 10:59 am
To add to the lists of questions to be asked when reading the "news" .
"What is not being reported here?" or, more colloquially, "What dog isn't barking?".
Bruce , June 23, 2020 at 11:08 am
Over the years I have asked many people about press coverage of subjects they knew well. I asked if, from their perspective, the press got all, most, some or none of the story right. The long run average response is between some and none.
Then I ask, "Why, if your personal experience says the press rarely gets it right concerning something you know a lot about, do you believe they get it right concerning things you know little about?"
Roquentin , June 23, 2020 at 11:54 am
Taibbi is correct in that piece, undeniably so, but more than that it's the entire Sanders-based social democratic movement that's coming apart. The media is mostly a reflection of that. I had always hoped that the movement towards social democracy Sanders fostered could survive beyond him as a viable candidate, but I must confess I no longer think that likely. The whole movement is imploding in on itself, and people lashing out against Taibbi is, to me at least, just more evidence of how much of his criticism hit the mark.
Even if the current left can survive the end of Sanders as a political figure on the national stage, I see even less of a path for it once Trump is gone. Rabid anti-Trump sentiment is the only adhesive that keeps the different parts of it together. They saw a boom when Trump was elected, and I can only conclude there will be a big bust when he goes away. If they put a lot of effort into publicly shilling for Biden, then it's even more likely, because on some level they'll be bound to carry water for him while he's in office because they advocated for him as a leader in the first place. No, it's not just the press that's destroying itself it's also practically all of the liberal class and most of what flies under the banner of the left too.
Waking Up , June 23, 2020 at 3:27 pm
I have to disagree with your assessment about the movement towards social democracy. There isn't a specific "leader" at present, but just the sheer number of people who protested in the streets around the country (during a pandemic I might add) in regards to police brutality, economic inequality, a better healthcare system such as Medicare For All, are all fighting for social justice and democracy. This is coming from people who recognize what our system is doing to them and others.
"Rabid anti-Trump sentiment is the only adhesive that keeps the different parts of it together."
Once again, I have to disagree. The supposed "liberal" media, many "liberal" politicians, and supporters who base their personal opinion on whatever is popular that particular day may have "rabid anti-Trump sentiment".
But there are plenty of people who recognize we are going through a major "social collapse".
Some people may not want to discuss these issues because they don't want to change the current system (they would rather attack Matt Taibbi and others than discuss the legitimate problems we have). These problems, including an economic collapse, are not going to disappear the day Donald Trump is out of office nor will it improve with a "more of the same" Joe Biden administration.
At this point, I tend to believe our country will either
a) become even more authoritarian where the citizens just accept they have no civil rights and view police and military brutality as part of "everyday life" or
b) we continue on this trajectory of collapse with a very small percentage of people doing quite well and the vast majority wondering or already in circumstances which lead them to question how long it will be before they are homeless, without a job, how they will feed their family and whether they can get any healthcare if they need it or
c) we finally wake up as a majority of citizens and demand a government (executive, congressional, and judicial) responsive to the citizens which deals with social and economic collapse. All of those with the current ideologies of the Democratic/Republican parties need to go as they represent either their careers or moneyed interests. Then again, maybe the level of corruption and greed is so far gone in this country that the only trajectory is collapse.
Glen , June 23, 2020 at 12:07 pm
Taibbi has been doing good work on this. This would seem to be another example. Krystal and Saagar: CNN viewers REVOLT after journalist correctly says 'Biden is a flawed candidate:
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Jun 14, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
At a park in New York City, I witnessed something odd. A group of women silently formed a circle in the middle of a large lawn. Their all-black outfits contrasted with the surrounding summer pastels, and they ignored the adjacent sun bathers as they began to kneel and slowly chant. They repeated a three word matin. The most striking feature of this scene was its familiarity. Any half-decent anthropologist would label this a religious ritual.
Yet, few are willing to explicitly describe these events as part of a religion. The women may have been kneeling in a circle while chanting, but they repeated the words "black lives matter." Politics obscures the obvious. Wokeness is a religion, and conservatives must act as if large parts of our institutions are run by this cult.
Americans are united in their disgust at what happened to George Floyd. Everyone agrees: A minor run-in with the police should never lead to death. Yet, the past two weeks do not actually seem connected to the events in Minneapolis. Most East Coast yuppies would have trouble placing Minneapolis on a map. Does it really make sense to gather in a mass crowd during a pandemic because of something that happened a half-continent away? It does when you recognize that it's a religious movement.
Wokeness has been identified as a religion by several writers and commentators. Linguist John McWhorter wrote an article on " Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion " several years ago. Harvard professor Adrian Vermeulle wrote a must-read analysis of the liturgical nature of liberalism in 2019. And all the way back in 2004, historian Paul Gottfried wrote a prescient book on the topic with the subtitle "towards a secular theocracy." The increasing intensity of woke culture suggests that this is no longer just a curiosity, or a point of ridicule. It is the most clear-eyed way of viewing current politics, and this is most obvious when viewing the protests.
The nationwide protests are best understood as religious ceremonies, and this can be seen in the way they keep engaging in off-brand Christianity. In Portland, Maine, protestors lay stomach down on the sidewalk in order to ritualistically reenact Floyd's arrest. They prostrated themselves in the exact way Catholic priests do in their ordination ceremony. Journalist Michael Tracey noted the religious feeling in New Jersey protests. Protestors knelt and held up their hands in a mirror image of how Evangelicals pray over each other at revivals. The Guardian ran an article on how people must keep repeating the names of police victims, and protestors routinely chant a list of names as if it is a litany of the saints. It is a transparent attempt to transform the victims into martyrs. And while Floyd's killing is a tragedy and an outrage, he had no agency over his death.
Perhaps the appropriation of Christian liturgy is just coincidental, and not evidence that the woke have become a cult. It's not like they're trafficking in classic cult behavior, like trying to separate devotees from their family, right? Wrong: Taking a cue from the Scientologists, The New York Times ran an op-ed encouraging readers to stop visiting, or speaking to family members until they pledge to "take significant action in supporting black lives either through protest or financial contributions." Very normal! Shaking down family members for money by threatening not to talk to them is classic cult behavior and is not how well-adjusted adults voice political opinions. The insidious engine of this religious impulse can be seen in the most egregious ripoff from Christianity so far.
In North Carolina, a pastor organized an event where white police officers knelt before her and washed her feet. She claimed God told her directly to do this. Only the most delusional would try to call this a protest. This is a pathetic perversion of Christian liturgy. To state the obvious: washing feet is a Christian tradition with Biblical origins. Washing feet was a chore reserved for the lowest servants. Jesus, God himself incarnate as man, washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. The disciple Peter objects to this and doesn't want Jesus to lower himself. Jesus replies "if I don't wash you, you don't really belong to me."
The white people washing feet are only pretending to lower themselves. In reality, they're symbolically placing themselves in the role of God. For white people, woke anti-racism offers a way to worship themselves. "White privilege" is a purely subjective concept that allows unremarkable white people to recast their own ordinary lives in a flattering light. It's not enough to simply point this out and laugh at it. The religious nature of the woke has real policy implications.
The woke make policy decisions in reference to the values of their religion. Back in January, it was considered racist to be concerned about the coronavirus. CNN ran headlines about how racism was spreading faster than COVID, Al Jazeera ran an op-ed with a headline suggesting racism was the more dangerous epidemic, and New York City politicians encouraged people to join crowds in Chinatown. Now, after months of stringent social distancing, suddenly the "experts" are telling us that massive crowds gathering in every city around the globe won't impact the ongoing pandemic. A certain type of person pretends to be above all culture war topics, and always wants to get back to the "real issues." Yet it should be clear that in any long and protracted economic struggle with China, the woke cult has the ability to distort priorities and jettison all good sense. You may not be interested in the culture war, but the culture war is interested in you.
In 2014, and 2015, many conservative pundits made a name for themselves laughing at the "SJW" phenomenon on college campuses. Older conservatives loved to make jabs about "snowflakes" who they predicted wouldn't be able to tough it in the real world. This was a complete misreading of the situation. Woke Yale graduates do just fine in their careers, and these extremist students are now rising through institutions of power. Ivy League-educated lawyers are throwing molotov cocktails in New York. The scholastics grew out of an institutional arrangement where Christianity was the official religion of the university. Wokeness is the scholastic form of anti-racism. It is enshrined in our institutions because the Civil Rights movement coincided with the formation of our new upper class.
In the 20th Century, corporations and government grew to unforeseen scale. Experts, managers, bureaucrats, and new types of lawyers were required to run these organizations, and this changed the nature of the middle class, and how people achieved power. As Fred Siegel argued in his book "Revolt Against the Masses," this new class became conscious of itself as a distinct class through the Civil Rights movement. The South was a poor and backwards place, and the new class of experts could use their position to correct a grave injustice.
Civil Rights legislation then needed more lawyers, managers, and bureaucrats to enforce. The concrete forms of discrimination in the Jim Crow south slowly disappeared as racism was openly confronted, but we are left with a class structure that still defines itself around these issues. Those with power have a vested interest in finding ever new forms of racism because this allows them to create new instruments to fight racism. Universities and corporations create more and more administrative jobs that produce a brahmin class whose only purpose is to keep vigilant for bigotry. This is why the woke capital phenomenon cannot be dismissed as posturing. One implication of this is that striving political leaders who seek to enter the upper class must prove their anti-racism bonafides again, and again. Another, much darker, implication is that we may live in a theocracy.
Wokeness is a gnostic cult that asks its sectaries to adopt a platform of national self-loathing. These are not protests. They are religious celebrations. The cult needs to be consistently classified as a religion, and conservatives must resist the temptation to view it as merely a silly sideshow distraction. Its bizarro liturgy is increasingly enshrined in all of our institutions, and conservatives must act as if a cult has hijacked the nation.
It's a religion without reconciliation and redemption.PeteZilla Zweifler • a day agoIt's a force and a movement.Null PeteZilla • 18 hours agoFolks who are labeling as mere religion are downplaying religion and worse ignoring history of constant protest in the pathway of human history.
Not all movements are religious based. That's a gross simplification to the complexity of culture and life.
Warts and all.
Yeah, there's nothing 'mere' about religion. It organized two of premodern society's major cultural spheres (Christendom and dar al-Islam) and started countless wars. You could make a pretty good case for Communism as a religion.Connecticut Farmer Null • 16 hours agoAccording to Bertrand Russell Communism WAS a religion! Indeed, ideologies are, at bottom, indistinguishable from religions. The French Revolution was Exhibit One of that phenomenon.YT14 Ron_Goodman • 5 hours agoDefinitely element of supernatural involved in Communism and Nazism. Empirical evidence contradicts these beliefs.Connecticut Farmer PeteZilla • 16 hours ago"That's a gross simplification to the complexity of culture and life."YT14 PeteZilla • 5 hours agoSpeaking of which, is there anything more simplistic or banal than a slogan..."Black Lives Matter" for example?
Spanish Inquisition was a religionDr. Professional Jonathan • 16 hours ago
English Civil War was about religion
Abolitionism was a religion
Communism was a religion and National Socialism was a religion tooEvery religion has its sacred content, though not every religion involves God, reconciliation or redemption
The real question is, "What is wrong with false religion?"Jonathan Dr. Professional • 16 hours agoAh, but in America, we are not supposed to pay too much attention to the supposed truth or falsity of each other's religions.kenofken Dr. Professional • 14 hours agoYou can't fight something with nothing. The traditional religions seem to be spent forces. The wokeness seems to attract devout, or at least fervent believers.
The same thing that's wrong with Christianity and Islam: the need to validate the belief system by forcing it upon others.Gio Con • 12 hours agoI prefer to see it as mass hysteria.FL Transplant • 11 hours agoI'Ve seen much larger and more involved ceremonies worshipping capitalism, if that's how we're determining religions now.Daniel Baker • 8 hours agoAnd the worshipping capitalists had a complete theology, with their religion driving their ethics and behavior much more than almost all professed Christians I've met.
A religion with heresy trials and excommunications as well. And, at least In some states, well on its way to becoming the established state religion. In March and April, practitioners of the old religions from Christianity to Judaism to Islam discovered that their religions were non-essential and subject to lockdown. In May, they learned that the new religion is essential and not subject to lockdown.Time4Truth • 5 hours agoWhat a crock of (^()(**&Tom Riddle Time4Truth • 38 minutes agoWant to talk about cults? Let's talk about the New Apostolic Reformation cult and right wing evangelicals who are part of and/or closely associated with this fake Christian cult. Let's talk about 7 Mountains Mandate heresy and the right wing evangelicals who have bought into and even preach that heresy. I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it says these fake Christian and cult members have to take over the world to make it safe for Jesus to return. Until they do this, Jesus CANNOT return? Yes, Ted Cruz's father preaches the 7 Mountains heresy as do many other evangelicals.
How about the false teacher and fraud that Trump claims is his closest Christian advisor, Paula White. Why would he say such a thing when Paula White is nothing more a prosperity gospel fraud who said Jesus is not the only Begotten Son of God. Who has been investigated several times by the IRS. Who commanded 'All Satanic Pregnancies to Miscarry'
Maybe we should talk about some of those who are part of Trump's evangelical advisory council.
One of the leaders, Kevin Copeland, said "God is the biggest failure in the Bible" and his wife, Gloria, who has said her husband controls the weather and can make tornadoes and storms disappear.Or the man Trump asked to come to DC, lay hands on and pray for him. Sick weirdo Rodney Howard Brown who says he is Jesus' bartender.
I also seem to remember Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress and a few right wing evangelicals promoting frauds Paula White, Kenneth Copeland and few other fake Christians.
If you are going to express concern about people and their "religion", how about talking about the evangelicals who are a threat to the Christian faith and that Romans 16:17-18, 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, 1 John 1:5-10, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 1 Timothy 6:4-5 and others warn about.
Play HideThose are real cults. The author is talking about the fake cults that he made up using things he saw on twitter.Ruth Harris • 2 hours agoPeople ritualized lots of things. Humans are ritualistic creatures. Take sports, for instance. Some pretty goofy rituals there.
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Jun 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
In the 1960s, the US had a balanced economy that produced goods for both businesses and households, at all levels of technology, with a fairly small (and tightly regulated) financial sector. It produced largely for itself, importing mainly commodities.
Today, the US produces for the world, mainly advanced investment goods and services, in sectors such as aerospace, information technology, arms, oilfield services, and finance. And it imports far more consumer goods, such as clothing, electronics, cars, and car parts, than it did a half-century ago.
And whereas cars, televisions, and household appliances drove US consumer demand in the 1960s, a much larger share of domestic spending today goes (or went) to restaurants, bars, hotels, resorts, gyms, salons, coffee shops, and tattoo parlors, as well as college tuition and doctor's visits. Tens of millions of Americans work in these sectors.
Finally, American household spending in the 1960s was powered by rising wages and growing home equity. But wages have been largely stagnant since at least 2000, and spending increases since 2010 were powered by rising personal and corporate debts. House values are now stagnant at best, and will likely fall in the months ahead.
Mainstream economics pays little attention to such structural questions. Instead, it assumes that business investment responds mostly to the consumer, whose spending is dictated equally by income and desire. The distinction between "essential" and "superfluous" does not exist. Debt burdens are largely ignored.
But demand for many US-made capital goods now depends on global conditions. Orders for new aircraft will not recover while half of all existing planes are grounded. At current prices, the global oil industry is not drilling new wells. Even at home, though existing construction projects may be completed, plans for new office towers or retail outlets won't be launched soon. And as people commute less, cars will last longer, so demand for them (and gasoline) will suffer.
Faced with radical uncertainty, US consumers will save more and spend less. Even if the government replaces their lost incomes for a time, people know that stimulus is short term. What they do not know is when the next job offer – or layoff – will come along.
Moreover, people do distinguish between needs and wants. Americans need to eat, but they mostly don't need to eat out. They don't need to travel. Restaurant owners and airlines therefore have two problems: they can't cover costs while their capacity is limited for public-health reasons, and demand would be down even if the coronavirus disappeared. This explains why many businesses are not reopening even though they legally can. Others are reopening, but fear they cannot hold out for long. And the many millions of workers in America's vast services sector are realizing that their jobs are simply not essential.
Meanwhile, US household debts – rent, mortgage, and utility arrears, as well as interest on education and car loans – have continued to mount. True, stimulus checks have helped: defaults have so far been modest, and many landlords have been accommodating. But as people face long periods with lower incomes, they will continue to hoard funds to ensure that they can repay their fixed debts. As if all this were not enough, falling sales- and income-tax revenues are prompting US state and local governments to cut spending, compounding the loss of jobs and incomes.
America's economic plight is structural. It is not simply the consequence of Trump's incompetence or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's poor political strategy. It reflects systemic changes over 50 years that have created an economy based on global demand for advanced goods, consumer demand for frills, and ever-growing household and business debts. This economy was in many ways prosperous, and it provided jobs and incomes to many millions. Yet it was a house of cards, and COVID-19 has blown it down.
"Reopen America" is therefore an economic and political fantasy. Incumbent politicians crave a cheery growth rebound, and the depth of the collapse makes possible some attractive short-term numbers. But taking them seriously will merely set the stage for a new round of disillusion. As nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality show, disillusion is America's one big growth sector right now.
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Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
psychohistorian , Mar 30, 2019 7:51:28 PM | link
Here is an insightful read on Trump's (s)election and Russiagate that I think is not OTTaibbi: On Russiagate and Our Refusal to Face Why Trump Won
The take away quote
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.
Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense
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Jun 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Jun 2 2020 0:32 utc | 126
It's true that the EU is just a province of the USA with delusions of grandeur:EU economic actions reflect state interventions they decry
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May 29, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org
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China's economic shutdown at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic disrupted many global supply chains, prompting a number of countries and corporations to accelerate their strategy of reducing their dependency on China for components.
...the trade war between Washington and Beijing had contributed to the U.S. fashion industry and tech firms like Apple rethinking their own supply chains. Japan, heavily dependent on Chinese trade, is using $2 billion in economic stimulus funds to subsidize the move of Japanese firms out of China.
The Trump administration is thus swimming with the current in its effort to isolate China. It has imposed sanctions because of China's violations of Uyghur human rights. It has levied penalties against China for its cooperation with Iranian firms. And it has threatened to add another set of tariffs on top of the existing ones for China's handling of the coronavirus.
Its latest initiative has been to tighten the screws on the Chinese technology firm, Huawei. Last week, the administration announced sanctions against any firms using U.S.-made equipment that supply the Chinese tech giant. The chief victim of these new restrictions will be the Taiwanese firm TSMC, which supplies 90 percent of Huawei's smartphone chips.
In other words, the Trump administration is committed not only to severing U.S. economic connections with China. It wants to put as much pressure on other countries as well to disentangle themselves from Chinese manufacturing. Taiwan, of course, has no particular love for Mainland China. It battles Beijing on a daily basis to get international recognition -- from other countries and from global organizations like the World Health Organization.
But the Taiwanese economy is also heavily dependent on its cross-strait neighbor. As Eleanor Albert points out :
China is Taiwan's largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the island's total trade, and trade between the two reached $150.5 billion in 2018 (up from $35 billion in 1999). China and Taiwan have also agreed to allow banks, insurers, and other financial service providers to work in both markets.
And it probably won't be Huawei but Taiwan that suffers from the U.S. move. As Michael Reilly notes , "Huawei's size in the global market means its Taiwanese suppliers cannot easily find an alternative customer of comparable standing to replace it." China, meanwhile, will either find another source of chips outside the U.S. sphere, or it will do what the United States has been threatening to do: bring production of critical components back closer to home.
Another key player in the containment of China is India. Trump's friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, is more than simply an ideological affection. Trump sealed a $3 billion in military sales deal with India in February, with a trade deal still on the horizon.
Modi, in turn, is hoping to be the biggest beneficiary of the falling out between Washington and Beijing. "The government in April reached out to more than 1,000 companies in the U.S. and through overseas missions to offer incentives for manufacturers seeking to move out of China," reports Bloomberg . "India is prioritizing medical equipment suppliers, food processing units, textiles, leather, and auto part makers among more than 550 products covered in the discussions."
Vietnam is another regional competitor that the United States is supporting in its containment strategy. With only a couple hundred reported coronavirus cases and zero deaths, Vietnam is poised to emerge from the current crisis virtually unscathed. With low labor costs and an authoritarian government that can enforce deals, it is already a favored alternative for corporations looking for alternatives to China. But wildcat strikes have been happening in greater numbers in the country, and the Vietnamese government recently approved the country's first independent trade union.
Yet with a more technologically sophisticated infrastructure, China will continue to look more attractive to investors than India or Vietnam.
... ... ...
Trump administration is, frankly, at a huge disadvantage when it tries to pressure companies to relocate their operations. Writes Manisha Mirchandani:The global technology and consumer electronics sectors are especially reliant on China's infrastructure and specialized labor pool, neither of which will be easy to replicate. The Chinese government is already mobilizing resources to convince producers of China's unique merits as a manufacturing location. Zhengzhou, within Henan Province, has appointed officials to support Apple's partner Foxconn in mitigating the disruptions caused by the coronavirus, while the Ministry of Finance is increasing credit support to the manufacturing sector. Further, the Chinese government is likely to channel stimulus efforts to develop the country's high-tech manufacturing infrastructure, moving away from its low-value manufacturing base and accelerating its vision for a technology-driven services economy.
The Trump administration is playing the short game, trying to use tariffs and anti-Chinese sentiment to hobble a rising power. China, on the other hand, is playing the long game, translating its trade surpluses into structural advantages in a fast-evolving global economy.
Will the Conflict Turn Hot?Despite the economic ravages of the pandemic, the Pentagon continues to demand the lion's share of the U.S. budget. It wants another $705 billion for 2021, after increasing its budget by 20 percent between 2016 and 2020.
This appalling waste of government resources has already caused long-term damage to the economic competitiveness of the United States. But it's all the money the Pentagon is spending on "deterring China" that might prove more devastating in the short term.
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus , where this article originally appeared.
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May 29, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The administration also took off the gloves with China over U.S. listings by mainland companies that fail to follow U.S. securities laws. This came after the Commerce Department finally moved to limit access by Huawei Technologies to high-end silicon chips made with U.S. lithography machines. The trade war with China is heating up, but a conflict was inevitable and particularly when it comes to technology.
At the bleeding edge of 7 and 5 nanometer feature size, American tech still rules the world of semiconductors. In 2018, Qualcomm confirmed its next-generation Snapdragon SoC would be built at 7 nm. Huawei has already officially announced its first 7nm chip -- the Kirin 980. But now Huawei is effectively shut out of the best in class of custom-made chips, giving Samsung and Apple a built-in advantage in handsets and network equipment.
It was no secret that Washington allowed Huawei to use loopholes in last year's blacklist rules to continue to buy U.S. sourced chips. Now the door is closed, however, as the major Taiwan foundries led by TSMC will be forced to stop custom production for Huawei, which is basically out of business in about 90 days when its inventory of chips runs out. But even as Huawei spirals down, the White House is declaring financial war on dozens of other listed Chinese firms.
President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox Business News that forcing Chinese companies to follow U.S. accounting norms would likely push them to list in non-U.S. exchanges. Chinese companies that list their shares in the U.S. have long refused to allow American regulators to inspect their accounting audits, citing direction from their government -- a practice that market authorities here have been unwilling or unable to stop.
The attack by the Trump Administration on shoddy financial disclosure at Chinese firms is long overdue, but comes at a time when the political evolution in China is turning decidedly authoritarian in nature and against any pretense of market-oriented development. The rising power of state companies in China parallels the accumulation of power in the hands of Xi Jinping, who is increasingly seen as a threat to western-oriented business leaders. The trade tensions with Washington provide a perfect foil to crack down on popular unrest in Hong Kong and discipline wayward oligarchs.
The latest moves by Beijing to take full control in Hong Kong are part of the more general retrenchment visible in China. "[P]rivate entrepreneurs are increasingly nervous about their future," writes Henny Sender in the Financial Times . "In many cases, these entrepreneurs have U.S. passports or green cards and both children and property in America. To be paid in U.S. dollars outside China for their companies must look more tempting by the day." A torrent of western oriented Chinese business leaders is exiting before the door is shut completely.
The fact is that China's position in U.S. trade has retreated as nations like Mexico and Vietnam have gained. Mexico is now America's largest trading partner and Vietnam has risen to 11th, reports Qian Wang of Bloomberg News . Meanwhile, China has dropped from 21 percent of U.S. trade in 2018 to just 18 percent last year. A big part of the shift is due to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact, which is expected to accelerate a return of production to North America. Sourcing for everything from autos to semiconductors is expected to rotate away from China in coming years.
China abandoned its decades-old practice of setting a target for annual economic growth , claiming that it was prioritizing goals such as stabilizing employment, alleviating poverty and preventing risks in 2020. Many observers accept the official communist party line that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic made it almost impossible to fix an expansion rate this year, but in fact the lasting effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the aggressive policies of President Trump have rocked China back on its heels.
As China becomes increasingly focused inward and with an eye on public security, the economic situation is likely to deteriorate further. While many observers viewed China's "Belt & Road" initiative as a sign of confidence and strength, in fact it was Beijing's attempt to deal with an economic realignment that followed the 2008 crisis. The arrival of President Trump on the scene further weakened China's already unstable mercantilist economic model, where non-existent internal demand was supposed to make up for falling global trade flows. Or at least this was the plan until COVID-19.
"Before the Covid-19 outbreak, many economists were expecting China to set a GDP growth target of 6% to 6.5% to reflect the gradual slowdown in the pace of expansion over the past few years," reports Caixin Global . "Growth slid to 6.1% in 2019 from 6.7% in 2018. But the devastation caused by the coronavirus epidemic -- which saw the economy contract 6.8% year-on-year in the first quarter -- has thrown those forecasts out of the window."
Out of the window indeed. Instead of presiding over a glorious expansion of the Chinese sphere of influence in Asia, Xi Jinping is instead left to fight a defensive action economically and financially. The prospective end of the special status of Hong Kong is unlikely to have any economic benefits and may actually cause China's problems with massive internal debt and economic malaise to intensify. Beijing's proposed security law would reduce Hong Kong's separate legal status and likely bring an end to the separate currency and business environment.
I honestly don't know if this article is or is not correct... But I wonder...chris chuba M Orban • 12 hours ago
AmConMag publishes a major anti-China article on most days now. What is happening? What is the mechanics of this... "phenomenon"?For any of their flaws AmConMag was a sweet spot.M Orban chris chuba • 6 hours agoA place where where Americans opposed to U.S. hegemony because it's harm on everyone without being overwhelmed by the Neocon acolytes where can we go, anyone ever try to get a word in on foxnews ?
If you try to reach out to twitter on Tom Cotton or Mike Waltz dismisses you as a 'Chinese govt / Iranian / Russian bot'
You know what, God will judge us and we will all be equal in he eyes of Him
Why should I be afraid. Why should I be silent. And thank you TAC for the opportunity to post.I too came here for interesting commentary, - and even better comments... five years ago or so?MPC M Orban • 2 hours ago • edited
I found the original articles mostly okay, often too verbose, meandering for my taste but the different point of view made them worthwhile. The readers' comments, now that is priceless. That brings the real value. That's where we learn. That's where I learn, anyway. :)
It never occurred to me to message to any politician, I think my voice would be lost in the cacophony.
The target of my curiosity is that when all these articles start to point in one direction (like belligerence toward China) how does it happen? Is there a chain of command? It seems coordinated.It's possible to be anti-neocon, for their being too ideological, and not pacifist. That is basically my position.Barry_II M Orban • 7 hours agoI agree with most here on Russia and Iran. They are not threats, and in specific cases should be partners instead. Agree on American imperialism being foolish and often evil. I believe in a multipolar world as a practical matter. I don't take a soft view of China however. I believe they do intend to replace nefarious American hegemony with their own relevant, but equally nefarious, flavor of hegemony. There are few countries in the world with such a pathological distrust of their own people. I truly believe that country is a threat that needs to be checked at least for a couple of decades by the rest of the world.
As to the editorial direction, I think it is merely capitalism. China's perception in the world is extremely bad lately. I would fully expect the always somewhat Russophile environment here to seize the moment to say 'see! Russia is not a true threat! It's China!' RT itself soon after Trump's election I recall posted an article complaining about total disregard for Chinese election meddling.
You can see when the people holding the leash give a tug on the collar. And it's clear that the GOP is feeling the need for a warlike political environment.M Orban Barry_II • 6 hours agoThe most blatant presstitution example, of course, was the National Review, going from 'Never Trump' to full time servicing.
In case of AmConMag, who is holding the leash?
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May 28, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , May 27 2020 20:28 utc | 17
@ Posted by: james | May 27 2020 18:51 utc | 8Of all the options in the Western arsenal against China, arresting Huawei's heir apparent on blatantly forged charges is easily one of the worst.
Chinese or not Chinese, fact is Meng is a member of the bourgeoisie. She is one of them. It doesn't matter if Huawei only became big and prosperous thanks to the CCP: bourgeoisie is bourgeoisie, and having a strong one within communist China's belly is essential for the long term success of capitalism in its war against communism.
By arresting Meng, the capitalists (i.e. Americans) are just driving a hedge between inside the "Capitalist International". The Chinese capitalist class - who was certainly very interested in ganging up with their western counterparts to, in the long term, topple the CCP - is now completely at the mercy of the CCP, as the CCP is now the only guarantor of their own class status.
The correct strategy would be for the Western bourgeoisie to woo the Chinese bourgeoisie with as many tax breaks, green cards and other kinds of flattery, so that, withing the course of some generations, the Chinese bourgeoisie become fully liberal (westernized). It would then make the infamous "middle class insurgence" theory feasible.
But (and there's always a "but" in the real world), it seems that capitalism itself is in crisis. It seems that, all of a sudden, the pot became too small to make every alpha male happy. The international bourgeoisie is now devouring its children (the petite-bourgeoisie, the "small business owners") and is beginning to devour itself.
A.L. , May 27 2020 20:48 utc | 20
@Kadath 15A.L. , May 27 2020 21:06 utc | 23Meng is a high profile scalp but won't change anything. it'll just up the ante in this game of chicken.
in regards to HK's special trading rights, it's horseshit really. HK hasn't made anything anyone needed for decades. the biggest use of this special relationship (cough cough) is to move mainland product through Hong Kong to skirt quota and tariff restrictions. as an inhabitant I won't be sorry to see it go. it hasn't and doesn't benefit the people here anyway.
as to it's status as a financial hub, do you really think the bankers will leave if there are money to be made? c'mon who are we kidding here. actually, if it means driving away a few expat bankers who does nothing except creating glass ceilings and hanging out in various golf and aristocratic clubs in hk, I'm all for it too.
as to visa free travel, again it's a non issue as well. I remember before the 1997 handover having to get visas to go pretty much anywhere with my HK British passport it was an utterly useless 3nd class citizen passport. so nothing changes. ironically all of the visa free agreement came after the handover with no thanks to the Brits.
if USA start freezing assets of individuals and businesses it'll be a sloppily slope for Trumpville. For one freezing individuals assets won't hurt China on the whole one iota, second, China can play that game too. US businesses and assets can all be nationalised.
I'm still waiting for China to cancel all Boeing and GE orders because they're defense suppliers of USA, just as USA is claiming huawei to be as the reason for sanctions.
so yeah it'll get worse.
@vk 17Kadath , May 27 2020 21:15 utc | 25"The Chinese capitalist class - who was certainly very interested in ganging up with their western counterparts to, in the long term, topple the CCP - is now completely at the mercy of the CCP, as the CCP is now the only guarantor of their own class status."
I think you nailed it on the head there. it's not just capitalists, a lot of party officials shipped their families to the 5 eye countries thinking it's their plan B (often with obscene, questionable wealth and under fake identities as dual citizenship is not allowed in China). now it's becoming clear to them they're now in the pocket of uncle Sam, their loved ones to be sacrificed and used against them in any moment.
Re: 20 A.L.james , May 27 2020 21:19 utc | 26I agree, stripping HK of its' special trading agreement isn't going to hurt China in any meaningful way and I don't think the financial elite of HK are going to flee from China over this. However, the way in which the US is doing this is an insult to the Chinese (not just the government, but the Chinese people themselves). The US claiming to have the right to adjudicate over the domestic policies of other countries is not just an insult but also an implied threat. In international politics claiming that you have a right of approval over another nation's internal policies is in effect a claim of superior authority over that country than that country's own government and it logically brings up all sorts of questions about what happens if they refuse to accept your claim, do you impose sanctions or go to war over it?
The bigger threats are coming over Taiwan and Tibet, the US suggesting that it might pass legislation recognizing them as independent countries means that the US feels it has the right to unilaterally impose new boarders on countries - that only happens if you win a war, so the US feels it is at war with China and that it has already won or is so certain to win that it can announce what it wants the new boarders to look like. That is crazy. What's next, will the US do what they did with Venezuela and declare some random oligarch the new Chinese President then sign agreements with him and insist that they are real legal documents (that might very well be the plan for the leader of the HK protests Joshua Wong).
The US was stupid or crazy or both to try this path with Venezuela to try this with China means war.
@ 25 kadath... isn't this what the usa is doing with the huawei case in canada? they are essentially saying - our rules 'trump' all of yours... this is how exceptional nations work ya know... either that or the bullying tactics are wearing thin with me...Anonymous , May 27 2020 21:29 utc | 28Since the subject of Meng Wanzhou's court case came up, I thought I'd post more detail.Kadath , May 27 2020 21:36 utc | 29"Meng's lawyers argued that the fact Canada does not have economic sanctions against Iran meant her alleged actions would not have been considered a crime in Canada because no bank would have suffered a loss in an identical set of circumstances.
But the judge said Meng's lawyers were trying to make the scope of her analysis too narrow.
"Canada's law of fraud looks beyond international boundaries to encompass all the relevant details that make up the factual matrix, including foreign laws that may give meaning to some of the facts," Holmes said.
____OK, so that's settled but there is a lot more to come:
"The judge still has to hold hearings to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant extradition, and Meng has also claimed that her rights were violated at the time of her arrest.
Holmes pointed out that Canada's minister of justice will also have a chance to weigh in on whether a decision to commit Meng for extradition would be contrary to Canadian values.
The ministry confirmed in a statement that extradition proceedings will go ahead "as expeditiously as possible."
Links:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/meng-wanzhou-extradition-decision-1.5585737
Re:26 James,bevin , May 28 2020 0:46 utc | 41The extraterritoriality the US is claiming over everything related to international finance and sanctions (not just Iran, but also Cuba, Russia, roughly 1/3 of the world is under some form of US sanctions) is a constant crime which kills thousands of people per year. But what the US has been doing over the past few years, changing boarders unilaterally without evening going to war is a step towards pure insanity. The US "declares" that the "Golan heights" belong to Israel, the US hates the current President of Venezuela so they declare some random guy the new President and bully other countries into pretending his is as well. Ultimately, this is a sign of growing weakness, when the US wanted to change the government of Iraq they invaded (and failed), when they wanted to breakup Syria they bankrolled a bunch of mercenaries (and failed again). Now the US isn't even confident enough to invade Venezuela and impose a new government, so instead they play make-believe with Guaido. Despite this, Venezula isn't strong enough to punish the US for its' delusions but if the US insists on playing make-believe with China they will learn some very painful lessons because China is strong enough to push back.
The Meng case has always been part of the Trump campaign to put pressure on China. The Judge's ruling today is quite ludicrous but wholly consistent with Canada's historic tradition of carrying out instructions from the Imperial capital, whether that be in London or Washington.dh , May 28 2020 1:24 utc | 43
It is sad to see a national ruling class prostituting itself and sadder still when it does so out of fear rather than for profit.
It is all about China, which is in an invulnerable position thanks to Washington having spent the last twenty years forcing Russia and Iran into Beijing's arms. Having given up diplomacy in order to concentrate on gangster bullying tactics the US has ended up, the way all declining empires do, with no friends except those countries so weak that they still crave the Emperor's favour.@41 "....it does so out of fear rather than for profit."Basic economic survival surely. Canada is in no position to upset the current administration in Washington....much as many Canadians would like to.
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May 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
jayc , May 27 2020 17:38 utc | 2
An important ruling in the Canada-US extradition case of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou will be announced shortly. A Canadian court will rule if the case has suitable "double-criminality" - i.e. an act illegal in both countries - and Men will either be free or one step closer to being delivered to the Americans. While it is claimed the arrest was political in nature due to an off-the-cuff comment by Trump, the politicized nature of the charge and extradition request goes back ten years as revealed in the New York Times in December 2018 (How A National Security Investigation of Huawei Set Off an International Incident Dec 14, 2018):
"The details of the criminal charges against Ms. Meng, filed under seal, remain murky. But court filings in Canada and interviews with people familiar with the Huawei investigation show that the events leading to her arrest were set in motion years ago.How a National Security Investigation of Huawei Set Off an International Incident - The New York Times 2018-12-15, 4*50 PM
They grew out of an Obama administration national security investigation into Chinese companies -- including Huawei -- that act as extensions of the country's government, according to the people familiar with the investigation. The focus only recently shifted to whether Huawei, and specifically Ms. Meng, deceived HSBC and other banks to get them to keep facilitating business in Iran. Former federal prosecutors said pursuing Ms. Meng, 46, for alleged bank fraud proved to be a better line of attack than trying to build a case on national security grounds...Counterintelligence agents and federal prosecutors began exploring possible cases against Huawei's leadership in 2010, according to a former federal law enforcement official. The effort was led by United States attorney's offices in places where Huawei has facilities, including Massachusetts, Alabama, California, New York and Texas."
In other words, the Americans had decided to use its courts against Huawei many years before any charges directed at Meng came to pass. They were literally in search of a crime.
Some of the uglier features of the Canadian political establishment and media have been pounding the drums for expanded hostilities directed at China, in concert with other Five Eyes partners.
james , May 27 2020 18:51 utc | 8
cbc article on it here - Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou loses major court battle as B.C. judge rules extradition bid should proceedKadath , May 27 2020 20:15 utc | 15Well now that it's 95% sure that Meng will be extradited to the US by the Canadian poodle courts, we should now consider how China will respond as the full court press against China has really heated up in the past month. If Meng is extradited to the US, she'll almost certainly be kept in a high security prison, as I can't imagine the US allowing her to remain free on bail during the trial and then given a 10-15yr prison sentence which will be used as a bargaining chip in the US-China trade war. US intelligence agencies will constantly interrogate/torture/bribe her in efforts to get her to flip against the Chinese government or provide them some intelligence. Given her high status I think China may want to consider the following optionsvk , May 27 2020 20:28 utc | 171. Arrest some more Canadian "diplomats" (i.e. spies) and perhaps even up the ante by arresting a US spy.
2. Pull an Assange and have Meng flee to the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver, I've seen the Consulate and it is much roomier than the Ecuadorian embassy that Julian was stuck in. This would ensure her protection and bypass the corrupt Courts, making it purely a question of diplomacy between states (not that Canada has good diplomacy skills, but if China was also holding a bunch of Canadian spies it would make sense to make this problem go away).6 months ago, I think the Chinese would have allowed her to be extradited to the US and then fought it out in backdown diplomacy with the US. But will all of the crazy things the US has done in the past 2 months I think China has had enough and will start pushing back. Heck, in the past 48 hours a congressman put forth a motion to declare Tibet an independent country illegally occupied by China and the Whitehouse is threatening to strip Hong Kong of special trading rights.
@ Posted by: james | May 27 2020 18:51 utc | 8Of all the options in the Western arsenal against China, arresting Huawei's heir apparent on blatantly forged charges is easily one of the worst.
Chinese or not Chinese, fact is Meng is a member of the bourgeoisie. She is one of them. It doesn't matter if Huawei only became big and prosperous thanks to the CCP: bourgeoisie is bourgeoisie, and having a strong one within communist China's belly is essential for the long term success of capitalism in its war against communism.
By arresting Meng, the capitalists (i.e. Americans) are just driving a hedge between inside the "Capitalist International". The Chinese capitalist class - who was certainly very interested in ganging up with their western counterparts to, in the long term, topple the CCP - is now completely at the mercy of the CCP, as the CCP is now the only guarantor of their own class status.
The correct strategy would be for the Western bourgeoisie to woo the Chinese bourgeoisie with as many tax breaks, green cards and other kinds of flattery, so that, withing the course of some generations, the Chinese bourgeoisie become fully liberal (westernized). It would then make the infamous "middle class insurgence" theory feasible.
But (and there's always a "but" in the real world), it seems that capitalism itself is in crisis. It seems that, all of a sudden, the pot became too small to make every alpha male happy. The international bourgeoisie is now devouring its children (the petite-bourgeoisie, the "small business owners") and is beginning to devour itself.
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May 26, 2020 | www.bloomberg.com
May 17, 2020 10:25 PM Updated on May 18, 2020 6:00 AM 2:44
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May 20, 2020 | fpif.org
Trump's economic war on China comes in the shadow of an even deadlier military escalation. And it may not stop after November, no matter who wins the election.
Economists like to think of the wreckage caused by stock market downturns, widespread bankruptcies, and corporate downsizing as "creative destruction." As it destroys the old and the dysfunctional, the capitalist system continually spurs innovation, much as a forest fire prepares the ground for new growth.Or so the representatives of the dismal science argue.
Donald Trump, who is neither economist nor scientist, has his own version of creative destruction. He is determined to destroy the Affordable Care Act and replace it with his own health insurance alternative. He has torn up the Iran nuclear deal in favor of negotiating something brand new with Tehran. He has withdrawn from the Paris climate accord and argues that the United States is reducing carbon emissions in its own superior manner.
The problem, of course, is that Trump is very good at destruction but, despite his previous job as a real estate mogul, exceedingly bad at construction. Indeed, there's abundant evidence that he never intended to replace what he is destroying with anything at all. Trump has never offered any viable alternative to Obamacare or any new negotiating framework with Iran. And prior to the recent economic downturn, U.S. carbon emissions were increasing after several years of decline.
Perhaps the most dangerous example of Trump's uncreative destruction is his approach to China.
Previously, Trump said that he simply wanted to level the playing field by placing trade with China on a fairer and more reciprocal basis, strengthening the regime of intellectual property rights, and stopping Beijing from manipulating its currency.
He was willing to go to great lengths to accomplish this goal. The tariffs that Trump imposed on Chinese products precipitated a trade war that jeopardized the livelihoods of millions of American farmers and workers. The initial trade deal that the United States and China signed in January, even though many of the U.S. tariffs remain in place, was supposed to be the grand alternative to the old and dysfunctional trade relationship.
But here again, Trump is not telling the truth. He and his team have a very different set of objectives. As with so many other elements of his domestic and foreign policy, Trump wants to tear apart the current system -- in this case, the network of economic ties between the United States and China -- and replace it with absolutely nothing at all.
Oh sure, Trump believes that U.S. manufacturers can step up to take the place of Chinese suppliers. More recently, as the administration "turbocharges" its efforts to isolate China in response to its purported pandemic mistakes , it has talked of creating an Economic Prosperity Network of trusted allies like South Korea, Australia, India, and Vietnam. But this is all whistling in the dark, because the administration doesn't really understand the consequences -- for the world economy, for the U.S. economy -- of tearing apart the global supply chain in this way.
Just how poorly Trump understands all this is reflected in his statement last week that "we could cut off the whole relationship" with China and "save $500 billion." This from the president who erroneously believes that China is paying the United States "billions and billions of dollars of tariffs a month." What else do you expect from a man who received a BS in economics from Wharton?
Unlike many of the administration's other policies, however, its hardline approach to China has some bipartisan support. Engagement with China has virtually disappeared as a policy option in the Democratic Party. Joe Biden, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, has attempted to present himself as the tougher alternative when it comes to China, a misguided effort to fend off charges of his bedding down with Beijing.
Finger to the wind, Biden is crafting policies in response not just to Trump but to public opinion. In 2017, 44 percent of Americans had a favorable view of China, compared to 47 percent who held an unfavorable opinion of the country, according to Pew. In this year's survey , only 26 percent looked at China positively versus 66 percent who viewed it negatively. The latter category includes 62 percent of Democrats.
Writing for the Atlantic Council, Michael Greenwald sums up the new conventional wisdom of the centrists:
The United States can no longer remain content with the notion of a Chinese economic threat arising in the distant future. The advent of COVID-19 has made it more apparent than any other time including the US-China trade war that now is the moment for the United States, European Union, and other like-minded countries to diversify supply chains away from China.
That's what makes Trump's uncreative destruction vis a vis China so dangerous. It may not stop after November, no matter who wins the election.
The Great Disentanglement
China's economic shutdown at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic disrupted many global supply chains, prompting a number of countries and corporations to accelerate their strategy of reducing their dependency on China for components.
Rising labor costs in China, concerns over human rights abuses there, but especially the trade war between Washington and Beijing had contributed to the U.S. fashion industry and tech firms like Apple rethinking their own supply chains. Japan, heavily dependent on Chinese trade, is using $2 billion in economic stimulus funds to subsidize the move of Japanese firms out of China.
The Trump administration is thus swimming with the current in its effort to isolate China. It has imposed sanctions because of China's violations of Uyghur human rights. It has levied penalties against China for its cooperation with Iranian firms. And it has threatened to add another set of tariffs on top of the existing ones for China's handling of the coronavirus.
Its latest initiative has been to tighten the screws on the Chinese technology firm, Huawei. Last week, the administration announced sanctions against any firms using U.S.-made equipment that supply the Chinese tech giant. The chief victim of these new restrictions will be the Taiwanese firm TSMC, which supplies 90 percent of Huawei's smartphone chips.
In other words, the Trump administration is committed not only to severing U.S. economic connections with China. It wants to put as much pressure on other countries as well to disentangle themselves from Chinese manufacturing. Taiwan, of course, has no particular love for Mainland China. It battles Beijing on a daily basis to get international recognition -- from other countries and from global organizations like the World Health Organization.
But the Taiwanese economy is also heavily dependent on its cross-strait neighbor. As Eleanor Albert points out :
China is Taiwa n's largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the island's total trade, and trade between the two reached $150.5 billion in 2018 (up from $35 billion in 1999). China and Taiwan have also agreed to allow banks, insurers, and other financial service providers to work in both market s.
And it probably won't be Huawei but Taiwan that suffers from the U.S. move. As Michael Reilly notes , "Huawei's size in the global market means its Taiwanese suppliers cannot easily find an alternative customer of comparable standing to replace it." China, meanwhile, will either find another source of chips outside the U.S. sphere, or it will do what the United States has been threatening to do: bring production of critical components back closer to home.
Another key player in the containment of China is India. Trump's friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, is more than simply an ideological affection. Trump sealed a $3 billion in military sales deal with India in February, with a trade deal still on the horizon.
Modi, in turn, is hoping to be the biggest beneficiary of the falling out between Washington and Beijing. "The government in April reached out to more than 1,000 companies in the U.S. and through overseas missions to offer incentives for manufacturers seeking to move out of China," reports Bloomberg . "India is prioritizing medical equipment suppliers, food processing units, textiles, leather, and auto part makers among more than 550 products covered in the discussions."
Vietnam is another regional competitor that the United States is supporting in its containment strategy. With only a couple hundred reported coronavirus cases and zero deaths, Vietnam is poised to emerge from the current crisis virtually unscathed. With low labor costs and an authoritarian government that can enforce deals, it is already a favored alternative for corporations looking for alternatives to China. But wildcat strikes have been happening in greater numbers in the country, and the Vietnamese government recently approved the country's first independent trade union.
Yet with a more technologically sophisticated infrastructure, China will continue to look more attractive to investors than India or Vietnam.
Don't Count Out China
If your image of the Chinese economy is stuck in the 1980s -- cheap toys and mass-produced baubles -- then you probably think that severing economic ties with the country is no big deal. America can produce its own plastic junk, right?
But China is no longer hurrying to catch up to the West. In some ways, the West is already in China's rearview mirror.
Huawei is well-known for the part it's playing in the rollout of 5G networks worldwide. China is not only ahead of the curve in upgrading to 5G domestically, it is busy manufacturing all the new tech that will run on these high-speed networks, like virtual reality and augmented reality and AI-driven devices.
Perhaps more to the point, China is not simply part of the global supply chain. It is using these new technologies to revolutionize the global supply chain.
For instance, it's using 3-D modeling to shorten product development. It has long integrated drones into its distribution networks. "Chinese supply chain companies are incorporating groundbreaking technologies like cloud-based systems, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) and using them to redesign supply chain operations," writes Adina-Laura Achim.
And don't discount the role of a well-financed, centralized, authoritarian government. The Trump administration is, frankly, at a huge disadvantage when it tries to pressure companies to relocate their operations. Writes Manisha Mirchandani:
The global technology and consumer electronics sectors are especially reliant on China's infrastructure and specialized labor pool, neither of which will be easy to replicate. The Chinese government is already mobilizing resources to convince producers of China's unique merits as a manufacturing location. Zhengzhou, within Henan Province, has appointed officials to support Apple's partner Foxconn in mitigating the disruptions caused by the coronavirus, while the Ministry of Finance is increasing credit support to the manufacturing sector. Further, the Chinese government is likely to channel stimulus efforts to develop the country's high-tech manufacturing infrastructure, moving away from its low-value manufacturing base and accelerating its vision for a technology-driven services economy.
The Trump administration is playing the short game, trying to use tariffs and anti-Chinese sentiment to hobble a rising power. China, on the other hand, is playing the long game, translating its trade surpluses into structural advantages in a fast-evolving global economy.
Will the Conflict Turn Hot?
Despite the economic ravages of the pandemic, the Pentagon continues to demand the lion's share of the U.S. budget. It wants another $705 billion for 2021, after increasing its budget by 20 percent between 2016 and 2020.
This appalling waste of government resources has already caused long-term damage to the economic competitiveness of the United States. But it's all the money the Pentagon is spending on "deterring China" that might prove more devastating in the short term.
The U.S. Navy announced this month that it was sending its entire forward-deployed sub fleet on "contingency response operations" as a warning to China. Last month, the U.S. Navy Expeditionary Strike Group sailed into the South China Sea to support Malaysia's oil exploration in an area that China claims. Aside from the reality that oil exploration makes no economic sense at a time of record low oil prices, the United States should be helping the countries bordering the South China Sea come to a fair resolution of their disputes, not throwing more armaments at the problem.
There's also heightened risk of confrontation in the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea, and even in outer space . A huge portion of the Pentagon's budget goes toward preparing for war with China -- and, frankly, provoking war as well.
What does this all have to do with the Great Disentanglement?
The close economic ties between the United States and China have always represented a significant constraint on military confrontation. Surely the two countries would not risk grievous economic harm by coming to blows. Economic cooperation also provides multiple channels for resolving conflicts and communicating discontent. The United States and Soviet Union never had that kind of buffer.
If the Great Disentanglement goes forward, however, then the two countries have less to lose economically in a military confrontation. Trading partners, of course, sometimes go to war with one another. But as the data demonstrates , more trade generally translates into less war.
There are lots and lots of problems in the U.S.-China economic relationship. But they pale in comparison to World War III. Share this:
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.
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Issues: Labor, Trade, & Finance , War & Peace
Regions: Asia & Pacific , China , India , North America , United States , VietnamTags: 5G , Donald Trump , global supply chain , globalization , great disentanglement , huawei , Joe Biden , tariffs , trade war , U.S. military spending
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MoreView more in North America :
- Trump's 'Uncreative Destruction' of the U.S.-China Relationship
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- The Race to Replace a Dying Neoliberalism
- Death and the Economy: A Dialogue
Related TopicsDonald Trump Terrorism military spending World Bank oil immigration climate change Refugees United Nations Vladimir Putin development diplomacy Military Intervention austerity Iraq Mexico taliban syrian civil war NATO Russiahttps://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FForeign-Policy-In-Focus%2F126648970682757&width=292&height=258&show_faces=true&colorscheme=light&stream=false&show_border=false&header=false&appId=229260323752355
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Making China Great Again
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May 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , May 22 2020 21:02 utc | 27
China is still in great danger. Of the existing 30 or so high-tech productive chains, China only enjoys superiority at 2 or 3 (see 6:48). It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is a developing country.So, yes, the West still has a realistic chance of destroying China and inaugurating a new cycle of capitalist prosperity.
What happens with the "decoupling"/"Pivot to Asia" is that, in the West, there's a scatological theory [go to 10th paragraph] - of Keynesian origin - that socialism can only play "catch up" with capitalism, but never surpass it when a "toyotist phase" of technological innovation comes (this is obviously based on the USSR's case). This theory states that, if there's innovation in socialism, it is residual and by accident, and that only in capitalism is significant technological advancement possible. From this, they posit that, if China is blocked out of Western IP, it will soon "go back to its place" - which is probably to Brazil or India level.
If China will be able to get out of the "Toyotist Trap" that destroyed the USSR, only time will tell. Regardless, decoupling is clearly not working, and China is not showing any signs so far of slowing down. Hence Trump is now embracing a more direct approach.
As for the USA, I've put my big picture opinion about it some days ago, so I won't repeat myself. Here, it suffices to say that, yes, I believe the USA can continue to survive as an empire - even if, worst case scenario, in a "byzantine" form. To its favor, it has: 1) the third largest world population 2) huge territory, with excellent proportion of high-quality arable land (35%), that basically guarantees food security indefinitely (for comparison, the USSR only had 10% of arable land, and of worse quality) 3) two coasts, to the two main Oceans (Pacific and Atlantic), plus a direct exit to the Arctic (Alaska and, de facto, Greenland and Canada) 4) excellent, very defensive territory, protected by both oceans (sea-to-sea), bordered only by two very feeble neighbors (Mexico and Canada) that can be easily absorbed if the situation asks to 4) still the financial superpower 5) still a robust "real" economy - specially if compared to the micro-nations of Western Europe and East-Asia 6) a big fucking Navy, which gives it thalassocratic power.
I don't see the USA losing its territorial integrity anytime soon. There are separatist movements in places like Texas and, more recently, the Western Coast. Most of them exist only for fiscal reasons and are not taken seriously by anyone else. The Star-and-Stripes is still a very strong ideal to the average American, and nobody takes the idea of territory loss for real. If that happens, though, it would change my equation on the survival of the American Empire completely.
As for Hong Kong. I watched a video by the chief of the PLA last year (unfortunately, I watched it on Twitter and don't have the link with me anymore). He was very clear: Hong Kong does not present an existential threat to China. The greatest existential threat to China are, by far, Xinjiang and Tibet, followed by Taiwan and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is a distant fourth place.
Those liberal clowns were never close.
Jen , May 22 2020 21:55 utc | 32
VK @ 28:vk , May 22 2020 22:16 utc | 33One problem with your scenario is that the US navy may be over-extended in parts of the world where all the enemy has to do is to cut off supply lines to battleship groups and then those ships would be completely helpless. US warships in the Persian Gulf with the Strait of Hormuz sealed off by Iran come to mind.
Incidents involving US naval ship collisions with slow-moving oil tankers in SE Asian waters and some other parts of of the the world, resulting in the loss of sailors, hardly instill the notion that the US is a mighty thalassocratic force.
It's my understanding also that Russia, China and maybe some other countries have invested hugely in long-range missiles capable of hitting US coastal cities and areas where the bulk of the US population lives.
And if long-range missiles don't put paid to the notion that projecting power through sending naval warships all over the planet works, maybe the fact that many of these ships are sitting ducks for COVID-19 infection clusters might, where the US public is concerned.
@ Posted by: Jen | May 22 2020 21:55 utc | 33Richard Steven Hack , May 22 2020 23:51 utc | 38I agree the new anti-ship missile technology may have changed the rules of naval warfare.
However, it's important to highlight that, contrary to the US Army, the USN has a stellar record. It fought wonderfully against the Japanese Empire in 1941-1945, and successfully converted both the Pacific and the Atlantic into "American lakes" for the next 75 years. All the Americans have nowadays it owes its Navy.
But you may be right. Maybe the USN is also susceptible to degeneration.
Posted by: vk | May 22 2020 21:02 utc | 28Of the existing 30 or so high-tech productive chains, China only enjoys superiority at 2 or 3 (see 6:48). It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is a developing country.
Based on what I've read, China is on a fast track to develop technology on their own. In addition, technology development is world-wide these days. What China can not develop itself - quickly enough, time is the only real problem - it can buy with its economic power.
"if China is blocked out of Western IP, it will soon "go back to its place" - which is probably to Brazil or India level."
Ah, but that's where hackers come in. China can *not* be blocked out of Western IP. First, as I said, China can *buy* it. Unless there is a general prohibition across the entire Western world, and by extension sanctions against any other nation from selling to China - which is an unenforceable policy, as Iran has shown - China can buy what it doesn't have and then reverse-engineer it. Russia will sell it if no one else will.
Second, China can continue to simply acquire technology through industrial espionage. Every country and every industry engages in this sort of thing. Ever watch the movie "Duplicity"? That shit actually happens. I read about industrial espionage years ago and it's only gotten fancier since the old days of paper files. I would be happy to breach any US or EU industrial sector and sell what I find to the Chinese, the Malaysians or anyone else interested. It's called "leveling the playing field" and that is advantageous for everyone. If the US industrial sector employees can't keep up, that's their problem. No one is guaranteed a job for life - and shouldn't be.
"1) the third largest world population"
Which is mostly engaged in unproductive activities like finance, law, etc. I've read that if you visit the main US universities teaching science and technology, who are the students? Chinese. Indians. Not Americans. Americans only want to "make money" in law and finance, not "make things."
"2) huge territory, with excellent proportion of high-quality arable land (35%), that basically guarantees food security indefinitely"
In military terms, given current military technology, territory doesn't matter. China has enough nuclear missiles to destroy the 50 Major Metropolitan Areas in this country. Losing 100-200 millions citizens kinda puts a damper on US productivity. Losing the same number in China merely means more for the rest.
"3) two coasts, to the two main Oceans (Pacific and Atlantic)"
Which submarines can make irrelevant. Good for economic matters - *if* your economy can continue competing. China has one coast - but its Belt and Road Initiative gives it economic clout on the back-end and the front-end. I don't see the US successfully countering that Initiative.
"4) excellent, very defensive territory, protected by both oceans (sea-to-sea)"
Which only means the US can't be "invaded". That's WWI and WWII thinking the US is mired in. Today, you destroy an opponent's military and, if necessary, his civilian population, or at least its ability to "project" force against you. You don't "invade" unless it's some weak Third World country. And if the US can't "project" its power via its navy or air force, having a lot of territory doesn't mean much. This is where Russia is right now. Very defensible but limited in force projection (but getting better fast.) The problem for the US is China and Russia are developing military technology that can prevent US force projection around *their* borders.
"bordered only by two very feeble neighbors (Mexico and Canada) that can be easily absorbed if the situation asks"
LOL I can just see the US "absorbing" Mexico. Canada, maybe - they're allies anyway. Mexico, not so much. You want a "quagmire", send the US troops to take on the Mexican drug gangs. They aren't Pancho Villa.
"4) still the financial superpower"
Uhm, what part of "Depression" did you miss? And even if that doesn't happen now, continued financial success is unlikely. Like pandemics, shit happens in economics and monetary policy.
"a big fucking Navy, which gives it thalassocratic power."
That can be sunk in a heartbeat and is virtually a colossal money pit with limited strategic value given current military technology which both China and Russia are as advanced as the US is, if not more so. Plus China is developing its own navy quickly. I read somewhere a description of one Chinese naval shipyard. There were several advanced destroyers being developed. Then the article noted that China has several more large shipyards. That Chinese long coast comes in handy for that sort of thing.
China Now Has More Warships Than the U.S.
But sometimes quantity doesn't trump quality. [My note: But sometimes it does.]
https://tinyurl.com/y7numhefThat's just the first article I found, from a crappy source. There are better analyses, of course.
"I don't see the USA losing its territorial integrity anytime soon. There are separatist movements in places like Texas and, more recently, the Western Coast. Most of them exist only for fiscal reasons and are not taken seriously by anyone else."
I'd agree with that. I hear this "California secession" crap periodically and never believe it. However, for state politicians, the notion of being "President" of your own country versus a "Governor" probably is tempting to these morons. State populations are frequently idiots as well, as the current lockdown response is demonstrating. All in all, though, if there are perceived external military threats, that is likely to make the states prefer to remain under US central control.
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May 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kay Fabe , May 23 2020 0:09 utc | 42
"Britain had to agree to the pact because it had lost the capability to defend the colony.".."That was the excuse. I believe HK was offered to China in return for Deng to open up and turn China capitalist. Deng was not the one who
demanded HK return. Britain initiated the discussions. Deng gladly accepted although he insisted on maintaining their authoritarian form of undemocratic government and left HK's fate ambiguous so Britain could get support from their people and the HK elite. The party elites were happy to be able to join the Western Elites in accumulating an unequal share of the wealth. The Soviet elites led by the US Globalist puppet Gorbachev chose the same path although they chose Fake Democracy and rule of the oligarchs as in the US rather than party control of ChinaHK is protected against US tarrifs imposed on China goods. China exports a good chunk of goods through HK. If Trump were really serious he would remove HK's protected status.
vk , May 23 2020 0:30 utc | 47
@ Posted by: Kay Fabe | May 23 2020 0:09 utc | 42The timing doesn't add up. China opened up in 1972 (the famous Nixon-Mao handshake), while the UK's agreement to give HK back was from 1984 - well into the Thatcher Era.
The most likely reason for the UK to decide to obey the lease deal was of military nature: the valuable land necessary to defend HK was the flatland adjacent to the city proper, where potable water comes from. It already part of the Mainland, thus rendering the defense of HK virtually impossible without an outright invasion of the Mainland itself.
Margaret Thatcher probably didn't want to obey the treaty (99-year lease), as a good neoliberal she was, but her military advisors probably warned her of the practical difficulties, and, since it was a 99-year lease anyway, she must've agreed to simply allow the treaty to be followed.
It is important to highlight that, in 1984, there were a lot of reasons the capitalist world should be optimist about China becoming capitalist. After all, it really got off the Soviet sphere after 1972, and Deng's reforms were - from the point of view of a vulgar (bourgeois) economist - indeed a clear path to a capitalist restoration. It didn't cross Thatcher's mind that China could stand its ground and remain socialist - at least not in 1984. If you read the sources of the time, you will easily see the Western elites treated China's return to capitalism as a given.
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May 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , May 22 2020 21:02 utc | 28
China is still in great danger. Of the existing 30 or so high-tech productive chains, China only enjoys superiority at 2 or 3 (see 6:48).
It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is a developing country.
So, yes, the West still has a realistic chance of destroying China and inaugurating a new cycle of capitalist prosperity.
What happens with the "decoupling"/"Pivot to Asia" is that, in the West, there's a scatological theory [go to 10th paragraph] - of Keynesian origin - that socialism can only play "catch up" with capitalism, but never surpass it when a "toyotist phase" of technological innovation comes (this is obviously based on the USSR's case). This theory states that, if there's innovation in socialism, it is residual and by accident, and that only in capitalism is significant technological advancement possible. From this, they posit that, if China is blocked out of Western IP, it will soon "go back to its place" - which is probably to Brazil or India level.
If China will be able to get out of the "Toyotist Trap" that destroyed the USSR, only time will tell. Regardless, decoupling is clearly not working, and China is not showing any signs so far of slowing down. Hence Trump is now embracing a more direct approach.
As for the USA, I've put my big picture opinion about it some days ago, so I won't repeat myself. Here, it suffices to say that, yes, I believe the USA can continue to survive as an empire - even if, worst case scenario, in a "byzantine" form. To its favor, it has: 1) the third largest world population 2) huge territory, with excellent proportion of high-quality arable land (35%), that basically guarantees food security indefinitely (for comparison, the USSR only had 10% of arable land, and of worse quality) 3) two coasts, to the two main Oceans (Pacific and Atlantic), plus a direct exit to the Arctic (Alaska and, de facto, Greenland and Canada) 4) excellent, very defensive territory, protected by both oceans (sea-to-sea), bordered only by two very feeble neighbors (Mexico and Canada) that can be easily absorbed if the situation asks to 4) still the financial superpower 5) still a robust "real" economy - specially if compared to the micro-nations of Western Europe and East-Asia 6) a big fucking Navy, which gives it thalassocratic power.
I don't see the USA losing its territorial integrity anytime soon. There are separatist movements in places like Texas and, more recently, the Western Coast. Most of them exist only for fiscal reasons and are not taken seriously by anyone else. The Star-and-Stripes is still a very strong ideal to the average American, and nobody takes the idea of territory loss for real. If that happens, though, it would change my equation on the survival of the American Empire completely.
As for Hong Kong. I watched a video by the chief of the PLA last year (unfortunately, I watched it on Twitter and don't have the link with me anymore). He was very clear: Hong Kong does not present an existential threat to China. The greatest existential threat to China are, by far, Xinjiang and Tibet, followed by Taiwan and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is a distant fourth place.
Those liberal clowns were never close.
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May 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
"They Saw This Day Coming" - Huawei Forges Alliances With Rival Chipmakers As Washington's Crackdown Intensifies by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/22/2020 - 18:05 The US Commerce Department's latest move to block companies from selling products to Huawei that were created with American technology, equipment or software has undoubtedly hurt the Chinese telecoms giant. But it won't be nearly enough to take it down.
Since Washington launched its campaign against Huawei two years ago (when the trade tensions between the US and China started to heat up, as President Trump started slapping more tariffs on foreign goods) the company has been strengthening ties with contract chipmakers in Taiwan and elsewhere, while ramping up its own microchip-technology arm, known as HiSilicon Technologies.
On Friday, Nikkei reported that Huawei had initiated conversations with other mobile chipmakers to try and figure out where it might source certain essential components for its handsets (remember, Huawei is the second-largest cellphone maker by sales volume) and other products.
Of course, the crackdown cuts both ways, as several American companies relied heavily on Huawei's business (they can still apply for licenses to continue selling to Huawei...so long as Commerce approves).
As we reported earlier this week , it's not just American chipmakers that are distancing themselves from Huawei: some Taiwan-based chipmakers are also dropping the telecoms giant for fear of being targeted by Treasury sanctions, including TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker.
Now, Huawei is reportedly in talks with MediaTek, the world's second-largest contract chip producer.
Huawei Technologies is seeking help from rival mobile-chip makers to withstand a U.S. clampdown aimed at crippling the Chinese company, sources familiar with the matter told the Nikkei Asian Review.
Huawei is in talks with MediaTek, the world's second-largest mobile chip developer after Qualcomm of the U.S., and UNISOC, China's second-largest mobile chip designer after Huawei's HiSilicon Technologies unit, to buy more chips as alternatives to keep its consumer electronics business afloat, the sources said.
To work with a contract chipmaker, Huawei would still need to design its own chips. Over the past two years, Huawei has expanded its team of engineers working on chip design to more than 10,000, Nikkei said.
To be sure, MediaTek already makes low- and medium-end chips for Huawei, evidence that the company, which was founded by a veteran of China's PLA, and purportedly maintains strong links to the Chinese military, has been bracing for the other shoe to drop. MediaTek, meanwhile, is still trying to figure out if it can meet Huawei's latest bid.
"Huawei has foreseen this day coming. It started to allocate more mid- to low-end mobile chip projects to MediaTek last year amid its de-Americanization efforts," one of the sources said. "Huawei has also become one of the key clients for the Taiwanese mobile chip developer's mid-end 5G mobile chip for this year."
MediaTek is evaluating whether it has sufficient human resources to fully support Huawei's aggressive bid, as the Chinese company is asking for volume 300% above its usual procurement in the past few years, another source familiar with the talks said.
The situation has also created an opportunity for small Chinese chipmakers (working, we imagine, mostly with technology stolen from American and Taiwanese companies) to expand.
Huawei also seeks to deepen its collaboration with UNISOC, a Beijing-backed mobile chip developer that relies mostly on smaller device makers as customers and mainly supports entry-level products and devices for emerging markets. Previously, Huawei used only very few UNISOC chips for its low-end smartphone and tablet offerings, sources said.
"The new procurement deals would be a great boost to help UNISOC further upgrade its chip design capability," said a chip industry executive. "In the past, UNISOC was struggling quite a bit, because it could not really secure big contracts with global leading smartphone makers as these top smartphone makers could find better offerings elsewhere. This time could be an opportunity that it could really seek to match the international standard."
UNISOC last year accelerated its 5G chip development to catch up with Qualcomm and MediaTek, Nikkei has reported. More recently, the company received 4.5 billion yuan ($630 million) from China's national integrated circuit fund, the so-called Big Fund.
UNISOC is preparing to list on the Shanghai STAR tech board, the Chinese version of Nasdaq, later this year. Qualcomm has needed a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce to supply Huawei since mid-May of 2019.
Huawei has already expanded production of in-house mobile processors for its smartphone business to 75%, up from 69% in 2018 and 45% in 2016, according to to data from GF Securities cited by Nikkei. Huawei shipped 240 million smartphones in 2019. And with China now throwing caution to the wind and cracking down on Hong Kong, we wouldn't be surprised to see more Huawei drama in the headlines next week, with serious market repercussions for the US semiconductor industry.
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May 20, 2020 | nationalinterest.org
'The regime is ideologically and politically hostile to free nations.'
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed China as “hostile to free nations,” portraying Beijing as fundamentally opposed to the United States, on Wednesday.
Tensions between the United States and China have reached a fever pitch during the coronavirus pandemic. Pompeo’s speech at a Wednesday morning press conference laid out a vision of a global clash between two fundamentally different societies.
“China’s been ruled by a brutal, authoritarian regime, a communist regime since 1949,” he said. “We greatly underestimated the degree to which Beijing is ideologically and politically hostile to free nations. The whole world is waking up to that fact.”
He added that a focus on the coronavirus pandemic “risks missing the bigger picture of the challenge that’s presented by the Chinese Communist Party.”
The pandemic has accelerated U.S.-China tensions.
Last week, a Chinese Communist Party news threatened sanctions against U.S. lawmakers for attempting to sue the Chinese government for the pandemic, and U.S. law enforcement accused Chinese hackers of cyberattacks against U.S. researchers.
But the Secretary of State pointed to deeper issues in the relationship, claiming that “the nature of the regime is not new.” “For several decades, we thought the regime would become more like us through trade, scientific exchanges, diplomatic outreach, letting them in the [World Trade Organization] as a developing nation,” he said. “That didn’t happen.”
Pompeo accused the World Health Organization’s director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of “unusually close ties to Beijing” that “started long before this current pandemic.”
The Trump administration has accused China of covering up information about the novel coronavirus—even implying that the virus emerged from a lab accident in Wuhan, China—and pointed the finger at the World Health Organization for aiding China’s coverup.
The Secretary of State slammed the public health group for excluding Taiwan in his Wednesday speech, touching on a sensitive topic for Beijing.
Taiwan, an island that was once ruled by China, has ruled itself since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1950. Beijing considers the island a breakaway Chinese province that must be reunited with the mainland, while Taiwan’s ruling Pan-Green Alliance leans towards independence.
“The democratic process in Taiwan has matured into a model for the world,” Pompeo said, congratulating President Tsai Ing-wen on her re-election. “Despite great pressure from the outside, Taiwan has demonstrated the wisdom of giving people a voice and a choice.”
But he shied away from changing U..S. policy towards Taiwan..
Pompeo said that work that “comports with the history of the agreements between the United States and China is the right solution to maximize the stability there in the straits.”
The United States acknowledged the Chinese position that “there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China” as part of a 1979 joint communique with Beijing, and does not officially recognize Taiwan as a state, but maintains close informal ties with the Taiwanese government and opposes attempts to change the island’s government by force.
“The President talked about how we’re going to respond [to China], how he’s beginning to think about responding to the calamity that has befallen the world as a result of the actions of the Chinese Communist Party,” Pompeo said. “I don’t want to get ahead of him in terms of talking about how the administration will respond to that, but you can already begin to see the outlines of it.”
Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter: @matthew_petti. This article initially stated that the United States “recognized that ‘there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of China’ in a 1979 joint communique.” The communique actually states that the United States “acknowledges” this as the Chinese position. The article has been updated to more correctly reflect the communique. Image: Reuters.
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May 20, 2020 | www.unz.com
peter mcloughlin , says: Show Comment May 19, 2020 at 6:02 pm GMT
Washington wants to prevent Russia and China supplanting US interests. Moscow and Beijing pursue what they see as their own legitimate interests. What we face is not a "hybrid" war or "New Cold War" but a world war.foolisholdman , says: Show Comment May 19, 2020 at 8:09 pm GMT
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/@peter mcloughlind dan , says: Show Comment May 19, 2020 at 8:34 pm GMTWhat we face is not a "hybrid" war or "New Cold War" but a world war.
Honestly, I don't see it. My reasoning is simple, maybe too simple. The Chinese will not start a shooting war and the US has no guts for one. Its industry has been hollowed out not just by outsourcing but by corruption as well. The campaign of demonization against China is very obvious, how far it is working I have no way of telling. Among the 5-eyes probably quite well, in the rest of the World rather less well, I would imagine. Notably, the British economy has been hollowed out in exactly the same manner as the US's. Canada's, Australia's, NewZealand's? Could they, would they support a war?
The other reason I think a shooting war is less likely than might appear, is that the the MIC is doing so well with the current cold war; that it would seem stupid to allow the massive disruption and uncertainty that a shooting war would cause to interrupt the torrent of cash being shoveled its way at the moment.
"Hard landing" vs "Well and alive". Who wins?Godfree Roberts , says: Website Show Comment May 19, 2020 at 11:26 pm GMTsource: comment #313 by Godfree Roberts
[Hide MORE]
https://www.unz.com/article/objections-to-an-independent-investigation-of-china/
1990. China's economy has come to a halt. The Economist
1996. China's economy will face a hard landing. The Economist
1998. China's economy's dangerous period of sluggish growth. The Economist
1999. Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy. Bank of Canada
2000. China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin. Chicago Tribune
2001. A hard landing in China. Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas
2002. China Seeks a Soft Economic Landing. Westchester University
2003. Banking crisis imperils China. New York Times
2004. The great fall of China? The Economist
2005. The Risk of a Hard Landing in China. Nouriel Roubini
2006. Can China Achieve a Soft Landing? International Economy
2007. Can China avoid a hard landing? TIME
2008. Hard Landing In China? Forbes
2009. China's hard landing. China must find a way to recover. Fortune
2010: Hard landing coming in China. Nouriel Roubini
2011: Chinese Hard Landing Closer Than You Think. Business Insider
2012: Economic News from China: Hard Landing. American Interest
2013: A Hard Landing In China. Zero Hedge
2014. A hard landing in China. CNBC
2015. Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing. Forbes
2016. Hard landing looms for China. The Economist
2017. Is China's Economy Going To Crash? National Interest
2018. China's Coming Financial Meltdown. The Daily Reckoning.
2019 China's Economic Slowdown: How worried should we be? BBC
2020. Coronavirus Could End China's Decades-Long Economic Growth Streak. NY Times=========
source: b
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/05/this-illusion-is-alive-and-well.html#more
- Forbes – May 15 2012 – Meghan Casserly
The American Dream Is Alive And Well In New Jersey- American Express – November 6 2012 – Rieva Lesonsky
The American Dream is Alive and Well -- and Transformed- The Telegraph – August 4 2014 – Jeremy Warner
The American Dream is alive and well, if you are trained for the jobs of the future- Forbes – September 30 2015 – John Tamny – FreedomWorks
Ignore The Left And Right, The American Dream Is Alive And Well- FOX Business – August 22 2016 – Steve Tobak
The American Dream Is Alive and Well- Forbes India – November 1 2016 – Monte Burke
The American dream is alive and well- Washington Times – June 19 2017 – Ed Feulner – Heritage Foundation
The American Dream, alive and well- KEDM – July 4 2018 – Byron Moore, Argent Advisors, Inc.
The American Dream is Alive and Well- New York Times – February 2 2019 – Samuel J. Abrams – American Enterprise Institute
The American Dream Is Alive and Well- Daily Caller – February 6 2019 – Steve Sanetti – NSSF Firearm Industry Trade Association
The American Dream Is Alive And Well- FOX Business – September 30 2019 – Julia Limitone
Eric Trump: The American Dream is alive and well- Mail Online – October 2019 – Lauren Fruen
The American Dream is still alive! Children of poor immigrants still beat US-born kids up the ladder – just as they did 100 years ago – but now Chinese and Indian migrants have replaced Italian and Irish as the most successful- CNBC – November 14 2019
Billionaire Bob Parsons: The American Dream is alive and well- FOX News – November 26 2019 – Carol Ross
Carol Roth: The American Dream is alive and well -- Let's be thankful for it- Clarion Ledger – December 10 2019 – Lynn Evans
The American Dream is alive and well, but redefined- Wall Street Journal – January 31, 2020 – Michael R. Strain, American Enterprise Institute
The American Dream Is Alive and Well- Newsweek – February 27 2020 – Lee Habeeb
The American Dream Is Alive and Well. Just Ask District Taco's Osiris Hoil- The Independent Voice – May 7 2020 – Barbara Ball
The American Dream is alive and well- eKenyan – May 8 2020
Opinion | The American Dream Is Alive and Well- New York Times – May 18 2020 – Michael R. Strain – American Enterprise Institute
The American Dream Is Alive and WellChinese strategists like Liu He publicly acknowledge that epidemics can catalyze geopolitical changes.FB , says: Website Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 4:28 am GMTRight now, China is leading the vaccine race and has developed an antibody treatment for Covid-19 that should be ready this year.
If development is successful and if it donates the cure to the world as Xi promised and if WHO's investigation shows China is not the source of the virus, and if China's economy is firing on all cylinders in November, it's game over: 3-0 China.
I put the odds of that conjunction at 2:1.
@d dan LOLOLOLanon [161] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 4:39 am GMTYou gotta love these headline fails I mean how is it even possible to be so spectacularly WRONG about everything time after time after time ?
Folks if you want to know why the US is screwed, it's because the same kind of geniuses that write these headlines are in charge of EVERYTHING
One day these people will be studied by psychologists dealing with MASSIVE DELUSION
@Godfree Roberts Do you have any odds on Trump v. Biden?vot tak , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 4:54 am GMTInteresting article by Escobar. If one cares to notice, this anti-China cold war is a neocon based aggression. The primary movers of it are mostly neocons or the sorts who follow the neocon lead. China is one country the zionazi-gays have not been able to dominate. Coupled with China's economic rise and appeal to developing countries, these zionazi oligarchs are going apeshit trying to bring China down. In addition to other articles referenced in the article, see also this Global Time report:Change that Matters , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 5:11 am GMTChinese ridicule Trump's China 'cut-off' threat
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1188437.shtml
"Americans will suffer
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"Again! Trump is talking nonsense." Trump seems to be losing his mind right now. Even he has such crazy ideas of cutting ties with China, US politicians, businessmen and Americans would not allow him to do so, Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for US Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times.He noted that Trump is bluffing and acting tough toward China to win more support. Fox News, which has been regarded as Trump's defender and is notorious for a lack of professionalism, is also making eye-catching news to draw attention.
Jin Canrong, the associate dean of Renmin University of China's School of International Studies in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday that Trump made very irresponsible and emotional remarks in the interview.
"The China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world and involves huge interests of the two countries, as well as the rest of the world. Therefore, it is not something he can cut off emotionally," Jin said.
"If the US unilaterally cuts off ties, the American people will pay a heavier price than us, because China's domestic market is huge and 75-80 percent of Chinese manufacturers are supplying China's market, and the 2 to 5 percent that supply the US can also be absorbed by the domestic market," he noted.
China has nothing to be afraid of as "in the past, we didn't solve the Taiwan question because we wanted to maintain the China-US relationship, and if the US unilaterally cuts it off, we can just reunify Taiwan immediately since the Chinese mainland has an overwhelming advantage to solve this long-standing problem."
"Trump is like a giant baby on the brink of a meltdown as he faces tremendous pressure due to massive failures that caused such a high death toll," Shen Yi, an expert from Fudan University, told the Global Times. "It's like someone who wants to show his guts when he passes by a cemetery in midnight. He needs to shout to give himself the courage," he said.
Shen also noted that the American companies and industries would suffer the most severe consequences, because the supply chain has been integrated with China.
"The Chinese public would only take such bluffing as a joke," Shen said, adding that there has been no US president in the history who has made such a ridiculous statement against China, not even during the Cold War.
Yuan Zheng, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said he could not even remember any US leader who took a similar action. "His flip-flop rhetoric is unprecedented, but we need to take a look at whether Trump will take real action," he said, noting that there is no need to pay attention to claims that are unrealistic and meaningless.
"For Trump, fantasy is power; bluffing is power, so he might use the future of his country to gamble with China. Although China always believes cooperation is the only right choice for the two countries to solve the problems together, if the US unilaterally and irrationally chooses all-out confrontation, China also needs to be prepared."
@Godfree Roberts China's economy won't be firing on all cylinders by November, but the important parts of it will be. The manufacturers I talk to have weathered the worst of it, and their order books for Q4 are more or less back to what they were in January (or at least healthy enough to prevent soft skill losses). Many are upbeat about the future. (Not all of them will survive, and the ones that die probably should have done so years ago.)Weston Waroda , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 5:19 am GMTCompare this to the rest of Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Myanmar, and others): they are a mess. Bangladesh put all its eggs in the huge volume low quality basket and will now pay a fatal price. Pakistan was dead before corona, and is now in a manufacturing death spiral. India has the capacity to succeed, but is hamstrung by a caste-based barbarism that has jettisoned all pretense of decency by throwing migrant workers in the informal economy to their deaths. This will not be forgotten and I predict years of trouble. The others only have a manufacturing sector because the Chinese moved their factories there. Vietnam has some chance, and should be a big winner as China moves out of low- to middle-end manufacturing.
Countries in South America have lost their opportunity. China passed them by years ago. It's a tragedy, but they really have themselves to blame for it. And Africa, the last frontier, is already dominated by China (15 years ago I'd bump into Chinese businessmen who'd ship a 40-foot container of – 'insert any product you can think of' – to some back of beyond place in Africa and refuse to come home until everything was sold). They've moved up the ladder since then. Ethiopia, the fastest-growing economy on the continent, is essentially an industrial zone for Chinese manufacturing.
Australia has become a mine/farm for China. New Zealand and Canada likewise, and a nice place to send your teenagers to get educated and perhaps for retirement.
The EU, led by Germany, will be back on track soon. The winners here should be the former USSR countries, with low labor costs and strong soft skills. With EU companies wanting to bring the supply chain closer to home, this is their moment. If they screw it up, they will spend another 30 years wondering what went wrong. I hope they won't, but if you spend any time working with these people you know they often fail at the final hurdle (as though on purpose – the psychology of self-destruction is their Achilles heel).
It's China's game to lose. And quite frankly, at this point, I don't see how. This has been in the making since the late 70s. Perhaps earlier. I admire them for their intelligence, their work ethic, their organizational capacity, their can-do spirit, and – yes – their creativity (if you think China is Japan in the 60s, you need to spend some serious time with younger Chinese in China).
The Chinese problem is, of course, its culture of responsibility avoidance. But even with this issue, they are on track for a knockout victory. Most people in the West have no idea what going on, which is exactly how You Know Who likes it.
I have no intention of letting my tribe be overrun by Chinese. But I have enough experience to know they're smarter than my tribe, and it would be a wise thing to start thinking more strategically and tactically about how to carve out a space in a new world most people are unable to imagine (which is less than 10 years away).
@Godfree RobertsBronze Age Persecutor , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 5:35 am GMTThe center of gravity of global economic power keeps moving, inexorably, toward Asia.
it's game over
While the U.S. spent recent decades policing the world in pointless wars, China was about the business of building an infrastructure in which all roads lead to Beijing, railroad cars and boatloads of wealth. Just keep it coming, folks. Those roads and railroads and shipping are linking nothing less than Eurasia, Sir Halford's World Island. It took this coronavirus to show the imperial subjects that the Empire is naked and that China had already surpassed it economically several years ago. It seems like it really is game over. I'm sad in a way, but I would rather have a normal country than a hegemon; that is, if normalcy is still a possibility.
What about the biggest hybrid war going on since centuries ago: jews (including crypto-jews, hybrids and minions) versus everybody else?Miro23 , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 6:09 am GMT
The chinese had the full cooperation of diaspora jews (and their sayanim network) and israelis. Specially the Chabad Lubavich.From the referenced Global Times article, the US attack on Huawei (with its 5G leadership + NSA proof encryption ) is at the heart of the story:Anon [392] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 6:10 am GMTBased on Global Times sources, if the US further pinches Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei by blocking companies such as TSMC from providing chips to the company, China will carry out countermeasures, such as including certain US companies into its list of "unreliable entities," imposing restrictions on or investigating US companies such as Qualcomm, Cisco and Apple, and suspending purchases of Boeing aircraft.
The US would lose this fight. Apple for example manufactures in China with only a small percentage of the sales price staying in China. If Apple manufacturing is shut down then Apple is the big loser. They're already trying to move manufacturing to India but that's not going to work.
We must be clear that coping with US suppression will be the key focus of China's national strategy. We should enhance cooperation with most countries. The US is expected to contain China's international frontlines, and we must knock out this US plot and make China-US rivalry a process of US self-isolation.
China has plenty of alternative markets. US corporations mostly only sell to the US using (now very sophisticated) Chinese manufacturing. Take this away, and Apple for example, have no alternative supplier for the volumes, quality, sub-contractor network and export infrastructure required.
General Qiao dismisses the possibility that Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India and other Asian nations may replace China's cheap workforce: "Think about which of these countries has more skilled workers than China. What quantity of medium and high level human resources was produced in China in these past 30 years? Which country is educating over 100 million students at secondary and university levels? The energy of all these people is still far from being liberated for China's economic development."
True.
This will imply a concerted offensive, trying to enforce embargoes and trying to block regional markets to Chinese companies. Lawfare will be the norm. Even freezing Chinese assets in the US is not a far-fetched proposition anymore.
If the US steals the $ trillions China has invested in US treasuries, then the US dollar also forfeits its claim to be the world reserve currency (safe place to hold international trade balances).
Still, scores of nations are being asked, bluntly, by the hegemon to position themselves once again in a "you're with us or against us" global war on terror imperative.
9/11 was fakery pumped up by the MSM to target Iraq/Iran and Covid-19 is more of the same – this time targeting China. European states are getting tired of this game. For example they were all dragged into supporting the Venezuela CIA coup that fizzled, and are now trying to disentangle from it.
General Qiao counsels, "Don't think that only territorial sovereignty is linked to the fundamental interests of a nation. Other kinds of sovereignty – economic, financial, defense, food, resources, biological and cultural sovereignty – are all linked to the interests and survival of nations and are components of national sovereignty."
If the US public look carefully at General Qiao's list they will realize that they have already lost more than 50% of these sovereignties.
" General Qiao dismisses the possibility .. India and other Asian nations may replace China's c: "Think about which of these countries has more skilled "Natt , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 6:42 am GMTEveryday US. news are amplifying the bipartisan chorus against China . India is begging for favors from USA while serenading USA with reinforcing American position.
India is stealing land from Nepal and Indian media thinks that ultranationalist of Nepal are to blame for questioning Indian stance .
China is under a real threat of concerted attacks by the US 's opportunistic vassals. There will be a seismic change affecting the alliances and the future .
Can China persuade Nepal Bangladesh Pakistan Sri Lanka Afghanistan Iran and Myanmar to work together and persuade them move out of India's hegemony ?.Nice fluff piece. China is fucked. Demographically, economically and militarily.Carlos22 , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 7:06 am GMTThey are probably looking past Trump as they think he may not get back in.carlusjr , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 7:48 am GMTNov is just a few months away.
The question is what will the democrats do?
Not that I particularly want that of course.
It's always astounding to read a geopolitical analysis by a journalist who completely ignores the climate pollution crisis with it's impending effects overhanging every strategy any state may envision to dominate the planet. It's as if the writer lives in an imaginary world devoid of nature, along with his supposed expert sources and well placed powerful state movers and shakers. This is delusional. China's cheap forced labor, making more crap for the planet's shrinking population of affluent consumers, competing with other countries with equally desperate workers. Countries competing to build the most dangerous bio-weapons in their unsafe, leaky level 4 labs. All the while the atmosphere is being polluted to the point of melting all the ice on the planet, the air is being degraded to the point of being disgusting to see and carcinogenic to breath, the fresh water supply is being depleted and polluted, the oceans degraded into radioactive chemical cesspools (soon to be a brown sludge inhabited by only bacteria, viruses and fungus), the land ceded with thousands of chemicals that have no purpose other than to kill. The existential threshold is within a few years. The geopolitical strategy of the US and China can be summarized as a strategy to kill all sentient life on the planet in order to have a some sort of imaginary strategic dominance. It is mass psychosis.Biff , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 7:58 am GMT@anonparanoid goy , says: Website Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 8:13 am GMTDo you have any odds on Trump v. Biden?
I've got 2 to 1 odds the voting machines will be electing Biden. They got this far didn't they?
@foolisholdman Old man, don't be foolish, they all hate us human scum, and will gladly go to war, are at war. Remember how, in Catch 22, the opposing sides eventually saved a crap load of money by geting Milo de Milo to bomb their own airfields using his supply planes? Its already happening, us plebs are just in the way. In the end, the Protocols calls for one government ruling what's left of mankind "with an iron staff." I cannot tell you (yet) what Zion's hold on Beijing is, but be assured, "bring on the war" is the swill of Zion being lapped up by little globalist piggies trying to get to the trough.paranoid goy , says: Website Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 8:28 am GMT
People think 'hybrid warfare" is some kind of technological term. Zion chooses its words very carefully, and your first defence is your dictionary. The USAGE of words change with time, the MEANING is constant. Now let's go find them hybrids, before Bill Gates can create enough microcephalics to man his man/machine interfaced battle 'droids armed with depleted uranium bullets and virally-delivered vaccines.@carlusjr Pollution sure is an important issue, one of the most important of our time, yes. The subject matter at hand though, is mostly military, with economics as a condiment to explain the sour taste. China might be the one manufacturing plastic turds, but it is the so-called western media that is teaching your children the dire need to own the latest version of plastic poop. China would not bother with plastic poop, but you voted for people who decided China makes the best poo at the lowest cost and highest profit. Don't blame China for taking advantage of YOUR leadership's desire to disown YOU and hand your habitat over to those who "know how to make a profit" from your suffering, while dangling a piece of plastic poop in front of you, calling it ambition, and deplatforming you if you refuse their offer of improved turdiness.Buzz Mohawk , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:04 am GMT
But yah, now we know you hate pollution. Soon we will close down all the factories, and ban all cars, and only those on "official business" will be alowed on aeroplanes, and then you can breathe freely, as you stand in line, so the Special Agents can see if you have the Bill Gates vaccine licence to visit the plastic poop and soylent green depository that we used to call a supermarket.Tor597 , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:10 am GMTA toxic racism-meets-anti-communism matrix is responsible for the predominant anti-Chinese sentiment across the US, encompassing at least 66% of the whole population.
No it isn't.
A hint of what is responsible is this from the same article:
"They have state of the art technology, but not the methods and production capacity. So they have to rely on Chinese production."
Our jobs, our industry, our hard-earned intellectual property, and our money have all gone to China. Our own leaders of industry and government are to blame for our predicament, but our anger at China is the result.
Funny this from the Chinese General Qiao:
"as a producing country, we still cannot satisfy our manufacturing industry with our own resources and rely on our own markets to consume our products."
No kidding, General. Your country built itself up by selling to us! We made you into our own rival. Thanks are in order, but instead you plot to weaken us.
Just wanted to point out the excellent concept of cultural sovereignty as something that is akin to territorial sovereignty.Half-Jap , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:14 am GMTBoth are needed, but cultural sovereignty is ever more important to inoculate your citizens against globe homo.
@Godfree Roberts Sounds like a man who has no understanding of the science regarding the matter, but so doesn't most of the world. Vaccine? Anti-body treatment? Does anybody know what they are and how they work (or doesn't) or mean? From those tests to those invasive ventilators, it shows me how people can easily be herded towards slaughter, for their safety, ofc, because "science." And just over a mild cold no less.anon [232] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:17 am GMT
So much for China's brilliance; they are as dumb or brainwashed by 'accepted science' as the next moronic authority figure.
But exploiting the situation, that's something else that should be appreciated.@Godfree RobertsWood Stove , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:42 am GMTChina is leading
Godfree, we will bury you and your beloved CCP.
@carlusjr Ok KarenAdûnâi , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:45 am GMTAnon [397] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 9:50 am GMTThis will be China's contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries." The Global South is paying attention.
Do the underdeveloped (hate the PC term "developing") countries even want a vaccine? They have too many people anyway, any moderate dying will be an advantage to their societies. And another point is that the anti-vaxxer movement there might be on the rise, just as it is in America – remember how the Philippines government was watching a conspiracy video about evil Bill Gates? I have talked to anti-vaxxer people in my Ukrainian university!
"Containment" will go into overdrive. A neat example is Admiral Philip Davidson – head of the Indo-Pacific Command – asking for $20 billion for a "robust military cordon" from California to Japan and down the Pacific Rim, complete with "highly survivable, precision-strike networks" along the Pacific Rim and "forward-based, rotational joint forces" to counteract the "renewed threat we face from great power competition."
My prediction is the US goes into a civil war > the liberals start losing > the liberals invite the Chinese into California > the Chinese exterminate all Americans and get a large Lebensraum in the East.
a Korea War pictorial. Nice.Just Passing Through , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 10:13 am GMT
It's long long ago since China made the last movie about Korea War. Too long ago that they are in black and white.
Recently someone is preparing for a new movie: The Chosin Lake.
I really hope it will be well made. I love war movies, especially the ones on historical big wars.@Natt I think you are mistaken and are describing America.Just Passing Through , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 10:28 am GMT@Buzz Mohawk I think the Western globalists though that China would be subservient to them and not get any funny ideas, this virus is just a cover for antipathy that was building up for years, similar to how the poor Jews being persecuted in Germany was used by propagandists to whip up Germany sentiment, because of German economic prowess.padre , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 10:36 am GMTWestern thinking is dominated by this balance of power mentality, the same mentality such caused it to enter into two fratricidal wars not too long ago.
One can only hope this is good news for us, but I fear the globalists will just use this time to move manufacturing to other Third World countries instead of bringing it back home.
I agree that it was a huge mistake transferring our IP to China, they would simply have not got to this point if we hadn't. This is also why the Chinese are not taking any chances in their BRI, and are using Chinese labour instead of doing the more sustainable thing and training up local workers, that would mean a destruction of their market! Sadly this will continue, on top of the terrible policy of mass Third World immigration, we let Chinese into out top companies and research facilities, some of whom no doubt pass this information back home.
https://time.com/5596066/emory-fires-chinese-researchers/
In terms of realpolitik, I think it is very smart that China is using its diaspora as a fifth column.
@Natt Do you know, how many times in their short history of about roughly 5000 years were Chinese doomed ?Really No Shit , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 10:50 am GMTSo the Global South is going to be "grateful" to China for coming up with vaccination after innudating it with the Chinese virus in the first place Pepe, lay of the Mezcal because is clouding your opaque thinking!John Hagan , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:07 am GMTLet me make this clear. America is self-destructing. A malignant narcissist in charge and a man who cannot construct a sentence is an alternative. A stock market devoid of reality and a 1 percent devoid of conscience. Any remote consideration of the other 99 percent is soley based on profit. Any civilization that cannot reverse itself is doomed. China maybe a shortterm factor yet not a factor in the longer considerations.Avery , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:10 am GMT@foolisholdman {Honestly, I don't see it.}Big Daddy , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:28 am GMTAgree.
{ .. and the US has no guts for one. Its industry has been hollowed out not just by outsourcing but by corruption as well.}
Even in the 50s when US industry was not hollowed out ( ran supreme) and China had no nukes, US was unable to defeat China in a ground war in Korea. Of course there was talk in US of using nukes against China (Gen. MacArthur), but cooler heads prevailed, arguing that, that would trigger USSR to use nukes too, resulting in world wide nuclear conflagration.
Now China has nukes, and delivery systems, and US cannot possible defeat China conventionally, so US will huff-and-puff, try to damage China financially, or steal its holdings in US*, but nothing will come out of it.
Sad that US screwed itself over the years so badly that it is in this predicament now.
_____________________________
* There has been semi-serious talk in US of just taking $ hundreds of billions of Chinese holdings in US as payment for ' damages' China has supposedly caused US by Covid-19.All this big nation state fluff stinks today as it did when the first two Western ones, England and France had a 100 Years War and it has stunk throughout history.Realist , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:42 am GMTWe humans are born naked, helpless, and totally ignorant. We also have an evil streak in us; vide Adam and Eve. And as Shakespeare stated we must consign ourselves to a willing death each eve or we die. We are so haughty yet the first thing we must do upon wakening from our nightly death is evacuate waste.
We have never respected Nature. Now we spray aluminum and plastic microns in the upper atmosphere which we all breathe as they fall and have virtually destroyed the ozone layer and the biosphere. We live in 1984 right now!
True libertarianism which is no aggression against person or property and backed up by cheap, Natural Law arbitration courts works. It is that or sayonara humans.
@NattParfois1 , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:45 am GMTNice fluff piece. China is fucked. Demographically, economically and militarily.
Is that you Trump?
You're new around these here parts aren't you boy?
@foolisholdmanJohnPlywood , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:49 am GMTMy reasoning is simple, maybe too simple. The Chinese will not start a shooting war and the US has no guts for one.
You may be right about the Chinese (their government looks after 1,3 billion people) and that the US has no guts. But what is the "US"? If you mean the (mostly Jewish) ruling cabal and their goyim political clowns and puppets, you have no reason to be so sanguine about the "no guts". It's not their guts that will be on the line, for they will be quite happy so sacrifice millions of the plebes for the greater good of Israel and rebooting the "economy". War devastations (and pandemics) are the greatest source for immiserating and culling the masses and channeling wealth to the banksters.
Facing the demise of the Jewish-led hegemony through its PNAC's "full-spectrum dominance" – and what that could do to the SHITIS (shit-state of Israel) – it is reasonable (in their twisted minds) to step to the brink and beyond. Besides, the most recent great wars (the greatest carnages in the world's history) were not intended to end the way the warhawks wanted (neither Hitler not Chamberlain wished the destruction of country or empire) but the power dynamics unleashed by geopolitical gamesmanship suppresses reason.
@paranoid goy Non-CO2 pollution is a non-issue. It was far worse in the USA and China 50 years ago (air and water), and in Europe/East coast USA over 200 years ago. Wildlife populations are also rebounding. Every time I hear some retard complaining about pollution on the internet, I want to reach through the monitor and pepper spray them.bigduke6 , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:52 am GMTGeeBee , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 12:05 pm GMTA toxic racism
You're a "toxic racist" cries the yellow supremacist as he shills for Beijing
@Natt In other news, the USA's Ministry of Plenty has announced that the weekly chocolate ration is to be increased from 70 gms to 40 gmsld , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 12:19 pm GMT@d dan The American Dream is Live and well.ld , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 12:25 pm GMTIf they keep saying it like a mantra maybe it will come true.
Trust the media.
@anon They say that Biden is Israel's pick so it will likey be Biden.Desert Fox , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 12:37 pm GMT
His senility will make him easier to control than Trump.The zionists are in control of China and the ZUS and Russia and Europe and India and everywhere in central and South America, and the fact is the zionist control was proven by every country that forced their people into the forced lockdown, using this scam of a coronavirus as an excuse.AWM , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:16 pm GMTThese wars are a deversion, as the zionist install their global prison.
"When will the Communist "clenched fist" attack America?"450.org , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:31 pm GMTStanislav Lunev: "As soon as they can't steal from you anymore."
Guess what folks, the "Combloc Flu" was the first strike.
Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:34 pm GMTGeneral Qiao dismisses the possibility that Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India and other Asian nations may replace China's cheap workforce: "Think about which of these countries has more skilled workers than China. What quantity of medium and high level human resources was produced in China in these past 30 years? Which country is educating over 100 million students at secondary and university levels? The energy of all these people is still far from being liberated for China's economic development."
Once again, I must caveat this with the proclamation I was not and I am not an advocate for Obama's TPP. The reason I'm not an advocate is for environmental purposes. I believe growth is killing the living planet and soon enough will extinct humans as well as many, most even, other species on the planet. The TPP did nothing to address growth and instead enabled it further by enhancing global trade versus diminishing it.
That being said, the TPP was a strategy to contain China's growing influence. It was intended to put global trade eggs in many baskets and not just in the basket labeled China. What does Trump do? He puts all the trade eggs in China's basket under the aegis/rubric of repatriating manufacturing to America. He put a knife in TPP and killed it but he never brought manufacturing back to America. Now America is truly good and fucked. Over a barrel. No options. Can you believe this moron and the cabal that's using him as a foil? Like I said before, if Trump didn't exist, the CCP would have to invent him because more than any other power player, be it Russia or Saudi Arabia or Israel, Trump has been extremely beneficial to China. Under Trump's watch, China is now the most powerful country in the world. Because of Trump, China is now the leader of the world. America, finally, has been knocked from its perch just as England was over 100 years prior. Once knocked from the perch, there is no regaining the status you once enjoyed. I suspect that within five years the dollar will no longer be the world's currency. When that happens, it's lights out for America FOR REAL. All this banter is whistling past the graveyard. What's done is done.
House Democrats who've been interfering with President Barack Obama's ability to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership are missing something very important: The trade deal isn't primarily significant because of the economy. It matters because it's part of the broader American geostrategic goal of containing China -- which pointedly hasn't been invited to join the TPP.
In the new cool war, China's rising economic influence is giving it greater geopolitical power in Asia. The TPP is, above all, an effort to push back on China's powerful trade relationships to reduce its political clout. By weakening Obama's ability to pursue it, congressional Democrats had been unintentionally weakening the U.S. side in the cool war.
In all this, China is using its close economic relationship with its neighbors as leverage to build its geopolitical position. Its ultimate goal is to displace the U.S. as the regional hegemon. President Xi Jinping's slogan of the "Chinese dream" requires nothing less.
The TPP aims to reduce some of China's geopolitical resurgence by damping down the extent of China's regional trade dominance. China itself has a proposed regional trade alliance, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, that would include 16 members and exclude the U.S. Australia, Japan and South Korea are all involved in negotiations to become members. The TPP is a direct, competitive counterpart to the RCEP.
Fyi, the following cartoon is per China Daily , a publication owned and run by the CCP. It's favorable to Trump. It's clear by virtue of Trump's cozy relationship with Putin and Xi that Trump is a communist in capitalist clothing. He is a communist trojan horse in the oval office. But he's even more than that. He has many hats. He's a tool, a self-promoting front man, for any tyrant or tyranny that expands his brand masquerading as a man of the people. As if. He's a man, albeit an insane moron, of the extractive elite and the extractive elite are transnational and transcultural. The extractive elite are a nation and culture unto themselves and the rest of us are their slaves on this global plantation.
@Weston Waroda Once reserved currency status of dollar is over n done with, there would be zero need for the huge military budget. That is the silver lining of this whole thing. The wars might finally stop. But living standards will take a hit from the devaluation of the dollar. But but, Jobs would return through that weakened dollar as off shoring jobs would no longer make sense. And just maybe, our political class might finally focus on domestic issues and improve the country after 4 decades of stagnation.Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:38 pm GMT@Miro23 Apple follows every single law in China. Apple makes a lot of money in China, but also pays alot of taxes. I highly doubt it would be a target of retaliation. But other companies are fair game. Just something I noticed.450.org , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:47 pm GMT@carlusjr Spot on. Humans are drowning in their own filth. There's an adage, "don't shit where you eat." Humans invented the saying but apparently don't abide by it and in fact zealously defy it. Here we are. It will be one pandemic after another from now until human is no more. Rapid pace, like automatic weapon fire. The center cannot hold and is not holding. Civilization is going down. Will the Samson Option be utilized? Man's last act? Destroy the planet entirely if he can't have it entirely? My bet is this is how it will go down. All you have to do is extrapolate the curve.Sick of Orcs , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:51 pm GMTAs long as America's Most Important Ally™ is safeCowboy , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:54 pm GMTAnother bubblegum pop song from Lil Peepee and the chinksJust Passing Through , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT@bigduke6 It is quite obvious why they are doing, they are using Europeans' own liberal ideology against them. In today's Western world, nothing is worse than being a "racist" (except maybe, just maybe a paedophile necrophiliac, but even that is a close one) as such they will use these terms to beat down Europeans. Erdogan recently likened Greece to "Nazis", due to their brave defiance to Third World invaders.Hegar , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 2:07 pm GMTAs if they genuinely give a shit about Nazis, a particularly European obsession due to decades of brainwashing by the Jewish media elite. Even if one believes the textbooks in relation to Nazi atrocities, the fact is that such things are normal for history. No other people's beat themselves down over bad stuff they've done, hell, the Mongolians have erected a big statue of Genghis Khan, one of the greatest mass murderers in history!
Extremely misleading headline. Since the Asia Times story is actually about economic and political sovereignity – always a big issue for China ever since the Eight Powers carved up the nation in the past: Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and the U.S.It doesn't speak about warfare against the U.S. It speaks about meeting a threat from the U.S. It does speak of taking Taiwan, though by avoiding outright warfare. This is not something we should desire, but it is not war against the U.S., as the misleading headline is intended to make people believe.
As usual most of the rubes will only read the headline and look at the pictures, maybe skim through the text a bit, before typing out an angry post based on whether they like or dislike whatever nation is mentioned. Much like cruzbots and Bush lovers use Breitbart comments to screech against Iran and praise Israel. No facts needed.
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May 20, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
Dancing with Wolves
The bulk of his argument concentrates on the shortcomings of U.S. manufacturing: "How can the US today want to wage war against the biggest manufacturing power in the world while its own industry is hollowed out?"
An example, referring to Covid-19, is the capacity to produce ventilators: "Out of over 1,400 pieces necessary for a ventilator, over 1,100 must be produced in China, including final assembly. That's the US problem today. They have state of the art technology, but not the methods and production capacity. So they have to rely on Chinese production."
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Gloves Are Off
Now compare General Qiao's analysis with the by-now-obvious geopolitical and geo-economic fact that Beijing will respond tit for tat to any hybrid war tactics deployed by the United States government. The gloves are definitely off.
The gold standard expression has come in a no-holds barred Global Times editorial : "We must be clear that coping with US suppression will be the key focus of China's national strategy. We should enhance cooperation with most countries. The US is expected to contain China's international front lines, and we must knock out this US plot and make China-US rivalry a process of US self-isolation."
An inevitable corollary is that the all-out offensive to cripple Huawei will be counterpunched in kind, targeting Apple, Qualcom, Cisco and Boeing, even including "investigations or suspensions of their right to do business in China."
So, for all practical purposes, Beijing has now publicly unveiled its strategy to counteract U.S. President Donald Trump's "We could cut off the whole relationship" kind of assertions.
A toxic racism-meets-anti-communism matrix is responsible for the predominant anti-Chinese sentiment across the U.S., encompassing at least 66 percent of the whole population. Trump instinctively seized it – and repackaged it as his re-election campaign theme, fully approved by Steve Bannon.
The strategic objective is to go after China across the full spectrum. The tactical objective is to forge an anti-China front across the West: another instance of encirclement, hybrid war-style, focused on economic war.
This will imply a concerted offensive, trying to enforce embargoes and trying to block regional markets to Chinese companies. Lawfare will be the norm. Even freezing Chinese assets in the U.S. is not a far-fetched proposition anymore.
Every possible Silk Road branch-out – on the energy front, ports, the Health Silk Road, digital interconnection – will be strategically targeted. Those who were dreaming that Covid-19 could be the ideal pretext for a new Yalta – uniting Trump, Xi and Putin – may rest in peace.
"Containment" will go into overdrive. A neat example is Admiral Philip Davidson – head of the Indo-Pacific Command – asking for $20 billion for a "robust military cordon" from California to Japan and down the Pacific Rim, complete with "highly survivable, precision-strike networks" along the Pacific Rim and "forward-based, rotational joint forces" to counteract the "renewed threat we face from great power competition."
Davidson argues that, "without a valid and convincing conventional deterrent, China and Russia will be emboldened to take action in the region to supplant U.S. interests."
... ... ...
From the point of view of large swathes of the Global South, the current, extremely dangerous incandescence, or New Cold War, is mostly interpreted as the progressive ending of the Western coalition's hegemony over the whole planet.
Still, scores of nations are being asked, bluntly, by the hegemon to position themselves once again in a "you're with us or against us" global war on terror imperative.
... ... ...
For the first time in 35 years, Beijing will be forced to relinquish its economic growth targets. This also means that the objective of doubling GDP and per capita income by 2020 compared with 2010 will also be postponed.
What we should expect is absolute emphasis on domestic spending – and social stability – over a struggle to become a global leader, even if that's not totally overlooked.
... ... ...
Internally, Beijing will boost support for state-owned enterprises that are strong in innovation and risk-taking. China always defies predictions by Western "experts." For instance, exports rose 3.5 percent in April, when the experts were forecasting a decline of 15.7 percent. The trade surplus was $45.3 billion, when experts were forecasting only $6.3 billion.
Beijing seems to identify clearly the extending gap between a West, especially the U.S., that's plunging into de facto New Great Depression territory with a China that's about to rekindle economic growth
Zhu , May 20, 2020 at 00:34
"A toxic mixture of racism and anti-communism" sounds about right. The Chinese government is not submissive and the "Chinks" are getting too prosperous. That's bound to infuriate both elite and grass-roots Americans.
Drew Hunkins , May 20, 2020 at 00:34
"For the first time in 35 years, Beijing will be forced to relinquish its economic growth targets. This also means that the objective of doubling GDP and per capita income by 2020 compared with 2010 will also be postponed. "
Good, good, just wonderful. This will really endear the United States to the Chinese people.
All that the Chinese govt did for its people over the last 30 years is totally eliminate poverty, that's all. Gotta love how our Western mass media won't shut their mouths about this small achievement.
Drew Hunkins , May 20, 2020 at 00:15
"Those who were dreaming that Covid-19 could be the ideal pretext for a new Yalta – uniting Trump, Xi and Putin – may rest in peace."
Rest in peace, no doubt. Washington is all about unilateralism, period. This is the crux of the issue, the rapacious capitalist-imperialists who infest Wall St, the military contractors and corporate mass media want nothing to do with a multi-polar world. This could lead to putting the far east on a dangerous path with U.S. warships provocatively traversing the area.
gcw , May 19, 2020 at 21:08
The politicians controlling US foreign policy are leading us straight into the 19th century, with their updated gunboat diplomacy . Never a thought to the impending disaster of climate change and unparalleled social and environmental chaos, they dream instead of yet another Cold War (Yellow-Peril 2.0), all the time sustaining a gargantuan military establishment which is draining the life-blood from American society. The Covid-19 virus is just a warning to us: we have about 5% of the world's population, yet lead the pack in deaths from the virus. If this monumental display of incompetence doesn't wake us up, what will?
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Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 9:33 pm GMTMay 20, 2020 | www.unz.com
,
@utu ... He produces evidence, evidence in response to highly-coordinated anti-China propaganda, the mountains of belligerent lies that are all that remain today of the failed state the USA. Those lies plus its military killing millions all over the world, incessantly destroying or attempting to destroy states simply for being independent.Realist , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 10:49 pm GMTEnormous thanks to Godfree Roberts.
@Astuteobservor IIRealist , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 11:07 pm GMTThe best argument I have read from the anti China camp has been that if China succeeds, US dollar will be kaput, living standard in the USA will tanked to shit levels compare to right now.
Why would China succeeding reduce our living standard?
@Ron UnzAstuteobservor II , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 11:13 pm GMTWell, American propaganda is certainly vastly superior to the Chinese variety
American propaganda is certainly more effective but that is because of the stupidity of most Americans.
Yes the video is accurate and that means the Chinese know us well much better than we know them.
@Realist If China succeeds, that means dollar as reserve currency is kaput. Without the reserved currency status, dollar will devalue by 50% or more. Living standard auto lowers by 50% or more.
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May 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
JC , May 17 2020 20:31 utc | 28
Just a thought: what if people like Gordon Guthrie Chang, Jennifer Zeng, Peter Navarro or even Maria Bartiromo suggest to the two dude Trump and Pompeo sending FBI, CIA agents or even national guard to American's rural areas, small isolate farming communities in Pennsylvania, Oregon ripping off every Huawei and ZTE hardwares 2G, 3G, 4G and maybe 5G if any, cell towers and replaced it with Ericsson and Nokia. Would it make America great again ?
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May 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
JC , May 17 2020 18:03 utc | 16
Almost every freaking day Trump and Pompeo bashing China including Huawei.. Not a day of peace without china bashing.Days earlier ZeroHedge, SCMP and other media reported freaking Trump and Pompeo... no companies inside or outside USA can sell American software or technology items or chips made with USA properties or machines to Huawei.
Meaning TSMC a Taiwan chip's foundry not permitted to sell any chips to Huawei, TSMC has been the world's dedicated semiconductor foundry. "curtailing its chip supply, an escalation of its campaign against the Chinese company that may also hurt Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co."
"China has the most fab projects in the world.... 30 facilities planned, including 10/7nm processes, but trade war and economic factors could slow progress...... SMIC 's move would put it on par with some of its foreign rivals. In addition, SMIC has obtained $10 billion in funding to develop 10nm and 7nm. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is a publicly held semiconductor foundry company, and the largest in China.
"Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing (HSMC), a logic IC foundry founded in late 2017, is gearing up for 14nm and 7nm process manufacturing eyeing to be China's most advanced contract chipmaker.....Shang-yi Chiang, the former executive VP and co-chief operating officer overseeing R&D for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), will join a Wuhan-headquartered foundry in China. "<
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May 17, 2020 | astutenews.com
BRICS Is Broken
Gone are the "good 'ole days" of BRICS bonhomie when the Alt-Media Community used to sing the praises of this nascent trade bloc and portray it as a game-changing development in International Relations. Although promising on paper, BRICS was always destined to be disappointing due to the irreparable differences between India and China that were either downplayed or outright ignored by this organization's loudest advocates. The author has been consistently warning for over the past four years that " India Is Now An American Ally " after it clinched the Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement (LEMOA) with the US to allow the latter to use its military infrastructure on a case-by-case "logistical" bases. Since then, India has fully submitted to the Pentagon's "Indo-Pacific" strategy of empowering the South Asian state as a "counterweight" China, with even Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov loudly warning his country's strategic partner of the pitfalls of this scenario as recently as early January of this year while speaking at a conference in their country.
Modi's Military Madness
Alas, whether due to long-lasting ignorance of the situation, unchecked professional incompetence, and/or shadowy motives that can only be speculated upon, the majority of the Alt-Media Community still refuses to recognize these facts, though the latest developments pertaining to Indian-Chinese relations might finally cause them to reconsider their inexplicable stance of always "covering up" for New Delhi. India has recently clashed with China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Indian-Occupied Kashmir 's Ladakh region and close to the Donglang Plateau (described as "Doklam" by India and thus widely reported upon with this name in the Western Mainstream Media and among the members of the Alt-Media Community sympathetic to New Delhi) near Sikkim where they had their infamous three-month-long standoff in summer 2017 (which threatened to repeat itself in 2018). So tense has the situation become in Ladakh that China reportedly flew several helicopters near the scene while India flew a few fighter jets, significantly upping the ante.
India's Attempt To "Poach" Chinese-Based Companies
The backdrop against which these clashes are transpiring is India's aggressive attempt to "poach" foreign companies from the People's Republic, which the author analyzed last month in his piece about how " India's Selective Embrace Of Economic Nationalism Has Anti-Chinese Motivations ". Of relevance, India has also set aside land twice the size of Luxembourg for such companies to exploit in the event that they decide to re-offshore from the East Asian state to the South Asian one.
This perfectly dovetails with Trump's " trade war " plans to encourage foreign companies to leave his country's rival and either return home or set up shop in a friendly pro-American country instead. Of note, India is also vehemently opposed to China's Belt & Road Initiative ( BRI ) behind the US on the basis that its flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor ( CPEC ) traverses through territory that New Delhi claims as its own per its maximalist approach to the Kashmir Conflict . Obviously, the US couldn't have found a better ally than India to thwart China's economic plans.
The US Might Rule The WHO Via Its Indian Proxy
On the soft power front, India is slated to assume leadership of the World Health Assembly (WHA, the governing body of the World Health Organization, WHO) from Japan later this month, and it's already being widely speculated in Indian media that the country might be seriously considering taking the US' side in respect to investigating the WHO for its alleged pro-Chinese bias . Not only that, but India might even be receptive towards Taiwan's request to participate in the organization's meetings, the scenario of which has already concerned China so much that its embassy in New Delhi felt compelled to remind the Indian leadership that doing so would violate the One China principle. From the American perspective, this is an unprecedented opportunity for Washington to exercise proxy leadership of the WHO through its "junior partner" of India, which could add a speciously convincing degree of credibility to its anti-Chinese claims in an attempt to win back the many hearts and minds that it's lost to its rival throughout the course of World War C .
The Indo-American Hybrid War On China
Taken together, India is indisputably intensifying its American-backed Hybrid War against China as a sign of fealty to its new ally, especially considering that it's only officially been the US' " comprehensive global strategic partner " since Trump's landmark visit to the country a few months back in February and thus feels like it has something to prove. Both countries share the grand strategic goal of "containing" China, to which end they're working hand-in-glove with one another to carry out this concerted campaign against the People's Republic.
Building off of the idiom, the American hand is unquestionably controlling the Indian glove after Trump cracked the whip on Modi by forcing him to export hydroxychloroquine to the US last month, which asserted his country's dominance as India's neo-imperial master. Whether across the military, economic, or soft power domains, the US-Indian alliance is doing its utmost to create serious difficulties for China. With India now suspecting China of building an island off of its coast, ties will likely continue to worsen to the US' benefit.
By Andrew Korybko
Source: One World
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May 15, 2020 | apple.slashdot.org
An anonymous reader shares a report: China is ready to take a series of countermeasures against a US plan to block shipments of semiconductors to Chinese telecom firm Huawei , including putting US companies on an "unreliable entity list," launching investigations and imposing restrictions on US companies such as Apple and suspending the purchase of Boeing airplanes, a source close to the Chinese government told the Global Times. The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei from global chipmakers. The US Commerce Department said it was amending an export rule and the Entity List to "strategically target Huawei's acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain US software and technology," according to a statement on its website. "China will take forceful countermeasures to protect its own legitimate rights," if the US moves forward with the plan to bar essential suppliers of chips, including Taiwan-based TSMC, from selling chips to the Chinese tech giant, the source told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.
Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) , Friday May 15, 2020 @02:58PM ( #60064610 ) Homepage JournalAll chips have backdoors. ( Score: 5 , Insightful)Every hardware vendor has clear and strong incentives to bake backdoors into their hardware. The only difference is to whom they are loyal.
sehlat ( 180760 ) , Friday May 15, 2020 @02:20PM ( #60064454 )Universal Rule of Economic Warfare ( Score: 1 )Both sides lose
... BIG. bodog ( 231448 ) writes: UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) , Friday May 15, 2020 @02:45PM ( #60064558 )Re: ( Score: 1 ) BIGLY. tftfy.
Re:Universal Rule of Economic Warfare ( Score: 3 )Alain Williams ( 2972 ) writes: < [email protected] > on Friday May 15, 2020 @02:31PM ( #60064502 ) HomepageWell people on both sides lose. The leaders on both sides do not lose as much. Concisely Put.
Is anyone surprised ? ( Score: 5 , Interesting)China will also put a lot of money into making things that it has, up to now, obtained from the USA. It might take a few years, but China's government set up (ie one party always in power) means that it does not have to do things to an electoral cycle.
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May 14, 2020 | www.unz.com
Pft , says: Show Comment May 14, 2020 at 6:41 am GMT
Sad but true. We are all given our illusions. In US its the illusion of democracy which is a fake democracy cloaking our totalitarian reality. In China they give the people the illusion of moving towards socialism, a fake socialism to be sure, never mind all the billionaire party members (and they don't have universal health care either, its insurance based) .The people have long accepted the reality of totalitarianism so they are one step ahead.Since China doesn't have another party to blame they must blame external enemies like the US and we happily play along with tarrifs paid for by us dumb sheep who cry out in satisfaction "take that". Lol
A fake Cold War works for us too. Trump says we are in a race for 5G and AI/Robotics with China. We must win or all is lost to China. Social credit scores, digital ID and digital currency along with Total Information Awareness and Full Spectrum Dominance over the herd.
Health effects of 5G will be blamed on CoVID. Fake Science is a great tool. Scientists never lie, they can be trusted, just like Priests . They are the Priests of the New Technocratic World Order. Global Warming and COVID- We must believe. They say Vaccines and 5G are good for you, just like DDT and Tobacco were said to be Good by Scientists of another time. We must believe. Have Faith and you will earn social credit bonus points.
Reality is Fake Wrestling. Kayfabe all the way baby. Who is the face and who is the heel? We are free to choose. So who says we don't have freedom?
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May 14, 2020 | www.unz.com
Sean , says: Show Comment May 14, 2020 at 6:22 am GMT
The USA is under no obligation whatsoever to be friendly to Russia, and especially not to China which rather owes America for everything and has repaid it in death. Capital and technology has flowed to China from America for decades. In return they sent profit to Wall St, Wuhan made Fentanyl the death of choice for whites desperate as a result of the policies that made China did so well out of, and now they send us a deadly epidemic.RussiaGateRussiaGateRussiaGateChinaDidItChinaDidItChinaDidItIranIsEvilIranIsEvil
China is not a natural ally of the US. It was helped for decades as a counterweight to the USSR and that policy continued after the Cold War ended because the Western elite reaped vast profits from the entry of a billion Chinese into the world labour markets. We have created a monster of arrogance and economic dynamism that refuses to take measures against novel coronaviruses springing out of their peculiar eating and aphrodisiac medicine habits.
It was coffee made from beans taken from civet faeces that led to the SARS-CoV bat/ civet recombination virus and the 2002 Sars outbreak, during which China lied about what was happening as they subsequently admitted. The SARS-CoV 2 receptor-binding domain from pangolins ( world's most trafficked animal, is in demand by Chinese as a male enhancer) and it recombined with a bat virus was hundreds of times more effective a pathogen in humans than the one from bat–civet recombination of eighteen years ago.
But that is not what the Chinese said. Researchers in Wuhan on December 31st told the world about the Wuhan disease having been identifies as a coronavirus but said, 'It's not highly transmissible'. As late as the the 24th of January, Doctor Fauci w gave a briefing for senators in which he said there was very little danger to the US from the Wuhan disease. Later that day he repeated that opinion at a press conference.
So China said it was not infectious between people and there was nothing much to worry about. When Trump began to restrict travel into the US from China on the 31st January there was uproar about this supposed further evidence of his xenophobia,.
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May 13, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org
President Trump has used his executive power to take a hatchet to 40 years of America's China policy. His administration has called for a "whole-of-government" approach to counter Beijing's unfair economic practices, initiated a damaging trade war, banned Chinese telecommunication equipment from domestic networks, and implemented stringent regulations to vet Chinese investments in sensitive industries.
In a novel development, the administration has begun coaxing individual states to aid the federal government in its anti-China fervor. Speaking to the National Governors Association in early February, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that "competition with China is not just a federal issue It's happening in your states with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed, for each of you."
The administration's enlisting of states in the broader U.S.-China competition has significant economic implications for subnational actors. Increasingly hawkish incumbents, as well as congressional candidates, could provoke economic pushback from Beijing. Many of these officials have bought into the Republican Party's strategy of carrying out an " anti-China assault " on the campaign trail, scapegoating Beijing for the coronavirus outbreak in the United States instead of acknowledging the Trump administration's central role in the country's failure to prepare itself properly.
While Washington is correct to scrutinize Chinese investments in sensitive technologies and pursue reciprocal trade and economic relations, politically motivated, opportunistic anti-China rhetoric could threaten individual states' cooperation with China, one of the few remaining productive aspects of the bilateral relationship. Indeed, as Hu Xijin, editor of Chinese tabloid Global Times, tweeted , "Beijing is already preparing to take necessary punishment measures against some members of the US Congress, the state of Missouri, and relevant individuals and entities."
China-skeptic sentiment in the U.S. government and on the campaign trail is not a new phenomenon , but the coronavirus pandemic and resultant economic crisis have afforded many politicians the cover to push hawkish policies. Some of their proposals would benefit the United States, including reducing U.S. reliance on Chinese-made pharmaceutical products , a motion broadly backed by both Republicans and Democrats. But many of their arguments are politically motivated and risk further inflaming U.S.-China tensions and painting Beijing as an enemy, à la the Soviet Union during the Cold War, rather than a competitor.
Senator Tom Cotton made waves last month by arguing that U.S. universities should not accept Chinese STEM students given the chance they might return home and use their training to drive China's scientific advances. Senators Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio have also joined the fray, advocating that the United States reduce its reliance on China and punish the country for failing to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. The attorneys general of Missouri and Mississippi have filed lawsuits seeking damages from Beijing for the coronavirus.
Incumbents, however, are not the only ones wagering their political futures on China. Senate candidates in Tennessee , Arizona , and Alabama , among other states, have adopted overtly hawkish stances toward Beijing, blaming China for the pandemic, painting their opponents as soft on the country, and using the China threat to push anti-immigration policies .
Amid Washington's anti-China turn, preserving cooperation at the state level will be critical to maintaining any semblance of productive bilateral ties going forward. As Los Angeles Deputy Mayor of International Affairs Nina Hachigian said at a Brookings panel last year, "cities and states can take advantage of the trade, investment, students, climate change cooperation, culture, and tourism China offers without really having to balance the broader national security, geopolitical, and human rights questions."
It is no coincidence that three of the past four U.S. Ambassadors to Beijing previously served as governors of states with deep links to China: Terry Branstad (Iowa), Gary Locke (Washington), and John Huntsman (Utah).
The aforementioned politicians may be fighting to relocate supply chains outside of mainland China and decouple vast sections of the two countries' economies, but their rhetoric may also lead Beijing to move Chinese-owned businesses out of the United States or cut imports from the country. Despite bilateral tensions, there is clear evidence that Chinese investments in the United States can be beneficial. In the midst of the trade war, a Chinese takeover of a failing paper mill in Maine helped revitalize a local community. In Tennessee, Chinese investments in automotive parts , mattresses , and porcelain manufacturing have benefited the state's economy. There is a real risk that Chinese companies, seeing both politicians' and the American public's growing distaste for China, could simply up and leave.
A more likely outcome of the growing antagonism, however, is for Beijing to engage in economic coercion , which it uses to try to force nations, companies, and officials into doing its bidding and punish those who do not. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has developed a wide-ranging and flexible toolkit of coercive measures that it has used strategically throughout the world.
When South Korea agreed to host the United States' Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system, Beijing did not impose tariffs on Seoul despite its displeasure. China instead restricted flights to South Korea, drummed up nationalist sentiment among the Chinese public to boycott South Korean goods, and even shut down China-based outlets of Lotte Group, the Korean company on whose land THAAD was installed.
China took a similar approach with the Philippines following a 2012 dispute over claims in the South China Sea. In order to cause significant economic pain, Beijing tightened quality controls on agriculture exports from Manila while stemming the flow of Chinese tourists to the Philippines. And most recently, Beijing threatened and then followed through on a boycott of Australian beef after Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
Beijing coerces not only countries but also private companies for perceived transgressions. Marriott, Delta Airlines, and Zara all faced the prospect of losing business in China after listing Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Tibet as sovereign nations. Last fall, Beijing suspended broadcasts of NBA games after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.
If public sentiment across the United States continues to turn against China, Beijing may begin adapting its methods of economic coercion to retaliate against states and politicians it perceives as hostile to its interests.
Indeed, China is clearly paying attention to U.S. domestic politics and state officials' views of China. A think tank in Beijing recently ranked all 50 governors on their attitudes toward China, information the CCP values as it attempts to mold the views of officials outside of Washington. As Dan Blumenthal has noted , Beijing "split[s] Americans into 'friends of China' who might lobby on their behalf and others who refuse to do so [and] will not be granted access to China's massive market."
In recent years, Beijing has provided glimpses of what economic coercion in the United States might look like. During the initial stages of the trade war, China's retaliatory tariffs disproportionally targeted Red states critical to Trump's 2016 election victory. Furthermore, China identified key officials able to influence U.S. policy, such as then-Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and levied tariffs that threatened jobs in and exports from their states in a bid to pressure the politicians to split with Trump.
These actions are possible harbingers of economic pressures to come. Beijing may be tempted to pressure local officials to influence policy from the bottom up. As the aforementioned think tank report explicitly notes , Beijing believes that "State-level officials 'enjoy a certain degree of diplomatic independence,'" and that "Governors can ignore orders from the White House."
Recent downturns in public opinion in both countries, the result of several years of increasing competition, and an emerging view that the other views the pandemic as a strategic opportunity, could even see Beijing move beyond tariffs and drum up anti-U.S. sentiment. It could even encourage citizens to boycott American products, the political and economic effects of which could be devastating.
While the United States imports more from China than it exports, China-bound exports supported around one million U.S. jobs in 2018. According to the U.S.-China Business Council, 42 states counted China among their top five export destinations in 2019. Chinese FDI, which peaked at $46.5 billion in 2016, dropped to just over $3 billion in 2019 -- a decline of over 90 percent. Industries ranging from energy, agriculture, and manufacturing could be negatively affected by an exodus of Chinese investment, a freeze on new Chinese FDI into the United States, or increased tariffs on or bans of imports.
Given the astronomically high unemployment rate and ballooning federal and state debt levels, U.S. states are in no position to lose more investments or export-supporting jobs. Senator McConnell's recent call for states to file bankruptcy highlights their increasingly gloomy economic prospects, and already over 25 percent of state revenues have disappeared due to the coronavirus.
The United States certainly needs to diversify its supply chains so as not to depend so much on China. Washington has already rolled out several measures to better screen Chinese investments in the country and limit sensitive technology exports. The increasingly prevalent and politically expedient one-size-fits-all anti-China position espoused by many state-level politicians, however, could endanger China-state ties, the locus of the two countries' economic relationship, and threaten China-owned U.S.-based companies that pose no national security threats and provide hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Written by
Sam Bresnick
Lucas Tcheyan
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May 13, 2020 | original.antiwar.com
I recently came across a Facebook comment from a Hongkonger, arguing that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is nothing communist given China's prosperous private sector after 1979's reform . He then linked a video to mock the western electoral democracy that put Trump and Hitler into the office, leading to the conclusion that the West has no credential to criticize the one-party system of China for the lack of democracy. His comment represents the contemporary Chinese sentiment and is quite understandable given the ongoing color revolution in Hong Kong 2019 , which is still lukewarm to this day, and the unrelenting blame of COVID19 on China . Although the hybrid war waged on China is unjust, the current Chinese mindset does not help to diffuse but only fuels the conflict even further.The Facebook comment was right about CPP not being Communist that seeks total control of the economy by the state. Yet, China is state capitalism, an oligarchy, or crony capitalism. China is a plutocracy by the marriage between the party leadership (the state), and the monopolizing mega-corporations (the money) like Huawei, Ali, the four state-owned commercial banks , and Sinopec Group .
It is far from a free-market where the only way to win a competition is to provide excellent products, where the state has no role in deciding the winner and no ability to finance itself by forcing the circulation of central-banknotes. China does have a private sector – the semi-free-market, the good part of our bad plutocracy. Still, even that part is weathering after supreme leader Xi took power, and most Chinese do no realize that we are marching back into a more planned, more communism, more Mao Zedong like system, slowly but surely. In China, life is artificially expensive under the tightening state control that imposes layers upon layers of covert taxation, to the point of causing hesitation to have more children .
However, the west, in general, is fundamentally the same, albeit having a façade electoral democracy where no crucial issues (i.e., war and peace, monetary policy, and downsizing the government) are allowed into a debate.
The real private sector (not the likes of Google and Lockheed Martin) is also dying. The states interfere with the market relentlessly, in the name of safety, welfare, and stimulating the economy, which achieved the opposite (i.e., the 1929 great depression, 2000 dot com bubble, and 2008 housing bubble). The Federal Reserve finances the government spending via debt, encourages malinvestment by atrocious QE packages , which all translate into taxing away people's purchasing power by creating tons of money out of thin air.
We see the same unholy marriage between the state and the money like big techs, big pharma, and, most disgustingly, the Military-Industrial Complex. People are either covertly forced, or duped into funding the nonsense by paying tax, no matter which party they elect.
Therefore, the Chinese are right about the West not in the position of a critic, but for the wrong reason. We either fail to realize or willfully deny that we are living under a harsh plutocracy. Instead, we are distracted by the never losing fake debate about which system elects the better government, since the "one-party system" is most attacked by western pro-democracy voices.
Strangely though, both systems have seemingly good intentions, either emphasizing a person's moral conduct and experience in low-tier office (the Chinese internal nomination), or the people's direct control of the government (the West electoral democracy). Strangely, both unanimously favor the use of "government power" the "right way."
Yet, power always corrupts its user by attracting the money, no matter how well-disciplined, how experienced he/she was. A system that operates on coercive power always finds its way to circumvent any laws and regulations meant to promote meritocracy. Both have tried to fight cronyism rigorously with new agencies and new legislation, but in the end, cronyism always prevails, for both. For the most part of history, the essence of the Chinese system is not much different from the West, since they are all plutocracies that conned the people into helplessly relying on more power to solve problems caused by power until it collapses.
In a 1979 Chinese opera broadcasted nationwide, the protagonist, a low tier official, finds himself risking his political career to enforce the law on the aristocrats who made the law; intoxicated, he yelled in desperation "谁做管官的官," which literally is " Quis custodiet ipsos custodes " in Chinese; in the end, he left his career behind – adding no more to the bloated, self-conflicting bureaucracy, to preserve his integrity. Maybe this was a coincidence, 1979 was the year the Chinese leadership decided to let the government govern less – kudos to them.
The year 1979, and the economic boom that followed, is one of the most common counter-arguments from a Chinese when you criticize the draconian practices of CCP. Admittedly, there are times the state power is not insane. In 1979 Deng Xiaoping at least gave up some government mandate to allow the private sector to grow , resulting in the exploitative system we see today, nonetheless a society much more productive than Mao Zedong's total state dominance. Some state heads refrained from moving the government "muscle" too much, such as Jimmy Carter's resistance to wars and money supply that reduced overspending and inflation since the Vietnam War. In these "less bad, more sensible" eras, it is easier for people's entrepreneurial spirit and creativity to overcome the innate irresponsibility of centralized capital management. As a result, we saw significant progress like the Chinese miracle, and the upswing during the Reagan presidency (even if he turned up wars, debt, and the Fed's money machine again). Sadly, the leaderships are eager to claim credits, creating the impression that it is the right administration resulting in progress and recovery when it is the lack of governing that allows the people to make sensible decisions on their own, achieving faster growth.
If we Chinese and the American attack each other's electoral system, it is like the two worst kids in the class picking on each other over their looks rather than their poor study and bullying of other kids, which only makes them both worse. In the real world, we leave the unhinged growth of government power – the real enemy of all people, Chinese and American alike, unattended.
Like that Hongkonger, most Chinese learned to mock Trump's personal, and naively conclude that the democracy that put him (and Hilter) in the office is a joke. Some more informed Chinese mock the media's clownish, unfair treatment of Trump, and naively conclude that the freedom of the press is a joke. However, a bombastic president, the democracy, and the media are not the problems; neither are the aggressive sino-phobic policies of which Trump pretends to be in charge. The actual problem is the monstrous government, married with big money, capable of waging costly war, funding wasteful programs that drain the middle class to enrich a selected few, no matter who is in the office. It can either be the well-spoken Obama loved by the media, who started seven wars and won the Nobel peace prize, or the bombastic, scandalous New Yorker hated by the press, who nonetheless continued these wars. People coerced into funding this abusive machine themselves are part of, with their hard-earned tax dollars, is the problem. Yet, you do not see the Chinese majority mocking this miserable setup and come to realize that we are under the same situation!
For us, the Chinese, the real issue is not the superficial corruption that the supreme leader XI fiercely fought, nor the insanity, the incompetence, and the betrayal of the oath of some party members. It is our innate reliance on authorities and the love of collective glory, a part of our culture passing down through generations over more than 2400 years, being the problem. We can never break the dynastic cycle if we do not see the path to the self-destruction of unhinged state power, such as Mao's era . If we are still yearning for a "just leader" to solve issues like retirement, education, and medication, still admiring exhaustive achievements such as the Belt and Road, the South China Sea, and Taiwan, we then have learned nothing from the downfall of thirteen dynasties and countless hegemonies throughout the history of China. The collective conscious of the Chinese have so far failed to realize the force driving the rise and fall of a dynasty is not the moral and intellect of the leaders, but the people's economic freedom relatively untouched or infringed at times, by a mixture of chance, sanity, and imperialism vainglory. The blind reliance on leaders and the love of collective grandiosity is only compounded when the Americans fail to take back their power from the government, who is warring with China and covertly overtaxing them. The collective enlightenment of the Chinese population is nearly impossible, since the tyrants in Beijing have no shortage of strawman to throw at the people and say "that is the problem, blame the belligerent Trump and the jealous Americans", and the Communist Dynasty will always enjoy the " mandate of heaven ".
Even with a sheep's mindset, the Chinese economy will overtake the US, despite the slow death of its most productive private sector. The sheer momentum of the slight right turn to liberty 40 years ago is good enough for China, since the Americans do not restore their free-market and liberty that had made them an exceptionally productive civilization for a long time. But then what? We Chinese are just molecules burnt to fuel the blinding flash of a new empire not far from its fourteenth dynastic downfall, just like the Achaemenids, the Romans, the Umayyads, the Ottomans, Napoleon's France, the British, and the Americans before us.
Xiaoran Tong has a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the Michigan State University (MSU). He is originally from Kunming, Yunan, China and arrived in the US in 2014 to pursue his Ph.D. at MSU. He is Interested in the history of America and its similarities with ancient and contemporary China.
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May 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Amid the ongoing diplomatic spat between Washington DC and Beijing, which now also includes the deployment of B-1B bombers and warships in the South China Sea , late on Monday (local time) China's Global Times reported , citing sources close to the Chinese government, that some "hawkish" officials in China are calling for a renegotiation the the "phase one" trade deal with Washington as well as a "tit-for-tat approach on spiraling trade issues after US' malicious attacks on China ignited a tsunami of anger among Chinese trade insiders."The calls to renegotiate the current version of the deal - which has yet to be actively implemented - emerge amid dissatisfaction because "China has made compromise for the deal to press ahead."
While in the past, these same trade negotiators "believed that it would be worthwhile to make certain compromise to reach a partial truce in the 22-month trade war and ease escalating tensions", given what the Global Times called "President Donald Trump's hyping an anti-China conspiracy that aims to cover up his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic", advisors close to the trade talks have suggested Chinese officials rekindling the possibility of invalidating the trade pact and negotiating a new one to tilt the scales more to the Chinese side, sources close the matter told the Global Times.
A former Chinese trade official told the Global Times on condition of anonymity on Monday that China could complete such procedures based on force majeure provisions in the pact.
"It's in fact in China's interests to terminate the current phase one deal. It is beneficial to us. The US now cannot afford to restart the trade war with China if everything goes back to the starting point," another trade advisor to the Chinese government told the Global Times, pointing to the staggering US economy and the coming of the US presidential election this year.
"After signing the phase one deal, the US intensifies crackdown in other areas such as technology, politics and the military against China. So if we don't retreat on trade issues, the US could be trapped," the former official noted.
Some could disagree, and counter that Trump can certainly restart the trade war especially since it suits his pre-election agenda - after all, now that the fate of the market is entirely in the hands of the Fed which has gone full MMT, Trump is no longer afraid by the market's response to a renewed trade war. In fact, with over 60% of the US population seeking to distance US from China, it would appear that Trump's best bet to winning independent votes is precisely to keep hammering China.
Confirming this, Trump said on Friday that he was "very torn" about whether to end the China-US phase one deal, Fox News reported, with some observers interpreting his words as equating to a threat from the US to re-launch a trade war against China.
Then again, over the weekend, the SCMP reported that US source familiar with recent discussions stated US officials acknowledged China was largely delivering its pledges on structural issues such as opening market access and improving IP protection but they have yet to agree in some details including IP action plan and easing equity caps for foreign investors. Furthermore, the source stated fallout from the virus meant agreement on purchasing US goods has become much more important and that many believe China needs to increase pace on purchases.
Meanwhile, Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who advises the government on trade issues, told the Global Times on Monday that China has "well documented" Washington's usual threats after previous rounds of confrontation. That means if the trade war restarts, "China knows how to respond, and it is able to retaliate quickly and inflict serious harm on the US economy," Gao said.
Still, as the Global Times concludes, analysts noted that terminating the phase one trade deal would be China's "last option" and one that China would only resort to under extremely hostile conditions.
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May 08, 2020 | www.unz.com
antibeast , says: Show Comment May 9, 2020 at 5:46 pm GMTUnlike Escobar, Roberts, et al, I am much more sanguine about the prospects of China's rise which has threatened the indispensable nation of Yankistan because China was not supposed to rise above its assigned role as the cheap cog of the globalist economy serving the Capitalist Oligarchy of the NWO. By dint of hard work, sly cunning and shrew tactics, China outgrew its role by becoming the hub of the international economy via its New Silk Road and the BRI.What does a developing country like China, still mired in socio-economic inequality, technological dependence, political corruption and environmental degradation do? Concentrate on its own hinterland while bidding its time? Confront the hegemon head-on which would lead to military conflict? Or control its responses while cultivating partnerships with ALL peace-loving countries, whether rich or poor, First World or Third World, Western or non-Western?
The rapid decoupling of China's economy away from the USA started with the GFC 2008 but has since accelerated with Obama's "Pivot to Asia" and Trump's trade war with China. Exports to the USA account for less than 3% of China's GDP today with 60% of those exports being either US or foreign goods manufactured in China. So the real figure is 1% of China's GDP consists of Chinese goods exported to the US market, consisting mostly of industrial commodities or consumer products.
As China has already charted its own independent path of building trading/investment partnerships with Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, the USA has become threatened by China's successful decoupling from its export dependence on the US market as proven by its hostile reaction to Xi's BRI and China's New Silk Road. In addition, the US was caught off-guard by the sudden rise of Chinese tech firms such as Huawei which is the world's number one vendor of telecommunications equipment with undisputed world leadership in 5G technology.
Shocked to find its manhood as no longer exceptional, Uncle Sam feels the need to show off to the world: "Me Gringo! Big Dick!"
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May 10, 2020 | theintercept.com
China has become, over the past two decades, the planet’s second-most powerful nation after the United States. Booming economic growth has lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty and catapulted it to the world’s second-largest economy, while increased military spending has made it the second-largest military power (though its military spending, and nuclear stockpile, are still a small fraction of the U.S.’s).
That growth — in both economic and military power — has led U.S. officials to conclude that they must do more to counteract what they regard as China’s growing influence. President Obama, early in his administration, memorably vowed an “Asia pivot,” whereby the U.S. would devote fewer resources and less attention to the Middle East and more toward China’s growing power in its own region.
That led to some moderate escalation in adversarial relations between the two countries — including the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP) and other regional skirmishes — but nothing approaching direct military confrontation. President Trump, since taking office, has largely heaped praise on the Chinese government and its leader President Xi Jinping, siding with Xi over democracy protests in Hong Kong and even Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
But this pandemic has seriously escalated tensions between the two countries given the increasingly hostile rhetoric emanating from various sectors of the west, making it more urgent than ever to grapple with the complex relations between the two countries and how China ought to be perceived.
The question is far more complex than the usual efforts to create a new U.S. Enemy because numerous power centres in the U.S. and the west generally — particularly its oligarchs, Wall Street, and international capital — are not remotely hostile to Beijing but, quite the contrary, are both fond of it and dependent upon it. That’s why — unlike with other U.S. enemies such as Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, the Iranian government or Nicolas Maduro — one finds very powerful actors, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg to the consulting giant McKinsey to Trump himself, defending Chinese officials and urging better relations with them.
That, in turn, reflects a critical reality about U.S./China relations that defies standard foreign policy frameworks: while hawkish, pro-war political elements in both parties speak of China as an adversary that must be confronted or even punished, the interests of powerful western financial actors — the Davos crowd — are inextricably linked with China, using Chinese markets and abusive Chinese labor practices to maximize their profit margins and, in the process, stripping away labor protections, liveable wages and jobs from industrial towns in the U.S. and throughout the west.
That is why standard left-wing anti-imperialism or right-wing isolationism is an insufficient and overly simplified response to thinking about China: policy choices regarding Beijing have immense impact on workers and the economic well-being of citizens throughout the west.
Today’s new episode of SYSTEM UPDATE is devoted to sorting through the complexities of this relationship and how to think about China. I’m joined by two guests with radically different views on these questions: the long-time Singeporean diplomat who served as President of the U.N. Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani, whose just-released compelling book “Has China Won?” argues that the U.S. should view China as a friendly competitor and not as a threat to its interests; and Matt Stoller, who has worked on issues of economic authoritarianism and the U.S. working class in multiple positions in Congress and in various think tanks, culminating in his 2019 book “Goliath,” and who argues that China is a threat to the economic well-being of the U.S. working class and to civil liberties in the west.
The show, which I believe provides excellent insight into how to think about these questions, debuts this afternoon at 2:oo pm ET on the Intercept’s YouTube channel or can be viewed on the player below at 2:30 p.m. As always, a transcript of the program will be added shortly thereafter.
Update: May 7, 1:54 p.m. EDT
The debut time for this episode has been moved by 30 minutes; it will not debut on the Intercept’s YouTube channel at 2:30 pm ET.
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May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
I have been watching China's gradual rise in the world's GDP– as well as GDP-per-capita– charts and a concomitant fall in the United States' position in these charts, for nearly 20 years now. The United States' decline is still relative rather than absolute. In absolute terms, its GDP is still "Number 1!" But the decline was accelerated from 2003 on, when successive US presidents decided to pour massive amounts of government revenues into large-scale and always disastrous military adventures all around the world. As of last November, Brown University's "Costs of War" project tallied the U.S. budgetary costs of these wars, FY2001-2020, to be $6.4 trillion. These were funds that could have been invested, instead, in repair and upgrading of vital infrastructure here at home– including vital health infrastructure. But no. Instead, the money was shoveled into the pockets of the large military contractors who then used a portion of it on expensive lobbying operations designed to ensure that the sow of military spending continued feeding her offspring (them.)When Donald Trump became president, in 2017, one of his early instincts was to pull back from the foreign wars. (This was about his only sound instinct.) The military-industrial complex then proved able to slow-walk a lot of the military-retraction moves he wanted to make One of the other abiding themes of Trump's presidency has been his desire to "decouple" the U.S. economy from the tight integration it had developed at many levels with the economy of China, as part of broader push to halt or slow the rise of China's power in the global system. At the economic level, we have seen the "tariff wars" and the campaign against Huawei. At the military level, we have seen a slight escalation in the kinds of "demonstration operations" the U.S. Navy has been mounting in the South China Sea. Mobilizing against "Chinese influence" also seems to come naturally to a president who shows no hesitation in denigrating anyone– even US citizens and politicians– who happens not to be of pale-complected European-style hue.
With the eruption of Covid-19 in U.S. communities nationwide, Pres. Trump's pre-existing proclivity to demonize and denigrate anything Chinese has escalated considerably– spurred on, it seems, by his evident desire to find an external scapegoat to blame for the terrible situation Covid-19 has inflicted on Americans and to detract voters' attention from the grave responsibility he and his administration bear for their plight.
He and his economic advisors clearly realize that, with the supply chains of major US industries still inextricably tied up with companies located in China and with China still holding $1.1 trillion-worth of U.S. government debt, he can't just cut the cord and decouple from China overnight. Yesterday, his Treasury Secretary and the US Trade Representative held a phone call with China's Vice Premier Liu He, the intent of which was to reassure both sides that a trade deal concluded four months ago would still be adhered to.
But today, less than 12 hours after the reassuring joint statement released after the phone call, Trump told Fox News that he was "very torn" about the trade deal, and had "not decided" whether to maintain it. This, as he launches frequent verbal tirades against China for having "caused" the coronavirus crisis. US GDP is highly inflated by counting financial moves on Wall Street (extracting money from suckers and moving money from one hand to another) as productive activity. China's purchasing power parity already exceeds the US and I suspect its actual GDP does as well. Only US financialization is able to mask the lack of actual productivity in the US economy.
likbez , May 9 2020 17:12 utc | 10
vk , May 9 2020 17:48 utc | 12I am somewhat skeptical about China chances in this race. That will be much tougher environment for China from now on. And other major technological powers such as Germany, Korea and Japan are still allied with the USA.
The major problem for China is two social systems in one box: state capitalism part controlled by completely corrupt Communist Party (which completely abandoned the communist doctrine and became essentially a religious cult ) + no less corrupt neoliberalism part created with the help of the West.
The level of corruption inherent in the current setup (first adopted in Soviet NEP -- New Economic Policy) is tremendous, as the party has absolute political power and controls the major economic and financial areas while the entrepreneurs try to bribe state officials to get the leverage and/or enrich themselves at the state expense or bypass the bureaucratic limitations/inefficiencies imposed by the state, or offload some costs. So mafia style relationship between party officials and entrepreneurs is not an aberration, it is a norm. And periodic "purges" of corrupt Party officials do not solve the problem. Ecological problems in China are just one side effect of this.
The fact that a Chinese scientist from a biolab got 12 years jail sentence is pretty telling. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00051-2
Add to this the certain pre-existing tendencies within Chinese society to put greed above everything else, the tendency clearly visible in some emigrants and to which Yen devoted one post recently. Riots in some Asians countries against Chinese diaspora are often at least partially caused by this diaspora behavior, not only by xenophobia. Note that several African countries with Chinese investments now intent to sue China for damages from COVID-19. This is not accidental.
Technologically the USA and its G7 satellites are still in the lead although outsourcing manufacturing to China helped Chinese tremendously to narrow the gap. For example, Intel CPUs still dominate both desktops and servers. All major operating systems (with the exception of some flavors of Linux) are all USA developed.
I do not see the possibility for China to quickly narrow this gap as the technology transfer might now be controlled in the same way it the USA controlled the trade with the USSR via COCOM ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls )
Looks how easily the USA managed to kick Huawei in the butt and essentially deprive it of the major market.
@ Posted by: likbez | May 9 2020 17:12 utc | 10You rise important points, but I respectfully disagree with all of them.
1) I don't think China is a "State capitalism" country. The term "State capitalism" was first coined by Lenin for a very specific situation the USSR was in. Yes, the similarities are striking - and Deng Xiaoping's reforms were clearly inspired by Lenin's NEP - but it is important to state that the CCP actively avoided the term and built upon the concept both theoretically and in practice. Besides, we don't need to read Lenin's works critically, an not take him as the second coming of Jesus: when he used the term "State capitalism", he used it in a clearly desperate moment of the USSR, almost by improvisation. Lenin's last years were definitely desperate times.
Besides, the NEP didn't culminate with the capitalist restoration of the USSR. On the contrary: it collapsed in 1926 (after another bad harvest) and gave way to the rise of Stalin and the radical faction of the CPSU. The Five-year plans were born (1928), and agriculture would be fully collectivized by the end of the 1930s (a process which catapulted Molotov to the second most powerful man in the USSR during the period). By the end of WWII, the USSR had a fully collectivized economy.
2) The corruption hypothesis is an attractive one - specially for the liberal middle classes of the post-war and for the Trotskyists - but it doesn't stand the empirical test. The USA was an extremely corrupt nation from its foundation to pre-war, and it never stopped it from growing and reaching prosperity. The Roman Empire and Republic were so corrupt that it was considered normal. There's no evidence the PRC is historically exceptionally corrupt. However, I can see why the CCP is worried about corruption, as it is a flank through which the West can sabotage it from within.
3) The COCOM tactic will be much harder to apply against China than against the USSR. For starters, the USSR lost circa 35% of its GDP in WWII. This gave it a delay from which it never recovered. Second, the USSR fought against capitalism when capitalism was at its apex. Third, the USSR collectivized and closed its economy too early, not taking into account that it still lived in a capitalist world.
China doesn't have that now. It is fighting against capitalism in a phase where it is weakened. It is open and intimately integrated economically with its capitalist enemies. It closed or is about to close the technological gap in many strategic sectors during a stage where the capitalists have low retaliation capacity. It found time to close at least the GDP gap. It found time to recover fully from its civil war and the Japanese Invasion of the Northeast.
Germany, South Korea and Japan are not technologically more advanced than the USA. This is a myth. Plus, they are too small. They may serve as very useful - even essential - pawns for the USA-side, but I don't see any of the three ever achieving Pax .
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May 09, 2020 | www.scmp.com
HiSilicon , Huawei Technologies ' in-house semiconductor and integrated circuit design company, has surpassed US chip giant Qualcomm in terms of smartphone processor shipments in China for the first time amid coronavirus-linked disruptions that have hit most major players, according to a report.
In the first quarter of 2020, HiSilicon shipped 22.21 million smartphone processors, according to Chinese research firm CINNO's latest monthly report on China's semiconductor industry. Although HiSilicon's shipments only increased slightly from the 22.17 million units it shipped in the first quarter of last year, it was the only major company that did not see a year-on-year decline in the quarter, CINNO said in a summary of the report posted on its official WeChat account.
As a result, the Huawei subsidiary's market share surged to 43.9 per cent, from 36.5 per cent during the same period last year, and beat Qualcomm for the first time to become China's top smartphone processor supplier. HiSilicon's steady performance comes at a time when the Chinese smartphone industry is being battered by delayed product launches and dampened consumer sentiment linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Smartphone shipments in the country slumped by 34.7 per cent – more than a third – to 47.7 million units in the first quarter of 2020, according to a report released earlier this month by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
CINNO's report showed that there was a similar plunge in processor shipments, with overall smartphone processor shipments in the country dropping by 44.5 per cent in the first three months of 2020, compared to the same period last year. Huawei makes end-run around US trade ban by turning to its own chips 2 Mar 2020
US-based Qualcomm, the long-time market leader, fell to second place in the latest quarter with a year-on-year decline in its market share from 37.8 per cent to 32.8 per cent. Taiwan's Mediatek maintained its third-place position, but also saw its market share slide year-on-year from 14 per cent to 13.1 percent
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Table showing the market share of smartphone processor supplies according to CINNO Research. Source: CINNO Research / WeChat
Huawei, HiSilicon's parent company, is at the centre of a high-profile US-China tech war. The Trump administration added the company to its Entity List last year, citing the risk that Huawei could give Beijing access to sensitive data from telecommunications networks. The trade blacklist effectively bars Huawei from buying US products and services. In response, the Chinese company, which has denied the allegations, is ramping up its own capabilities to produce more American component-free network gear, including through HiSilicon.
Huawei is also reportedly shifting production of HiSilicon-designed chips away from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and towards Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) as Washington readies new rules which would require foreign companies using US chipmaking equipment to obtain a license before supplying chips to Huawei – a move that would directly affect TSMC.
Over 90 per cent of Huawei phones in China now use HiSilicon processors, according to CINNO. However, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with Yahoo Finance last year that the company would continue using chips from US vendors such as Intel and Qualcomm as long as it is still allowed by US regulators.
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May 08, 2020 | www.globaltimes.cn
In the face of the upcoming presidential elections, Republicans launched a new China Task Force committee in US Congress on Thursday to attract attention despite its futile efforts to pass the buck amid the pandemic. But this not-so-surprising move only shows how hysterical and desperate Republicans have become as criticism of the government's mishandling of the domestic coronavirus outbreak increases, experts said.
Following a series of anti-China moves the Trump administration has made when its epidemic prevention spiraled out of control with more than 1.2 million infections - the world's largest number - to date, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced on Thursday a proposal to set up a new "China Task Force" which will develop legislative policies to curtail Chinese influence. The committee currently consists of 15 Republicans with no Democrats joining.
McCarthy said the pandemic made it apparent "for a national strategy to deal with China." The task force will hold meetings and briefings on China-related issues, which include China's influence inside the US, presence on American campuses and control over important supply chains, the Washington Post reported.
A search for the members in the China Task Force revealed their antagonism toward China. One of them is Rep. El
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Ground beef recall 2020: JBS Food Canada recalls more than 38,000 pounds of meat ![Mike Pompeo wearing a suit and tie: Pompeo: Trump taking action on Chinese software firms 'in coming days']({"default":{"load":"default","w":"80","h":"45","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB17nA3A.img?h=630&w=1119&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=294&y=253"},"dpi":1.4,"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"35","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB17nA3A.img?h=491&w=874&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=294&y=253"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"35","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB17nA3A.img?h=491&w=874&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=294&y=253"}})
© Greg Nash Pompeo: Trump taking action on Chinese software firms 'in coming days'
