May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Who Rules America ?
A slightly skeptical view on the US political establishment and foreign policy
If Ronald Reagan was America's neo-Julius Caesar, his adopted son was the first George Bush (just as J.C. adopted Augustus).
And look what THAT progeny wrought. I fully expect that over the next century, no fewer than seven Bushes will have run or become president
(mimicking the Roman Caesarian line). Goodbye, American Republic.
Skepticism is a useful quality that some people naturally possess and other can develop, but it not a panacea. As such
any "Skeptical" or even "Slightly skeptical" paged by definition suffer from "confirmation bias". They postulate that only information
that does not correlate well with official position is worth presenting. The reality is more complex than that. There is
no grantee that such skeptical opinion is correct. And in retrospect many such opinion, which look highly plausible in the heat of the
day, look naive and unsubstantiated ten years after. Been there, saw that.
Also, while not so lucrative as shilling for government, adhering to anything that differ to government position is too simplistic
an approach. Especially in the long run, as historical forces in action at the particular moment are often unknown and not evident to
participants of the events.
Those considerations probably should be kept in mind when reading those pages. While skeptical opinion is an excellent tool for destroying
propaganda stereotypes it is your own task to integrate them into your new understanding of the situation. Sometime that requires integration
under some new paradigm, or rejection based on the new paradigm for particular historical situation. The problem with history
is that the real meaning of events often became clear only a centruty or so after they occure.
The central for this set of "slightly skeptical" Softpanorama pages is the idea that we live in neoliberal society and will
continue to live in it for some type despite the crisis it experiences now. Because there is no viable alternative on the horizon and
resurrection of New Deal capitalism is not possible as the countervailing forces that existed to keep financial oligarchy in check dissipated,
and part of them (top management of corporations) joined the former enemy.
PHOTO: DENIS CHARLET/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES Listen to this article 6 minutes 00:00 / 06:00 1x This is the year of the woke corporation, the year the chieftains of the most powerful companies got bored with making money and decided to remake America, principally by telling Americans how bigoted and backward they are. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. This is the year of the woke corporation, the year the chieftains of the most powerful companies got bored with making money and decided to remake America, principally by telling Americans how bigoted and backward they are. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP ( Apr 30, 2021 , www.wsj.com )
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a "mentally unstable" Donald Trump in the 2016 US
presidential election during a closed session of Russia's national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked
Kremlin documents.
...
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined
them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.
Yaawwwnn ...
We know, without reading it, that the story is fake because its main author is Luke Harding. Harding also authored the story which
claimed that Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manaford met Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. That story was
proven to be false but the Guardian , to its shame, still has it
up on its website .
The Guardian story claims that the 'leaked' nonsense paper was discussed in high level Kremlin meeting in January 2016.
It was then decided, it alleges, to support Trump. But in January 2016 there was no one, not even Donald Trump himself, who thought
that he would win the Republican primary or even the presidency. But the Kremlin is supposed to have discussed him at the highest
level well before anyone thought he could win?
Various people make interesting remarks about the new Guardian fakery:
I am seriously coming to the conclusion that Luke Harding is a Russian operative who has been put in place as part of a long
term dastardly plan to make British journalism appear ridiculous.
The next Luke Harding MI6 hoax.
Passing off forged Kremlin minutes saying things like "It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump's]
election to the post of US president."
Hilarious
theguardian.com/world/2021/jul"¦
The part of the media that feigns anger at misinformation is uncritically promoting a story today by Luke Harding that Russia
was blackmailing Trump -- the same Harding who has published many false stories, championed the Steele Dossier and claimed Trump
was long a Russian agent.
...
Now suddenly, Harding claims he obtained leaked, highly sensitive Kremlin documents that just so happen to prove all the lies
he's been peddling for years, that not even Mueller's huge team found. Because it advances liberals' interests, journalists are
uncritically spreading it.
...
I will once use this shabby behavior to against highlight 2 points:
1) The contempt and loss of trust people harbor for the corporate media is completely justified and well-earned.
2) These outlets are by far the most prolific and destructive disseminators of disinformation.
Even people who are typically inclined to promote all kinds of anti-Russian nonsense are cautious on this item.
This Guardian story is likely to make big waves. I would remain somewhat cautious for now, however. For a "leak" of this magnitude,
we need at least some details on the chain of custody. Also note the Guardian's own hedging ("papers appear to show") theguardian.com/world/2021/jul"¦
Also, just putting this out there, if the US had this and thought it was real, how likely is it that it would have survived
the waterfall of leaks of the past few years? And yet, here we are, with this as exclusive by the UK's Guardian, and conspicuously
not, say, WaPo or NYT.
Christopher Steele, the 'former' British intelligence officer who peddle the fake dossier about alleged Russian Trump kompromat
on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign, worked and still works for Orbis Intelligence, a British private outlet run by 'former'
British spies.
They embarass us all with this sort of stupidity. And being British, of course, they double down on it.
" REVEALED: Iran plotted to kidnap Iranian-American journalist from Brooklyn, transport her by speedboat to Venezuela and
then fly her to the Islamic republic because she criticized regime, FBI say"
You just cannot get much more ludicrous than that.
@ 1 bemildred.... i knew it was a lie when i heard it on the cbc radio yesterday... if the cbc is running with it - it is an outright
made up lie... accept everything on the surface and never question anything!!! be a good citizen, lol...
The articles from The Guardian and all don't prove anything about Russia's plans. The cite the January 26 meeting of the Security
Council as Proof of Putin's plans. If I were in Putin's place, I would also have been happy with Trump's election and its likely
socioeconomic impact on the US society.
Harding strikes me as someone who's completely into the business of selling stories. He senses where the money is , looks at his
sales numbers and concludes he's doing great because that is how he measures things. No concept of 'truth' other than financial
success in the market of ideas. I suspect he makes a lot of money.
damn, i wish i had it in me to be a cult leader...i'd make a beeline to the guardian office and have an army of kool-aid drinking
simps at my disposal. when they aren't harrassing and firing women writers for calling out "female identifying" sex offenders
in dresses or stirring up imaginary "anti-semitism" they're peddling this delusional nonsense and LARPing as MI6 spooks. truly
in their own little world. i'll guess some LSD in the water cooler and a decent powerpoint presentation is all it would take to
be the limey jim jones.
The chunks of the supposed document that the Guardian included with its article really give it away. The text - supposedly from
an internal Kremlin communication - reads as no more or less than a chunk of English passed through Google Translate. Idiomatically,
it is chock full of awkwardness and simple ridiculous phrasings. There are even grammatical errors! "..во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ±Ñ‹Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ
его..." is simply incorrect. In Russian, the last two words are reversed in order.
It recalls the recent Putin's Palace story, with the "комната грÑзи".
It's just shameful how little pride the propagandists take in their work. I understand that they hold their audience in only
the lowest of regard (not without cause, to be fair), but it's not like there is any shortage of Russian-speakers in the west
they could go to for proofreading, if not copy writing.
"Of course, this is such a continuation of absolutely low-quality publications. Either the newspaper is trying to somehow increase
its popularity, or the newspaper continues such a frenzied Russophobic line. Of course, all this does not and cannot correspond
to the truth. This, in fact, is not true ... This is a continuation of the exercises on total demonization of Russia and Putin,
which The Guardian sometimes likes to do, or is it a desperate attempt to attract some new readers by publishing such tales,
"Peskov said.
"REVEALED: Iran plotted to kidnap Iranian-American journalist from Brooklyn, transport her by speedboat to Venezuela and then
fly her to the Islamic republic because she criticized regime, FBI say", Bemildred | Jul 15 2021 15:31 utc | 1
I TOLD you all that the FBI needed new script writers. Either that or they have so little imagination that they
have to use up all the scripts from a couple of years back, as they cannot afford new ones.
Doesn't matter - the MSNBC watchers will never accept this. I still try to punch through the armor of confirmation bias now and
then. My last jab was: "I think Russiagate is every bit as much evidence-free bullshit as Quanon!". No effect whatsoever. Willing
to agree with half of what I said - just like Fox watchers.
Unfortunately, I don't think my fellow citizens here in the heart of Pindostan will pay attention until things get bad enough
that they know actual hunger - and then they will serve the elites by fighting each other.
Sorry for the pessimism, the one positive thing I do think I can do is tend my vegetable garden!
"во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ±Ñ‹Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÐµÐ³Ð¾", maybe awkward but semikosher, many examples can be found Googling it ---like during
stay of his vs. during his stay (e.g. kamchatka.mid.ru can be found to say: "ÑвÑÐ·Ð°Ð½Ð½Ñ‹Ñ Ñ Ð´ÐµÐ¹ÑтвиÑми и поÑтупками
пригÐ"ашаемого во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ±Ñ‹Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÐµÐ³Ð¾ в РФ, в том чиÑÐ"е, в ÑÐ"учае депортации").
Jeez, it just gets worse-as soon as I saw the name Luke harding, I knew it was a pile of trash; really, who in the hell reads
this without a sense to vomit.
Well, there there is Orbis: "great reporting."
MI6 and prob cia has this clown on the payroll; I tried to watch the last 5 minutes of the video but could not get past the
first minute; the guy is absolutely repulsive and they continue to double down on this garbage.
I think you really nailed it; we see it every day, with this latest pail of s___, that these purveyors absolutely have no shame
or embarrassment, but believe their audience, the sheeple, are complete idiots or stupid. The question is who is stupid as this
level of stupidity cannot be fixed or underestimated.
I remember the scene in the movie "The Big Short" where Steve Carell
was saying, "they knew all along!".
Goldman Sachs, et al, had over-leveraged the housing mortgages and "they knew all along"
if and when it all crumbled the government would cover Wall Street's bad bets with taxpayer debt.
They knew all along it was bs but they did it anyway.
The MSM is a different arena but has the same arrogant attitude towards average joe citizen.
The MSM knows it is selling bs but they don't care.
What I see is they are counting on the "Reiteration Effect" (look it up, it is a real thing).
"Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad".
There have been a steady stream of "Russia bad" stories and "Russia helped Trump" stories, and over time
the fact that these stories are one by one debunked does not matter. The "Reiteration Effect" is what matters.
"Say something a million times and it becomes true" is not a mere cynical phrase, it actually works - the "Reiteration Effect".
Keep putting out these "Russia bad" stories and "Russia helped Trump" stories and over time people will accept the basic message
as true.
The MSM has known all along they were selling bs, but they don't care.
They definitely didn't know 2008 would happen. On the contrary: they thought they had discovered the elixir of immortality
for capitalism.
The USA was caught completely off-guard in September 2008. You have to search with a magnifying glass to find the ten people
who predicted the crisis would happen in its nature and more or less its timing - but even then, most of them were Marxists, i.e.
outside the commanding heights of the USG.
I like the idea of the makers of this thing deciding that it's a shoddy job which only Harding will take. Also Harding gets all
the attention but let's not forget the honourable mentions in this story: Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh.
I saved this from somewhere (?) years ago. Doesn't matter, you can read Paulson's coup document for yourself.
The WSJ link still works but you hit a pay wall. You can put the following url at
http://web.archive.org/
and read the original WSJ publication and Paulson's coup document dated Sept 20, 2008 at the WSJ.
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion,
and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
Did you catch that? Paulson went further. Not just the courts are cut out but "any adminstrative agency" as well.
Paulson also was giving to Himself the authority to APPROPRIATE any funds He wished.
"Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed
appropriated at the time of such expenditure."
HE could pass ANY legislation He wanted to:
"(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities
of this Act."
The word "term" has a duel meaning. It also refers to TIME, as in length of a term.
Give powers to anyone and hire anyone He wished to:
"(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;"
What miscellaneous authorities did G-d Paulson give Himself? Answer: Authority over the police and the military.
"In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for""
(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and
"providing stability OR". That OR makes for confusion (intentional confusion). Stability is a word used often in the context
of economics but it is also used in the context of police action. Get it? He wants to create his own SS. See the very next
word: "protecting", as in "We Serve and Protect".
(2) protecting the taxpayer."
The last one is my favorite. Who is a *taxpayer*? Hmmm, is not everyone, even candy purchasing kids liable to pay tax? Corporations
are also taxpayers...
G-d Paulson covered all his bases.
Even the one about being G-d Forever:
"Sec. 9. Termination of Authority.
The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate
two years from the date of enactment of this Act."
Paulson wants you to believe this terminates in two years. However, 2(b)(5) does NOT terminate and that one says he can
just place the crown back on His own head:
"(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities
of this Act."
Cheers
A coup! A massive scandal that has been totally missed.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only
for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."-- Joseph Goebbels (Luke Harding's Father?)
I'm not normally a follower of this topic even though one of our sleazers, Downer, was involved but needing something to smile
at while in our CV lockdown I watched the link.
What an understatement! It's a hilarious 28m:51s train wreck interview with a complete dick. Thanks b for sharing it.
@Vk, I'm sorry to contradict you but if you pick up a copy of the Financial Times in 2008 before the crash, everyone was predicting
it. I checked recently, and sure enough, it was all over the paper.
By 2007, the financial elite already knew something would happen - but not a structural crisis. In fact, they predicted nothing:
the chain of bankruptcies started at the end of 2006; September 2008 was just the date it "leaked" to the "real economy".
Not every crisis is bad for capitalism. Cyclical crisis are natural and beneficial to capitalism. The crisis of 2008 was not
a cyclical crisis, but a structural one. They probably thought it was either a cyclical crisis (a la Dotcom crisis of 2000) or,
if something more serious, something the free market would easily be able to "self-regulate" out of.
Pennsylvania 's
top election official has decertified the voting system of rural Fulton County for future elections, saying
that an election assessment by a third party had violated the Keystone State's election code,
according to a release on Wednesday.
Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf,
informed the Fulton County Board of Elections that she "did not arrive at this decision
lightly."
Wake Technology Services Inc. (Wake TSI), a software company based in West Chester,
Pennsylvania, had carried out an election assessment that involved its workers visiting Fulton
County in December 2020 and in early February.
The company in May released a report that concluded the election was "well-run" and did not
indicate any signs of fraud in Fulton County. However,
five "issues of note" were uncovered , three of which are related to Dominion Voting Systems ,
whose electronic voting system was used in the county for the 2020 election.
"While these may seem minor, the impact on an election can be huge," Wake TSI said of the
five issues. At the time, Dominion disputed the report's findings.
The Pennsylvania Department of State said in a statement on Wednesday that
Wake TSI's access to the Fulton County's voting system "undermined the chain of custody
requirements and strict access limitations necessary to prevent both intentional and
inadvertent tampering with electronic voting systems."
It added that the "unauthorized access" prevents the vendor -- Dominion -- from "affirming
that the system continues to meet state and federal certification standards."
Fulton county officials had allowed Wake TSI to "access certain key components of its
certified system, including the county's election database, results files, and Windows systems
logs," and to "use a system imaging tool to take complete hard drive images of these computers
and other digital equipment," the department noted.
"These actions were taken in a manner that was not transparent," Degraffenreid said in her
letter to Fulton County officials on Tuesday. She said the access given to Wake TSI has
caused Fulton County's voting system to be "compromised," and that neither the county, state
officials, nor Dominion could now "verify that the impacted components of Fulton County's
leased voting system are safe to use in future elections."
"I have no other choice but to decertify the use of Fulton County's leased Dominion
Democracy Suite 5.5A voting system last used in the November 2020 election," Degraffenreid
wrote.
The Fulton County Board of Elections and Wake TSI did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
The Pennsylvania Department of State previously said that a risk-limiting audit of the 2020
election has confirmed the state's election results.
The
Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported that Fulton County needed to pay $25,000 to lease new
equipment for its municipal elections in May, because Dominion refused to let the county use
the voting machines that Wake TSI had accessed. According to the outlet, Dominion told the
county that it violated its contract in letting a unaccredited and non-certified company
inspect the machines.
Wake TSI's assessment in Fulton County was "set" by Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a
Republican, according to a Dec. 31, 2020 document
signed by the company that was obtained and published by the Arizona Mirror and The Washington
Post. Wake TSI said in its report that Mastriano and Pennsylvania Sen. Judy Ward, also a
Republican, "were aware of our efforts."
The document also said that Wake TSI was "contracted to Defending the Republic," a nonprofit
founded by lawyer Sidney Powell, who has alleged that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020
election.
Mastriano earlier this month
issued letters to York, Tioga, and Philadelphia counties requesting that they voluntarily
submit information and materials by July 31, to enable what he calls a "forensic investigation"
of the 2020 and 2021 elections. He told The Epoch Times that he seeks for an investigation that
would be "a big deep dive, like we saw in Arizona, but even deeper."
Wake TSI was also involved in the election audit still underway in Arizona's Maricopa County
up until
its contract expired in May. The audit in Maricopa County was ordered by the Arizona state
Senate's Republican majority. Dominion machines in Maricopa County will also be
replaced .
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, said the machines were not tampered with
during the audit and questioned the Board of Supervisors' decision to get new machines.
"If their experts can't prove the machines have not been tampered with, then how does the
[Secretary of State's office] or County Elections certify the machines before every audit to
make sure the machines haven't been tampered with?" she asked in June.
Henry Kissinger has said, not unreasonably, that we are in "the foothills" of a cold war
with China. And Vladimir Putin, who nurses an unassuageable grudge about the way the Cold
War ended, seems uninterested in Russia reconciling itself to a role as a normal nation
without gratuitous resorts to mendacity. It is, therefore, well to notice how, day by day,
in all of the globe's time zones, civilized nations are, in word and deed, taking small but
cumulatively consequential measures that serve deterrence.
If arrogance were a deadly disease, George Will would be dead.
George Will has been an
ass clown since I first had the displeasure of watching him in the 1970s. Age has not brought
an ounce of wisdom. Nevertheless, this total lack of self reflection and ability to project
American sins on others is unfortunately not unique to our man George. It seems a habit
throughout the entire US political spectrum. The ability to view, for example, the invasion
of Iraq as perfectly normal behavior, while viewing any resistance to US/Israeli dominance as
beyond the pale is the character of the decaying American superpower. George Will is but one
manifestation of it. It was once infuriating. But now it's simply like listening to the
ravings of a schizophrenic. More pathetic than anything else.
What do you expect from George Swill? He is a pathetic, disoriented refugee from his home in
Victorian England, when barbarism never set for a single instant on the British Empire.
There's a way to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the
mainstream news media. Just look at their propaganda and ask yourself, "Why do they want me
to believe this particular lie?" If you can figure that you, you will have the truth.
Well, you know, the white man's burden...
The funny thing is that they seriously consider themselves a "superior race", while behaving
like wild barbarians.
Such opinions/articles of "Western civilized people" cause only a condescending smile,
nothing more. So let's let George Will entertain us.
I find it pretty bizzarre how western media obsessively try to portray the Defender
incident as a some sort of "victory" for "civilized nations".
What exactly is the victory here? The fact that Russia only resorted to warning fire and
didn't blow up the ship?
Decades of propaganda masquerading as news has led most "educated" Americans into a Matrix
of false narratives. Should you dare mention election fraud or question the safety of COVID
vaccines in the presences of anyone who considers the NY Times and Wash Post as the "papers
of record", they will be happy to inform you that you are "captured" by false news. Dialogue
with these true believers has become almost impossible. We are the indispensable, civilized
nation, don't you understand basic facts?
My sister, who is truly a good-hearted person, unfortunately keeps CNN and MSNBC on most
of the day in her small apartment, and lives for The NY Times, which she pours over,
especially the weekend edition. She knows that Putin is evil and Russia is a bad place to
live, etc etc. I got rid of my TV ten years ago and started looking elsewhere for my
information. I live in a rural area of a Red state, she lives in Manhattan. We have to stick
to topics that revolve around museums, gardening, and food.
This is precisely the type of arrogance that has led to US leaving Afghanistan with their
pants down - having spent untold Trillions of dollars and having nothing to show for it. And
soon, leaving Iraq and Syria too. It reminds me of how the US left Vietnam and Cambodia.
The 'White' establishment in Washington and across the US military industrial complex, has
an air of superiority and always seem to feel that they can subjugate via throwing money at
people! This in effect turns everyone they deal with into Whores (yes, prostitutes). Its
fundamentally humiliating, and sews the seeds of corruption - both economic and moral. Then,
they are shocked that there's a back clash!
The Taliban succeeded not with arms - but by projecting a completely different narrative
of "Morality (i.e. non-corruption), honor, and even intermingled nationalism with their
narrative". They projected a story that suggested that new Afghan daughters would not turn
into Britney Spears or porn stars.
And, believe it or not, the Chinese see themselves as having been fundamentally humiliated
by the West and couch their efforts as a struggle for their civilization (its not ideological
or even economic) - they are fighting for honor and respect.
Western Civilization (and western elite) on the left and right are fundamentally
materialistic. They worship money, and simply don't understand it when others don't. When
they talk about superiority, they are basically saying the worship of money rules supreme.
You sort of become dignified in the west if you have a lot of wealth. They want to turn the
whole world into prostitutes. Policy and laws are driven by material considerations.
Now, I am not saying that spirituality or religion is good; and in fact, the Chinese are
not driven by religious zeal (they are, on the whole, non-religious). What I am saying is
that - no matter how its expressed - be it through religion, through culture, through
rhetoric, etc. - all this back clash is really a struggle for respect, 'honor' and thus a
push back to Western Arrogance, and the humiliation it has caused. The West simply doesn't
understand that there are societies - especially in the east, that value honor over other
things.
When Trump calls other people losers, he is basically saying he is richer, they are
poorer. In his mind, winning, is all about money. When people write articles about the
superiority of a civilization - they are implicitly putting other people down. That's not
just arrogant, its rude and disrespectful. Its basically like a teenager judging their
parents. How dare a newly formed nation (the US), judge or differentiate or even pretend to
be superior to the Chinese, Persians etc.?
Our foreign policy (and rhetoric) in the West has to completely change. We have to be
really careful, because, (honestly), it won't be very long before these other (inferior)
civilizations actually take over global leadership. Then how will we want to be treated?
Don't for a second think these folks can't build great gadgets that go to Mars! Oh, did China
just do that? Does Iran have a space program? Did they just make their own vaccines? Once
they start trading among themselves without using the USD greenback, we are finished.
Some notable recent achievements of 'civilised' nations include:
-Illegal invasion and bombing of multiple non-aggressor nations
-Overthrowing of democratically elected Governments
-Support of extremist and oppressive regimes
-Sponsoring of terrorism, including weapon sales to ISIS
-Corruption of once trusted institutions like the UN and OPCW
...when all she did was offer slight resistance to Western aggression? The key event was
the August 2013 false-flag
gas attack and massacre of hostages in Ghouta in Damascus.
What really angered the West was the Russian
fleet in the Mediterranean that prevented the NATO attack on Syria. (You will not find a
single word of this in Western media.) This is why Crimea needed to be captured by the West.
As revenge and deterrence against the Russian agression.
The standoff was first described by Israel Shamir in
October 2013:
"The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine
shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them -
the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and
supported by Chinese warships.
Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to
reach their destination."
A longer description was published by Australianvoice in
2015:
"So why didn't the US and France attack Syria? It seems obvious that the Russians and
Chinese simply explained that an attack on Syria by US and French forces would be met by a
Russian/Chinese attack on US and French warships. Obama wisely decided not to start WW III
in September 2013." Can Russia Block Regime Change In Syria Again?
In my own comments from 2013 I tried to understand the mission of the Russian fleet. This
is what I believed Putin's orders to the fleet were:
To sink any NATO ship involved in illegal aggression against Syria.
You have the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in self-defense.
I am sure NATO admirals understood the situation the same way. I am not sure of the
American leadership in Washington.
Insulting language aside, the narrative they are trying to create is that there is an
anti-Russia, anti-China trend developing and that those sitting on the fence would be wise to
join the bandwagon.
This will be particularly effective on the majority of folks who barely scan headlines and
skim articles. Falun Gong/CIA mouthpiece Epoch Times is on board with this, based on recent
headlines.
Wikipedia has a list of reliable
and unreliable sources . "Reliable" are those sources that are under the direct control
of the US regime. Any degree of independence from the regime makes the source "unreliable."
WaPo and NYT are at the top of the list of reliable sources.
This is the diametric opposite of how Wikispooks defines reliability.
Reliability of sources is directly proportional to their distance *from* power.
At A Closer Look on Syria (ACLOS) we only trust primary sources.
Makes me remember the cornerstone work from former Argentine president DF Sarmiento, who
dealt with "Civilization or Barbarism" in his book "Facundo". Of course, his position was the
"civilized" one.
Those "civilized" succeeded in creating a country submitted to the British rule, selling
cheap crops and getting expensive manufactures, with a privileged minority living lavishly
and a great majority, in misery.
Also, their "civilized" methods to impose their project was the bloody "Police War"
This article is fundamentally about propaganda and "soft power".
Soft power in foreign policy is usually defined when other countries defer to your
judgement without threat of punishment or promise of gain.
In other words, if other countries support your country without a "carrot or stick"
approach, you have soft power.
For years, the US simply assumed other "civilized" of the western world would dutifully
follow along in US footsteps due to unshakeable trust in America's moral authority. The
western media played a crucial role by suppressing news regarding any atrocities the western
powers committed and amplifying any perceived threats or aggressions from "enemies".
Now, with the age of the internet, western audiences can read news from all over the world
and that has been a catastrophe for western powers. We can now see real-time debunking of
propaganda.
In the past, the British would have easily passed off the recent destroyer provocation as
pure Russian aggression and could expect outrage from all western aligned countries. The EU
and US populations could have easily been whipped into a frenzy and DEMANDED reprisals
against Russia if not outright war. Something similar to a "Gulf of Tonkin" moment.
But, that did not happen. People all over the world now know NOTHING from the US or
British press is to be trusted. People also now know NATO routinely try to stir up trouble
and provoke Russia.
So, Americans and even British citizens displayed no widespread outrage because they
simply did not believe their own government's and compliant media's side of the story.
US and British "soft power" are long gone. No one trusts them. No one wants to follow them
into anymore disastrous wars of aggression.
Western media still do not understand this and cannot figure out why so many refuse
western vaccines or support the newest color revolutions.
They cast Germany as a victim or potential victim of foreign aggressors, as a peace-loving
nation forced to take up arms to protect its populace or defend European civilization
against Communism.
I remember a tv history program that had interviews with German soldiers.
I recall one who had seen/participated in going from village to village in the USSR
hanging local communist leaders. He said they had been taught that by doing this
they were "protecting civilization".
Arrogance is not a deadly disease or even a hindrance for mainstream presstitutes; it is a
job qualification, making them all the more manipulable and manipulative. And so, as with
Michael Gordon, Judith Miller, Brett Stephens and David Sanger (essentially all of them
pulling double duty for the apartheid state), people will die from their propaganda, but they
will advance.
Name a leader with moral courage and integrity among suzerainties (private plantations).
Nations without integrity and filled with Orcs (individuals without conscience), can't be
civilized. They're EVIL vassals of Saruman & Sauron, manipulated by Wormtongue.
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
Henry Kissinger, in his interview with Chatham House stated, "the United States is in a
CRISIS of confidence... America has committed great moral wrongs." What are U$A's core
values?
According to a CFR member :
"How lucky I am that my mother studied with JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis and WH Auden and that
she passed on to me a command of language that permits me to "tell the story" of the world
economy in plain English. She would have been delighted that I managed to show that the evil
Gollum from Tolkien's tales lives above the doorway in the Oval Office, which he
certainly does. I saw him there myself. He may have found a new perch over at The Federal
Reserve Bank as well."
– Excerpt From, Signals: The Breakdown of the Social Contract and the Rise of
Geopolitics by Dr Philippa Malmgren
The Financial Empire has ran out of LUCK. "In God We Trust"
I thought moral superiority was the official position of NATO. The explicit intent is to
weaponize human rights and democracy . So it is not merely the mundane 'our group is better'
or the somewhat nostalgic western form of moral superiority, it's weaponized moral
superiority.
George Will looking good I tellya. Anybody know who does his embalming?
Doesn't Will's article reek of Nazi propaganda against the Russians as a mongrel Asiatic
uncivilized people? Of course to attack the Chinese as uncivilized? China uncivilized? 5,000
years of continuous culture? The Russians and Chinese must join up with civilization.
Unfortunately at least in the West race is only about skin color. It certainly wasn't the
case with the original Nazis. Will's piece is blatantly racist out of the tradition of
Nazism.
Oxford and the Ivy League. The training grounds for the Anglo American deep state and the
cheerleaders of the empire. Expect nothing more of these deeply under educated sudo
intellectuals.
Plenty of people who work for the MIC and in various policy circles/think tanks have
plenty "to show for it" where all these wars are concerned. Many billions of dollars were
siphoned upwards and outwards into the bank accounts and expensive homes of the managerial
and executive classes (even the hazard pay folks who actually went to the places "we" were
bombing) not just at Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Booz Allen, etc. but plenty of lesser known
"socioeconomically disadvantaged" Small Businesses (proper noun in this context) companies
who utilized the services of an army of consultants to glom onto the war machine. In most
cases of the larger firms, Wall Street handled the IPOs long ago, and these companies have
entire (much less profitable) divisions dedicated to state and local governments to
"diversify" their business portfolios in case the people finally get sick of war. But that
rarely happens in any real sense because the corporate establishment "legacy media" makes
sure that there's always an uncivilized country to bomb or threaten....and that means the
"defense" department needs loads of services, weapons, and process improvement consultants
all the time. War is a racket; always has been, always will be.
Unfortunately, it seems that truly large segments of the population in the developed
western countries and especially in the Anglo-sphere believe the propaganda emanating from
the imperial mouthpieces. The US citizenry is a case study in manipulating the public.
Indeed, the DNC liberals are effectively the vanguard of the pro-war movement, espouse
racist Rusophobia and conitnue Trump's hostility to China. The so-cslled conservatives follow
their own tradition of imperial mobilization behind the Washington regime: Chin,Latin
America, the very people who berated the 'Deep State' now paise its subversive activities
against the targeted left-wing governments.
As for the moribund left - it would be better described as leftovers - it is often taken
for a ride as long as the imperial messaging is promoted by the liberal media. The excuses
for imperialism are a constant for many of them (even as they call themselves
anti-imperialists) and the beleaguered voicesfor the truth are far and few. The latter often
face silencing campaigns not just from the establishment hacks, but from their own supposed
ideological comrades, who are, of course, in truth nothing of the sort.
All in all, despite the consistent record of manipulative propaganda and utter criminality
the imperial regime never loses the support of the critical masss of the citizenry.
All in all, despite the consistent record of manipulative propaganda and utter criminality
the imperial regime never loses the support of the critical masss of the citizenry.
Maybe 50% of the people here bother to vote, in IMPORTANT elections. Can be a lot less if
the election is not important. The only people still engaged politically here at all are the
people with good jobs. The American people have given up. And there are a lot of angry people
running around, with guns. Claiming the citizenry here support the government is imperial
propaganda. Why do you think they like mercenaries and proxies so much? And this is all in
great contrast to when I was young 50 years ago.
Looks like the most interesting publications are marked as unreliable and "fake news"
consortium of neoliberal MSM (often controlled by intelligence agencies) was labeled as reliable.
Below is small initial fragment that gives pretty good understanding on neoliberal bias of the
Wikipedia brass and Wikipedia controllers. .
112 Ukraine was deprecated following a 2019 RfC, which showed overwhelming consensus
for the deprecation of a slew of sources associated with Russian disinformation in Ukraine.
It was pointed out later in a 2020 RfC that 112 Ukraine had not been explicitly discussed
in that first discussion prior to its blacklisting request. Further discussion established
a rough consensus that the source is generally unreliable, but did not form a consensus for
deprecation or blacklisting. The prior blacklisting was reversed as out of process.
There is consensus that Ad Fontes Media and their Media Bias Chart should not be used
in article space in reference to sources' political leaning or reliability. Editors
consider it a self-published source and have questioned
its methodology.
Agence France-Presse is a news agency . There is consensus that
Agence France-Presse is generally reliable. Syndicated reports from Agence
France-Presse that are published in other sources are also considered generally
reliable.
Al Jazeera is considered a generally reliable news organization . Editors perceive
Al Jazeera
English (and Aljazeera.com ) to be more reliable than
Al Jazeera's Arabic-language news reporting. Some editors say that Al Jazeera, particularly
its Arabic-language media, is a partisan source with respect to the
Arab–Israeli
conflict . Al Jazeera's news blogs should be handled with
the corresponding policy.
There is consensus that AlterNet is generally unreliable. Editors consider AlterNet a
partisan
source , and its statements should be attributed . AlterNet's syndicated content
should be evaluated by the reliability of its original publisher, and the citation should
preferably point to the original publisher.
User reviews on Amazon are anonymous, self-published , and unverifiable,
and should not be used at all. Amazon is a reliable source for basic information about a
work (such as release date, ISBN, etc.), although it is unnecessary to cite Amazon when the
work itself may serve as a source for that information (e.g., authors' names and ISBNs).
Future release dates may be unreliable.
There is consensus that The American Conservative is a usable source for
attributed
opinions . As TAC is published by the American Ideas Institute, an advocacy
organization, TAC is considered biased or opinionated .
There is consensus that An Phoblacht is generally unreliable for news reporting,
as it is a publication of Sinn Féin . Under the conditions of
WP:ABOUTSELF , An Phoblacht
is usable for attributed statements from Sinn
Féin and some editors believe that the publication may also be used for attributed
statements from the Provisional Irish
Republican Army (IRA).
The 2019 RfC established no consensus on the reliability of Anadolu Agency.
Well-established news outlets are normally considered reliable for statements of fact.
However, Anadolu Agency is frequently described as a mouthpiece of the Turkish government
that engages in propaganda, owing to its state-run status. See also:
Anadolu Agency (controversial topics, international politics) .
In the 2019 RfC, editors generally agreed that Anadolu Agency is generally unreliable
for topics that are controversial or related to international politics. See also:
Anadolu Agency (general topics) .
Ancestry.com is a genealogy site that hosts a database of
primary
source documents including marriage and census records. Some of these sources may be
usable under WP:BLPPRIMARY , but secondary
sources, where available, are usually preferred. Ancestry.com also hosts user-generated content , which is
unreliable.
Answers.com (previously known as WikiAnswers) is a Q&A site that incorporates user-generated content . In
the past, Answers.com republished excerpts and summaries of tertiary sources , including
D&B Hoovers
, Gale , and
HighBeam
Research . Citations of republished content on Answers.com should point to the original
source, with a note that the source was accessed "via Answers.com". Answers.com also
previously served as a Wikipedia mirror ; using republished
Wikipedia content is considered circular sourcing .
There is consensus that ADL is a generally reliable source, including for topics
related to hate groups and extremism in the U.S. There is no consensus that ADL must be
attributed in all cases, but there is consensus that the labelling of organisations and
individuals by the ADL (particularly as antisemitic) should be attributed. Some editors
consider the ADL's opinion pieces not reliable, and that they should only be used with
attribution. Some editors consider the ADL a biased source for Israel/Palestine related
topics that should be used with caution, if at all.
A number of international papers
report today on the Israeli hacking company NSO which sells snooping software to various
regimes. The software is then used to hijack the phones of regime enemies, political
competition or obnoxious journalists. All of that was already well known but the story has
new legs as several hundreds of people who were spied on can now be named.
The phones appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in
countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens and also known to have been
clients of the Israeli firm, NSO Group, a worldwide leader in the growing and largely
unregulated private spyware industry, the investigation found.
The list does not identify who put the numbers on it, or why, and it is unknown how many
of the phones were targeted or surveilled. But forensic analysis of the 37 smartphones
shows that many display a tight correlation between time stamps associated with a number on
the list and the initiation of surveillance, in some cases as brief as a few seconds.
Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International, a
human rights group, had access to the list and shared it with the news organizations, which
did further research and analysis. Amnesty's Security Lab did the forensic analyses on the
smartphones.
The numbers on the list are unattributed, but reporters were able to identify more than
1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries through research and interviews on four
continents.
Who might have made such a list and who would give it to Amnesty and Forbidden
Stories?
NSO is one of the Israeli companies that is used to monetize the work of the Israel's
military intelligence unit 8200. 'Former' members of 8200 move to NSO to produce spy tools
which are then sold to foreign governments. The license price is $7 to 8 million per 50
phones to be snooped at. It is a shady but lucrative business for the company and for the
state of Israel.
NSO denies the allegations that its software is used for harmful proposes with
a lot of bullshittery :
The report by Forbidden Stories is full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories
that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources. It seems like
the "unidentified sources" have supplied information that has no factual basis and are far
from reality.
After checking their claims, we firmly deny the false allegations made in their report.
Their sources have supplied them with information which has no factual basis, as evident by
the lack of supporting documentation for many of their claims. In fact, these allegations
are so outrageous and far from reality, that NSO is considering a defamation lawsuit.
The reports make, for example, the claim that the Indian government under Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has used the NSO software to spy on the
leader of the opposition party Rahul Gandhi.
How could NSO deny that allegation? It can't.
Further down in the NSO's statement the company
contradicts itself on the issues:
How do you explain the
suspiciously-timed, and simultaneous, Five Eyes denunciation of China for alleged hacking of
Microsoft? Is it a way of deflecting too much wrath on Israel? Or, is b wrong and the China
story serves as real distraction.
thanks b.. it is an interesting development which seems to pit the usa against israel... i am
having a hard time appreciating this... maybe... interesting conundrum snowden paints himself
into... @ 1 prof... there are plenty of distractions to go around.. hard to know...
In our day-and-age, all "Spectacular Stories" serve as distractions, although some are
genuine scoops illuminating criminal behavior involving state actors. Ultimately, this scoop
provides much more leverage for Putin's ongoing insistence that an International Treaty
dealing with all things Cyber including Cyber-crime be convened ASAP.
"Who has an interest in shutting NSO down or to at least make its business more
difficult?
The competition I'd say. And the only real one in that field is the National Security Agency
of the United States."
There is at least one other possibility.
The leak could be from a highly sophisticated state actor that needs to "blind" US and
especially Israeli intelligence services temporarily.
That could very easily be China, Russia or even Iran. Some of their assets could be on the
list.
Exposing the service weakens, or possibly destroys, it until another workaround is
found.
China might do this to push customers towards some of their cellphones that are supposedly
immune to this.
Russia and Iran might need to blind Mossad, NSA and CIA or upcoming operations in Syria,
Iraq and possibly Afghanistan.
Weird to have the US burn an Israeli spy operation (I'd be surprised if they didn't build
back doors into their own software) in such a public manner.
The only reason I can think of for the US to shut NSO down is if they refused to share
information they had gathered with the NSA and so they were put out of business.
Snowden didn't have a problem with the NSA et al spying on foreign adversaries. He had a
problem when the NSA was spying illegally on US citizens.
The 'West' could be using it as a weapon to rein in Israel, which it sees as getting more
and more out of control. Netanyahu might be gone but the policies that he represents will not
just disappear.
The mass media didn't like Israel's destruction of the building in Gaza where the
Associated Press had its offices. How are the media supposed to publish reports from places
where they don't have anywhere to work?
Western governments are exasperated that Israel doesn't even pretend to have any respect
for international law and human rights. Nobody in power in the West cares about those things
either, and they really want to support Israel, but doing that is a lot harder when Israel
makes it so obvious that it is a colonial aggressor.
As the Guardian reported yesterday, "The Israeli minister of defence closely regulates
NSO, granting individual export licences before its surveillance technology can be sold to a
new country."
The attack on NSO looks like a message to the Israeli state.
I think you are very wrong in your assessment that this is about business and getting rid
of the competition. Information isn`t about money. It is about power.
The people at MoA might not have noticed it because of ideological bias but Netanyahu and
Biden (and before him Obama) were quite hostile towards each other. To a degree they were
almost waging a kind of undercover cold war against each other (culminating in United Nations
Security Council Resolution 2334).
In this context I don`t believe the "former" Israelis spies at NSO are just Isrealis. They
are a specific kind of Israelis. Namely extreme-right Israelis/Likud loyalists. Netanyahu
created his own private unit 8200 - outside of the Israeli state. The profit that NSO made
were just the "former" spies regular payment.
The USA - with the consent and probably active assistance of the new Israeli government -
took Netanyahus private intelligence service down.
The US has found out that the NSO spyware can be used BY the "other regimes" against US
leaders. Or at least against US assets.
The Israelis would sell their wares to anyone with a buck (or shekel, as the buck is
getting rather uncertain as a money).
IE. Saudi buys a section of numbers and then decides to track and eliminate "opposants".
BUT if there are CIA personnel implanted with a good cover story, then OOOPS, "another one
bites the dust".
What laws exist in your nation to prevent illegal snooping?
How about profiling by the digital companies? Nations need to pass laws making it a
CRIMINAL offense to conduct snooping or hacking without a warrant. What happened to Apple's
claims about its devices' superior security and privacy?
Let's see what sanctions or criminal ACTIONS are taken against NSO, its executives and
other companies. Is any of the information captured by NSO shared with Israel &/or Five
Eyes? Are their financial accounts frozen? Let's see how they're treated compared to
Huawei.
Are Dark web sites linked to the REvil ransomware gang operating? Shutdown all illegal
snooping and cyber crimes entities.
A rule or law isn't just and fair if it doesn't applies to everyone, and they can't be
applied at the whims of powerful. Laws and rules applied unequally have no credibility and
legitimacy.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
– Martin Luther King Jr.
"A rule or law isn't just and fair if it doesn't applies to everyone, and they can't be
applied at the whims of powerful. Laws and rules applied unequally have no credibility and
legitimacy."
Max, are you sure you have got your feet on this planet earth? If there is one factor that
is common to his era, is that "Justice" is no longer blindfolded, but is looking out for the
best interests of "friends".
Can you name a few countries where your ideal is the norm?
*****
PS. Don't bother, as I won't reply, I'm off to bed to dream of a perfect world. Much easier,
and I can do it lying down.
Another possible scenario is that the NSO has been poaching people and/or techniques from US
intel agencies for use in its for-profit schemes.
That is one thing which is guaranteed to get a negative reaction - regardless of who is doing
it and which party is in power.
We do know that NSO has been very active on the exploit buying dark webs since their
inception...
The above article also notes that NSO was acquired by Francisco Partners in 2010...
Thus maybe all this is purely a capability play: The US is falling behind and so wants to
bring in house, more capability. One way is to squeeze an existing successful player so that
they have to cooperate/sell out...
All I can be sure of, is that none of the present foofaraw has anything to do with the
truth.
"In fact, these allegations are so outrageous and far from reality, that NSO is
considering a defamation lawsuit."
Ya..Right. That's not remotely gonna happen!
The NSO 'Group" would have to provide a substantial amount of their very sensitive
'operational' & 'proprietary' internal documents - which would most certainly be
requested in discovery - to any of the possible defendants should NSO be stupid/arrogant
enough to actually file a formal suit of "defamation" in a any US court.
Talk about a "defamation" legal case that would get shut down faster than Mueller's show
indictment of 13 'Russian' agents and their related businesses that were reportedly part of
the now infamous "Guccifer 2.0" "Hack"
When these "Russian" hackers simply countered by producing a surprise Washington based
legal team that publically agreed to call Mueller's bluff and have the all of the 'indicted'
defendants actually appear in court, they immediately "requested" - via the discovery process
- all relevant documents that the Mueller team purportedly had that confirmed that their was
any actual or attempted (hacking) criminality.
VIA POLITICO:
The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to
ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged
Russian troll farm operation -- the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and
Concord Catering -- were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.
Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case,
notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time
that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller's team to turn over relevant evidence
to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in
order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.
The NSO Group is never going to even considering this "defamation" route, but their
threatening legal bluster is pure... Hutzpa!
In a world in which this can be done, the worst of governments will do it, and in the worst
ways.
The US and other governments have promoted this. Their own intelligence services use it.
They actively oppose efforts to block it, as happened with private encryption ideas.
We can't both make it possible and prevent the bad guys from doing it.
We have deliberately made it possible, and opposed serious efforts to protect private life
against it. Now we are surprised?
@ Stonebird (#17), you missed the pun in those words. Maybe you're sleeping while reading.
The Financial Empire and its lackeys want a "rules-based international order" and
China-Russia... want a "rule of international laws". Both are meaningless and worthless as
they're applied unequally. I am awake and in sync with REALITY. Just playing with these two
ideas. We have the law of the jungle. However, Orcs (individuals without conscience –
dark souls) are worse than animals in greed, deceits and killing.
"The Black Speech of Mordor need to be heard in every corner of the world!"
Interesting story but I agree that the hype is overblown because nothing much will change
even if this NSO outfit has a harder time flogging its spyware to all and sundry.
The NSA, CIA, MI5/6, Mossad and the 5 Lies spies will continue spying on friend and foe
alike and tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google will likewise continue their
unethical surveillance practices and will keep passing on private citizen's data to
government spy agencies. So it goes.
For a dissident Snowden is a lightweight. His beef wasn't, as b points out, with the NSA
itself, he just didn't like them spying on Americans within the USA. He had no problem spying
on people in other countries as long as the proper 'rules' were followed. That, almost by
definition, makes him a limited hangout.
The AI report notes that this software was abandoned in 2018 for cloud implementations to
help hide responsibility;
Having Amazon AWS dump services naming NSO probably has no effect at all, as NSO will just
use other names;
" However, Orcs (individuals without conscience – dark souls) are worse than animals
in greed, deceits and killing."
Non-human animals operate on a genetically programmed autopilot and are not responsible
for their actions.
Humans are partially engineered by genetics but unlike the "lower" animals they have the
power to choose which actions they will take and they are therefore responsible for their
choices.
A bear or a mountain lion will attack a human when it is injured or when protecting its
young, but one can't blame these animals for exercising their survival instincts.
Human beings are the only mammal, indeed the only animal, that is capable of evil, i.e.
deliberately choosing to harm or kill other humans for profit or personal gain.
On this subject, I suggest barflies read the excellent post on the previous MoA Week in
Review thread by:
Posted by: Debsisdead | Jul 19 2021 1:36 utc | 71
My reply @167 and Uncle T's further comment.
The book on this criminal conduct is called 'Murdoch's Pirates.' The detestable Amazon
have it at 'unavailable' however it is available at Australian bookseller Booktopia.
How do you explain the suspiciously-timed, and simultaneous, Five Eyes denunciation of
China for alleged hacking of Microsoft? Is it a way of deflecting too much wrath on Israel?
Or, is b wrong and the China story serves as real distraction.
Posted by: Prof | Jul 19 2021 18:09 utc | 1
If the US navy were to purchase leaky boats would it not be absurd for it to then blame
Russia or China for the influx of water?
If the US government, and US industry, purchase software full of holes is it not equally
absurd for them to blame a foreign entity for any resulting leaks?
In answering these questions it is worthwhile to remember that US government entities
support the insertion of backdoors in US commercial software. Such backdoors can be
identified and exploited by 3rd parties.
If this somewhat limp-wristed takedown of NSO did not have the support of apartheid Israel's
intelligence services, the graun would not be pushing the story.
It is that simple, the guardian is run by rabid zionists such as Jonathon Freedland deputy
editor, who retains editorial control from the second seat rather than #1 simply because the
zionist board wanted to stroke the fishwrap's woke credentials by having a female editor.
Foreign news and england news all have many zionist journos.
Now even the sports desk features stories by a bloke called Jacob Steinberg 'n sport is not
generally an interest of jews.
Also if NSO a corporation born to advance particular media interests were in fact a tool of
apartheid israel's intelligence establishment, it is unlikely that it would have tried to
sue the graun back in 2019.
None of that precludes Mossad plants working at NSO, in fact the move against it would
suggest that zionist intelligence has wrung the organisation dry.
This 'takedown' suggests to me that these services will continue, but not for everyone as
before. ME governments will never again gain full access, no matter how friendly they may
claim to be. All future contracts with whatever entity follows will only proceed if permitted
by FukUSi.
div> Since the software is licensed by the number of phones it's installed
on, NSO must have a means of determining the device ID/phone number of each phone (You wouldn't
trust some shady third-world regime to be honest, would you?
Since the software is licensed by the number of phones it's installed on, NSO must have a
means of determining the device ID/phone number of each phone (You wouldn't trust some shady
third-world regime to be honest, would you?
The Israeli connection just read an account on AC by Rod Dreher and so far, writers
are downplaying the connection to Israel. If it was a Chinese or Russian company we would be
blaming Putin.
We blame Putin for every criminal in Russia but I don't see anyone blaming Israel for a
product they they authorized for export. Wow.
It does take two to tango, so I do understand talking about the clients who bought the
product but if they have the export version of the spyware the it's obvious that Israel has
the super-duper lethal version but that's okay. No biggie. But Iran having any weapons to
defend their own country is a scandal.
US taxpayers subsidize the Israeli military industry. The zionists then developed tools which
they use against palestinians and their adversaries. The same technologies are later sold at
a profit to various United states security agencies. A wonderful self licking ice cream cone
of christian zionism, so much winning... Paying up the wazoo for our own eslavement. Last I
checked, the chosen one's were never held accountable for their role prior to 911 operations.
The Amerikastani Con-serve-ative manages to write a whole article about this without
mentioning the name of the "country" that created and exported this software.
This same Amerikastani Con-serve-ative pretends to champion free speech but doesn't permit
the slightest criticism of this same "nation", the racist fascist apartheid zionist settler
colony in Occupied Palestine. In fact the very mention of the word "zionist" will get your
comment removed.
I'm of the school of thought that Snowden is still an active CIA asset used to assist in
discrediting government agencies, such as the NSA, to allow private corporations to take
their place in data collection and dissemination. Alphabet, and it's AI/quantum computers
should not be ignored in this particular scenario
Human beings with conscience are INNER directed. Those without strong conscience (Orcs)
are OUTER directed and thereby easily captured, corrupted and controlled. Human beings with
great conscience (soul/spirit), strong mind and healthy body are PARAGONS.
Orcs were once elves. They got programmed by the dark forces of Saruman & Sauron
(Sin). Sauron's EYE is for intimidation. Seeing it sends fear into the hearts of people and
sucks away their courage. "When did we let evil become stronger than us?" Communicate
reality, truth and expose power freely!
There is still light to defeat the darkness. May your light light others
🕯🕯🕯
Ultimately, this scoop provides much more leverage for Putin's ongoing insistence that an
International Treaty dealing with all things Cyber including Cyber-crime be convened ASAP.
Israel and the UK will never sign such a protocol. The USA? only if it is worthless.
Mar man #4
The leak could be from a highly sophisticated state actor that needs to "blind" US and
especially Israeli intelligence services temporarily.
That could very easily be China, Russia or even Iran. Some of their assets could be on
the list.
"Snowden's opinion on this is kind of strange". Snowden's task, almost a decade ago now,
was to facilitate the passage of CISPA. Greenwald was the PR guy. Remember Obama saying we
need to have a conversation about privacy versus security? Well, Snowden and Greewald helped
him to have the conversation on his terms. And the media giants will be forever grateful.
Greenwald even got his own website. So no, nothing strange about what Snowden said. It was in
his script. Was, is and always will be an asset.
In a broader context:
"In a corporatist system of government, where there is no separation between corporate power
and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. The actual government as it
actually exists is censoring the speech not just of its own people, but people around the
world. If US law had placed as much emphasis on the separation of corporation and state as it
had on the separation of church and state, the country would be unrecognizably different from
what we see today."
"It's A Private Company So It's Not Censorship"
Sanctions? Sanctions, did anybody mention sanctions for those carrying out Cyber attacks?
(Particularly ones that target "Freedom of speech" and Journalists.)
Apple is also zionist controlled, so not surprising that NSO had all internal details to
hack their iPhones, via tribal leakers or approved connections. So is Amazon, so their cloud
service for NSO continues under other cover.
Those in danger should not use Apple or Amazon-based or other zionist-controlled products
or services. A catalog of those might help.
I don't buy it. It doesn't sound plausible to me as presented.
One possibility is that it is a camouflaged operation to take down non-attributably spy
software that has fallen into the wrong hands, and thereby contrary to US interests. For
example, the new Myanmar government is sure to be using the software to observe the
US-sponsored miscreants from the Aung San Su Kyi regime who are bombing schools, hospitals
and government offices, and to seek out wanted criminals in hiding. The NSO take-down could
be an operation to take those licences out of operation. In that scenario those NSO customers
who are not anti-US might get support to continue operations as usual. As another example it
could also be used as a warning to the Saudis not to get too close to the Russians and
Chinese or ditch the US dollar, and not to accommodate to Iran.
Or maybe NSO just had the wrong political connections in the USA.
Whatever it may seem on the surface, that is what it surely is not.
div> I certainly can't compete on tech savvy as I have none, but doesn't
this perhaps line up with the summit decision between Putin and Biden to cooperate in terms of
policing cybercrime? Maybe that's too obvious, but I don't see that Snowden is contradicting
his own positions in that case. And of course, b, you are correct that the main culprit on
these matters is the US. Throwing the spotlight elsewhere however, doesn't mean it can't circle
around. Spotlights have a way of doing that.
I certainly can't compete on tech savvy as I have none, but doesn't this perhaps line up with
the summit decision between Putin and Biden to cooperate in terms of policing cybercrime?
Maybe that's too obvious, but I don't see that Snowden is contradicting his own positions in
that case. And of course, b, you are correct that the main culprit on these matters is the
US. Throwing the spotlight elsewhere however, doesn't mean it can't circle around. Spotlights
have a way of doing that.
The interesting backdrop to all this is that Israel has a *huge* presence in all things
associated with cybersecurity and have for years. The IDF's Talpiot plan no doubt enviously
eyed the NSA tapping into everyone's internet/cellphone traffic and wanted a piece of the
action. The financial intelligence alone would make it hugely valuable, not to mention
blackmail opportunities and the means to exercise political control.
I wonder if the Intel's Haifa design bureau was behind the infamous "management engine"
installed on *every* Intel chip since 2008 (to, of course, "make administration easier")?
The discover of this "feature" precipitated a huge scandal not too many years back if you
recall...
This "feature" gave anyone who could access it the ability to snoop or change the code
running on the main CPU... anyone want to guess whether the Mossad knows how to get to
it?
@Simplicius | Jul 20 2021 15:15 utc | 57
"I wonder if the Intel's Haifa design bureau was behind the infamous "management engine"
installed on *every* Intel chip since 2008 (to, of course, "make administration easier")?"
I remember 30 years ago there was controversy over the NSA requiring hardware backdoors in
all phones. At the time, it was called the "Clipper chip". Reportedly, the program failed and
was never adopted. Apparently, as this article exposed, that is false and something like it
is installed in all phones and possibly computers manufactured for sale in the western
world.
Supposedly, the real story behind Huawei sanctions and kidnapping of their executive, is
Huawei phones have no NSA backdoor since the Chinese flatly refuse to cooperate with NSA.
Turns out the Microsoft hacking accusation against China wasn't a distraction against the
NSO scandal, but a capitalist reaction against the CPC's growing containment of their own big
tech capitalists:
For people who don't know: this Kara Swisher is clearly an USG asset (or behaves exactly
like one). Every column she writes is an unashamed apology to all the USG policies on big
tech and on all decisions of American big tech.
@ vk (#59), Your conclusion about Kara Swisher is good one. However, cast the net wider to
understand the NETWORK that she represents and find additional media
Orcs. Most likely she is an asset of the Global Financial Syndicate, acting as a
gatekeeper/porter/lobbyist in the technology arena. Her mentor Walter Mossberg was an asset
too? It is easy to identify Orcs!
Work Experience: WSJ, The Washington Post, New York Times, ... Who did she sell Recode to?
Who are financiers of Vox Media?
Education: Georgetown, Columbia University (many assets come from here)
While the theory from m at #13 about it being a personal tiff between Biden and Netanyahu has
some appeal I tend to believe it is more complex than that.
While Dems could accumulate some grudges against Netanyahu, they can be pretty thick
skinned on that. On the other hand, if Netanyahu used his budget to dig the dirt against his
opponents like Bennet, with NSO as the took, the grudge against NSO could be very strong on
the side of the current government of Israel. Internal strife between Likudniks is intense.
And the mantle of the ruler of Israel comes with perks, like the ability to plant stories in
WP and NYT.
The Government said the reform was needed as the existing acts, with the last update in
1989, are no longer enough to fight the "discernible and very real threat posed by state
threats".
The Home Office said it does "not consider that there is necessarily a distinction in
severity between espionage and the most serious unauthorised disclosures, in the same way
that there was in 1989".
[More at the link.]
If it was Russia or Iran that was selling such spyware, would FUKUS react with measures
against the press or with sanctions and efforts to protect the press?
On the other hand, if Netanyahu used his budget to dig the dirt against his opponents like
Bennet, with NSO as the took, the grudge against NSO could be very strong on the side of the
current government of Israel. Internal strife between Likudniks is intense. And the mantle of
the ruler of Israel comes with perks, like the ability to plant stories in WP and NYT.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 20 2021 19:05 utc | 64
@64 Piotr Berman
This goes much deeper than just personal animosity.
For several years now there had been some kind of cultural war waging in Israel with the
populist leader - Netanyahu - on the one side and and most of the Israeli establishment - the
Mossad, the generals and the High Court - against him. The generals eventually acted by
founding their own party (with the former TV presenter Lapid at it`s head) and deposed
Netanyahu.
This cultural war in Israel is not only very similar to the cultural war in the USA. The
two countries are so intervened with one another that both conflicts have kind of merged.
"This cultural war in Israel is not only very similar to the cultural war in the USA.
The two countries are so intervened with one another that both conflicts have kind of
merged."
Posted by: m | Jul 21 2021 9:41 utc | 67
Yes, not unrelated to the purge Biden seems to be planning here. Bibi made a big mistake
getting so cozy with Trump. I would wager Trump is going to be in the crosshairs too. And
that is likely to be divisive, in both places.
"... Two world wars were fought to keep Germany down. The stated purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down. ..."
"... IMO US didn't cause NS2 friction because it thinks it benefits Russia, but exactly because it benefits Germany too much. ..."
"... You know, NATO, "Keep the Germans down..." and all that. US must not permit it's vassals to become too economically stronger than their master. They want to drag everyone they can down with them (and in shitter US goes) so they can still be king of the hill (or ad least shitter bottom). ..."
"... The most important point to know is that US hegemony in Europe is predicated on fear and hostility between Germany and Russia. ..."
"... There are many limitations to European strategic autonomy -- and the EU embodies those limits in many ways -- but the case of NS2 demonstrates an independent streak in German strategy. It amounts to a zero sum loss for Washington. ..."
"... Lebanon does illustrate the incredible reach of the Empire. A leverage so long that every door leads to self immolation. Your mention of the current spyware scandal is right on point. These are instruments of absolute power. ..."
"... While Trump is certainly no representative of humanity, it just as certainly doesn't look like his rise was in the playbook of the dominant faction of the oligarchy. Trump really seems to fit the mould of a Bonapartist, though recast in the context of contemporary America. This would indicate that the imperial oligarchy is in crisis, which itself could lead to fractures in the empire, and among the empire's vassals in particular. ..."
The sanctions war the U.S. waged against Germany and Russia over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline
has ended with a total U.S. defeat.
The U.S. attempts to block the pipeline were part of the massive anti-Russia campaign waged
over the last five years. But it was always based on a misunderstanding. The pipeline is not to
Russia's advantage but important for Germany. As I described Nord Stream 2 in a
previous piece :
It is not Russia which needs the pipeline. It can
sell its gas to China for just as much as it makes by selling gas to Europe.
...
It is Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse, that needs the pipeline and the gas flowing
through it. Thanks to Chancellor Merkel's misguided energy policy - she put an end to nuclear
power in German after a tsunami in Japan destroyed three badly placed reactors - Germany
urgently needs the gas to keep its already high electricity prices from rising further.
That the new pipeline will bypass old ones which run through the Ukraine is likewise to
the benefit of Germany, not Russia. The pipeline infrastructure in the Ukraine is old and
near to disrepair. The Ukraine has no money to renew it. Politically it is under U.S.
influence. It could use its control over the energy flow to the EU for blackmail. (It already
tried
once.) The new pipeline, laid at the bottom of the Baltic sea, requires no payment for
crossing Ukrainian land and is safe from potential malign influence.
Maybe Chancellor Merkel on her recent visit to Washington DC finally managed to explain that
to the Biden administration. More likely though she simply told the U.S. to f*** off. Whatever
- the result is in. As the Wall Street Journal
reports today:
The U.S. and Germany have reached an agreement allowing completion of the Nord Stream 2
natural gas pipeline, officials from both countries say.
Under the four-point agreement, Germany and the U.S. would invest $50 million in Ukrainian
green-tech infrastructure, encompassing renewable energy and related industries. Germany also
would support energy talks in the Three Seas Initiative, a Central European diplomatic
forum.
Berlin and Washington as well would try to ensure that Ukraine continues to receive
roughly $3 billion in annual transit fees that Russia pays under its current agreement with
Kyiv, which runs through 2024. Officials didn't explain how to ensure that Russia continues
to make the payments.
The U.S. also would retain the prerogative of levying future pipeline sanctions in the
case of actions deemed to represent Russian energy coercion, officials in Washington
said.
So Germany will spend some chump change to buy up, together with the U.S, a few Ukrainian
companies that are involved in solar or wind mill stuff. It will 'support' some irrelevant
talks by maybe paying for the coffee. It also promises to try something that it has no way to
succeed in.
That's all just a fig leave. The U.S. really gave up without receiving anything for itself
or for its client regime in the Ukraine.
The Ukraine lobby in Congress will be very unhappy with that deal. The Biden administration
hopes to avoid an uproar over it. Yesterday Politico reported that the Biden
administration preemptively had told the Ukraine
to stop talking about the issue :
In the midst of tense negotiations with Berlin over a controversial Russia-to-Germany
pipeline, the Biden administration is asking a friendly country to stay quiet about its
vociferous opposition. And Ukraine is not happy.
U.S. officials have signaled that they've given up on stopping the project, known as the
Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and are now scrambling to contain the damage by striking a grand
bargain with Germany.
At the same time, administration officials have quietly urged their Ukrainian counterparts
to withhold criticism of a forthcoming agreement with Germany involving the pipeline,
according to four people with knowledge of the conversations.
The U.S. officials have indicated that going public with opposition to the forthcoming
agreement could damage the Washington-Kyiv bilateral relationship , those sources said. The
officials have also urged the Ukrainians not to discuss the U.S. and Germany's potential
plans with Congress.
If Trump had done the above Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would have called for another
impeachment.
The Ukrainian President Zelensky is furious over the deal and about being told to shut up.
But there is little he can do but to accept the booby price the Biden administration offered
him:
U.S. officials' pressure on Ukrainian officials to withhold criticism of whatever final deal
the Americans and the Germans reach will face significant resistance.
A source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv's position is that
U.S. sanctions could still stop completion of the project, if only the Biden administration
had the will to use them at the construction and certification stages. That person said Kyiv
remains staunchly opposed to the project.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration gave Zelensky a date for a meeting at the White House
with the president later this summer , according to a senior administration official.
Nord Stream 2 is to 96% ready. Its testing will start in August or September and by the
years end it will hopefully deliver gas to western Europe.
Talks about building Nord Stream 3 are likely to start soon.
Posted by b on July 21, 2021 at 17:13 UTC | Permalink
Did Merkel also get Biden to promise that neither he nor any of his clients (AQ, ISIS, etc.
etc. etc.) would perpetrate any "unfortunate incidents" or "disruptions" on NS 2?
And would any such promises be worth the breath that uttered them?
But it was always based on a misunderstanding. The pipeline is not to Russia's advantage
but important for Germany
I'm afraid it is you who doesn't understand. Two world wars were fought to keep Germany down. The stated purpose of NATO is to keep the
Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.
They weren't trying to block NS2 to keep Russia out but to keep Germany down,
I beg to differ. IMO US didn't cause NS2 friction because it thinks it benefits Russia, but
exactly because it benefits Germany too much.
You know, NATO, "Keep the Germans down..." and all that. US must not permit it's vassals
to become too economically stronger than their master. They want to drag everyone they can
down with them (and in shitter US goes) so they can still be king of the hill (or ad least
shitter bottom).
That is why there is also pressure for all western countries to adopt insane immigration,
LGBT, austerity policies and what not. What a better way to destroy all these countries, both
economically and culturally, or adleast make them far more worse than US, it is only way US
can again become "powerhouse", like after WW2.
Does this represent a fracturing of the EU? or maybe a change in direction?
What b is pointing out about how if it were Trump....only means that the bullying approach
by empire didn't work and now we are seeing face saving bullying and backpedaling like crazy
in some areas.
I roll my eyes at this ongoing belief that Trump represented humanity instead of all or
some faction of the elite....as a demigod it seems.
the "facts" as you state them are not quite right.
1. China is ruthless. They waited until the last possible second to sign a deal with Iran,
thus ensuring they are getting the best possible price for Iran's oil, basically robbing Iran
blind. The poor Iran didn't have a choice but to agree. Even today, Putin will NOT say how
much China is paying for gas on Siberia pipeline and a lot of people think China is robbing
Russia blind on the deal. A second Siberia line without a NS2 will put Russia is very bad
negotiation position and China in very good one, giving them the advantage to ask for any
price of Russia and get it.
2. Merkel is leaving anyway in September and thw Green party that will be taking over HATES
RUssia with passion. The NS2 is far from done deal, it needs to be insured. Plus it will fall
under the EU 3rd energy package making sure Germany doesn't use it 100% . The NS2 will never
be 100 usable, the Green party will see to that. AT best it will be only 50% usage.
And so on and so on.
Funny how in today's world, we all have different facts. My facts are different than YOUR
facts. My facts are just as relevant as your facts.
What is more, the most dangerous potential alliance, from the perspective of the United
States, was considered to be an alliance between Russia and Germany. This would be an
alliance of German technology and capital with Russian natural and human resources.
The article explains a lot, more than just Germany or Russia.
They weren't trying to block NS2 to keep Russia out but to keep Germany down...
Germany would be 'down' no matter how much financial power it accumulates - i.e regardless
of NS2. The imperial garrison at Rammstein AFB will make sure of that. What the Americans fear is the symbolic meaning of NS2 in terms of geopolitical influence
for Russia. The loss of maneuverability against Russia that results from a key vassal not
being able to move in complete obedience to Uncle Sam's wishes.
The pipeline construction battle has been won, not the energy flow war.
The Financial Empire is most likely resorting to some CHARADE to find an excuse to later
stop the gas flow through Nord Stream 2. Empire's bullying was clearly exposed through
sanctions and it LOST the battle of stopping the pipeline construction. So it moves to the
next battle to find an excuse to stop the gas flow. Empire's evil intent is visible in these
words, "the U.S. also would retain the prerogative of levying future pipeline sanctions in
the case of actions deemed to represent Russian energy coercion, officials in Washington
said."
The Financial Empire has worked hard over the last century to prevent Germany from allying
herself with Russia. It wants to control energy flowing in Eurasia and its pricing. The war
will be only won when the Financial Empire is defeated and its global pillars of power
DISMANTLED.
"The 'heartland' was an area centered in Eurasia, which would be so situated and catered
to by resources and manpower as to render it an unconquerable fortress and a fearsome power;
and the 'crescent' was a virtual semi-arc encompassing an array of islands – America,
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan – which, as 'Sea Powers,' watched over the
Eurasian landmass to detect and eventually thwart any tendency towards a consolidation of
power on the heartland."
Has the Financial Empire stopped interfering in other regions?
"US, Germany Threaten Retaliatory Action Against Russia in Draft Nord Stream 2 Accord -
Report...."
"As the US and Germany have reportedly reached a deal on the Nord Stream 2 project,
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing the obtained draft text of the agreement, that it
would threaten sanctions and other measures if Russia tried to use energy as a 'weapon'
against Ukraine , though it did not specify what actions could provoke the
countermeasures.
"According to the report, in such a case, Germany will take unspecified national
action , a decision that may represent a concession from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who
had previously refused to take independent action against Moscow over the gas pipeline that
will run from Russia to Germany." [My Emphasis]
The article continues:
"On Tuesday, Ned Price, a spokesman for the US State Department, told reporters that he
did not have final details of an agreement to announce, but that 'the Germans have put
forward useful proposals, and we have been able to make progress on steps to achieve that
shared goal, that shared goal being to ensure that Russia cannot weaponize energy
."
" The US was hoping for explicit language that would commit Germany to shut down gas
delivery through Nord Stream 2 if Russia attempted to exert undue influence on Ukraine .
Germany, on the other hand, has long rejected such a move, stating that such a threat would
only serve to politicize a project that Merkel stresses is solely commercial in nature." [My
Emphasis]
The overall motive appears to be this:
"The accord would also commit Germany to use its influence to prolong Ukraine's gas
transit arrangement with Russia beyond 2024, possibly for up to ten years . Those talks
would begin no later than September 1, according to the news outlet." [My Emphasis]
So, here we have the Outlaw US Empire meddling in the internal affairs of three
nations--Germany, Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine cannot afford Russian gas as it has no rubles
to pay for it. Thus if Ukraine has no money to buy, then why should Gazprom be obliged to
give it away freely? What about other European customers who rely on gas piped through
Ukraine; are they going to see what they pay for get stolen by Ukraine? And what happens when
the pipelines breakdown from lack of maintenance since Ukraine's broke thanks to the Outlaw
Us Empire's coup that razed its economy? Shouldn't the Empire and its NATO vassals who
invaded Ukraine via their coup be forced to pay for such maintenance? And just who
"weaponized" this entire situation in the first place?
From my understanding, NS 2 was mutually beneficial for Germany and Russia.
As noted, Germany desperately needs energy and relying on the outrageously priced and
unreliable US LNG was not a viable option.
Russia benefits also.
1.No more high transit fees Russia pays Ukraine. I imagine some of that was finding its way
into US pockets after 2014.
2.Ukraine supposedly helped itself to plenty of stolen gas from the pipeline. That will
stop.
3.Ukraine was occasionally shutting down the pipeline for political reasons until Russia paid
the ransom. Not anymore.
So, Russia and Germany were both highly motivated to finish the pipeline ASAP.
Germany would be 'down' no matter how much financial power it accumulates - i.e regardless
of NS2.
The imperial garrison at Rammstein AFB will make sure of that.
Putin not too long ago (can't find the article now) said he was prepared to help Europe
gain its independence should they wish to do so, Rammstein or no Rammstein.
What the Americans fear is the symbolic meaning of NS2 in terms of geopolitical influence
for Russia. The loss of maneuverability against Russia that results from a key vassal not
being able to move in complete obedience to Uncle Sam's wishes.
What they fear should this deal go ahead is a Germany/Russia/China Axis that would control
the world island and thus the world.
I was convinced that the US of Assholery had lost its infantile anti-NS2 'battle' in
September 2020, after watching an episode of DW Conflict Zone in which Sarah Kelly
interviewed Niels Annen, Germany's Deputy FM. Annen came to the interview armed to the teeth
with embarrassing facts about US hypocrisy including, but not limited to, the fact that USA,
itself, buys vast quantities of petroleum products from Russia each year.
The interview is Google-able and, apart from pure entertainment value, Sarah is much
easier on the eye than Tim Sebastian...
1. China is ruthless. They waited until the last possible second to sign a deal with Iran, thus ensuring they are
getting the best possible price for Iran's oil, basically robbing Iran blind.
Hmmm... I seem to remember Iran shafting China on the south Pars gas field when it looked like the JCPOA was looking
likely...
If this memory of mine was correct (it may not be) then you really can't blame China for a little commercial payback.
In any case it was shown as soon as JCPOA Mk.1 was passed Iran RAN, not walked, to smooch up to the west for business, not
China, not Russia. So if its just business for Iran then its just business for China.
In our eagerness to expose the empire's shortcomings in a quick 'gotcha!' moment we
shouldn't rush head first into false premises. To suggest Dear Uncle Sam is concerned with
anything other than his own navel is naive. He's the man with the plan. He knows that down
the road, Oceania's eastern border won't run along the Dnieper but right off the shore of
Airstrip One.
As has been mentioned before, the NN2 pipeline gives Germany leverage over Russia ,
not the other way around.
US => Germany => Russia.
Which is now plan b for the US. If then they can use their leverage over Germany to
steer it in any direction it wants to vs. Russia.
This will probably be followed by "targeted" sanctions on specific Politicians, Bankers
and Heads of industry. They only need to propose such sanctions individually for them
to have an effect. Using Pegasus for inside information to Blackmail those it wants to.
*****
Example of a sanctions racket :
Similar to the potential sanctions on any Lebanese Politian or Group Leaders if they get Oil
from Iran, Russia or China. The Lebanese population be damned.
"Apparently US Treasury has informed the government of Lebanon, that if any Oil
products from Iran make it into Lebanon, in any way; the government of Lebanon and all its
members will be sanctioned. This includes the Central Bankers"
Just in case you didn't understand how the crisis in the country is manufactured.
Pegasus again:
"leaks on the targets of Israeli spy program Pegasus, show hundreds in
Lebanon including the elected leadership of every party, every media outlet, & every
security agency, have been targeted by clients in 10 countries; all belonging to the
Imperialist camp.
But it is very easy to guess by looking at who are the external imperialist forces
active in Lebanon. USA/UK/France/Turkey/Germany/Canada/Israel/Qatar; that's eight. Plus Saudi
Arabia." *******
PS. Lebanon; This comes as a response to Sayyed Nasrallah stating in his last speech
that if the State in Lebanon is not able to provide fuel, he will bring it at the expense of
Hizbullah from Iran, dock it in the port of Beirut, and dared anyone to stop it from reaching
the people.
*****
Germany will only be the latest victim as the Mafia-US "protection" racket is ramped
up.
Both b and the many commenters raise excellent points. Yes, the US wants to hurt both Russia
and Germany. And yes the US *definitely* fears close cooperation between Moscow and Berlin.
But the main take home lesson is that the US failed despite enormous efforts to block NS2.
Russo-German cooperation is inevitable and the world will be better for it.
>>a lot of people think China is robbing Russia blind on the deal
Why would be Russia building Power of Siberia 2 and 3 to China then? Or selling LNG too?
You don't have much knowledge on the topic, the way it looks. A giant gas plant was built
near the border with China, the second biggest gas plant in the world, because the gas for
China is rich in rare elements, thus turning Russia in of the the biggest producers of
strategic helium, not to mention extracting many other rare elements. China gets gas that has
been cleaned of anything valuable from it, with the exception of the gas itself.
>>merkel is leaving anyway in September and thw Green party that will be taking
over
The latest polls show clear lead for CDU/CSU. And it looks like its too late.
>>the NS2 will never be 100 usable, tthe Green party will see to that. AT best it
will be only 50% usage.
Do you even follow what has been going on? Germany is free not to buy russian gas, that
is, to be left without gas if this is what it wants.
Do you see how nat gas prices exploded in Europe recently? Do you know why is that?
Because Russia refuses to sell additional volumes via Ukraine's network. It is a message to
finish the issues with NS 2 pipeline faster and then everything will be fine, there will be
plenty of space for new gas volumes, and the gas price will drop.
It is the UNSC resolutions of 2006, 2007 and 2010 which have laid the backbone for the
incremental diplomatic, economic and material warfare against Iran. Without them, there would
be no narrative framing Iran as an outlaw nor justification for crippling sanctions. That
Iran should even be subjected to the JCPOA is in itself an objective injustice.
Each of these resolutions could easily have been blocked by the two permanent members of
the UNSC we go to much lengths on this forum to depict as selfless adversaries of the Empire.
All they had to do was raise a finger and say niet. In other words, by their actions, these
two members placed Iran in a very disadvantageous trading position.
So, did they profit from this position of strength?
"According to the draft deal, obtained by Bloomberg, Washington and Berlin would
threaten sanctions and other retaliation if Russia 'tries to use energy as a weapon against
Ukraine', with Germany being obligated to take unspecified actions in the event of Russian
'misbehaviour' . [My Emphasis]
The article then turns to the interview:
"Professor Glenn Diesen of the University of South-Eastern Norway has explained what is
behind the US-Germany row is." [That last "is" appears to be a typo]
I suggest barflies pay close attention to Dr. Diesen who's the author of an outstanding
book on the geoeconomics of Russia and China, Russia's Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater
Eurasia . I judge the following Q&A to be most relevant:
"Sputnik: The Biden administration waived sanctions on the firm behind the gas project,
Nord Stream 2 AG, and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig. At the same time, Secretary of
State Antony Blinken stated in June that the pipeline project was a Russian tool for the
coercion of Europe and signaled that the US has leverage against it. What's behind
Washington's mixed signals with regard to the project? How could they throw sand in Nord
Stream 2's gears, in your opinion - or are Blinken's threats empty?
"Glenn Diesen: The mixed signals demonstrate that the completion of Nord Stream 2 was a
defeat for the US. Biden confirmed that he waived sanctions because the project was near
complete. Sanctions could not stop the project [link at original], rather they would merely
continue to worsen relations with Berlin and Moscow. The best approach for Washington at this
point is to recognise that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal, and instead Washington will direct
its focus towards limiting the geo-economics consequences of the pipeline by obtaining
commitments from Berlin such as preserving Ukraine's role as a transit state [Link at
original].
"The US therefore waives sanctions against Nord Stream 2, yet threatens new sanctions if
Berlin fails to accept US conditions and limitations on Nord Stream 2. Blinken's threats
are loaded with 'strategic ambiguity', which could be aimed to conceal that they are merely
empty threats . However, strategic ambiguity is also conducive to prevent Berlin from
calculating the "costs" and possible remedies to US threats. Furthermore, ambiguity can be
ideal in terms of how to respond as it is not a good look to continuously threaten allies."
[Emphasis original]
The professor's closing remarks are also very important regarding Merkel's successor.
Where I disagree is with the notion that the Outlaw US Empire has geoeconomic leverage over
the EU--military yes, but the Empire is just as uncompetitive versus the EU as it is versus
China.
So, did they profit from this position of strength?
Of course they did, let's be real. China and Russia are not going to be the all benevolent saviors of the world, they never
were, never will.
They will always serve their interests first and foremost. Sometimes, they do get suckered
into UNSC resolutions like those you spoke of. Sometimes, there're backroom horse trading
that we're not privy to and little countries are just chips on the table...
The best we can hope for is that they can behave with more integrity than currently shown
by the incumbent anglospheric bloc in their re-ascendancy.
Either we ditch the UNSC system or everybody get nukes, because i can't see the current
UNSC members willing ditch their own, ever.
Lysander is correct.
The most important point to know is that US hegemony in Europe is predicated on fear and
hostility between Germany and Russia.
Types of interdependence between Germany and Russia, eg. NRG security, are a direct threat
to US dominance over Europe as a whole.
There are many limitations to European strategic autonomy -- and the EU embodies those
limits in many ways -- but the case of NS2 demonstrates an independent streak in German
strategy. It amounts to a zero sum loss for Washington.
Way too much confusion over what Nord Stream 2 really means.
1) Russian gas transiting Ukraine had already fallen from 150 bcm to the high 90s/low 100s
before Nord Stream 2 goes online.
Even after NS2 goes online, a significant amount of Russian gas will still transit via
Ukraine.
2) Energy demand generally increases over time, not decreases. Russian gas exports aren't
increasing in a straight line, but keep in mind that there are significant new competitors
now and in the process coming online. These include Azerbaijan as well as the ongoing
pipeline struggle through the Black Sea/Turkey/Eastern Med.
I never believed there was any chance of NS2 not completing; the only question was
when.
Lebanon does illustrate the incredible reach of the Empire. A leverage so long that every
door leads to self immolation. Your mention of the current spyware scandal is right on point.
These are instruments of absolute power.
What we need now is a worldwide Me Too movement to denounce this leverage. Taking that
first step would require a lot of courage for any blackmailed individual, but the one little
breach could lead to a flood of world citizens just about fed up with the Empire's shit.
It pains me that I do not remember exactly who it was, but one of the more erudite posters
here mentioned some time ago that Trump seemed more like a Bonapartist figure than a fascist
or a typical and simple representative of a faction in the oligarchy. While Trump is
certainly no representative of humanity, it just as certainly doesn't look like his rise was
in the playbook of the dominant faction of the oligarchy. Trump really seems to fit the mould
of a Bonapartist, though recast in the context of contemporary America. This would indicate
that the imperial oligarchy is in crisis, which itself could lead to fractures in the empire,
and among the empire's vassals in particular.
It is unwise to downplay the significance of Trump coming to power in 2016, regardless of
what feelings one may have about the individual himself. The conditions that led to the rise
of Trump not only persist, but have intensified. Those conditions cannot be resolved by mass
media gaslighting and social media censorship, which actually seems to be having an effect
more like holding the emergency relief valve on a boiler closed; it quiets an annoying sound,
but causes the underlying issue to grow more severe.
Basically, further splits in the EU are inevitable. It is the timing of those splits that
is difficult to predict, but the accuracy of that prediction hinges upon the accuracy of our
assessment of events occurring now. Interestingly, Trump is still part of these unfolding
events.
Fracturing NATO and the West hmmm ... If Germany gains any independence from U.S.
coercion they are 'fracturing Europe'. Bad Germany.
Germany must forever remain a vassal state of the U.S. by allowing the U.S. to use another
vassal state to control their energy supply. And who says we don't believe in freedom. Neocons are such vile creatures. Always twisting words but remember, whenever they say
something, the exact opposite is true.
One issue underlying this fiasco is I believe that the neocons / Atlantic Council were 100%
certain that Russia did not have the expertise to lay pipelines at the required depths, and
once Allseas was facing sanctions, the project would never be completed.
I believe that the exact pricing formula for Power of Siberia is confidential, but this
much is known:
"The price of Russian gas supplies to China increased in the second quarter of 2021 for
the first time since deliveries started via the Power of Siberia pipeline in 2019, but daily
delivery volumes fell in April, Interfax reported on Sunday.
Russian gas giant Gazprom GAZP.MM has said it supplied China with 3.84 billion cubic
metres of gas via the Power of Siberia pipeline in its first year of operation.
Citing Chinese customs data, Interfax said the price of gas increased to $148 per thousand
cubic metres, rising from $121 in the first quarter, and reversing a downward trend."
Also, Victoria Nuland informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today about Biden's
cave to Russia. That must have been brutal for her. Regardless, nice to see a rare display of
sanity from s US administration.
The primary and only objective of the US Foreign policy vis-a-vis Europe since WW2 has
been to prevent Russia and Germany (now read the German run EU project) coupling up, that's
it, nothing else matters on Europe.
The completion of N-2 presents a serious blow tho this aim, the new pipeline is a must for
Germany, it must get finished, without it Germany's supply of energy would have been almost
fully controlled by the Americans who have either direct or indirect authority over every
major source of hydrocarbons except for Venezuela and Russia, the latter only partly, the
Ukrainian pipeline is fully in their sphere of influence.
Energy fuels everything from private dwellings to major corporations, it's together with
labour and technology the most important ingredient in every economy. To lose control of it
would have been a catastrophe for Germany, in particular if one takes into account the secret
treaty between Germany and the Allies (read the US) from 1949.
"On 23 May 1949, the Western Allies ratified a new German constitution, known as the
"Basic Law" or Grundgesetz.
However, two days prior, a secret state treaty - Geheimer Staatsvertrag - was also signed to
grant complete Allied
control over education and all licensed media, press, radio, television and publishing houses
until the year 2099.
This was confirmed by Major-General Gerd-Helmut Komossa, former head of German Military
Intelligence in his
book, "Die Deutsche Karte" or The German Card".
What's interesting about Power of Siberia-1 is that the gas is being stripped -- refined at
the newly completed Amur Gas Plant -- of its components prior to being piped into China. I
don't know if Germany's petrochemical industry will be deprived in similar manner with
NS2.
CD Waller @36--
Nothing in the energy production realm is carbon neutral. ROSATOM has mastered the fuel
cycle which means most if not all toxic waste will now be burned for energy. New reactors do
NOT use water as coolant. Clearly you need to update what you know about nuclear power.
The Russian 'victory' is very narrow and mostly consists of the patience and determination to
follow-thru while consistently being derided/attacked by Western media, pundits, and
politicians:
Since Russia/Gasprom owns NS2 100% (paying for half the construction cost outright and
financing the rest), there was never much need to stop construction, only to stop/limit
consumption. The 'trick' was to find a way to accomplish US/NATO goals that would not make
German leaders look like puppets.
Biden's approach looks good compared to Trump's heavy-handed approach. As they are BOTH
spokesman of the Empire's Deep State, we can surmise that this is merely good cop / bad cop
theatrics.
This USA-GERMAN agreement makes Germany appear to voluntarily support EU/NATO -
a good thing(tm) that most Germans will accept without question. But behind the scenes,
it's unlikely that there was ever any real choice, just a mutual desire to fashion a
'smart' policy that didn't undermine German political leaders.
Germany can now be pressured to support USA-Ukraine belligerence - if they don't they
will be portrayed as not living up to their obligations to US/NATO/EU/Ukraine as enshrined
in this agreement.
If Russia retaliates against German purchase reductions in any way they will be labeled
as a politically-driven, unreliable supplier. That will 'invite' sanctions and spark
efforts to force EU/Germany to eliminate all Russia goods from their markets.
Russia and China are likely to be increasingly linked in Western media/propaganda.
Deficiencies of one or the other will apply to BOTH.
The next few winters in EU will be very interesting.
Jackrabbit @41 incorrectly says Russia owns NS2 100% It's owned by Nord Stream 2 AG, and
here's its
website listing its financial investors, while its shareholders/owners are global. The
company is located in Zug, Switzerland. Here we are told who the financial companies
are :
"In April 2017, Nord Stream 2 AG signed the financing agreements for the Nord Stream 2 gas
pipeline project with ENGIE, OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, Uniper, and Wintershall. These five
European energy companies will provide long-term financing for 50 per cent of the total cost
of the project."
As with the first string, Russia doesn't own it 100% nor did it finance it completely;
rather, its stake was @50% It appears both Nord Streams will be managed from the same
location in Zug. I hope the company produces a similar sort of book to record its
accomplishment as it did for the first string pair, which can be found and downloaded here
.
Who is paying for it: Russia's energy giant Gazprom is the sole shareholder of the
Nord Stream 2 AG , the company in charge of implementing the €9.5 billion ($11.1
billion) project. Gazprom is also covering half of the cost. The rest, however, is being
financed by five western companies: ENGIE, OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, Uniper and
Wintershall.
Emphasis is mine.
<> <> <> <> <>
Nord Stream 2 AG is a German company that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Russia's
Gazprom. The German subsidiary has borrowed half of the construction cost but is 100% owner
of the NS2 project.
From karlof1's link to Nord Stream 2 AG's Shareholder and Financial Investors page makes it
clear that NordStream 2 AG is a subsidiary of Gazprom international projects LLC, which is,
in turn, a subsidiary of Gazprom. Under "Shareholder" there is only one company listed:
Gasprom.
PS I was mistaken: Nord Stream 2 AG is a Swiss company, not a German one.
"4. Germany can now be pressured to support USA-Ukraine belligerence - if they don't they
will be portrayed as not living up to their obligations to US/NATO/EU/Ukraine as enshrined in
this agreement.
If Russia retaliates against German purchase reductions in any way they will be labeled as
a politically-driven, unreliable supplier. That will 'invite' sanctions and spark efforts to
force EU/Germany to eliminate all Russia goods from their markets."
Germany has been portrayed as not living up to its NATO obligations one way or another
since about 1985, and with respect to NS 2, since 2018. They do not seem fazed - maybe a
Green win would change that. If the USA-Ukraine get (more) belligerent, Germany might be less
likely to insist on Ukraine gas transit after 2024.
The Russian government owns a majority of Gazprom. As majority owner they can be said to
control the company and with that control comes an inescapable political dimension.
For the purposes of this discussion: the Russian government has biggest stake in the
financial success of Nord Stream 2. That "success" depends on gas sold, not simply the
completion of NS2 construction.
So go ahead and say whatever you want around all your networked devices, but don't be
surprised if bad things start happening.
I received another "Our Terms Have Changed" email from a Big Tech quasi-monopoly, and for a
change I actually read this one. It was a revelation on multiple fronts. I'm reprinting it here
for your reading pleasure:
We wanted to let you know that we recently updated our Conditions of Use.
What hasn't changed:
Your use constitutes your agreement to our Conditions of Use.
We own all the content you create on our platform, devices and networks, and are free to
monetize it by any means we choose.
We own all the data we collect on you, your devices, purchases, social networks, views,
associations, beliefs and illicit viewing, your location data, who you are in proximity to,
and whatever data the networked devices in your home, vehicles and workplaces collect.
We have the unrestricted right to ban you and all your content, shadow-ban you and all
your content, i.e., generate the illusion that your content is freely, publicly available,
and erase your digital presence entirely such that you cease to exist except as a corporeal
body.
What has changed:
If we detect you have positive views on anti-trust enforcement, we may report you as a
"person of interest / potential domestic extremist" to the National Security Agency and other
federal agencies.
Rather than respond to all disputes algorithmically, we have established a Star Chamber of
our most biased, fanatical employees to adjudicate customer/user disputes in which the
customer/user refuses to accept the algorithmic mediation.
If a customer/user attempts to contact any enforcement agency regarding our algorithmic
mediation or Star Chamber adjudication, we reserve the unrestricted rights to:
a. Prepare voodoo dolls representing the user and stick pins into the doll while
chanting curses.
b. Hack the targeted user's accounts and blame it on Russian or Ukrainian hackers.
c. Rendition the user to a corrupt kleptocracy in which we retain undue influence, i.e.,
the United States.
Left unsaid, of course, is the potential for "accidents" to happen to anyone publicly
promoting anti-trust enforcement of Big Tech quasi-monopolies. Once totalitarianism has been
privatized , there are no rules that can't be ignored or broken by those behind the curtain .
So go ahead and say whatever you want around all your networked devices, but don't be surprised
if bad things start happening.
Editor's note: this is satire. If I disappear, then you'll know who has no sense of irony or
humor.
On a previous thread, two readers linked to a transcript in Russian of VVP's interview on
NBC. A full English transcript is now available on katehon.com. Apologies if this is old
news.
Money is the most important fuel in the world economy today. Those who monopolize money
production become de facto OWNERS that control & steal human labor, resources, profits
... in perpetuity. Any nation not speaking out against monetary imperialism, hegemony &
dominance, is COMPLICIT in its crimes.
"Americans have a choice. Either continue to quarrel over trivialities or wake up, really
wake up, to the reality being planned and do something about it.
The future is shaped by investment choices. Not by naughty speech, not even by elections,
but by investment choices. For the people to regain power, they must reassert their command
over how and for what purposes capital is invested. And if private capital balks, it must be
socialized. This is the only revolution – and it is also the only conservatism, the
only way to conserve DECENT human life. It is what real politics is about."
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
India's decision to ban Mastercard from issuing new debit and credit cards in the country
could be a win for the government's own payment systems -- and that's not all good news.
On July 14, the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) said US-based Mastercard had not complied with
data storage rules from 2018 (pdf) that require foreign card networks to store Indian
payments data within the country so the regulator can have "unfettered supervisory access." The
ban on Mastercard will come into effect on July 22. RBI's move will not impact existing
customers of Mastercard.
Most banks in India provide
four types of debit and credit cards : Visa, Mastercard, Maestro (a part of the Mastercard
enterprise), and RuPay. Of these, only RuPay is Indian, and until its launch in 2012, the
sector was dominated by foreign players.
With one of these four out of the picture, for now, experts believe, RuPay could be the one
player to see exceptional gains. This is particularly because of the Narendra Modi government's
tough stance against foreign card companies in recent years.
" The dependence on foreign brands will be consciously reduced as the government seems
focussed on making homegrown one successful. This probably a nudge for the banks to seriously
consider the homegrown names," said Mumbai-based independent market analyst Ambareesh
Baliga.
Mastercard, RuPay, and UPI
The ban on Mastercard, the world's second-largest payments processor, comes after India's
central bank, in May, barred American Express and Diners Club International from issuing new
cards
due to similar violations .
Walmart Brings Automation To Regional Distribution Centers BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY,
JUL 18, 2021 - 09:00 PM
The progressive press had a field day with "woke" Walmart highly
publicized February decision to hikes wages for 425,000 workers to an average above $15 an
hour. We doubt the obvious follow up - the ongoing stealthy replacement of many of its minimum
wage workers with machines - will get the same amount of airtime.
As Chain Store
Age reports , Walmart is applying artificial intelligence to the palletizing of products in
its regional distribution centers. I.e., it is replacing thousands of workers with robots.
Since 2017, the discount giant has worked with Symbotic to optimize an automated technology
solution to sort, store, retrieve and pack freight onto pallets in its Brooksville, Fla.,
distribution center. Under Walmart's existing system, product arrives at one of its RDCs and is
either cross-docked or warehoused, while being moved or stored manually. When it's time for the
product to go to a store, a 53-foot trailer is manually packed for transit. After the truck
arrives at a store, associates unload it manually and place the items in the appropriate
places.
Leveraging the Symbiotic solution, a complex algorithm determines how to store cases like
puzzle pieces using high-speed mobile robots that operate with a precision that speeds the
intake process and increases the accuracy of freight being stored for future orders. By using
dense modular storage, the solution also expands building capacity.
In addition, by using palletizing robotics to organize and optimize freight, the Symbiotic
solution creates custom store- and aisle-ready pallets.
Why is Walmart doing this? Simple: According to CSA, "Walmart expects to save time, limit
out-of-stocks and increasing the speed of stocking and unloading." More importantly, the
company hopes to further cut expenses and remove even more unskilled labor from its supply
chain.
This solution follows tests of similar automated warehouse solutions at a Walmart
consolidation center in Colton, Calif., and perishable grocery distribution center in Shafter,
Calif.
Walmart plans to implement this technology in 25 of its 42 RDCs.
"Though very few Walmart customers will ever see into our warehouses, they'll still be able
to witness an industry-leading change, each time they find a product on shelves," said Joe
Metzger, executive VP of supply chain operations at Walmart U.S. "There may be no way to solve
all the complexities of a global supply chain, but we plan to keep changing the game as we use
technology to transform the way we work and lead our business into the future."
Controversial author Michael Wolff (of
dubious Trump White House 'tell-all' and
earpiece malarkey fame) was trotted out on CNN Sunday, where he proceeded (was allowed) to
excoriate "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter for doing a "terrible job" and being "full of
sanctimony."
"You become part of, one of the parts of the problem of the media. You know, you come on
here, and you have a monopoly on truth - you know, you know exactly how things are supposed to
be done. You know, you are why one of the reasons people can't stand the media, I'm sorry."
said Wolff.
... ... ...
Were Wolff's comments truly off-the-cuff? Or as one Zero Hedge reader suggested, could CNN
be resorting to a "very strategic capitulation" in order to "turn over a new leaf" and regain
credibility amid dismal ratings and all-time low trust in the media?
Controversial author Michael Wolff (of
dubious Trump White House 'tell-all' and
earpiece malarkey fame) was trotted out on CNN Sunday, where he proceeded (was allowed) to
excoriate "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter for doing a "terrible job" and being "full of
sanctimony."
"You become part of, one of the parts of the problem of the media. You know, you come on
here, and you have a monopoly on truth - you know, you know exactly how things are supposed to
be done. You know, you are why one of the reasons people can't stand the media, I'm sorry."
said Wolff.
... ... ...
Were Wolff's comments truly off-the-cuff? Or as one Zero Hedge reader suggested, could CNN
be resorting to a "very strategic capitulation" in order to "turn over a new leaf" and regain
credibility amid dismal ratings and all-time low trust in the media?
Walmart Brings Automation To Regional Distribution Centers BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY,
JUL 18, 2021 - 09:00 PM
The progressive press had a field day with "woke" Walmart highly
publicized February decision to hikes wages for 425,000 workers to an average above $15 an
hour. We doubt the obvious follow up - the ongoing stealthy replacement of many of its minimum
wage workers with machines - will get the same amount of airtime.
As Chain Store
Age reports , Walmart is applying artificial intelligence to the palletizing of products in
its regional distribution centers. I.e., it is replacing thousands of workers with robots.
Since 2017, the discount giant has worked with Symbotic to optimize an automated technology
solution to sort, store, retrieve and pack freight onto pallets in its Brooksville, Fla.,
distribution center. Under Walmart's existing system, product arrives at one of its RDCs and is
either cross-docked or warehoused, while being moved or stored manually. When it's time for the
product to go to a store, a 53-foot trailer is manually packed for transit. After the truck
arrives at a store, associates unload it manually and place the items in the appropriate
places.
Leveraging the Symbiotic solution, a complex algorithm determines how to store cases like
puzzle pieces using high-speed mobile robots that operate with a precision that speeds the
intake process and increases the accuracy of freight being stored for future orders. By using
dense modular storage, the solution also expands building capacity.
In addition, by using palletizing robotics to organize and optimize freight, the Symbiotic
solution creates custom store- and aisle-ready pallets.
Why is Walmart doing this? Simple: According to CSA, "Walmart expects to save time, limit
out-of-stocks and increasing the speed of stocking and unloading." More importantly, the
company hopes to further cut expenses and remove even more unskilled labor from its supply
chain.
This solution follows tests of similar automated warehouse solutions at a Walmart
consolidation center in Colton, Calif., and perishable grocery distribution center in Shafter,
Calif.
Walmart plans to implement this technology in 25 of its 42 RDCs.
"Though very few Walmart customers will ever see into our warehouses, they'll still be able
to witness an industry-leading change, each time they find a product on shelves," said Joe
Metzger, executive VP of supply chain operations at Walmart U.S. "There may be no way to solve
all the complexities of a global supply chain, but we plan to keep changing the game as we use
technology to transform the way we work and lead our business into the future."
India's decision to ban Mastercard from issuing new debit and credit cards in the country
could be a win for the government's own payment systems -- and that's not all good news.
On July 14, the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) said US-based Mastercard had not complied with
data storage rules from 2018 (pdf) that require foreign card networks to store Indian
payments data within the country so the regulator can have "unfettered supervisory access." The
ban on Mastercard will come into effect on July 22. RBI's move will not impact existing
customers of Mastercard.
Most banks in India provide
four types of debit and credit cards : Visa, Mastercard, Maestro (a part of the Mastercard
enterprise), and RuPay. Of these, only RuPay is Indian, and until its launch in 2012, the
sector was dominated by foreign players.
With one of these four out of the picture, for now, experts believe, RuPay could be the one
player to see exceptional gains. This is particularly because of the Narendra Modi government's
tough stance against foreign card companies in recent years.
" The dependence on foreign brands will be consciously reduced as the government seems
focussed on making homegrown one successful. This probably a nudge for the banks to seriously
consider the homegrown names," said Mumbai-based independent market analyst Ambareesh
Baliga.
Mastercard, RuPay, and UPI
The ban on Mastercard, the world's second-largest payments processor, comes after India's
central bank, in May, barred American Express and Diners Club International from issuing new
cards
due to similar violations .
A smartphone is a spying device from which one also can make phone calls. After Prism is
should be clear to anybody that goverments intercepts your email messages and record your phone
calls just because they can.
"..reporters identified more than 1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries. They included
several Arab royal family members, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists,
189 journalists and more than 600 politicians and government officials – including several
heads of state and prime ministers." -- and all those idiots use plain vanilla Anroid or IOS.
Nice. They probably have no money to buy a basic phone for $14 or so. That does not save from
wiretapping but at least saves from such malware.
Southfront reports that an Israeli company's spyware was used in attempted and successful
hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, government officials and human rights
activists around the world, according to an investigation by 17 media organizations, published
on July 18th.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.472.0_en.html#goog_621104237 12 Retailers
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Target UP NEXT Boeing Finds Flaws in 787 Dreamliners, Cuts Delivery Target Big Tech, Earnings,
Meme Stock Momentum – On TheStreet Monday Target, Walgreens close early due to thefts in
California stores Rose McGowan supports Britney Spears' over conservatorship Rose McGowan is
"brutally angry" about Britney Spears' conservatorship How To Check if You're Actually Getting
a Good Deal on Prime Day
One of the organizations, The Washington Post, said the Pegasus spyware licensed by
Israel-based NSO Group also was used to target phones belonging to two women close to Jamal
Khashoggi, a Post columnist murdered at a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018.
One of them was his fiancee, and she and the other woman were targeted both before and after
his death.
The Guardian, another of the media outlets, said the investigation suggested "widespread and
continuing abuse" of NSO's hacking software , described as malware that infects smartphones to
enable the extraction of messages, photos and emails; record calls; and secretly activate
microphones.
The investigation highlights widespread and continuing abuse of NSO's hacking spyware called
'Pegasus' which the company confirms is only intended for use against terrorist groups, drug
and human traffickers, and criminals.
Pegasus is a very advanced malware that infects iOS and Android devices to allow operators
of the spyware to copy messages, photos, calls and other data, including secretly activate
microphones and cameras.
Based on the investigation, the leak contains a list of 50,000 phone numbers that have been
identified as those of people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016.
The list includes many close family members of one country's ruler, suggesting he might have
instructed the country's intelligence agencies to explore the possibility of tracking and
spying on their own relatives.
anti-bolshevik 8 hours ago (Edited)
Two articles from Motherboard Vice:
Is Israel EXEMPT from the ' rules-based order ' that Biden / Blinken / Yellen constantly
affirm?
Any incoming Sanctions? Any Treasury asset-seziures?
Motherboard uncovered more evidence that NSO Group ran hacking infrastructure in
the United States.
A former NSO employee provided Motherboard with the IP address of a server setup to
infect phones with NSO's Pegasus hacking tool. Motherboard granted the source anonymity
to protect them from retaliation from the company.
The licensor of software is not the user of the software. An Israeli company developed
it and may have used it.
In weapons terms, an Israeli company was the arms developer.
However, there are the licensees and users of the software. The factions and individuals
who actually used this weapon of war and political coercion.
In weapons terms, there are others, like the US and other country intelligence
communities who will be the ones who pulled the trigger.
The "trigger pullers include the Bolshevik Democrat party and the Biden campaign, which
used it to control citizens through intelligence gathering (remember Judge Roberts?) and
extract political donations from corporations and rich individuals. Don't forget the
Globalist GOP RINOs and Tech monopolists, who have used this weapon to control and subvert
anyone that they need to subjugate.
Bye bye Apple, Xiomi and Google Android. You just lost your market of brainwashed sheep
for new mobile phones. Even the unwashed Joe Six-Packs of this world now know they are
being manipulated with the phones that are so expensive.
MASTER OF UNIVERSE 11 hours ago
I've spent many years studying Experimental Psychology & Personality Theory and can
honestly state that malware can't determine appropriate behavioural signals intelligence
enough to act responsibly, or judiciously.
Algos are dependent upon Behavioural Science & human analytics. They are crude tools
that employ hit & miss techniques that hardly ever work accurately.
Israeli intelligence tries to look state of the art, but they are just as dimwitted as
the CIA.
WorkingClassMan 10 hours ago
They might be dimwitted and hamfisted but like an elephant with a lobotomy they can
still do a lot of damage flailing around. Worst part about it is them not caring about the
consequences.
NAV 10 hours ago remove link
It's amazing how the "dimwits" control the entire apparatus of the most powerful Empire
in the world and the entire world media.
2banana 12 hours ago (Edited)
It's not just some politicians and journalists.
It's everyone.
Your phone spys on you in every possible way.
Pegasus is a very advanced malware that infects iOS and Android devices to allow
operators of the spyware to copy messages, photos, calls and other data, including
secretly activate microphones and cameras.
gregga777 12 hours ago (Edited)
It's been widely for at least a decade that carrying a smart phone is really like wiring
oneself up for 24/7/365 audio and/or video surveillance. They only have themselves to blame
if they've been spied upon by the world's so-called secret intelligence agencies.
[Ed. The next time in a crowded public space, turn on Wi-Fi and count the number of
unlocked phones under the "Other Networks" menu.]
truth or go home 12 hours ago
If you have no phone, and no facebook, then you are likely immune from prosecution. My
neighbor the Fed agent told me 10 years ago that these two sources are 90% of every
investigation. That number has only gone up. They track you with it, they find out your
contacts with it. They find out your secrets with it. Just try to get either of those
things anonymously. You can't.
philipat 11 hours ago remove link
Land of the Free....
Ura Bonehead PREMIUM 7 hours ago
'truth or go home', 'having no Facebook' doesn't help you as FB secures the same
information via data-sharing arrangements with any number of apps you may download, that
came on your phone, or are embedded deep on your phone. Just a fact.
Steeley 4 hours ago
A friend that lives in Pahrump, NV reports that every time he crosses into California a
smart phone Covid Health Tracking App activates and he starts getting notifications. Can't
turn it off or find where it resides. When he crosses back into Nevada it stops.
E5 10 hours ago
"After checking their claims, we firmly deny the false allegations made in their
report,"
Really? So if 99 claims are true and one false? Never did they say there was truth to
the accusation that they hacked phones.
If you are going to commit a crime I suppose you want to "issue a statement" that you
didn't. I guess we have to ask them 2 more times: then it is a rule that you must tell all.
No minion can resist the same question three times.
zzmop 9 hours ago (Edited)
Keyword -'Israeli', Not Russian, Israeli, Not 'Russian hackers', Israeli hackers
eatapeach 9 hours ago
This is old news. Congresswoman Jane Harman was all for spying/eavesdropping until she
got busted selling her power to Israel, LOL.
consistentliving PREMIUM 7 hours ago
Not USA fake paper pushers but Mexican journalists deserve mention here
Revealed: murdered journalist's number selected by Mexican NSO client
Israel doesn't respect human rights!. Israel has been killing defenseless people in
Palestine for more than 50 years. The sad thing is that US support these genocidal sick
sycophats.
wizteknet 10 hours ago
Where's a list of infected software?
vova_3.2018 9 hours ago (Edited)
Where's a list of infected software?
If they take yr phone under control they'd have access to everything & then they can
use the info against you or anybody else in the info. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuBuyv6kUKI
Israeli spy-wear "Candiru" works a little bet different than Pegasus but is also used to
hack & track journalists and activists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWEJS0f6P6k
The magic number of "6 million" will be the Get out of Jail Card once again.
And, these idiots keep preaching about the great risk China poses...
Steeley 4 hours ago
Embedded in the OS...
Kugelhagel 12 hours ago (Edited)
Is that article an attempt to get some sympathy for "politicians", "journalists" and
"activists"? Try again.
HippieHaulers 11 hours ago
Exactly. Don't forget Kashogi was CIA. And they're using another asset (Snowden) to roll
this out. This story stinks.
WhiteCulture 7 hours ago (Edited)
I installed Nice Systems onto 600 desk tops in 2003 at 3 separate call centers, a call
monitoring and a PC, mainframe CICS, or email, screen scrape capability. When the call
audio was recorded we also captured whatever was on the screen. No doubt the government has
been doing this on our phones and all personal computers for over a decade.
TheInformed 7 hours ago
Your example shows that people are dumb, it's not evidence of some grand 'government
backdoor' conspiracy. Don't conflate the two.
two hoots 10 hours ago (Edited)
Forget the petty herd/individual surveillance, this is a "super power" tool for
investment opportunities, negotiation advantage, strategic decisions, military/covert
decisions, etc. you can be sure that the most improved (undisclosed) versions are in use in
the usual suspect country. Likely spying on the spy's that bought the software from them.
These are those steps beyond Nietzsche's amoral supra-man.
Globalist Overlord 12 hours ago
Whitney Webb was writing about this in 2018.
Snowden: Israeli Spyware Used By Governments to Pursue Journalists Targeted for
Assassination
If Pegasus is used against Human Traffic-ers, then why didnt they get Jeffrey Epstein
earlier?
Occams_Razor_Trader 11 hours ago
Why 'get' people when you can 'use' these people ........................?
RasinResin 11 hours ago
I use to be in IT and worked in association with Radcom. Now you may ask who is that?
They are the Israeli company that is truly behind all monitoring and spying of your phones
in America
"Reuters' spokesman Dave Moran said, "Journalists must be allowed to report the news
in the public interest without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are. We are
aware of the report and are looking into the matter."
I love the sanctimonious clutching of pearls, wringing of hands, and bleating from the
purveyors of CCP propaganda, woketardness, and globalism whenever the velvet hand that
feeds them punishes them with a throat punch instead.
donebydoug 11 hours ago
Journalists can't be spies, right? That would never happen.
Watt Supremacist 12 hours ago
Yes but do the people working for Reuters know all that?
nowhereman 11 hours ago
Just look at the signature on your paycheck.
Grumbleduke 11 hours ago
they're in the news business - of course they don't!
You know the adage "when your livelihood depends on not knowing" or something....
Enraged 10 hours ago
Listening in on calls is a distraction story by the propaganda media.
The real story is the blackmailing of politicians, judges, corporate executives, etc.
for many years by the intelligence agencies with tapes of them with underage girls and
boys. This was included in the Maxwell/Esptein story.
These people are compromised, which is the reason for the strange decisions they make,
as they support the globalist elite.
There is no reason to spy on journalists, as they are part of the intelligence agency
operations.
Max21c 10 hours ago (Edited)
There is no reason to spy on journalists, as they are part of the intelligence agency
operations.
True the press are either spies or puppets and vassals of Big Brother and the secret
police. They're all mostly agents of the Ministry of Truth. But sometimes they get the
weather report right.
Wayoutwilly 12 hours ago remove link
Bet they have sh!t on Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett too.
Brushy 11 hours ago
Wait a minute, you mean the tracking spy device that you carry around and put all of
your personal information on is actually tracking and spying on you?!!
Dis-obey 10 hours ago remove link
They have data on everyone but not enough eyes to look at everyone all the time. So when
you get flagged then they can open all the data on your device to investigate
u.
ay_arrow
Yog Soggoth 10 hours ago
Khashoggi was not a journalist. While interesting, this is not the story of the
year.
Lawn.Dart 10 hours ago
Almost every intellegence agent is a writer of some kind.
Max21c 10 hours ago
NOS is just one company out of many. They have the willing complicity of the security
services of other countries including the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOJ, in the USA and similar per
UK. Secret police use these special contractors to help them engage in crimes and criminal
activities and it does not matter whether the secret police use a foreign or domestic
secret police agency or contractor as they're all in on it together. It's just a criminal
underworld of secret police, secret police bureaus & agencies, and "intelligence"
agencies. They're all crooked. They're all crooks and criminals and thieves that rob and
persecute innocent civilians just like the Bolsheviks, Nazis, Gestapo, Waffen SS, Viet
Kong, Khmer Rouge, Red Guards, ISIS, Stasi, KGB, etc. It's all the same or similar secret
police, police state tactics, state security apparatus abuses of power, absolute power
& its abuses, and spy agencies and intelligence agencies... and those that go along
with it and collaborate. It's all just criminal enterprises and crime agencies.
So you can solve the 10,000 open murder investigations in Chicago with this. That's how
its being used right...
Bostwick9 10 hours ago
"We are deeply troubled to learn that two AP journalists, along with journalists from
many news organizations, are among those who may have been targeted by Pegasus spyware,"
said Director of AP Media Relations Lauren Easton.
OMG . Not journalists !!!!!!!!!!
Guess NSO is a "buy", then.
NAV 11 hours ago remove link
To believe that the Israelis will not use the information that they have is absurd.
Here's one example:
The American Anti-Defamation League under Abe Foxman long made it a practice for decades
to tail all Congressmen – liberal or conservative -- as was brought out in
allegations in the San Francisco trial of its head operative Roy Bullock on charges of
buying blackmail information from members of the San Francisco Police Department as
reported by the San Francisco Examiner. Bullock had collected information and provided it
to the ADL as a secretly-paid independent contractor for more than 32 years.
Can it be that there's a connection between data of this kind and the unbelievable
unification of almost every congressman behind every Israeli position?
Of course, the San Francisco Examiner no longer is in existence. But Israeli trolls
continue to gather like wasps upon meat to destroy any information that might reveal their
nefarious purposes.
In 1993 the FBI interviewed
40-year undercover ADL operative Roy Bullock , who had improperly obtained social
security numbers and drivers licenses from San Francisco Police Department officer Tom
Gerard. Gerard and Bullock infiltrated and obtained information on California
Pro-Palestinian and anti-Apartheid groups as paid agents of both the ADL and South
African intelligence services. The ADL paid tens of thousands in damages over the
incident and promised not to collect confidential information in the future.
SARC '
novictim 8 hours ago
What do you want to bet that Orange Hitler and associates along with MAGA Republicans,
their attorneys, friendly patriot reporters, etc, have had their phones widely hacked going
all the way back to 2016?
Because when you are a "progressive" in power, anyone who wants to unseat you is a
terrorist threat and you can do just about anything you want to them because you are saving
the world.
Sarrazin 8 hours ago
unseat you is a terrorist threat and you can do just about anything you want to them
because you are saving the world.
Funny, it's the same formula US foreign policy applies to all it's victims nations
around the world. Fighting terrorists in the name of saving the world.
LEEPERMAX 9 hours ago (Edited)
💥BOOM !!!
In 2020 alone, Facebook and Amazon spent more money on
lobbyists than did Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing -- major players
in the defense-industrial complex !!!
Let that sink in.
OldNewB 11 hours ago
"Journalists must be allowed to report the news in the public interest without fear of
harassment or harm, wherever they are."
This hasn't happened in ages. What the large majority of MSM operatives (so called
"journalists" ) convey to the public is propaganda and agenda driven misinformation and
disinformation.
SummerSausage PREMIUM 12 hours ago
Obama spying on Trump and Fox reporters - meh.
Same Obama intelligence services spying on WaPo & leftist reporters - FASCIST
Mute Button 11 hours ago
We're supposed to be outraged even though Trump & co. know they're being "spied"
on.
Its just a game of the uniparty.
Ivy Mike 8 hours ago
Yawn. Smart phones have swiss cheese security. Who knew.
If you have a secret that you really don't want people to know, don't put in on a device
that ever touches the internet. Don't talk about important stuff on a phone call. Any mob
boss from the 70's could tell you that.
MeLurkLongtime 5 hours ago
I would add if you have Alexa, don't converse on any sensitive topics in front of her,
either.
_0000_ 9 hours ago remove link
" Pegasus is a very advanced malware that infects iOS and Android devices to allow
operators of the spyware to copy messages, photos, calls and other data, including
secretly activate microphones and cameras."
This is a non-story. Lots of smoke, lots of brew-ha-ha.
Why is THIS a jaw dropping story now when the NSA/CIA have been doing this to ALL iOS
and Android devices years ago? RE: CALEA , signed into law in 1996 by Bill Clinton.
Just more misdirection... meant to distract from something else. What?
Rectify77 PREMIUM 10 hours ago
Isn't it odd that Iran, Russia and China are not on the map? Who are the Israelis
playing?
NAV 10 hours ago
Isn't is amazing that Russia is giving asylum to Edward Snowden who will be arrested and
inflicted with only God knows what if captured by the USA?
Market Pulse 13 hours ago
And we are surprised, why??? Everyone's phones are spied upon with all the data
collected. All part and parcel of the NWO and the "Information Age". How else are they
going to get all that information to control everything. And just think, once upon a time,
there were no cell phones and the people were fine. They also were happier and much more
free. Hint - ditch the phone!
dog breath 4 hours ago
Hello? This stuff has been going on for two decades. Bill Binney, former NSA, been
talking about this since after 911. Five eyes is a way over going around internal rules.
Every country does this. Russia, China, EU, USA, Australia, etc. are all spying on their
own citizens. This world is turning into a corrupt crap pile and I'm waiting for the Lord
to come.
My fellow whites...Israel is our greatest ally. We must daily remind ourselves of the 6
million **** who died at the hands of our fellow whites! And those 6 Isreali subs full of
innocent sailors that were torpedoed to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea by the USS
Liberty! Israel is a tiny nation of 9 million honest and industrious people that needs our
support like never before. The mere $3.3 BILLION dollars we send them every year for
military aid is a fine start as it keeps them safe from the millions of stone age
Palestinian terrorists on their doorstep. Think of the thousands of incendiary kites our
tax dollars have stopped from landing on Israeli soil! But, my fellow whites, military aid
does not go nearly far enough. There are literally thousands of elderly Israeli women on
the verge of starvation who will perish without our help. We must therefore open our
pockets as well as the coffers of our churches across this great nation and shower the tiny
nation of Israel with all the blessings our forefathers and God has bestowed upon us. As
our Israeli friends are truly God's Chosen people, we all know they certainly deserve it
and we will be rewarded many times over for our generosity.
UnicornTears 12 hours ago
/s
Ronaldo PREMIUM 12 hours ago (Edited)
Sounds like software that is very beneficial. It backs up all your important files,
manages your contacts list, and keeps track of your calendar. All without any bother to
you! /s
StaySunny3000 12 hours ago
Israel again. Are we surprised? They've got global communications cornered both
literally and figuratively.
DEMIZEN 2 hours ago remove link
meanwhile the cnn news:
Ben & Jerry's will stop selling ice cream in Palestinian territories
Imagine realizing that you didn't do your research and take it...then learn the
truth.
Timmay 1 hour ago
It's the subscription model.....
bigjim 58 minutes ago
MicroSoft Vaccine365
MoonWatcher 35 minutes ago
Just imagine all the mental gymnastics they are doing to convince themselves that their
persuasion was medically based. And not a lie being driven by mainstream media, especially
if they took the shots out of social pressure and coercion. Hilarious.
Musum 1 hour ago
I heard that if you take Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J&J in that order. And
then in reverse order. And then a booster shot in random order, the effectiveness jumps
from 64% to 65%.
"For the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans have trust in traditional
media, according to data from Edelman's annual trust barometer shared exclusively with Axios.
Trust in social media has hit an all-time low of 27%."
CNN, especially, among the worst of the worst, is in a
tailspin .
Update (2130ET): Tucker Carlson responded to today's 'unmasking' - namely an Axios report
which accuses him of trying to set up an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"I'm an American citizen, I can interview whoever I want - and plan to," said the Fox News
host.
Presented without further comment, along with Carlson's sit-down with journalist Glenn
Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden revelations about domestic spying and other illicit
activities conducted by the US government.
Last week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a bombshell broadcast that an NSA
whistleblower had approached him with evidence that the National Security Agency
has been spying on his communications , with the intent to leak his emails to the press and
'take this show off the air.'
Today, Carlson told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo that the emails have in fact been leaked
to journalists - at least one of whom has contacted him for what we presume is an upcoming
article on their contents.
"I was in Washington for a funeral last week and ran into someone I know well, who said '
I have a message for you ,' and then proceeded to repeat back to me details from emails and
texts that I sent, and had told no one else about. So it was verified. And the person said
'the NSA has this,' and that was proven by the person reading back the contents of the email,
'and they're going to use it against you.'
To be blunt with you, it was something I would have never said in public if it was wrong,
or illegal, or immoral. They don't actually have anything on me, but they do have my emails.
So I knew they were spying on me, and again, to be totally blunt with you - as a defensive
move, I thought 'I better say this out loud.'"
"Then, yesterday, I learned that - and this is going to come out soon - that the NSA
leaked the contents of my email to journalists in an effort to discredit me. I know, because
I got a call from one of them who said 'this is what your email was about.'
So, it is not in any way a figment of my imagination. It's confirmed. It's true. They
aren't allowed to spy on American citizens - they are. I think more ominously, they're using
the information they gather to put leverage and to threaten opposition journalists, people
who criticize the Biden administration. It's happening to me right now..."
" This is the stuff of banana republics and third-world countries ," replied Bartiromo.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is the front-runner so far for 2021's bad timing prize. The
Justice Department last month rushed out a lawsuit claiming that Georgia's new election law
violates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act only days before the Supreme Court laid down
standards that make the lawsuit a nearly certain loser.
Justice knew the likely timing of the Court's ruling in Brnovich v. DNC, so a fair guess is
that Mr. Garland succumbed to White House and progressive pressure to make a political
statement to support Democratic efforts in Congress to federalize state election laws in
H.R.1.
Bad call. Now federal judges hearing the case will have to contend with Justice Samuel
Alito's five principles in Brnovich as they assess the Georgia statute.
It won't be easy to find legal fault under those principles. Mere voting inconvenience can't
be considered disqualifying, since all voting imposes some inconvenience. Any specific voting
provision, such as the number of drop boxes, must also be considered in the overall context of
a state's voting rules. Georgia's rules are generally lenient and don't especially burden the
ability of minorities to vote.
Perhaps Justice can find a federal judge somewhere to rule against Georgia, but such a
ruling is unlikely to survive on appeal to higher courts. The legal and political result of the
lawsuit is therefore likely to vindicate Georgia Republicans during the 2022 election season or
leading up to 2024, depending on how the lawsuits proceed. Mr. Garland would be wise to drop
the suit in light of Brnovich, lest his term at Justice be marred by the continuation of this
patently political lawsuit.
Given what we have seen of Mr. Garland thus far in his questionable legal performance as AG,
it is looking like the Republicans were prescient in blocking his appointment to the Supreme
Court.
David Schmidt
Politics will always supersede good judgment.
DON WILLINGHAM
Yep, apparently its a burden for some of the libs to put a stamp on an ballot and mail it it
(I'm going one step beyond the extraordinary burden of getting off your behind to go to a
local polling location).
paul grunder
Looks like Coca Cola and Major L. baseball made a mistake. do you think they will have second
thoughts about leaving GA.? I know I now love Pepsi and don't watch baseball much at all
anymore. You can bet someone in each organization is saying, how do we save face over this.
p's wife
Brien Akers
None of this matters. Not lawsuits, not SCOTUS rulings, not State election laws, not lower
court rulings. None of it matters. Why? Because the Democrats know that they cannot win
without cheating as surely as they know the sun is going to rise tomorrow. That means they
will simply ignore all the laws and do they same thing in 2024 that they did in 2020. Ask
yourself this: Who's going to stop them? Question number two: Who will reverse the election
results?
DON WILLINGHAM
Tell us what citizen cannot vote in the next election? (no, felons don't count). Its not
hard to vote. Besides, where were all the whiners 4 years ago, 8 years, 20 years ago if GA's
laws were so restrictive. This is such nonsense.
Greg Elsden
I say keep going, Garland. Your party is known for epic fails (eg Russian Delusion and two
impeachments).
Steven S
The chances of DoJ voluntarily dismissing its lawsuit against Georgia's
more-lax-and-liberal-than-Delaware's voting regulations are somewhere between slim and none.
And Slim has left town.
Litigation of this kind takes years to wind its way through the lower courts and to reach
SCOTUS. By then, the Supreme Court could be packed with Justices of the same mindset as the
dissenters in Brnovich.
Only the "Jim Crow" Filibuster stands in the way of court packing.
David Alan
Another reminder that we dodged a bullet by not sending Merrick Garland through to
SCOTUS.
Robert Bridges
Amen to that. He isn't a moderate after all...
Jim Walsh
Democrats need the issue so that they can continue to use minorities, who they truly think
are too stupid to vote. It is insulting and stupid,
James Stock
Garland is really just a bureaucrat with a law degree. Deep down, he doesn't believe is this
ridiculous lawsuit. He made a deal with the devil by working for an incompetent president.
But wait: wasn't this recent rise in wages in real terms being propagandized as a new boom
for the working class in the USA by the MSM until some days ago?
Why there is so much social pressure if the idea of "herd immunity" became a fiasco after
emergence of Delta variant, which like South African variant can infect vaccinated people and
thus can spread in vaccinated population (although not as quickly as in unvaccinated population).
What government medical bureaucrats like Fauci are hiding ?
I am retired in the US so I only see some of the working world through others eyes. What I
am seeing more of is pressure to take the vaccine in US even though the infection numbers are
going down in most states.
I have shared before that I have a cousin, my age, that got one of the mRNA vaccines and
now has some sort of blood cancer. I believe this is related to the mRNA vaccines and that
more cases like my cousin will occur and eventually it will effect an "important" someone who
the MSM can't suppress the connection to the vaccines and the flood gates of related cases
like my cousin will open....can you imagine what the blowback will be??.....the jaded in me
says they are planning on that blowback to keep the chaos/fear/manipulation level
high.....its all China's fault/snark
What is the final straw that will bring the barbarian shit show to a halt? Inquiring minds
want to know. What will finally break through the brainwashing?
There is also technological imperialism. As long as key technologies (for example CPU
production) are controlled by the USA the project of power via sanctions is possible and viable.
But the USA demined this regime due to the greed of neoliberal elite which offshored a lot of
production to China and Taiwan.
Is your nation sovereign (independent) or a suzerainty (controlled)? Who wants to make us
all, whether we be nations or individuals, ENSLAVED? Name a democracy that isn't a
suzerainty.
Today slavery is less about people owning other people, instead, it is about exploiting
and controlling them. The Financial Empire wants to build a global empire by capturing
various regions, privatizing their assets and controlling them using financial mechanisms.
Its CONTROL elements are:
-- MEDIA -> Mind. Control individual's & society's information and RICHNESS of
thinking. The media enables matrix & servitude.
-- MARKETS -> Money. Control individual's REACH of influence & impact by
controlling their money supply and its value. Majority (90+%) of money is created by private
banks controlled by the Global Financial Syndicate. This enables it to consolidate assets
with its kleptocrats and power with its elites (financial, political, bureaucrats,
business,...).
-- MIS (Military Intelligence Service) -> Might. If the individual/society/elites wants
to be independent and have marshaled enough resources to build a good RESISTANCE then they're
constrained or eliminated by intelligence agencies, coup masters or use of force.
However, the foundation of this Financial Empire is based on lies, myths, deceits, frauds,
... What is its Achilles' Heel?
"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. These
may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing
appearance. But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own
designs."
– Demosthenes
But it shows the fundamental contradictions of global capitalism: on the one hand, the
internationalization of division of labor as an aspect of technological advancement; on the
other hand, divisions and rivalries between states and the monopolistic ambitions of
technological leaders, which act against cooperation, mutual gain and ultimately human and
social development for all.
This is why capitalism has to be overthrown and eradicated. It is anti-development for the
poor. And its fundamental dynamics of geopolitical division pave the way for world war.
Piotr Berman@54 advocates compromising with imperialism. Sadly, imperialism doesn't return
the favor. The operation of the imperialist world system inevitably leads to economic crises,
which cannot be resolved by a good policy, because it's the system that is crazy. The system
makes the people running it go nuts, not the overlords being crazy that cause things to go
nuts. World economic crises, including the inability to cope with world systemic threats like
climate change, inevitably afflict the poor worse. Reforms will not take away this disparity
in effect. Most of all, of course, war, threats of war, fears of war, arms races,
interventions, economic sieges are indispensable to the normal function of the imperialist
world system.
You can't win a rigged game. Telling people they should play anyhow because it's the only
game in town, makes no sense.
When the end of the road comes into view, it's too late. Insisting on mile markers till
the catastrophe is not wisdom.
I admit to some amusement over the suspension of the female American sprinter Sha'Carri
Richardson by WADA. Imagine if she were Russian. WADA has waged a political war against
Russian Olympians ruling against the entire national team most of whom never used performance
enhancing drugs according to independent testing. And now the expected cries of racism
against a blood test for a banned drug. Sort of ironic I suppose, but watched a clips of
several African American sports pundits and they all agreed that rules are rules and must be
followed. It has been mostly white pundits who have virtue signaled that her suspension must
be lifted due to racism.
As
Peter Hitchens noted recently "the most bitterly funny story of the week is that a defector
from North Korea thinks that even her homeland is 'not as nuts' as the indoctrination now
forced on Western students."
One of Yeonmi Park's initial shocks upon starting classes at Colombia University was to be
met with a frown after revealing to a staff member that she enjoyed reading Jane Austen. "Did
you know," Ms. Park was sternly admonished, "that those writers had a colonial mind-set? They
were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you."
But after encountering the new requirement for the use of gender-neutral pronouns, Yeonmi
concluded: "Even North Korea is not this nuts North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this
crazy." Devastatingly honest, but not exactly a compliment to what once might have been the
land of her dreams.
Sadly, Hitchens reports that her previous experience served Yeonmi well to adapt to her new
situation: "She came to fear that making a fuss would affect her grades and her degree.
Eventually, she learned to keep quiet, as people do when they try to live under intolerant
regimes, and let the drivel wash over her."
Eastern European readers will unfailingly understand what it is that Hitchens meant to
say.
And in the drive-through lane at Checkers near Atlanta, requests for Big Buford burgers and
Mother Cruncher chicken sandwiches may be fielded not by a cashier in a headset, but by a
voice-recognition algorithm.
An increase in automation, especially in service industries, may prove to be an economic
legacy of the pandemic. Businesses from factories to fast-food outlets to hotels turned to
technology last year to keep operations running amid social distancing requirements and
contagion fears. Now the outbreak is ebbing in the United States, but the difficulty in hiring
workers -- at least at the wages that employers are used to paying -- is providing new momentum
for automation.
Technological investments that were made in response to the crisis may contribute to a
post-pandemic productivity boom, allowing for higher wages and faster growth. But some
economists say the latest wave of automation could eliminate jobs and erode bargaining power,
particularly for the lowest-paid workers, in a lasting way.
"Once a job is automated, it's pretty hard to turn back," said Casey Warman, an economist at
Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who has studied automation in the pandemic .
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=3533
The trend toward automation predates the pandemic, but it has accelerated at what is proving
to be a critical moment. The rapid reopening of the economy has led to a surge in demand for
waiters, hotel maids, retail sales clerks and other workers in service industries that had cut
their staffs. At the same time, government benefits have allowed many people to be selective in
the jobs they take. Together, those forces have given low-wage workers a rare moment of
leverage , leading to higher pay
, more generous benefits and other perks.
Automation threatens to tip the advantage back toward employers, potentially eroding those
gains. A
working paper published by the International Monetary Fund this year predicted that
pandemic-induced automation would increase inequality in coming years, not just in the United
States but around the world.
"Six months ago, all these workers were essential," said Marc Perrone, president of the
United Food and Commercial Workers, a union representing grocery workers. "Everyone was calling
them heroes. Now, they're trying to figure out how to get rid of them."
Checkers, like many fast-food restaurants, experienced a jump in sales when the pandemic
shut down most in-person dining. But finding workers to meet that demand proved difficult -- so
much so that Shana Gonzales, a Checkers franchisee in the Atlanta area, found herself back
behind the cash register three decades after she started working part time at Taco Bell while
in high school.
"We really felt like there has to be another solution," she said.
So Ms. Gonzales contacted Valyant AI, a Colorado-based start-up that makes voice recognition
systems for restaurants. In December, after weeks of setup and testing, Valyant's technology
began taking orders at one of Ms. Gonzales's drive-through lanes. Now customers are greeted by
an automated voice designed to understand their orders -- including modifications and special
requests -- suggest add-ons like fries or a shake, and feed the information directly to the
kitchen and the cashier.
The rollout has been successful enough that Ms. Gonzales is getting ready to expand the
system to her three other restaurants.
"We'll look back and say why didn't we do this sooner," she said.
The push toward automation goes far beyond the restaurant sector. Hotels,
retailers ,
manufacturers and other businesses have all accelerated technological investments. In a
survey of nearly 300 global companies by the World Economic Forum last year, 43 percent of
businesses said they expected to reduce their work forces through new uses of
technology.
Some economists see the increased investment as encouraging. For much of the past two
decades, the U.S. economy has struggled with weak productivity growth, leaving workers and
stockholders to compete over their share of the income -- a game that workers tended to lose.
Automation may harm specific workers, but if it makes the economy more productive, that could
be good for workers as a whole, said Katy George, a senior partner at McKinsey, the consulting
firm.
She cited the example of a client in manufacturing who had been pushing his company for
years to embrace augmented-reality technology in its factories. The pandemic finally helped him
win the battle: With air travel off limits, the technology was the only way to bring in an
expert to help troubleshoot issues at a remote plant.
"For the first time, we're seeing that these technologies are both increasing productivity,
lowering cost, but they're also increasing flexibility," she said. "We're starting to see real
momentum building, which is great news for the world, frankly."
Other economists are less sanguine. Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology said that many of the technological investments had just replaced human labor
without adding much to overall productivity.
In a
recent working paper , Professor Acemoglu and a colleague concluded that "a significant
portion of the rise in U.S. wage inequality over the last four decades has been driven by
automation" -- and he said that trend had almost certainly accelerated in the pandemic.
"If we automated less, we would not actually have generated that much less output but we
would have had a very different trajectory for inequality," Professor Acemoglu said.
Ms. Gonzales, the Checkers franchisee, isn't looking to cut jobs. She said she would hire 30
people if she could find them. And she has raised hourly pay to about $10 for entry-level
workers, from about $9 before the pandemic. Technology, she said, is easing pressure on workers
and speeding up service when restaurants are chronically understaffed.
"Our approach is, this is an assistant for you," she said. "This allows our employee to
really focus" on customers.
Ms. Gonzales acknowledged she could fully staff her restaurants if she offered $14 to $15 an
hour to attract workers. But doing so, she said, would force her to raise prices so much that
she would lose sales -- and automation allows her to take another course.
Rob Carpenter, Valyant's chief executive, noted that at most restaurants, taking
drive-through orders is only part of an employee's responsibilities. Automating that task
doesn't eliminate a job; it makes the job more manageable.
"We're not talking about automating an entire position," he said. "It's just one task within
the restaurant, and it's gnarly, one of the least desirable tasks."
But technology doesn't have to take over all aspects of a job to leave workers worse off. If
automation allows a restaurant that used to require 10 employees a shift to operate with eight
or nine, that will mean fewer jobs in the long run. And even in the short term, the technology
could erode workers' bargaining power.
"Often you displace enough of the tasks in an occupation and suddenly that occupation is no
more," Professor Acemoglu said. "It might kick me out of a job, or if I keep my job I'll get
lower wages."
At some businesses, automation is already affecting the number and type of jobs available.
Meltwich, a restaurant chain that started in Canada and is expanding into the United States,
has embraced a range of technologies to cut back on labor costs. Its grills no longer require
someone to flip burgers -- they grill both sides at once, and need little more than the press
of a button.
"You can pull a less-skilled worker in and have them adapt to our system much easier," said
Ryan Hillis, a Meltwich vice president. "It certainly widens the scope of who you can have
behind that grill."
With more advanced kitchen equipment, software that allows online orders to flow directly to
the restaurant and other technological advances, Meltwich needs only two to three workers on a
shift, rather than three or four, Mr. Hillis said.
Such changes, multiplied across thousands of businesses in dozens of industries, could
significantly change workers' prospects. Professor Warman, the Canadian economist, said
technologies developed for one purpose tend to spread to similar tasks, which could make it
hard for workers harmed by automation to shift to another occupation or industry.
"If a whole sector of labor is hit, then where do those workers go?" Professor Warman said.
Women, and to a lesser degree people of color, are likely to be disproportionately affected, he
added.
The grocery business has long been a source of steady, often unionized jobs for people
without a college degree. But technology is changing the sector. Self-checkout lanes have
reduced the number of cashiers; many stores have simple robots to patrol aisles for spills and
check inventory; and warehouses have become increasingly automated. Kroger in April opened a
375,000-square-foot warehouse with more than 1,000 robots that bag groceries for delivery
customers. The company is even experimenting with delivering groceries by drone.
Other companies in the industry are doing the same. Jennifer Brogan, a spokeswoman for Stop
& Shop, a grocery chain based in New England, said that technology allowed the company to
better serve customers -- and that it was a competitive necessity.
"Competitors and other players in the retail space are developing technologies and
partnerships to reduce their costs and offer improved service and value for customers," she
said. "Stop & Shop needs to do the same."
In 2011, Patrice Thomas took a part-time job in the deli at a Stop & Shop in Norwich,
Conn. A decade later, he manages the store's prepared foods department, earning around $40,000
a year.
Mr. Thomas, 32, said that he wasn't concerned about being replaced by a robot anytime soon,
and that he welcomed technologies making him more productive -- like more powerful ovens for
rotisserie chickens and blast chillers that quickly cool items that must be stored cold.
But he worries about other technologies -- like automated meat slicers -- that seem to
enable grocers to rely on less experienced, lower-paid workers and make it harder to build a
career in the industry.
"The business model we seem to be following is we're pushing toward automation and we're not
investing equally in the worker," he said. "Today it's, 'We want to get these robots in here to
replace you because we feel like you're overpaid and we can get this kid in there and all he
has to do is push this button.'"
As of July 2, 2021 out of 4456 total deaths attributed to vaccination (of them 1890 after
vaccination with Pfizer), it looks like there were at least 36 death of people aged less then 30
years after vaccination with Pfizer vaccine (out of 61 total). Around 136 millions were fully
vaccinated,.
Other sources list higher figure (6113)
CDC- 6,113 DEAD Following COVID-19 Injections ("Besides the 6,113 deaths reported, there are
5,172 permanent disabilities, 6,435 life threatening events, and 51,558 emergency room visits."
)so my method of extracting those data from VAERS database might be wrong or not all death are
reported to VAERS.
Another 5 young people were crippled but survived (67 total).
Each year, more than 165 million Americans get the flu shot. There were 85 reported
deaths following influenza vaccination in 2017; 119 deaths in 2018; and 203 deaths in
2019
Between mid-December 2020 and April 23, 2021, at which point between 95 million and 100
million Americans had received their COVID-19 shots, there were 3,544 reported deaths
following COVID vaccination, or about 30 per day
In just four months, the COVID-19 vaccines have killed more people than all available
vaccines combined from mid-1997 until the end of 2013 -- a period of 15.5 years
As of April 23, 2021, VAERS had also received 12,618 reports of serious adverse events.
In total, 118,902 adverse event reports had been filed
In the European Union, the EudraVigilance system had as of April 17, 2021, received
330,218 injury reports after vaccination with one of the four available COVID vaccines,
including 7,766 deaths
In a May 5, 2021, Fox News report, Tucker Carlson asked the question no one is really
allowed to ask: "How many Americans have died after taking the COVID vaccine?"
1
Then there's not selling Syria the latest S#00 system to help keep Israel out of Syrian
skies. That tells me he's using Syria for personal / State gain and that is where he's wrong.
That's what makes him just another politician.
I totally get it, there are things that are puzzling to those of us in the audience,
watching the moves from afar.
An advanced S-300 or S-400 system could paint every F-16 as it took off from Israel. This
would be a red line for Israel and would bring in Uncle Shmuel.
Syria (and by extension Russia) has been allowing Israel to overfly her territory and bomb
Hezbollah installations.
It's puzzling – why would you allow a foreign power to bomb your territory, especially
if you have S-300's. The answer must be that Syria and Russia are holding back on purpose for
reasons only known to them. I can speculate, in that they don't want to give away military
capability unless the war goes hot.
Think about the situation now, as opposed to the 90's. Russia's military has been
modernized; Military physical fitness is up by 30% (better nutrition?); Foreign exchange is in
good shape; the economy is modernizing; food production is up – so Russia is no longer
food insecure; oil can be extracted at prices that Saudi cannot compete with; the Artic route
is opening up; national economy is more diversified thanks to the western sanctions; Yamal LNG
will be fueling Asia; Nordstream will be fueling Europe.
Russia under Putin stewardship has been doing more than just good given the disaster of
Yeltsin period. That's said. Russia now is just a one-man-Putin show. It's not the "Russian
system of governance."
So, the question is what would happen after Putin?
Given the fact that several "oligarchies" are pulling their strings around Putin,
another-Yeltsin is waiting at the gate of Kremlin is very likely. I hope I am wrong for the
Russians' best interests!
You need to drink a lot of "woke coke" and wearing exclusively "woke Nike" to digest those
recommendations without laughing.
History repeats, first as tragedy, second as farce. White Guard rebels during Russian civil
War called Bolsheviks "Tovatitcshi"(Comrades) as they prohibited to say Sir to the officers.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I
choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make
words mean so many different things."
As George Orwell has taught us, language manipulation is at the frontline (yes, I have just
broken one of the cardinal rules of his "
Politics and the English Language ," but not his final injunction to "break any of these
rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous") of politicised mind-bending. The sort of
language we are permitted to use circumscribes the thinking that we shall be allowed to engage
in. The assault on language is, therefore, an integral component of the unrelenting warfare
being waged for the conquest and control of the mind. Word elimination and reassignment of
meaning, as Orwell also presciently noted, are essential elements of the campaign to reformat
the mind and eventually to subjugate it.
A breath-taking example of how this process works was recently unveiled by the thoroughly
brain-washed students of the once prestigious Brandeis University who, this time without
prompting from their faculty elders and betters, voted to ban from their campus such odious
words and phrases as "picnic" and "you guys," for being "oppressive". "Picnic" is prohibited
because it allegedly evokes the lynching of Blacks.
The precocious young intellectuals took pains to produce an entire list of objectionable
words and phrases, shocking award-winning novelist Joyce Carol Oates who tweeted in
bewilderment: "What sort of punishment is doled out for a faculty member who utters the word
'picnic' at Brandeis? Or the phrase [also proscribed – S.K.] 'trigger warning'? Loss of
tenure, public flogging, self-flagellation?"
Oppressive Language
Possible Alternatives
Explanation
Killing it
Great job!
If someone is doing well, we
don't need to equate that to
Awesome!
murder!
Take a shot at
Give it a go
These expressions needlessly use
imagery of hurting someone or
Take a stab at
Try
something.
Trigger warning
Content note
The word "trigger" has
connections to guns for many
Drop-in
people; we can give the same
head's up using language less
connected to violence.
Rule of thumb
General rule
This expression comes from an
old British law allowing men to
beat their wives with sticks no
wider than their thumb.
Pknk
Outdoor eating
Tlie term picnic is often
associated with lynchings of
Black people in the United
States, during which white
spectators were said to have
watched while eating, referring
to them as picnics or other terms
involving racial slurs against
Black people.
Go off tlte reservation
Disagree with tlie group, defect
This phrase has a harmful
from the group
history rooted in the violent
removal of indigenous people
from their land and the Itorrible
consequences for someone that
left the reservation.
_arrow
Not Your Father's ZH 8 hours ago (Edited)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and
to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. " ― George Orwell
The constant reconstruction of language is a highly effective tool when employed against
weak minds... as most folks have only a loose association with the words in their
heads...
As meanings of words are changed the ideas associated with those words change...
consequently a society can be transformed into a different society without ever answering a
single argument...
1748 (in Chesterfield's "Letters"), but the thing itself apparently was rare before c.
1800 as an English institution [OED]; it originally meant "a fashionable social affair (not
necessarily out of doors) in which every partaker contributed something to the general
table;" from French piquenique (1690s), perhaps a reduplication of piquer "to pick, peck,"
from Old French (see pike
(n.1)), or the second element may be nique "worthless thing," from a Germanic source.
As in many other riming names, the elements are used without precision, but the lit.
sense is appar. 'a picking or nibbling of bits,' a snatch, snack .... [Century
Dictionary]
The word also turns up 18c. in German, Danish, Swedish. Later "pleasure party the
members of which carry provisions with them on an excursion, as to some place in the
country." Figurative sense of "something easy" is from 1886. Picnic basket is by 1857.
Picnic table is by 1858, originally a folding table used for outdoor dining.
Meanwhile the top Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Indian etc. schools concentrating on STEM
are laughing their asses off.
John Grady 6 hours ago
Activism is now a career path so to differentiate yourself as an activist you have to
have an angle so you look busy. Endless bickering about minutia makes it look like they're
doing something.
Little wonder that here and there sanity nostalgia is gripping the Western world, at least
those isolated portions of it that are not internalising the sinister "new normal." But it is
seemingly to no avail. All commanding positions are firmly in the hands of lunatics, who are
determined to turn a once great and exemplary civilisation into an asylum.
As George Orwell has taught us, language manipulation is at the frontline (yes, I have just
broken one of the cardinal rules of his "
Politics and the English Language ," but not his final injunction to "break any of these
rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous") of politicised mind-bending. The sort of
language we are permitted to use circumscribes the thinking that we shall be allowed to engage
in. The assault on language is, therefore, an integral component of the unrelenting warfare
being waged for the conquest and control of the mind. Word elimination and reassignment of
meaning, as Orwell also presciently noted, are essential elements of the campaign to reformat
the mind and eventually to subjugate it.
A breath-taking example of how this process works was recently unveiled by the thoroughly
brain-washed students of the once prestigious Brandeis University who, this time without
prompting from their faculty elders and betters, voted to ban from their campus such odious
words and phrases as "picnic" and "you guys," for being "oppressive". "Picnic" is prohibited
because it allegedly evokes the lynching of Blacks.
The precocious young intellectuals took pains to produce an entire list of objectionable
words and phrases, shocking award-winning novelist Joyce Carol Oates who tweeted in
bewilderment: "What sort of punishment is doled out for a faculty member who utters the word
'picnic' at Brandeis? Or the phrase [also proscribed – S.K.] 'trigger warning'? Loss of
tenure, public flogging, self-flagellation?"
All three punishments will probably be applied to reactionary professors who go afoul of the
list's rigorous linguistic requirements.
Not to be outdone by the progressive kids on the East Coast, avant-garde
California legislators have passed a law to remove the pronoun "he" from state legal texts.
The momentous reform was initiated by California's new attorney general, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan,
who after looking up the job requirements made the shocking discovery that the law assumed that
the attorney general would be a man.
Upon review, it turned out that the state code and other legal documents were enabling
unacceptable concepts by using pronouns "he," "him" and "his" when referring to the attorney
general and other state-wide elected officials. Appalled, Ms. Bauer-Kahan denounced these
linguistic lapses for not representing "where California is and where California is going." She
inarguably was right on that score at least, which has perhaps also something to do with the
massive exodus of California residents to less complicated parts of the country.
When lawmakers of a state which is rapidly turning into a North American Calcutta have no
concerns more pressing than to revise the use of pronouns in official documents, that sends a
clear message where that state is going, exactly as the smart and thoroughly up-to-date woman
said.
But as a Pakistani
immigrant father in Seattle, state of Washington, discovered to his chagrin, the linguistic
clowning can have very serious personal and political consequences. After checking in his
16-year-old autistic son for treatment in what he thought was a medical facility, Ahmed was
shocked to receive a telephone call where a social worker explained to him that the child he
had originally entrusted to the medical authorities as a son was actually transgender and must
henceforth, under legal penalty of removal, be referred to and treated as a "daughter."
Coming from a traditional society still governed by tyrannical precepts of common sense and
not accustomed to the ways of the asylum where in search of a better life he and his family
inadvertently ended up, the father (a title that like mother, now officially "number one
parent," is also
on the way out ) was able to conceive his tragic predicament only by weaving a complex
conspiracy theory:
"They were trying to create a customer for their gender clinic . . . and they seemed to
absolutely want to push us in that direction. We had calls with counsellors and therapists in
the establishment, telling us how important it is for him to change his gender, because
that's the only way he's going to be better out of this suicidal depressive state."
Since in the equally looney state of Washington the age when minors can request a
gender-change surgery without parental consent is 13, the Pakistani parents saw clearly the
writing on the wall and, bless them, they came up with a clever stratagem to outwit their
callous ideological tormentors. Ahmed "assured Seattle Children's Hospital that he would take
his son to a gender clinic and commence his son's transition. Instead, he collected his son,
quit his job, and moved his family of four out of Washington."
Perhaps feeling the heat from the linguistic Gestapo even in his celebrity kitchen, iconic
chef Jamie Oliver has come on board. Absurdly, Jamie vowed
fealty to the ascendant normal by dropping the term "Kaffir lime leaves" from his recipes ,
in fear that the alleged "historically racist slur" would offend South Africans. No evidence at
all has been furnished or demanded of complaints from South Africa in that regard. But it
speaks volumes that someone of Jamie's influence and visibility should nevertheless deem it
prudent to anticipate such criticism even though, should it have materialised, it of course
would not originate from South Africa but from white Western political correctness
commissars.
Jamie is now busy, but not just cooking. He is going over his previously published recipes
in order to expunge all offensive references to kefir leaves. Orwell aficionados will recall
this precious passage from 1984 : "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book
rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed,
every date has been altered." And now every recipe as well. The dystopia fits, does it not, to
a tee even something as seemingly trivial as a cooking show?
But it is not just recipes. Children's fairy tales are also fair game for 1984 revision.
Hollywood actress Natalie Portman ( Star Wars , The Professional , Thor ), inspired
apparently by the new cultural normal, has taken it upon herself not to write, but to re-write,
several classic fairy tales to make them "gender-neutral," so "children can defy gender
stereotypes." Predictably, pronouns were again a major target:
"I found myself changing the pronouns in many of their books because so many of them had
overwhelmingly male characters, disproportionate to reality," quoth Natalie as she put her
linguistic scalpel to such old favourites as The Tortoise and the Hare , Country Mouse and
City Mouse and The Three Little Pigs .
Need we go on, or does the sharp reader already get the general drift? How about
State University of New York student Owen Stevens , who was suspended and censured for
pointing out on his Instagram the ascertainable biological fact that "A man is a man, a woman
is a woman. A man is not a woman and a woman is not a man." (Owen was snitched on by fellow
students, readers from the former Eastern bloc will be amused to learn.) Or the Nebraska
university basketball coach who was suspended for using in a motivational speech the
mysteriously offensive word "plantation"? Or the hip $57,000-a-year NYC school that
banned students from saying "mom" and "dad" , from asking where classmates went on vacation
or wishing anyone "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays"? Or
female university student Lisa Keogh in Scotland who said in class "women have vaginas"
(who would be better informed than she on that subject?) and are "not as strong as men", who is
facing disciplinary action by the university after fellow classmates complained about her
"offensive and discriminatory" comments? Or
Spanish politician Francisco José Contreras whose Twitter account was blocked as a
warning for 12 hours after he tweeted what some would regard as the self-evident truth that
"men cannot get pregnant" because they have "no uterus or eggs"?
As
Peter Hitchens noted recently "the most bitterly funny story of the week is that a defector
from North Korea thinks that even her homeland is 'not as nuts' as the indoctrination now
forced on Western students."
One of Yeonmi Park's initial shocks upon starting classes at Colombia University was to be
met with a frown after revealing to a staff member that she enjoyed reading Jane Austen. "Did
you know," Ms. Park was sternly admonished, "that those writers had a colonial mind-set? They
were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you."
But after encountering the new requirement for the use of gender-neutral pronouns, Yeonmi
concluded: "Even North Korea is not this nuts North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this
crazy." Devastatingly honest, but not exactly a compliment to what once might have been the
land of her dreams.
Sadly, Hitchens reports that her previous experience served Yeonmi well to adapt to her new
situation: "She came to fear that making a fuss would affect her grades and her degree.
Eventually, she learned to keep quiet, as people do when they try to live under intolerant
regimes, and let the drivel wash over her."
Eastern European readers will unfailingly understand what it is that Hitchens meant to
say.
ay_arrow
Plus Size Model 9 hours ago
No worries! We're talking about two different things. You explicitly mentioned meanings
of words in your initial post. Now you're also alluding to what a psyop officer would
describe as manipulating the cognitive environment of a target group. Cognitive
manipulation is a much larger toolbox and involves things like perception management,
information management, memory retrieval, what old timers refer to as symbol manipulation,
etc.
In psychological warfare literature, symbols are somewhat of a mental bookmark. You can
really mess people up by altering the bookmarks slightly or changing around the files they
reference in a prolonged campaign.
The Nazi swastika is probably the most successful symbol manipulation campaign ever. It
means different things to different people and these meanings have evolved substantially
over time. Each new generation and is indoctrinated with different presentations of the
swastika. The wide latitude of interpretation and extreme views associated with it have
consistently created huge social flash points over the past 90 years.
Lorenz Feedback 9 hours ago
I think somethings are being overlooked on this point, Semantic prosody concerns itself
with the way unusual combinations of words can create intertextual 'resonance' and can
suggest speaker/writer attitude and opinion. Consider the difference with using very
powerful versus utterly compelling when presenting an argument. Some words shape narratives
better than others and trigger a response well known to advertisers and propagandists...and
help shape public opinion.
Yes... changing the context of words has a huge impact...
ie the word white is now seen in the context of numerous pejoratives...
Cautiously Pessimistic 10 hours ago
I fit in here in America less and less with each passing year. I feel like a stranger in
my own country at times. I am sure that is by design.
Max Power 9 hours ago
On the other hand, as soon as people encounter real problems like hunger, bankruptcy, or
homelessness, all this ivy league brainwashing evaporates in an instance. Just a stupid
game played by wealthy white libtards believing in fairytales.
"... The US seems to be especially vulnerable to issues caused by lack of precarity as it has such a poor welfare system, previously relying on infinite growth to smooth things over or a, now failing, religious faith to keep things in order; prolonged economic and political success that has led to a sense of entitlement and self-belief in the American way, a history of putting personal liberty above all else, which embraces competition rather than co-operation; and a world beating phobia of death well beyond when reproductive age has passed. ..."
"... The gig economy, middle class collapse, MAGA, BLM (and the police actions that prompted its rise), cancel culture, (un)reality TV's attraction, FOMO, the increase in low level strife, self-harming, on-line pornography addiction, the Oxycodone/Fentanyl epidemic etc. are all manifestations and/or causes of that precarity. Civil wars and major revolts (and almost any that succeed in their aims) tend to happen only when there is intra elite infighting rather than uprisings from below. The most likely catalyst for that at the moment is Trump, which may be a good sign given his ineffectualness, ineptitude and general repulsive lack of charisma; anyone even a bit more like a real human being could cause serious ructions. ..."
I have been reading "˜A More Contested World: Global Trends 2040' by The National
Intelligence Council; slowly as there's a lot in it but also a lot missing. No mention of
specific resource limits, no discussion of GM just general "˜technology' concerns
concentrating on AI and of course, god forbid any mention of overpopulation. It is very
US-centric "" in the good scenarios the world gets to a better place only through US leadership
"" and humanist focused with no consideration of the rights of the earth in general, only the
perpetuation of our civilisation and to that end all future scenarios are some variant of
technology led, growth obsessed, centralised BAU (maybe not with full globalism but still based
around hegemonic power structures at some level). It's a view from mainstream economists and
politicians carrying all the normal drawbacks that those words imply: i.e. bad things happen
when the world doesn't do as it's told to do by us, and if you don't agree with us about what
constitutes "˜bad' then you're wrong about that too.
The rising wealth gap and other inequality issues are a common theme in these global risk
studies. However, theories in some recent studies have proposed that it is not inequality
itself that is the problem so much as a prolonged sense of precarity (a new word to me and,
apparently, to MS spellchecker, but it is essentially identical to precariousness) of the
non-elites that accompanies it.
This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, as parents desire a stable and resource
abundant household in which their children can be expected to reach a reproductive age. This
might be expected to come more from the female side, as they are tied to their offspring more
than males, who are free to spread their sperm and move on. I have read reorts, possibly
anecdotal only, that it will invariably be the woman that will be the party insisting on buying
the largest house that can be attained, whether affordable or not. I'm all for gender equality
and women's rights but some things are innate and equal-rights do not mean equal hormones,
ambitions, impulses and behaviors.
From this viewpoint therefore, solving the wealth inequality issue is actually anathema to
population reduction. For example the already low birth rate in Italy had a further step down
caused by the increased precarity due to the economic impact of Covid-19, the government has
responded by offering direct incentives for having children. The apparent short term aims are
in direct opposition to the what is best long term, this is called a dilemma rather than a
problem.
The US seems to be especially vulnerable to issues caused by lack of precarity as it has
such a poor welfare system, previously relying on infinite growth to smooth things over or a,
now failing, religious faith to keep things in order; prolonged economic and political success
that has led to a sense of entitlement and self-belief in the American way, a history of
putting personal liberty above all else, which embraces competition rather than co-operation;
and a world beating phobia of death well beyond when reproductive age has passed.
The neologism for the growing proportion of people affected by precarity is the precariat.
The always readable Tim Watkins has a new post that touches on some of theses issues, with a
particular eye on the possibility (or not) of significant inflationary issues ( The
Everything Death Spiral ).
The gig economy, middle class collapse, MAGA, BLM (and the police actions that prompted
its rise), cancel culture, (un)reality TV's attraction, FOMO, the increase in low level strife,
self-harming, on-line pornography addiction, the Oxycodone/Fentanyl epidemic etc. are all
manifestations and/or causes of that precarity. Civil wars and major revolts (and almost any
that succeed in their aims) tend to happen only when there is intra elite infighting rather
than uprisings from below. The most likely catalyst for that at the moment is Trump, which may
be a good sign given his ineffectualness, ineptitude and general repulsive lack of charisma;
anyone even a bit more like a real human being could cause serious ructions.
Great post George thank you. It is quite evident for the astute observer that western
democracy has over the years turned more and more into an amalgam of kleptocracy, oligarchy and
plutocracy.
How many countries have colonial Europe and U.S foreign policy destroyed in the name of
"democracy" and "freedom" ?
I've lost count.
Plato famously is said to have said:
"If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live
under the rule of fools."
In Platos book the republic, Socrates despises democracy as one of the worst forms of
government. His criticism those many years ago still resonates till this day (in my
opinion).
WIthout invoking logic, I feel the world is in uncharted waters and heading towards a
precipice which no one will see coming.
You have a typo, I believe you mean oxycontin (oxycodone) epidemic. HICKORY IGNORED HOLE
IN HEAD IGNORED 06/27/2021
at 1:12 pm
Hicks , not being based in USA ,my view maybe incorrect . The US is undergoing an
identity crisis . Where in the world did we have this gender crisis , male "" female heck can't
people see between their thighs ? Red-Blue . White Supremacy vs BLM . North vs South . Growing
up in the 70's US entrepreneurship was my inspiration . My hero's were Ford, Sloan , Edison etc
and what do we have today, Musk ? What changed that a society where work was an ethic has
transformed into a system where everyone is looking for an opportunity to suck at the teat of
the government . Amazing transformation for someone who has a reference point . Now I am going
into the stupid zone . What changed was the net surplus energy available per capita to the US
citizen . Once that flipped it was downhill all the way . I reserve the right to be incorrect
in my assessment .
Regarding the off-topic finish, I don't think most people realize how fragile is the glue
holding the US together.
Fragmentation along tribal lines is the biggest theme in American culture.
If a minority collection of tribes succeeds in the attempts to reverse election results, even
more than the Electoral College already does, the country will undergo a major restructuring
(polite description) with no guarantees on a recognizable outcome.
For years, we have been
discussing the decline of journalism values with the rise of open bias in the media. Now, a
newly released report from
the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford has found something that would have
been unthinkable just a few years ago. The United States ranked dead last in media trust among
49 countries with just 29% saying that they trusted the media.
The are "apparatchiks" and that means that Rogan unfortunatly is closer to the truth then one
might suspect. "Ideological warriors" so to speak if we reuse Soviet term for such
creatures.
Stetler isn't the only CIA script reader there's thousands of those cockroaches, they're on
every 'news' channel in this country. Stetler looks like a pedo, he's a fat idiot he proves
that every time he opens his candyass mouth.
play_arrow 170 play_arrow
TerminalDebt
6 hours ago
I stopped at fat idiot, no proof needed
play_arrow 35 play_arrow
NoDebt
6 hours ago
They're not real humans.
I think Rogan might be closer to the truth than he realizes on that one.
So even in 1971 corporate American understood usefulness of critical race theory and "black
bolshevism" for their needs. Otherwise Bell would never get a tenure in Harvard -- the bastion of
neoliberalism and corporatism.
As the theory is a typical pseudoscience in the best style of Academician Lysenko, it is
natural that " Far more Americans have learned about critical race theory from its opponents
than from the theorists themselves."
The idea that "struggle for racial equality is worthwhile even though it will never succeed."
remiinds me Eduard Bernstein's "movement toward goal is everything; goal is nothing" see
Eduard Bernstein's
Revisionist Critique of Marxist Theory and Practice Bernstein was a member of the German
Social Democratic party which was a particularly strong and important member of the Second
International conference. Bernstein's thoughts are encapsulated in his book, Evolutionary
Socialism, published in 1899.
Notable quotes:
"... ...Far more Americans have learned about critical race theory from its opponents than from the theorists themselves. ..."
"... The political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr., whose work focuses on race and inequality, wrote about a conference he attended at Harvard Law School in 1991, where "I heard the late, esteemed legal theorist, Derrick Bell, declare on a panel that blacks had made no progress since 1865. I was startled not least because Bell's own life, as well as the fact that Harvard's black law students' organization put on the conference, so emphatically belied his claim." Mr. Reed dismissed the idea as "more a jeremiad than an analysis." ..."
"... Like the French existentialist Albert Camus, who saw Sisyphus's eternal effort to roll a boulder uphill as a symbol of human endurance in an absurd world, Bell demands "recognition of the futility of action" while insisting "that action must be taken." ..."
"... To the journalist and historian James Traub, who profiled Bell for the New Republic magazine in 1993, this amounted to a recipe for paralysis: "If you convince whites that their racism is ineradicable, what are they supposed to do? And what are blacks to do with their hard-won victim status?" ..."
In their book "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction," Mr. Delgado and Jean Stefancic list
several of its core premises, including the view that "racism is ordinary, not aberrational,"
and that it "serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the dominant group,"
that is, for white people. In recent years, these ideas have entered the mainstream thanks to
the advocacy of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was catalyzed by several high-profile
cases of police violence against Black people, as well as the New York Times's 1619 Project and
bestselling books like Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility" and Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an
Antiracist." Critical race theory also informs instruction at some schools and other
institutions.
...Far more Americans have learned about critical race theory from its opponents than
from the theorists themselves. That may be inevitable, since their writing was mostly
aimed at other scholars. But at least one major work is more accessible: "Faces at the Bottom
of the Well," the 1992 book by Derrick Bell, who is often described as the founder or godfather
of critical race theory.
Bell died in 2011, but the response to his work foreshadows today's controversies. In
"Faces," he blends the genres of fiction and essay to communicate his powerfully pessimistic
sense of "the permanence of racism" -- the book's subtitle. Bell's thought has been an
important influence on some of today's most influential writers on race, such as Ta-Nehisi
Coates and Michelle Alexander.
Derrick Bell was born in Pittsburgh in 1930, and after serving in the Air Force he went to
work as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Eisenhower Justice Department. He left
the job in 1959 after being told that he had to resign his membership in the NAACP to avoid
compromising his objectivity. That experience reflects a major theme in Bell's work: Can
traditional legal standards of objectivity and neutrality lead to justice for Black Americans,
or does fighting racism require a more politically engaged, results-oriented approach to the
law?
In 1971, Bell became the first Black professor to receive tenure at Harvard Law School. As
he writes in "Faces," "When I agreed to become Harvard's first black faculty member I did so on
the express commitment that I was to be the first, but not the last, black hired. I was to be
the pioneer, the trailblazer." But the school was slow to hire more Black faculty, leading Bell
to leave in protest in 1990. He ended up spending the last part of his career at NYU Law
School.
... ... ...
The political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr., whose work focuses on race and inequality,
wrote about a conference he attended at Harvard Law School in 1991, where "I heard the late,
esteemed legal theorist, Derrick Bell, declare on a panel that blacks had made no progress
since 1865. I was startled not least because Bell's own life, as well as the fact that
Harvard's black law students' organization put on the conference, so emphatically belied his
claim." Mr. Reed dismissed the idea as "more a jeremiad than an analysis."
In the conclusion to "Faces," Bell argues that the struggle for racial equality is
worthwhile even though it will never succeed. Like the French existentialist Albert Camus,
who saw Sisyphus's eternal effort to roll a boulder uphill as a symbol of human endurance in an
absurd world, Bell demands "recognition of the futility of action" while insisting "that action
must be taken."
To the journalist and historian James Traub, who profiled Bell for the New Republic
magazine in 1993, this amounted to a recipe for paralysis: "If you convince whites that their
racism is ineradicable, what are they supposed to do? And what are blacks to do with their
hard-won victim status?"
... ... ...
These experiences inform "Faces at the Bottom of the Well," which is made up of nine fables,
some with a science-fiction twist. In one story, a new continent emerges in the Atlantic Ocean,
with an atmosphere that only African-Americans can breathe. In another, the U.S. institutes a
system where whites can pay for permission to discriminate against Blacks -- a kind of
cap-and-trade scheme for bigotry.
"In effect, those that have joined the Liberal US Empire, have forfeited their sovereign
rights on foreign and domestic policies to those of the United State. You can see it all over
Europe but also among Muslim countries as well as in East Asia."
In fact, there is NOTHING "liberal" about the U$ empire, and it's conduct with the rest of
the world.
"... De Garay explained that after receiving the second coronavirus vaccine dose, her daughter started developing severe abdominal and chest pains. Maddie described the severity of the pain to her mother as "it feels like my heart is being ripped out through my neck." ..."
"... The Ohio mother added her daughter experienced additional symptoms that included gastroparesis, nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, heart rate, and memory loss. "She still cannot digest food. She has a tube to get her nutrition," De Garay said to Carlson. "She also couldn't walk at one point, then she could I don't understand why and [physicians] are not looking into why...now she's back in a wheelchair and she can't hold her neck up. Her neck pulls back." ..."
"... De Garay said she had joined a Facebook support group to help people cope with the unexpected events happening from the coronavirus vaccine trial, and she said it was shut down. "It's just not right," she said. ..."
"... Sen. Ron Johnson , R-Wis., has sent letters to the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna seeking answers about adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine following a June 28 press conference with affected individuals. The conference in Milwaukee included stories from five people, including De Garay ..."
"... The Wisconsin senator noted that some adverse reactions were detailed in Pfizer's and Moderna's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) memorandums following early clinical trials ..."
"... Those reactions included nervous system disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders for the Pfizer EUA memo. The Moderna EUA memo included reactions such as nervous system disorders, vascular disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, according to Johnson's letter. ..."
"... You missed the whole point! The issue is that the government is not acknowledging and and not reporting these side effects of the vaccine. Instead they are lying about the safety. If you are young, you are much more likely to get sick and injured by the vaccine than COVID. ..."
"... anyone under 25 should not get the vaccine because the percentages are about the same or worse having a negative impact from the vaccine versus the actual virus. ..."
"... With the Covid19 mortality rate among the children why even vaccinate? As a Chemist / Biochemist I learned that there is always unintended consequences. ..."
"... Vaccines may have long term effects that are not known today. ..."
"... The CDC's generic guidelines for getting a vaccine for any reason are very restrictive, first being, the disease you're getting vaccinated against has to pose a real, immediate danger. CV-19 poses virtually no danger whatsoever to kids under 14. Of all the deaths of children 14 and under in the last 18 months only .8% of them had a case of CV-19. That's 367 deaths out of over 46,000. (Data from CDC website) Forcing them to take an experimental vaccine that they absolutely don't need is criminal. As a parent, allowing your child to take the vaccine without spending a few hours doing some research is criminally negligent. This is like some terribly warped Kafka novel but it's real. ..."
Mother Stephanie De Garay joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to discuss how her 12-year-old
daughter volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trial and is now in a wheelchair.
An Ohio mother is speaking out
about her 12-year-old daughter suffering extreme reactions and nearly dying after volunteering
for the Pfizer coronavirus
vaccine trial.
Stephanie De Garay told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday
that after reaching out to multiple physicians they claimed her daughter, Maddie De Garay,
couldn't have become gravely ill from the vaccine.
"The only diagnosis we've gotten for her is that it's conversion disorder or functional
neurologic symptom disorder, and they are blaming it on anxiety," De Garay told Tucker Carlson.
"Ironically, she did not have anxiety before the vaccine."
De Garay explained that after receiving the second coronavirus vaccine dose, her daughter
started developing severe abdominal and chest pains. Maddie described the severity of the pain
to her mother as "it feels like my heart is being ripped out through my neck."
The Ohio mother added her daughter experienced additional symptoms that included
gastroparesis, nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, heart rate, and memory loss. "She still cannot digest food. She has a tube to get her nutrition," De Garay said to
Carlson. "She also couldn't walk at one point, then she could I don't understand why and
[physicians] are not looking into why...now she's back in a wheelchair and she can't hold her
neck up. Her neck pulls back."
Carlson asked whether any officials from the Biden administration or representatives from
Pfizer company have reached out to the family. "No, they have not," she answered.
"The response with the person that's leading the vaccine trial has been atrocious," she
said. "We wanted to know what symptoms were reported and we couldn't even get an answer on
that. It was just that 'we report to Pfizer and they report to the FDA.' That's all we
got."
After her heartbreaking experience, the Ohio mother said she's still "pro-vaccine, but also
pro-informed consent." De Garay mentioned she's speaking out because she feels like everyone
should be fully aware of this tragic incident and added the situation is being "pushed down and
hidden."
De Garay said she had joined a Facebook support group to help people cope with the
unexpected events happening from the coronavirus vaccine trial, and she said it was shut
down. "It's just not right," she said.
"They need to do research and figure out why this happened, especially to people in the
trial. I thought that was the point of it," De Garay concluded. "They need to come up with
something that's going to treat these people early because all they're going to do is keep
getting worse."
Sen. Ron
Johnson , R-Wis., has sent letters to the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna seeking answers
about adverse reactions to the COVID-19vaccine
following a June 28 press conference with affected individuals. The conference in Milwaukee
included stories from five people, including De Garay.
The Wisconsin senator noted that some adverse reactions were detailed in Pfizer's and
Moderna's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) memorandums
following early clinical trials.
Those reactions included nervous system disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue
disorders for the Pfizer EUA memo. The Moderna EUA memo included reactions such as nervous
system disorders, vascular disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders,
according to Johnson's letter.
Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News about Johnson's
letters.
J jeff5150357 6 hours ago
My daughter had the same thing happen to
her after getting a flu vaccine 9 years ago. Within days of getting it, she went from being as
healthy as an ox to years of awful, unexplained illness. The short version is they concluded
that she had a severe adverse reaction to the vaccine, but from the delivery chemicals, not the
flu content itself. Formaldehyde was the likely major cause. Now she is getting ready to begin
college and is being required to get the Covid vaccine by her university and the NCAA for
athletics. It is causing her, my wife and I horrible anxiety and we feel like we are being
railroaded into something that could be very dangerous for her. Any discussion or concern
expressed on social media is immediately blocked. I know from years of working in the research
grants office at Yale University that the big pharma industry is powerful and will go to great
lengths to control the narrative. What I don't understand is why mainstream media and social
media are so willing to help them these days!
jeff5150357 4 hours ago
While the college experience is great for a young adult. I would look at getting a degree
online. Her future earnings will be based on her merit, not where she went to school. If
someone was telling me what to do with my personal health, and I was uncomfortable with their
prescription, I would follow my instincts.
LoraJane92649 jeff5150357 5
hours ago
If her flu vax is well documented she should be able to get a waiver. Hopefully you
have an able bodied family physician or medical team to advocate on your behalf.
G gunvald 7 hours ago
You know when you take it that there can be adverse
reactions. So, in that sense, you are informed. Any one of us could be the odd person. That
said, I have a problem with any child getting these vaccines, especially when most people
recover from the disease. It's one thing for me as an elderly person to make the decision to
take it as covid affects the elderly person more and I wanted to avoid that ventilator. Most of
my life has been lived and that's how I evaluated it. This will always come down to putting it
in God's hands.
TheTruthAsItIs gunvald 6 hours ago
You missed the whole point! The
issue is that the government is not acknowledging and and not reporting these side effects of the
vaccine. Instead they are lying about the safety. If you are young, you are much more likely to
get sick and injured by the vaccine than COVID.
D DontDestoryUSA
gunvald 4 hours ago
It's not being informed when you are forced to take a vaccination that they
clearly had trouble with past vaccination sounds like a lawsuit for the university is on the
horizon. With a big pay day
Tony5SFG 7 hours ago
"Ohio
mother said she's still "pro-vaccine, but also pro-informed consent." " And as a pediatrician
for over 40 yrs (retired now) and a 10 year member of my medical school's Institutional Review
Board (which had to approve all human research), THAT is a problem I have been bringing up As
far as requiring all young people, such as entering or in college, to get the vaccine Children
are a protected class and the informed consent for research on them is much more strenuous than
for adults And, requiring young people to take these new vaccines is the equivalent of doing
research on them. The issue of myocarditis is quite troubling. And while it has been seen in
natural infections, I have not yet seen an adequate risk - benefit evaluation regarding risking
natural infection versus vaccination And people say that the myocarditis is not severe, no one
can be sure of the long term effects of a young person getting it. The vaccines that we give
children have been used for decades and the risks/benefits have been well established
D DallasAmEmail Tony5SFG 6 hours ago
A friends daughter who just went through internship as
Physicians assistant based on the percentages in age groups believes anyone under 25 should not
get the vaccine because the percentages are about the same or worse having a negative impact
from the vaccine versus the actual virus. Yes, older age groups the percent having negative
impact from the virus is much greater than the vaccine, so yes older age groups should get the
vaccine. What really is bothersome is when Youtube removes Dr. Robert Malone video who helped
create the mrna vaccine express concern that normal testing has not happened and be cautious
about taking it, especially for the young.
marinesfather601 Tony5SFG 5
hours ago
With the Covid19 mortality rate among the children why even vaccinate? As a Chemist /
Biochemist I learned that there is always unintended consequences.
Hilltopper9 7 hours ago
Vaccines may have long term effects that are not known
today. The same could be said of all the chemicals we apply to our body daily through shampoos,
hair dyes, body lotions, and suntan lotions. Life's a gamble. It's up to each individual to
make the best decisions possible given the facts available.
A akbushrat
Hilltopper9 6 hours ago
The CDC's generic guidelines for getting a vaccine for any reason are
very restrictive, first being, the disease you're getting vaccinated against has to pose a
real, immediate danger. CV-19 poses virtually no danger whatsoever to kids under 14. Of all the
deaths of children 14 and under in the last 18 months only .8% of them had a case of CV-19.
That's 367 deaths out of over 46,000. (Data from CDC website) Forcing them to take an
experimental vaccine that they absolutely don't need is criminal. As a parent, allowing your
child to take the vaccine without spending a few hours doing some research is criminally
negligent. This is like some terribly warped Kafka novel but it's real.
F
Fauxguy930 Hilltopper9 5 hours ago
☢️ N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)nitrosamine is a
nitrosamine that has butyl and 4-hydroxybutyl substituents. In mice, it causes high-grade,
invasive cancers in the urinary bladder, but not in any other tissues. It has a role as a
carcinogenic agent. Ingredient in all shots. How did a carcinogen get FDA approved, oh it was
an emergency.
R RussellRika 6 hours ago
I have a
twelve year old, and not a chance I'd allow her to volunteer for any vaccine trial, and
especially not this one. She very much wanted to get a vaccine, until she started reading about
some of the adverse reactions. Sorry, but I'm a child, the benefit does not outweigh the risk.
MrEd50 6 hours ago
I took the vaccine because I'm 60 years old and work with special ed kids. My 18 year old child
refuses to take it and I support him on this. COVID shouldn't be an issue for most of us.
The problem is that many people face long term unemployment without substantial emergency funds, which further complicates
already difficult situation.
Notable quotes:
"... More than 2K adults to were interviewed to try and ascertain how long they could survive without income. It turns out that approximately 72.4MM employed Americans - 28.4% of the population - believe they wouldn't be able to last for more than a month without a payday. ..."
Imagine you lost your job tomorrow. How long would you be able to sustain your current
lifestyle? A week? A month? A year?
As we await Friday's labor market update, Finder has just published the results of a recent
survey attempting to gauge the financial stability of the average American in the post-pandemic
era.
More than 2K adults to were interviewed to try and ascertain how long they could survive
without income. It turns out that approximately 72.4MM employed Americans - 28.4% of the
population - believe they wouldn't be able to last for more than a month without a payday.
Another 24% said they expected to be able to live comfortably between two months and six
months. That means an estimated 133.6MM working Americans (52.3% of the population) can live
off their savings for six months or less before going broke.
On the other end of the spectrum, roughly 8.7MM employed Americans (or 3.4% of the
population) say they don't need to rely on a rainy day fund since they have employment
insurance which will compensate them should they lose their job.
Amusingly, men appear to be less effective savers than women. Some 32.4MM women (26.7% of
American women) say their savings would stretch at most a month, compared to 40MM men (29.9% of
American men) who admit to the same. Of those people, 9.7MM women (8% of American women) say
their savings wouldn't even stretch a week, compared to 15.5MM men (11.6% of American men) who
admit to the same.
A majority of employed Americans over the age of 18 say their savings would last six months
at most. About 70.7MM men (52.8% of American men) and 62.8MM women (51.8% of American women)
fear they'd be in dire straits within six months of losing their livelihood.
Unsurprisingly, younger people tend to have less of a savings buffer - but the gap between
the generations isn't as wide as it probably should be.
While increasing one's income is perhaps the best route to building a more robust nest egg,
Finder offered some suggestions for people looking to maximize their savings.
1. Create a budget and stick to it
Look at your monthly income against all of your monthly expenses. Add to them expenses you
pay once or twice a year to avoid a surprise when they creep up. After you know where your
money is going, you can allot specific amounts to different categories and effectively track
your spending.
Putin
Signs Law Forcing Foreign Social Media Giants To Open Russian Offices (reuters.com) 47
Posted by msmash on Thursday July 01, 2021 @12:45PM from the how-about-that dept. President
Vladimir Putin has signed a law that
obliges foreign social media giants to open offices in Russia , a document published by the
government on Thursday showed, the latest move by Moscow to exert greater control over Big
Tech. From a report: The Russian authorities are keen to strengthen their control of the
internet and to reduce their dependence on foreign companies and countries. In particular, they
have objected in the past to political opponents of the Kremlin using foreign social media
platforms to organise what they say are illegal protests and to publicise politically-tinged
investigations into alleged corruption. Moscow has fined firms for failing to delete content it
says is illegal, slowing down the speed of Twitter as punishment, and on Wednesday opened a new
case against Alphabet subsidiary Google for breaching personal data legislation. by
Vlijmen Fileer ( 120268 ) on
Thursday July 01, 2021 @12:47PM ( #61540686 )
Other countries do the same. But somehow get less media attention for it
Authorities doe not telling truth: people who already have COVID do not need to be
vaccinated. Also if Delta varient can infect vaccineted in conserable quantities how any resobale
person can maintain this goal of "herg immunity". How it can be achieved if a vaccinated person
can be infected and thus spread the disease both amoung vaccinated cohort and among the
unvaccinated cohort. The fact the vaccinated people are infected with Delta changes the game and
here Senator Paul is wrong.
Pushing vaccination on chidren in such curcumstances changes nothing is became a very
questionable move both from scientific an from ethical perspective.
America's favourite Chinese lab funding coronavirus doomonger doctor Anthony Fauci announced
Tuesday that there are now two Americas, a vaccinated America and an unvaccinated America.
As Senator Rand Paul noted
earlier this week , there is a boat load of misinformation on the matter coming from a
government that is indiscriminately pushing vaccinations:
There are now two Americas. One that's retarded. And one that wants Fauci on a
lamppost.
liberty2 1 hour ago (Edited)
Note that the officials said there's no such thing as "herd immunity" last year. Now
this year they keep saying that we can reach "herd immunity" if we are 70% vaxxed! Terms
are used if it fits their narrative.
Ride_the_kali_yuga 3 hours ago (Edited)
In the Covidian Cult, there is true believers in one side and heretics on the other
side. Vaxxed and unvaxxed.
Divide and rule strategy, as always. Do not undurestimate the ratio of retarded people
among the population, it has been growing like a cancer for decades. It amazes me how
perfectly coordinated those MSM Covidian propaganda events appears worldwide.
In here France, 2 days ago, most MSM have all simultaneously gone full berserk (without
any reason) blaming the reluctant ones. One of them on TV said something like : "if it was
me, i will use police to drag those who refuse these "vaccines" from their home and force
it on them"
This was priceless, this little man has morbid obesity. We now officialy all live on the
twilight zone on steroids. Land whales dictate how people should consider their own health.
This ride seems to never end.
We now have officialy entered the dehumanization phase of the unvaxxed. The sanitary
gulag is not far from here.
NIRP-BTFD 1 hour ago
There are 2 Americas. The 0.01% (the rulers that own everything) and the serfs.
DemandSider 1 hour ago
Exactly, parasite and host. Fauci would be the former, obviously.
"Recent research shows the vaxxinated group had a 18 point lower IQ score then the
unvaxxinated group and a 128 point higher gullibility score."
Fact Checked : True ✔️
Cirdan PREMIUM 9 hours ago
Wow! I didn't know they had a gullibility score!
bidennotmyprez99 9 hours ago remove link
Sure that's true but in my circle, it's all the super intellectual types who are getting
"vaxxed". You know, the ones who read the Guardian in the UK or the NYT in the US and sneer
at we deplorables. They pride themselves on being free and critical thinkers. Yet, they are
the ones getting the jab. Incredible. The other group I see all aroujnd me getting jabbed
are the fundamental christians: the ones who vowed never to bow to Caesar. Yeah, right.
They've been warning all their lives about the Mark of the Beast and fall at the first
hurdle. In contrast, all the ordinary working class Joes I know see it for the nasty
******** that it is.
No-Go zone 6 hours ago
The ordinary working class still has a common sense.
Smiddywesson 11 hours ago
There are two types of people today, those who still listen to media and authority
figures that are proven liars, and those who remember and are immune to further lies FROM
PROVEN LIARS. Faucci and company are proven liars, he can't tell me the time of day with
any credibility at all.
Gunston_Nutbush_Hall 7 hours ago (Edited)
h/t ZH Johnny Walker http://whale.to/vaccines.html
"If this is preventive medicine, I'll take my chances with disease." ~ Mendelsohn M.D
Dis-obey 8 hours ago
The Delta strain is weak sauce. With a mortality rate of 0.1% it's the same as H1N1.
H1N1 has been with Humanity since at least 1918 and human immunology has coped to deal with
it. Don't be fooled.
BendGuyhere 11 hours ago
1)The "case" number is pure JUNK SCIENCE. Meaningless. It is PCR cycles jacked up until
it gives a "positive". This is for people (Idiots) who get their 'science' from the
National Enquirer.
2) Corona viruses are NOTORIOUS for constantly rapidly mutating, like the Common
Cold.
3) ALL pathogenic viruses, to the extent that there even is a pathogenic covid virus
anymore, attenuate over time. That is they become LESS pathogenic and the human immune
system becomes more and more competent at recognizing and neutralizing viruses within the
same family.
4) Well "What about India?" What ABOUT India? Outside of the MSM, which has mutated into
a vast labyrinth of lies geared towards social control, we have no way of verifying what
actually happened in India.
BugMan 5 hours ago
The microorganism must be identified in all individuals affected by the disease, but not
in healthy individuals.
The microorganism can be isolated from the diseased individual and grown in culture.
When introduced into a healthy individual , the cultured microorganism should cause
disease.
The microorganism must then be re-isolated from the experimental host , and found to be
identical to the original microorganism.
I'm struck by the fact that the news media constantly push the so-called Covid-19
"vaccines." Have the news media become pharmaceutical company sales reps ?
Every day, I see news articles proclaiming that the Covid-19 "vaccines" are effective
against the variants. They cite new studies even though such studies take a lot more time
to conduct than has been alloted for concrete conclusions.
Overall, the pimping of the Covid shots by reporters is suspect at best. These so-called
journalists never mention treatments, only vaccines.
Bill of Rights 7 hours ago (Edited)
When was the last time the MEDIA was actually just that the Media? 1960s perhaps..
What you are subjected to now, or for the better term, Choose to watch now is trash
where 99% of it is made up and false.
Conductor "Corn Pop" Angelo 8 hours ago
Following a citizen's petition, a Lisbon court was forced to provide verified COVID-19
mortality data, reports AndreDias.net
.
According to the ruling , the number of
verified COVID-19 deaths from January 2020 to April 2021 is only 152, not about 17,000 as
claimed by government
ministries.
All the "others" died for various reasons, although their PCR test was positive.
"We live in a fraud of unprecedented dimensions," wrote Dias.
Not a pandemic but a manufactured DemPanic. These snarling rabid far-left-wing dogs will
seize and shake any opportunity they can get to further their RESET utopian agendas,
including population reductions and striking down capitalism. So close to their goals now,
they are gone wild in their attacks and without any reservations whatsoever.
Fear for this little Republic. Its time is almost up.
Kugelhagel 11 hours ago
It's like a priest in stone age: if harvest was low because weather was bad a priest
said "gimme all your sheet and I'll talk to the gods" . When that doesn't work he says "of
course it not worked, you not gave me enough! gimme more!" ... and some day it worked and
weather was good and the priest was celebrated.
Same here ... Snakeoil sellers.
Bill Maher slammed Big Tech on Friday's episode of his show, "Real Time with Bill Maher,"
criticizing Facebook and Google for censoring content discussing the COVID-19 lab-leak
theory.
"I find this outrageous. Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a
lab," said Maher, adding "Now, even the Biden administration is looking into it."
incharge1976 PREMIUM 1 hour ago (Edited)
Google and the like are not search engines, video sites, or social media sites. They are
propaganda machines
The First Rule 42 minutes ago (Edited)
Yeah, Yandex.com is head and shoulders
above the rest when it comes to getting around pretty much any US based web search
censorship.
It will show you the things Google is trying to hide.
Too may crazies among adjunct professors were discovered recently in the ocntext of Woke
ideology and Critical race theory. This is another one. What is interesting is the she is a
female.
[A person the claims to be] University of Ottawa adjunct professor and Canadian Lawyer Naomi
Sayers took to Twitter recently to endorse sex work for "young people," calling it "the best
thing" they can do early in their careers.
"unpopular opinion: the best thing young people can do early in their careers is do #SexWork
on the side because your early career prospects will be unstable, unpredictable, low pay,
likely contract work and very much exploitative," Sayers wrote on Twitter Sunday.
... ... ...
Campus Reform reached out to Exodus Cry
, a non-profit organization committed to fighting back against sex work and human trafficking.
Director of Intervention Helen Taylor replied calling Sayers' comments "deeply
irresponsible."
"For Professor Sayers to flippantly encourage young vulnerable students to engage in such a
harmful industry is deeply irresponsible and extremely offensive to survivors who are working
hard to heal and recover from the damage prostitution inflicted on their lives," Taylor
wrote
"The sex industry is a system of violence and gender inequality. It is not a 'job like any
other.' It puts girls at higher risk daily of rape, theft and murder. It causes long-term PTSD
comparable to torture victims"¦ We believe education leaders ought to be protecting
young women, and empowering them to aim high, not echoing pimp's advertisements for the sex
trade."
UPDATE: Sayers' publicist contacted Campus Reform after publication and insisted Sayers has
no relation with the University of Ottawa as a professor.
When Campus Reform reached out to Sayers for an interview, she replied, "my policy is not to
answer questions from media in which the answer can be found on google [sic] , which tweets are
searchable on google now (aka do their research)".
Research conducted by Campus Reform found that in Sayers LinkedIn profile, she currently touts herself as
"adjunct professor" at the university.
This is a fiasco for Fauci "herd immunity" campaign. It means that vaccinated people can
become infected and spread the virus much like unvaccinated people.
Cases of the Delta variant of coronavirus have almost doubled in a week
with 73 people now confirmed to have died after testing positive for the variant, 26 of whom
had had both vaccine doses.
Public Health England (PHE) said that as of Monday, the UK has seen 75,953 confirmed cases
of the Delta variant first identified in India, up 33,630 - or 79% - from the previous
week.
While just 26 people died more than two weeks after their second COVID-19 vaccine dose from
the Delta variant, more than 30.6 million in the UK have had both jabs, according to the
latest
government figures .
PHE said a total of 806 people in England have been admitted to hospital with the Delta
variant as of 14 June, a rise of 423 on the previous week.
"Objective judgement is our jugement about the people we do not like ;-)"
In view of the fact that Delta (Indian) variant can infect vaccinated with the first
generation of vaccines people Fauci statement "when you get vaccinated, you not only protect your
own health, that of the family, but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the
spread of the virus throughout the community." i obviously wrong.
Delta Covid-19 Variant Can Infect Vaccinated People
Those who don't get their news from mainstream media have been aware of Anthony Fauci's
connection to "gain of function" research for months. Now, mainstream media is picking it up so
the White House is scrambling.
For months, there wasn't a day that went by when Dr. Anthony Fauci wasn't doing multiple
interviews spreading fear of Covid-19, demanding people take the various "vaccines," and
changing his talking points from moment to moment on a slew of healthcare-related issues. We
saw a clear change last week when the White House's chief doc seemed to fly under the radar for
the first time since Joe Biden took office.
It all comes down to "gain of function" research that is almost certainly the cause of the
Wuhan Flu. Developed in the Wuhan Virology Lab, Covid-19 either escaped or was intentionally
released. While many in academia still hold onto the notion that the pandemic was started by
bats, they do so simply because it hasn't -- and likely cannot -- be completely ruled out as
long as the Chinese Communist Party has a say in the matter. But many are now accepting the
likelihood that it came from the Wuhan Virology Lab as a result of "gain of function"
research.
We also now know that Fauci has been a
huge proponent of this research and he participated
in funding it at the Wuhan Virology Lab.
More evidence is emerging every day despite the bad doctor's protestations. And when I say
"we also now know," that's to say more mainstream media watchers know. Those who turn to
alternative media have known about Fauci's involvement with the Wuhan Virology Lab for a
while.
They've been trying to cover their tracks. A bombshell revelation from The
National Pulse yesterday showed they realized this was going to be a problem long before
Rand Paul
or Tucker Carlson started
calling Fauci out.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology scrubbed the U.S. National Institutes of Health as one
of its research partners from its website in early 2021. The revelation comes despite Dr.
Anthony Fauci insisting no relationship existed between the institutions.
Archived versions of the Wuhan lab's site also reveal a research update – "
Will SARS Come Back? " – appearing to describe gain-of-function research being
conducted at the institute by entities funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
On March 21st, 2021, the lab's website listed six U.S.-based research partners:
University of Alabama, University of North Texas, EcoHealth Alliance, Harvard University, The
National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States, and the National Wildlife
Federation.
One day later, the page was revised to contain just two research
partners – EcoHealth Alliance and the University of Alabama. By March 23rd,
EcoHealth Alliance was the sole partner
remaining .
The Wuhan Institute of Virology's decision to wipe the NIH from its website came amidst
heightened
scrutiny that the lab was the source of COVID-19 – and that U.S. taxpayer dollars
from the NIH may have funded the research. The unearthing of the lab's attempted coverup also
follows a heated
exchange between Senator Rand Paul and Fauci, who attempted to distance his organization
from the Wuhan lab.
Beyond establishing a working relationship between the NIH and the Wuhan Institue of
Virology, now-deleted posts
from the site also detail studies bearing the hallmarks of gain-of-function research
conducted with the Wuhan-based lab. Fauci, however, asserted to Senator Paul that "the NIH
has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of
Virology."
There is still a tremendous gap between those who know the truth about Fauci and those who
still think he's just a smart little guy who tells Joe Biden what to do when it comes to Covid.
As we've documented multiple times in the past, there seems to be a cult of personality
surrounding Fauci, or as many have called it, Faucism. He is practically worshipped as a savior
by millions who believe everything he says even if he contradicts something he had said in the
past.
Today, he was interviewed on CBS News during "Face the Nation." It was a softball interview,
as always, and at no point was "gain of function" research discussed. Instead, John Dickerson
tried to sound smart and Fauci gave him kudos in an odd back-and-forth promoting vaccines.
JOHN DICKERSON : So, if- if a person is deciding whether or not to get vaccinated, they
have to keep in mind whether it's going to keep them healthy. But based on these new
findings, it would suggest they also have an opportunity, if vaccinated, to knock off or
block their ability to transmit it to other people. So, does it increase the public health
good of getting the vaccination or make that clearer based on these new findings?
DR. FAUCI : And you know, JOHN, you said it very well. I could have said it better.
It's absolutely the case. And that's the reason why we say when you get vaccinated, you not
only protect your own health, that of the family, but also you contribute to the community
health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. And in other words,
you become a dead end to the virus. And when there are a lot of dead ends around, the virus
is not going to go anywhere. And that's when you get a point that you have a markedly
diminished rate of infection in the community. And that's exactly the reason, and you said it
very well, of why we encourage people and want people to get vaccinated. The more people you
get vaccinated, the safer the entire community is.
JOHN DICKERSON : And do you think now that this guidance has come out on relaxing the
mass mandates if you've been vaccinated, that people who might have been hesitant before will
start to get vaccinated in greater numbers?
DR. FAUCI : You know, I hope so, JOHN. The underlying reason for the CDC doing this was
just based on the evolution of the science that I mentioned a moment ago. But if, in fact,
this serves as an incentive for people to get vaccinated, all the better. I hope it does,
actually.
Don't let the presence of this interview fool you. It was almost certainly scheduled before
the "gain of function" research discussion hit the mainstream. But as Revolver News reported
today, we should start seeing less and less of Fauci going forward.
What happened to the almighty Dr. Fauci? Last week he was on TV telling all of us that life
wouldn't get back to normal for at least another year or so, and this week he's pretty much
gone. So what happened?
Well, a lot, actually. The biggest turn for Fauci involves 3 little words: Gain of Function.
It was this past week when the "gain of function" dots were publicly connected to the good
doctor. This is nothing new for those of us on the right. Here on Revolver, we've covered
Fauci's gain of function research extensively and the evidence against him is very damning.
A couple of months ago Fox News Host Steve Hilton blew the lid off of Fauci's macabre
obsession (and funding) of research involving the manipulation of highly contagious viruses.
Hilton laid the groundwork, but it was Senator Rand Paul who called out Fauci and his ghoulish
research face to face during a Senate hearing.
But even more notable, is that the CDC just updated their guidelines on mask-wearing and
essentially ended the pandemic -- a pandemic that Fauci has been the proud face of for over a
year now -- and when that announcement hit, he was nowhere to be found. And his absence didn't
go unnoticed.
Yes indeed, you'd think that Fauci would have been front and center to discuss the CDC's new
guidelines the moment the news hit. The "Golden Boy" taking yet another victory lap. After all,
Fauci never misses a moment in the spotlight. But he was not hitting the airwaves with the
typical fanfare.
It is still very possible that Fauci can make a resurgence. His fan-base is up there with
Meghan Markle and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though even more devoted than the divas'. Unlike
other useful idiots, the White House will not be able to detach easily from Fauci, nor do they
want to. At this point, they're telling him to lay low and avoid any interviews in which they
do not have complete control over the "journalist" involved. John Dickerson has been a Democrat
Party pawn for decades.
Behind the scenes, they're already planning on ditching him. It will be done with all the
pomp one would expect for one of their heroes and will be used to mark the end of the
"emergency" in the United States. He'll still be promoting vaccines and will try to stay in his
precious limelight, but Democrats are ready to move on and open up the country. It has just
been too politically suicidal to persist with their lockdown mentality.
The key to seeing Fauci's narcissistic reign end is for patriots to continue to hammer him
on his involvement with developing Covid-19. His beloved "gain of function research" needs to
be explained to any who will listen. Then, maybe, Fauci will go away.
"... He defines "wokeism" as a creed that has arisen in America in response to the "moral vacuum" created by the ebbing from public life of faith, patriotism and "the identity we derived from hard work." He argues that notions like "diversity," "equity," "inclusion" and "sustainability" have come to take their place. ..."
"... "Our collective moral insecurities," Mr. Ramaswamy says, "have left us vulnerable" to the blandishments and propaganda of the new political and corporate elites, who are now locked in a cynical "arranged marriage, where each partner has contempt for the other." Each side is getting out of the "trade" something it "could not have gotten alone." ..."
"... Wokeness entered its union with capitalism in the years following the 2008 financial panic and recession. Mr. Ramaswamy believes that conditions were perfect for the match. "We were -- and are -- in the midst of the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer in history," he says. Barack Obama had just been elected the first black president. By the end of the crisis, Americans "were actually pretty jaded with respect to capitalism. Corporations were the bad guys. The old left wanted to take money from corporations and give it to poor people." ..."
"... The birth of wokeism was a godsend to corporations, Mr. Ramaswamy says. It helped defang the left. "Wokeism lent a lifeline to the people who were in charge of the big banks. They thought, 'This stuff is easy!' " They applauded diversity and inclusion, appointed token female and minority directors, and "mused about the racially disparate impact of climate change." So, in Mr. Ramaswamy's narrative, "a bunch of big banks got together with a bunch of millennials, birthed woke capitalism, and then put Occupy Wall Street up for adoption." Now, in Mr. Ramaswamy's tart verdict, "big business makes money by critiquing itself." ..."
"... Davos is "the Woke Vatican," Mr. Ramaswamy says; Al Gore and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock , are "its archbishops." CEOs "further down the chain" -- he mentions James Quincey of Coca-Cola , Ed Bastian of Delta , Marc Benioff of Salesforce , John Donahoe of Nike and Alan Jope of Unilever -- are its "cardinals." ..."
"... He describes this sort of corporate imposition -- "a market force supplanting open political debate to settle the essence of political questions" -- as one of the "defining challenges" America faces today. "If democracy means anything," he adds, "it means living in a one-person-one-vote system, not a one-dollar-one-vote system." Voters' voices "are unadjusted by the number of dollars we wield in the marketplace." Open debate in the public square is "our uniquely American mechanism" of settling political questions. He likens the woke-corporate silencing of debate as akin to the "old-world European model, where a small group of elites gets in a room and decides what's good for everyone else." ..."
"... The wokeism-capitalism embrace, Mr. Ramaswamy says, was replicated in Silicon Valley. Over the past few years, "Big Tech effectively agreed to censor -- or 'moderate' -- content that the woke movement didn't like. But they didn't do it for free." In return, the left "agreed to look the other way when it comes to leaving Silicon Valley's monopoly power intact." This arrangement is "working out masterfully" for both sides. ..."
"... Coca-Cola follows the same playbook, he says: "It's easier for them to issue statements about voting laws in Georgia, or to train their employees on how to 'be less white,' than it is to publicly reckon with its role in fueling a nationwide epidemic of diabetes and obesity -- including in the black communities they profess to care about so much." (In a statement, Coca-Cola apologized for the "be less white" admonition and said that while it was "accessible through our company training platform," it "was not a part of our training curriculum.") ..."
"... Nike finds it much easier to write checks to Black Lives Matter and condemn America's history of slavery, Mr. Ramaswamy says, even as it relies on "slave labor" today to sell "$250 sneakers to black kids in the inner city who can't afford to buy books for school." All the while, Black Lives Matter "neuters the police in a way that sacrifices even more black lives." (Nike has said in a statement that its code of conduct prohibits any use of forced labor and "we have been engaging with multi-stakeholder working groups to assess collective solutions that will help preserve the integrity of our global supply chains.") ..."
"... Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School's Classical Liberal Institute. ..."
"... Seems to me in a nutshell he is saying that these woke corporations are all hypocrites. No surprise there hypocrisy is a defining characteristic of the woke left and you need to assume that characteristic yourself to be able to work within their bounds. ..."
"... Wokeists argue that theirs is not a religion because it doesn't center on a transcendent being. I see Wokeism as a religion that gathers multiple Secularist sects into a big tent. These sects include Environmentalism, Genderism, Anti-Racism, and more. ..."
"... One thing all religions share in common is the elevation of questionable premises to unassailable truths which they defend with religious zeal. Some questionable premises elevated to unassailable truths by Wokeism are that humans are making the Earth uninhabitable, gender is an individual choice, and race is the most important human characteristic. There are more. ..."
A self-made multimillionaire who founded a biotech company at 28, Vivek Ramaswamy is every
inch the precocious overachiever. He tells me he attended law school while he was in sixth
grade. He's joking, in his own earnest manner. His father, an aircraft engineer at General
Electric, had decided to get a law degree at night school. Vivek sat in on the classes with
him, so he could keep his dad company on the long car rides to campus and back -- a very Indian
filial act.
"I was probably the only person my age who'd heard of Antonin Scalia, " Mr. Ramaswamy, 35,
says in a Zoom call from his home in West Chester, Ohio. His father, a political liberal, would
often rage on the way home from class about "some Scalia opinion." Mr. Ramaswamy reckons that
this was when he began to form his own political ideas. A libertarian in high school, he
switched to being conservative at Harvard in "an act of rebellion" against the politics he
found there. That conservatism drove him to step down in January as CEO at Roivant Sciences --
the drug-development company that made him rich -- and write "Woke, Inc," a book that takes a
scathing look at "corporate America's social-justice scam." (It will be published in
August.)
Mr. Ramaswamy recently watched the movie "Spotlight," which tells the story of how reporters
at the Boston Globe exposed misconduct (specifically, sexual abuse) by Catholic priests in the
early 2000s. "My goal in 'Woke, Inc.' is to do the same thing with respect to the Church of
Wokeism." He defines "wokeism" as a creed that has arisen in America in response to the "moral
vacuum" created by the ebbing from public life of faith, patriotism and "the identity we
derived from hard work." He argues that notions like "diversity," "equity," "inclusion" and
"sustainability" have come to take their place.
"Our collective moral insecurities," Mr. Ramaswamy says, "have left us vulnerable" to the
blandishments and propaganda of the new political and corporate elites, who are now locked in a
cynical "arranged marriage, where each partner has contempt for the other." Each side is
getting out of the "trade" something it "could not have gotten alone."
Wokeness entered its union with capitalism in the years following the 2008 financial panic
and recession. Mr. Ramaswamy believes that conditions were perfect for the match. "We were --
and are -- in the midst of the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer in history," he says.
Barack Obama had just been elected the first black president. By the end of the crisis,
Americans "were actually pretty jaded with respect to capitalism. Corporations were the bad
guys. The old left wanted to take money from corporations and give it to poor people."
The birth of wokeism was a godsend to corporations, Mr. Ramaswamy says. It helped defang the
left. "Wokeism lent a lifeline to the people who were in charge of the big banks. They thought,
'This stuff is easy!' " They applauded diversity and inclusion, appointed token female and
minority directors, and "mused about the racially disparate impact of climate change." So, in
Mr. Ramaswamy's narrative, "a bunch of big banks got together with a bunch of millennials,
birthed woke capitalism, and then put Occupy Wall Street up for adoption." Now, in Mr.
Ramaswamy's tart verdict, "big business makes money by critiquing itself."
Mr. Ramaswamy regards Klaus Schwab, founder and CEO of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, as the "patron saint of wokeism" for his relentless propagation of "stakeholder
capitalism" -- the view that the unspoken bargain in the grant to corporations of limited
liability is that they "must do social good on the side."
Davos is "the Woke Vatican," Mr. Ramaswamy says; Al Gore and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock , are "its
archbishops." CEOs "further down the chain" -- he mentions James Quincey of Coca-Cola , Ed Bastian of Delta , Marc Benioff of
Salesforce , John
Donahoe of Nike and
Alan Jope of Unilever
-- are its "cardinals."
Mr. Ramaswamy says that "unlike the investigative 'Spotlight' team at the Boston Globe, I'm
a whistleblower, not a journalist. But the church analogy holds strong." He paraphrases a line
in the movie: "It takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a village to abuse one. In
the case of my book, the child I'm concerned about is American democracy."
In league with the woke left, corporate America "uses force" as a substitute for open
deliberation and debate, Mr. Ramaswamy says. "There's the sustainability accounting standards
board of BlackRock, which effectively demands that in order to win an investment from
BlackRock, the largest asset-manager in the world, you must abide by the standards of that
board."
Was the board put in place by the owners of the trillions of dollars of capital that Mr.
Fink manages? Of course not, Mr. Ramaswamy says. "And yet he's actually using his seat of
corporate power to sidestep debate about questions like environmentalism or diversity on
boards."
The irrepressible Mr. Ramaswamy presses on with another example. Goldman Sachs , he says with obvious relish,
"is a very Davos-fitting example." At the 2020 World Economic Forum, Goldman Sachs CEO David
Solomon "issued an edict from the mountaintops of Davos." Mr. Solomon announced his company
would refuse to take a company public if its board wasn't sufficiently diverse. "So Goldman
gets to define what counts as 'diverse,' " Mr. Ramaswamy says. "No doubt, they're referring to
skin-deep, genetically inherited attributes."
He describes this sort of corporate imposition -- "a market force supplanting open political
debate to settle the essence of political questions" -- as one of the "defining challenges"
America faces today. "If democracy means anything," he adds, "it means living in a
one-person-one-vote system, not a one-dollar-one-vote system." Voters' voices "are unadjusted
by the number of dollars we wield in the marketplace." Open debate in the public square is "our
uniquely American mechanism" of settling political questions. He likens the woke-corporate
silencing of debate as akin to the "old-world European model, where a small group of elites
gets in a room and decides what's good for everyone else."
The wokeism-capitalism embrace, Mr. Ramaswamy says, was replicated in Silicon Valley. Over
the past few years, "Big Tech effectively agreed to censor -- or 'moderate' -- content that the
woke movement didn't like. But they didn't do it for free." In return, the left "agreed to look
the other way when it comes to leaving Silicon Valley's monopoly power intact." This
arrangement is "working out masterfully" for both sides.
The rest of corporate America appears to be following suit. "There's a Big Pharma version,
too," Mr. Ramaswamy says. "Big Pharma had an epiphany in dealing with the left." It couldn't
beat them, so it joined them. "Rather than win the debate on drug pricing, they decided to just
change the subject instead. Who needs to win a debate if you can just avoid having it?" So we
see "big-time pharma CEOs musing about topics like racial justice and environmentalism, and
writing multibillion-dollar checks to fight climate change, while taking price hikes that
they'd previously paused when the public was angry about drug pricing."
Coca-Cola follows the same playbook, he says: "It's easier for them to issue statements
about voting laws in Georgia, or to train their employees on how to 'be less white,' than it is
to publicly reckon with its role in fueling a nationwide epidemic of diabetes and obesity --
including in the black communities they profess to care about so much." (In a statement,
Coca-Cola apologized
for the "be less white" admonition and said that while it was "accessible through our company
training platform," it "was not a part of our training curriculum.")
Nike finds it much easier to write checks to Black Lives Matter and condemn America's
history of slavery, Mr. Ramaswamy says, even as it relies on "slave labor" today to sell "$250
sneakers to black kids in the inner city who can't afford to buy books for school." All the
while, Black Lives Matter "neuters the police in a way that sacrifices even more black lives."
(Nike has said in a statement that its code of conduct prohibits any use of forced labor and
"we have been engaging with multi-stakeholder working groups to assess collective solutions
that will help preserve the integrity of our global supply chains.")
... ... ...
Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
and at New York University Law School's Classical Liberal Institute.
Rod Drake 53 minutes ago
Seems to me in a nutshell he is saying that these woke corporations are all hypocrites. No
surprise there hypocrisy is a defining characteristic of the woke left and you need to assume
that characteristic yourself to be able to work within their bounds.
In addition, I have been
saying for some time discrimination based on political belief desperately needs to be
included as a prohibited basis. Where are the Republicans, while the greatest civil rights
violation of our time is going on right under their noses?
Terry Overbey 1 hour ago
I love reading stories about people who are willing to take on the woke political class. For
most people, even if they strongly disagree, their only option is to bite their tongue and go
along. People aren't stupid. If you buck the system, you don't get promoted, you don't get
good grades, you don't get into elite schools, you don't get the government job.
Thank you Mr Ramaswany.
James Ransom 1 hour ago
Well. If nothing else, he just sold me a book. I think we should say that "Wokeism" tries to
"Act Like" a religion, not that it is one. Because of this fakery, we do not need to give it
"freedom" in the sense that we have "Freedom of Religion."
These misguided Americans perhaps need to be exposed to a real religion. Christianity and
Buddhism would be good choices; I don't know about Hinduism, but my point is that "Wokeism"
is more like a mental disorder. We should feel sorry for its victims, offer them treatment,
but not let them run anything.
marc goodman 1 hour ago
Wokeists argue that theirs is not a religion because it doesn't center on a transcendent
being. I see Wokeism as a religion that gathers multiple Secularist sects into a big tent.
These sects include Environmentalism, Genderism, Anti-Racism, and more.
One thing all religions share in common is the elevation of questionable premises to
unassailable truths which they defend with religious zeal. Some questionable premises
elevated to unassailable truths by Wokeism are that humans are making the Earth
uninhabitable, gender is an individual choice, and race is the most important human
characteristic. There are more.
Humans need to believe in something greater than themselves. We fulfill this need with
religion, and historically, the "greater something" has been a transcendent being. Wokeism
fulfills this need for its adherents but without a transcendent being. Ultimately, Wokeism
will fail as a religion because it can't nourish the soul like the belief in a transcendent
being does.
Grodney Ross 2 hours ago (Edited)
Judgement will be passed in November of 2022. I don't see this as a Democrat vs Republican
issue. I think it's a matter of who is paying attention vs. those who are not. We live in a
society where, generally, the most strident voices are on the left, along with the most
judgmental voices. When the "wokeless" engage in a manner that conflicts with views of the
woke, they are attacked, be you from the left or the right, so you keep your mouth shut and go
about your day.
I believe that this coming election will give voice to those who are fatigued and fed up
with the progressive lefts venom and vitriol. If not, we will survive, but without a meaningful
first amendment,14th amendment, or 2nd amendment.
Barbara Helton 2 hours ago (Edited)
Being woke, when practiced by the wealthy and influential, can be extremely similar to
bullying.
Sounds like a great book for Tucker to recommend to that Army Chief of Staff!
Notable quotes:
"... I call it ROLE -- The Racism Of Low Expectations. This phenomenon has done ten times more to damage Black lives than can be attributed to CRT or institutionalized racism. ..."
"... A subset of ROLE is MVT. This is Manufactured Victimhood Theory. This comes about from influential Black "leaders" who, instead of teaching Blacks the truth about how to live good lives (work hard, develop skills, etc.), they told them to apply as their life strategy "say you are a victim." ..."
Recently the Joint Chiefs of Staff remarked that the US military should teach CTR to our
military essentially because they shoild teach all theories.
That doesn't make sense to me but I would like to put another theory into the public
sphere. I call it ROLE -- The Racism Of Low Expectations. This phenomenon has done ten times
more to damage Black lives than can be attributed to CRT or institutionalized racism.
A subset of ROLE is MVT. This is Manufactured Victimhood Theory. This comes about from
influential Black "leaders" who, instead of teaching Blacks the truth about how to live good
lives (work hard, develop skills, etc.), they told them to apply as their life strategy "say
you are a victim."
I am hoping that ROLE and MVT will become part of all aspects of American life -- all
levels of education, the military, businesses, the media, etc.
If the goal really is to improve Black lives, ROLE and MVT should be the rage over the
next few years.
Tom F
John Callahan 4 hours ago
Corporate America 'makes money critiquing itself.' The rest of us pay the price in
diminished freedom.
Wokeism is fascism dressed up in new clothes- the censorship, demonization of
groups and individuals and the physical violence against people and property remain the same.
Corporate America has one overriding interest- making money. Paying the left (and yes,
fascism is of the left) through critiquing itself and token monetary donations is a get out
of jail free card for Corporate America.
"Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily
subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it."
- Thomas Sowell
Dom Fried 4 hours ago
It will end the same. Almost, because there will be nobody to stop it.
Ed Baron 3 hours ago
Very well said, John. Fascism is a fundamental element or subset of Leftist or Marxist
thought. It demands conformity of the individual to the new "woke" state and it punishes any
who dissent. It's not incidental that American Leftists, including FDR, loved Mussolini prior
to WWII. That bromance has been washed clean, and attributed instead to the Right. Such a
typical transference technique used by Marxist.
Alex Guiness
I interpret your supposition 'White male global warming', as meaning White Males are
particularly flatulent hence are producing Green House Gases with their diets of greasy meats
(some on sticks), carnival funnel cakes, corn dogs, Philly cheese-steaks, Popeyes fried
chicken, all washed down with Bud Light. Would it kill them to have a salad now and then? How
can their spouses stand to be around them unless they are also consuming the same foods.
Imagine what it must be like at a sermon in a Lutheran Church, the whitest church of all.
They leave the doors open else a spark could set the whole place ablaze.
carol Perry
Thanks for today's chuckle Alex.
Alex Guiness
read my smurfs comment. i just posted it
Lynn Silton
Mr. Ramaswamy is right in every way! I don't belong to the Woke Church. I'll never join.
America is an inspirational country as is all it's written declarations. We, the people rule.
No religion can overrule it. We will not allow religious 'honor killings.' They are murder
here. We will not allow Wokism here it is the murder of our hopes and dreams which belong to
everybody regardless of appearance. I don't even know how appearance (of all things) became a
religion. The whole thing is so sick, people of all shades are speaking out and we will put
this crazy idea down. Here, we marry across all appearances. New people are often different
in appearance than parents. Woke will die of that alone. That's why we have an immigration
'problem' . People love our constitution and Declaration of Independence. People love that
they rule here, not the government. That's our creed and promise. Help protect it!!
"... It helped defang the left. "Wokeism lent a lifeline to the people who were in charge of the big banks. They thought, 'This stuff is easy!' " They applauded diversity and inclusion, appointed token female and minority directors, and "mused about the racially disparate impact of climate change." So, in Mr. Ramaswamy's narrative, "a bunch of big banks got together with a bunch of millennials, birthed woke capitalism, and then put Occupy Wall Street up for adoption." Now, in Mr. Ramaswamy's tart verdict, "big business makes money by critiquing itself." ..."
"... Davos is "the Woke Vatican," Mr. Ramaswamy says; Al Gore and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock , are "its archbishops." CEOs "further down the chain" -- he mentions James Quincey of Coca-Cola , Ed Bastian of Delta , Marc Benioff of Salesforce , John Donahoe of Nike and Alan Jope of Unilever -- are its "cardinals." ..."
It helped defang the left. "Wokeism lent a lifeline to the people who were in charge of
the big banks. They thought, 'This stuff is easy!' " They applauded diversity and inclusion,
appointed token female and minority directors, and "mused about the racially disparate impact
of climate change." So, in Mr. Ramaswamy's narrative, "a bunch of big banks got together with a
bunch of millennials, birthed woke capitalism, and then put Occupy Wall Street up for
adoption." Now, in Mr. Ramaswamy's tart verdict, "big business makes money by critiquing
itself."
Mr. Ramaswamy regards Klaus Schwab, founder and CEO of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, as the "patron saint of wokeism" for his relentless propagation of "stakeholder
capitalism" -- the view that the unspoken bargain in the grant to corporations of limited
liability is that they "must do social good on the side."
Davos is "the Woke Vatican," Mr. Ramaswamy says; Al Gore and Larry Fink, CEO of
BlackRock , are "its
archbishops." CEOs "further down the chain" -- he mentions James Quincey of Coca-Cola , Ed Bastian of Delta , Marc Benioff of
Salesforce , John
Donahoe of Nike and
Alan Jope of Unilever
-- are its "cardinals."
That Leftist "wokeism" is the brainchild of a religious cult should've been obvious decades
ago. The purely religious belief in anthropogenic global warming, for example, which closely
mimics the spiritual rituals of ancient cultures by worshiping nature over man. The hierarchy
of color and gender as fetishes through which human relative value can be determined also
mimics the hierarchy of priests or shamans in other religions. Thus, a fairly vapid group
like BLM is exalted based purely on the melanin content of their skin, even though their
claims are ridiculously flawed (They "care" about the lives of 90 or so armed felons killed
by police, but call the 7,000+ black people killed by Blacks a "distraction"). Like many
religions that plagued humanity throughout history, they will torment and punish all
"deniers." Four years of the Trump Presidency made this clear. He faced the Grand Inquisition
because he refused to kneel.
Johnson &
Johnson has agreed to pay $230 million to the state of New York to resolve an opioid
lawsuit slated to go to trial Tuesday, as negotiations intensify with the company and three
drug distributors to clinch a
$26 billion settlement of thousands of other lawsuits blaming the pharmaceutical industry
for the opioid crisis.
Johnson & Johnson's New York deal removes it from a coming trial on Long Island but not
from the rest of the cases it faces nationwide, including a continuing trial in California. The
New York settlement includes an additional $33 million in attorney fees and costs and calls for
the drugmaker to no longer sell opioids nationwide, something Johnson & Johnson said it
already stopped doing.
States have been trying to re-create with the opioid litigation what they accomplished with
tobacco companies in the 1990s, when $206 billion in settlements flowed into state coffers.
More than 3,000 counties, cities and other local governments have also pursued lawsuits over
the opioid crisis,
complicating talks that have dragged on since late 2019 and that have been slowed down by
the Covid-19 pandemic.
VAERS data: "5,888 deaths", "19,597 hospitalizations", "43,891 urgent care", "58,800
office visits", "1,459 anaphylaxis", "1,737 Bell's palsy", "2,190 heart attacks" and "652
miscarriages". CDC says data is "unreliable". You choose who to believe.
WarrenLiz 16 hours ago
Over 15,472 dead from Jab in 27 EU countries, about half of Europe's 50 countries.
The EudraVigilance database reports that through June 19, 2021 there are 15,472 deaths
and 1,509,266 injuries reported following injections of four experimental COVID-19
shots:
The answer to Carlson's question is because.. it's a money grabbing death cult!.
Natural immun system is destroyed... just wait till next flu season or the next virus
they relase and see what death numbers we see!
racing_flowers 17 hours ago
Isn't it curious that the 3 big pharma Corps (think Vacc pushers) and the big 2 MSM
Corps are BOTH controlled by Blackrock Partners Hedge Fund...
Nona Yobiznes 18 hours ago remove link
Them going after the children makes me deeply suspicious. Nobody under 50, unless
they're made of blubber, dies from this. In 2020, there was practically zero excess death
for people younger than 70 years old in Sweden. These are their official statistics. For
the vast majority of people it's basically a flu you get for a couple days and you're over
it. What the **** is all this about? If the vaccine is only really good for preventing
hospitalizations, and doesn't stop you from spreading or from catching variants, what in
the hell are we giving kids vaccines when they are more likely to die from the regular flu?
It's freaky, and it stinks.
Having been caught delivering some fact-base 'science' that does not
jibe with the establishment's message that all kids should be jabbed immediately, The WHO has
rapidly 'adjusted' its science-based recommendations for whether children should get
vaccinated... or not...
Gone is the big headline - "Children should not be vaccinated for the moment."
The new guidance is as follows: (emphasis ours... in case you are confused by their
guidance)
Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults, so unless they
are part of a group at higher risk of severe COVID-19, it is less urgent to vaccinate them
than older people, those with chronic health conditions and health workers.
More evidence is needed on the use of the different COVID-19 vaccines in children to be
able to make general recommendations on vaccinating children against COVID-19.
WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) has concluded that the Pfizer/BionTech
vaccine is suitable for use by people aged 12 years and above. Children aged between 12 and
15 who are at high risk may be offered this vaccine alongside other priority groups for
vaccination.
Vaccine trials for children are ongoing and WHO will update its recommendations when the
evidence or epidemiological situation warrants a change in policy.
So to clarify... children aren't really at risk of this virus so no hurry on the jab... more
evidence is needed on its usefulness in kids... oh but the Pfizer vax is suitable?
So is there evidence or not? Is the vaccine worthwhile for kids? If you have to ask, you
aren't following the science.
Color us not entirely surprised at this farce... but one thing we are sure of, this will
simply be dismissed as a coincidence and WHO had planned on adjusting its guidance the whole
time (it was just waiting to get caught in a disagreement with Fauci and friends).
* * *
As The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity's Adam Dick noted yesterday, in
America, national, state, and local governments are pulling out all the stops to advance giving
experimental coronavirus shots to children down to the age of 12.
Up next, babies and children up to age 11.
The shots are "safe and effective," the propagandists proclaim.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has a different approach. The WHO says do not
vaccinate children, at least not yet.
At its website, the WHO offers this advice regarding giving experimental coronavirus
vaccines, some of which are not even vaccines under the normal meaning of the term, to
children:
Children should not be vaccinated for the moment. There is not yet enough evidence on the
use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be
vaccinated against COVID-19.
Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults.
However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.
Choose accordingly.
Kugelhagel 18 hours ago
Conspiracy theorist = heretic ... they couldn't use that word anymore, because everyone
would understand that this is about silencing the truth.
Ride_the_kali_yuga 17 hours ago
Nice analogy.
JimmyJones 17 hours ago remove link
Yep, women with their periods messed up, their babies allergic to their breast milk,
young people with heart inflammation, people having partial paralyzed limbs. I know there's
more.
We don't even know what 6-12 months has in-store or 1-2 years.
Alice-the-dog 13 hours ago
I'm always on the look out for new conspiracy theories, because my old ones all turned
out to be accurate.
It was a brilliant psyop by the CIA to invent the term to cover up the murder of JFK.
But if one takes a cursory look at it, how is a conspiracy ever to be exposed without a
theory that there is one? If every time someone proposes a theory regarding this or that
possible conspiracy, they are swept into the kook dust bin, how will any conspiracy ever be
exposed? Hence they aren't, unless iron clad evidence of their existence is encompassed by
the theory.
WarrenLiz 15 hours ago
Over 15,472 dead from Jab in 27 EU countries, about half of Europe's 50 countries.
The EudraVigilance database reports that through June 19, 2021 there are 15,472 deaths
and 1,509,266 injuries reported following injections of four experimental COVID-19
shots:
...Too many people are stuck in normalcy bias and are too trusting of the modern elite
class. You don't have to look back very far to see the unspeakable atrocities powerful
people are willing and able to commit.
Ride_the_kali_yuga 17 hours ago (Edited) remove link
My guess was depopulation due to lower EROIE on petroleum. Deathcross of the fossil
energy (oil) available was near to us, maybe we already are behind peak oil. Eolians, solar
panels and EV are an energical leftist joke and will never be an alternative to nuclear/
charchoal power plants and thermic motors.
I was thinking about it for quite some time. Why all this Covidian Cult was necessary
for? What does it produce? Lockdowns was a main response worldwide.
Was it usefull? absolutely not. No more planes in the sky, economic slowdown, a lot less
of enegy used . I guess this sanitary madness was all about cheap energy we can get from
oil. The human population exploded due to the industrial revolution, the machines, their
capacities and -in fine- oil made it possible. If you do not have enough cheap oil and the
EROIE is way to high, then the industrial technology we live in can no longer be.
The Covidian Cult produced what an energy crisis would have made...
The_Dude 16 hours ago
Evil is narcissism run amok...
Rose Marie PREMIUM 15 hours ago
Intelligence without wisdom. Always looking at what, how, when, where, but no interest
in asking why. Running thought processes without examining the meaning.
uncle_duke 18 hours ago remove link
An age of unlimited information, and a population too dumb and lazy to do anything with
it. Reality has become Pythonian.
DAVOS-19 14 hours ago
Not so fast. Remember, they lie, probably also about history.
Now Voyager 14 hours ago
What happens when you stop natural selection and substitute unnatural selection.
Ride_the_kali_yuga 13 hours ago
Yeah, the gene pool is over crowded with genetics defects. See diabetics, i mean
"genetical" ones since a young age. Insuline was a great discovery, it saves a lot of
people at some point. Then without the natural selection they had kids of their own and has
a consequence they spread their genetic defect in the gene pool. Sometimes great inventions
make unintended results.
Diseases are a way for nature to get rid of the olders and the weak. It is not moral,
there is no justice in this, this is just the way nature works. Human tried damn hard to
break nature's law, the thing is, there is consequences playing god.
Wokism is an attempt on financial elite to distract and divide and distruct people from the
crisi of neoliberalism in the USA. This is a pretty dirty game.
There are lots of reasons why wokeism spread like wildfire once America lost its collective
mind during the pandemic, quarantine, self-induced recession, and rioting of 2020.
Wokeism was never really about racism, sexism, or other -isms. Instead, for some, it
illustrated a psychological pathology of projection: fobbing one's own concrete prejudices onto
others in order to alleviate or mask them.
So should we laugh or cry that Black Lives Matter's self-described Marxist co-founder turns
out to be a corporate grifter?
Patrisse Cullors has accumulated several upscale homes and is under investigation by the IRS
for allegations of the misuse of funds from one of her foundations.
Is it the case that the more Cullors professes Marxist ideology and damns toxic whiteness,
so all the more she feels at home living in a $1.4 million Topanga Canyon home, in an almost
exclusively ritzy white neighborhood?
Consider outspoken liberal icon Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). He's one of the
Senate's most woke. Yet Whitehouse turns out to be a mostly unapologetic member of a de facto
all-white prestigious "beach club" of elites in Newport, Rhode Island. Is Whitehouse committed
in the abstract to rooting out white privilege so he can concretely relax amid it with fellow
bluebloods?
Barack and Michelle Obama occasionally venture out of either their multimillion-dollar
Washington, D.C. mansion or their Martha's Vineyard estate to lecture the country on its
systemic racism. They express worry over the dangers that apparently white people pose to the
very safety of their own daughters.
Does such sermonizing square the circle that the Obamas have no desire to return to their
Chicago home""a city where nearly 700 African-American males were murdered in 2020, the vast
majority by other black men? So far, Chicago in 2021 is on a trajectory to suffer over 30
percent more murder victims than last year.
Joe Biden about every two weeks lectures America on its racism. And he unleashed the
bureaucracies of the federal government to root out mythical white supremacist
conspiracies.
Does Medieval penance explain Biden's fixation on systemic racism? After all, when he
condemns anonymous white racists, does his outrage mitigate his son Hunter's habitual use of
the N-word and anti-Asian riffs?
No Washington politico has compiled a longer record of racialist put downs than Joe Biden.
So apparently, the more Biden hunts for a white racist under every bed, the less necessary it
becomes to look in the mirror or at least to beg his son Hunter to knock off his racist
slurs.
The second catalyst of wokeism is the distraction it provides from scary problems that
threaten the very existence of American civilization. While the country consumes itself in
demanding more than 12 percent representation of black actors in television commercials, it is
nearing $30 trillion in national debt. Eventually, the astounding red ink will require
recessionary belt-tightening, more inflationary money printing, or both.
The woke Biden Administration cannot stop 2 million immigrants this year from crossing
illegally and with exemption into the United States. Almost all are in need of free American
health care, housing, food, and legal subsidies. Violent crime is spiking at an astonishing
rate. Yet few dare say why that is""or how to stop it.
America also cannot face the likely truth that Chinese researchers engineered a
gain-of-function virus""with oversight from the Communist Chinese military, and subsidies from
Drs. Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak.
So instead of offering real solutions to these crises, we war with each other whether the
deceased children's book author Dr. Seuss or the plastic toy Mr. Potato Head was racist or
otherwise exclusionary.
When our elites are clueless about national debt, inflation, illegal immigration, crime,
soaring gas prices, and a global pandemic, they reassure themselves that at least they can
cancel out Father JunÃpero Serra or knock down another statue of Robert E. Lee.
Finally, the hysterias of wokism are being channeled for profit""if they do not already
reflect the reality of many of our most woke being the richest among us.
One reason why Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle, and LeBron James hype charges of white racism
is that their oppression reminds America that one can become rich as Croesus yet remain
sympathetic victims.
For next-generation grifters, like Ibram Xolani Kendi (a.k.a. Ibram Henry Rogers) and Robin
DiAngelo, to claim that America was, is, and always will be racist, means more than just
speaking gigs and book sales.
The solutions for the pseudo-crises they invent are mass reeducation of self-confessional
whites""with lucrative consulting fees for both, and tens of thousands of others.
America is systematically being conned by those who disguise their hypocrisy, who manipulate
the guilt-ridden, who have no interest in solving America's most dangerous problems, and who
get or stay richer by hyping an America in need of massive rebooting - and with it their own
careerist remedies.
There's a growing cottage industry at the nexus of consumer research and government
surveillance.
In a report published Friday, the Wall Street Journal explored the world of Premise Data
Corp., an innocently-named firm that uses a network of users, many in the developing world, who
complete basic tasks for small commissions. Assignments can range from snapping photos of
competitors' stores, to counting the number of ATMs in a given area, to reporting on the price
of consumer goods on the shelf.
Roughly half of the firm's clients are private businesses seeking "commercial information"
(mostly reporting on competitors' operations), both the US government and foreign governments
have hired the firm to do more advanced reconnaissance work while gauging public opinion.
According to
WSJ , Premise is one of a growing number of companies that are straddling "the divide
between consumer services and government surveillance and rely on the proliferation of mobile
phones as a way to turn billions of devices into sensors that gather open-source information
useful to government security services."
Premise's CEO even hinted that the company had been tapped by foreign governments to help
with setting policy about how to deal with "vaccine hesitancy".
"Data gained from our contributors helped inform government policy makers on how to best
deal with vaccine hesitancy, susceptibility to foreign interference and misinformation in
elections, as well as the location and nature of gang activity in Honduras," Premise Chief
Executive Officer Maury Blackman said. The company declined to name its clients, citing
confidentiality.
Premise launched in 2013 as a tool meant to gather data for use in international development
work by governments and non-governmental organizations. In recent years, it has also forged
ties to the American national-security establishment and highlighted its capability to serve as
a surveillance tool, according to documents and interviews with former employees. As of 2019,
the company's marketing materials said it has 600K contributors operating in 43 countries,
including global hot spots such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
Federal records show Premise has received at least $5MM in payouts from the government since
2017 on military projects -- including from contracts with the Air Force and the Army and as a
subcontractor to other defense entities. The company's key utility was, again, gathering
information: It would use civilian users in Afghanistan and elsewhere to map out "key social
structures such as mosques, banks and internet cafes; and covertly monitoring cell-tower and
Wi-Fi signals in a 100-square kilometer area."
In a presentation prepared last year for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task
Force-Aghanistan, Premise shared some details about its global operation which showed that it's
mostly active outside the US.
It also showed how its "users" stationed around Kabul helped it collect data that are
valuable to the US and Afghan military.
As the WSJ explained, data from Wi-Fi networks, cell towers and mobile devices could be
valuable to the military for "situational awareness, target tracking and other intelligence
purposes."
There is also tracking potential in having a distributed network of phones acting as
sensors, and knowing the signal strength of nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access points can be
useful when trying to jam communications during military operations.
Users of Premise's data-collection app typically aren't told for whom they are truly
working. This is all laid out in its privacy policy, of course. The app currently assigns about
five "tasks" per day to its active users in Afghanistan.
When
WSJ caught up with Afghani users of the app, they were told that the users were typically
paid about 25 cents per task (about 20 Afghani). And that lately, some of the tasks had struck
him as "potentially concerning." Premises claims that none of its users have ever been harmed
while completing tasks.
In this way, many of the app's users are effectively being used as unwitting spies for the
military.
But it's just one more thing to look out for. Next time you're traveling abroad and you see
somebody taking a photo of a mosque or a bank, just remember, it might be part of an officially
sanctioned intelligence operation.
Update (0815ET) : British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was "very sorry" after
pictures of him kissing and embracing his top aide, a friend hired last year, were splashed on
the front page of the Sun newspaper. However, he has said he will not resign .
As
Summit News' Paul Joseph Watson detailed earlier, yet another architect of the UK's
lockdown has been caught violating it as photos revealed Health Secretary Matt Hancock
passionately kissing his mistress at a time when Brits were being told they shouldn't even
shake hands.
In the later years of an abusive relationship I was in, my abuser had become so confident in
how mentally caged he had me that he'd start overtly telling me what he is and what he was
doing. He flat-out told me he was a sociopath and a manipulator, trusting that I was so
submitted to his will by that point that I'd gaslight myself into reframing those statements in
a sympathetic light. Toward the end one time he told me "I am going to rape you," and then he
did, and then he talked about it to some friends trusting that I'd run perception management on
it for him.
The better he got at psychologically twisting me up in knots and the more submitted I
became, the more open he'd be about it. He seemed to enjoy doing this, taking a kind of
exhibitionistic delight in showing off his accomplishments at crushing me as a person, both to
others and to me. Like it was his art, and he wanted it to have an audience to appreciate
it.
I was reminded of this while watching a recent Fox News appearance by Glenn Greenwald where he
made an observation we've discussed here
previously about the way the CIA used to have to infiltrate the media, but now just openly
has US intelligence veterans in mainstream media punditry positions managing public
perception.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/jU58mrEpPvU
"If you go and Google, and I hope your viewers do, Operation Mockingbird, what you will
find is that during the Cold War these agencies used to plot how to clandestinely manipulate
the news media to disseminate propaganda to the American population," Greenwald
said .
"They used to try to do it secretly. They don't even do it secretly anymore. They don't
need Operation Mockingbird. They literally put John Brennan who works for NBC and James
Clapper who works for CNN and tons of FBI agents right on the payroll of these news
organizations. They now shape the news openly to manipulate and to deceive the American
population."
In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled " The CIA and the Media " reporting
that the CIA had
covertly infiltrated America's most influential news outlets and had over 400 reporters who
it considered assets in a program known as
Operation Mockingbird . It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media are meant to
report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the
agendas of spooks and warmongers.
Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and the public is too
brainwashed and gaslit to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like
The New York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news
pundits . The sole owner of The Washington Post is a CIA contractor ,
and WaPo has never once disclosed this conflict of interest when reporting on US intelligence
agencies per standard journalistic protocol. Mass media outlets
now openly employ intelligence agency veterans like John Brennan, James Clapper,
Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall, Samantha
Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano, Jeremy Bash,
Susan Hennessey, Ned Price and Rick Francona, as are known
CIA assets like NBC's Ken Dilanian, as are
CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like
Tucker Carlson.
They're just rubbing it in our faces now. Like they're showing off.
And that's just the media. We also see this flaunting behavior exhibited in the US
government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a propaganda operation geared at
sabotaging foreign governments not aligned with the US which according to its own founding
officials was set up to do overtly what the CIA used to do covertly. The late author and
commentator William Blum
makes this clear :
[I]n 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy was set up to "support democratic
institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts". Notice the
"nongovernmental"" part of the image, part of the myth. In actuality, virtually every penny
of its funding comes from the federal government, as is clearly indicated in the financial
statement in each issue of its annual report. NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO
(Non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad
that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a
GO.
"We should not have to do this kind of work covertly," said Carl Gershman in 1986, while
he was president of the Endowment. "It would be terrible for democratic groups around the
world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60's, and that's why it has
been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment
was created."
And Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, declared in 1991:
"A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
In effect, the CIA has been laundering money through NED.
We see NED's fingerprints all over pretty much any situation where the western power
alliance needs to manage public perception about a CIA-targeted government, from Russia to
Hong
Kong to Xinjiang to the
imperial propaganda operation known as Bellingcat.
Hell, intelligence insiders are just openly running for office now. In an article titled "
The CIA
Democrats in the 2020 elections ", World Socialist Website documented the many veterans of
the US intelligence cartel who ran in elections across America in 2018 and 2020:
"In the course of the 2018 elections, a large group of former military-intelligence
operatives entered capitalist politics as candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination
in 50 congressional seats" nearly half the seats where the Democrats were targeting
Republican incumbents or open seats created by Republican retirements. Some 30 of these
candidates won primary contests and became the Democratic candidates in the November 2018
election, and 11 of them won the general election, more than one quarter of the 40 previously
Republican-held seats captured by the Democrats as they took control of the House of
Representatives. In 2020, the intervention of the CIA Democrats continues on what is arguably
an equally significant scale."
So they're just getting more and more brazen the more confident they feel about how
propaganda-addled and submissive the population has become. They're laying more and more of
their cards on the table. Soon the CIA will just be openly selling narcotics door to door like
Girl Scout cookies.
Or maybe not. I said my ex got more and more overt about his abuses in the later years of
our relationship because those were the later years. I did eventually expand my own
consciousness of my own inner workings enough to clear the fears and unexamined beliefs I had
that he was using as hooks to manipulate me. Maybe, as humanity's consciousness continues to
expand , the same will happen for the people and their abusive relationship with the
CIA.
* * *
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The voting measure has inflamed Republicans, who accused Democrats of engaging in
demagoguery.
"This bill is brazen," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), ticking off a list of provisions in
the Democratic bill that he called damaging, including one that would shrink the Federal
Election Commission to five from six members, which he said would enable the president to turn
the agency into a weapon against political rivals. Mr. Cruz accused Democrats of "deliberately
inflaming racial tensions" by attacking policies like requiring voter identification that
Republicans say are designed to protect the integrity of the vote.
... ... ...
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), the sponsor of the Senate bill, a version of which
cleared the House in March , told CNN on Monday that there are ways to advance voting
legislation that would involve changing the filibuster, which requires three-fifths of the
Senate, or currently 60 members, to end debates and vote on most legislation.
"Fifty members getting into a room and deciding how we go forward will be kind of another
stage of how we proceed," Mr. Merkley said later on a call with activists.
The pressure-cooker environment in which the debate lands was highlighted by nascent
campaigns inside and outside the Capitol. Republicans are calling attention to a provision in
the Democrats' bill that would allow signatures in lieu of voter identification cards, saying
such a policy could be abused and would weaken trust in the validity of elections. A Monmouth
University poll released Monday found that 80% of Americans support requiring voters to show
photo identification to cast ballots.
Meanwhile, the progressive group Just Democracy is running ads aimed at Ms. Sinema,
suggesting that she is weak on voting policy because she hasn't come out in support of ending
the filibuster to make voting legislation possible.
Ms. Sinema is up for re-election in 2024. Her state is currently roiled by
an audit of votes cast in 2020 in Maricopa County, which Mr. Biden won, and is defending
some of its voting rules at the Supreme Court.
Ending the filibuster may get Democrats everything that the want for another 18 months. But
they will not be able to keep the legislation that they have passed.
As soon as control of both chambers and the White House passes to the other party, they
very quickly will repeal each and every bit of legislation that had been passed by the
Democrats.
At that point, Republicans will be able to pass absolutely everything that they want,
probably for 18 months.
By ending the filibuster we will get national laws that change with every change of
administration.
Aren't we better off, keeping the filibuster, so that nothing is ever accomplished by
either party? Deadlock.
Deadlock pleases politicians and the primary voters in their party, but it frustrates the
80% of Americans who are moderates. They want Congress to act to deal with the country's
problems. But deadlock it will be.
"The Trump""Deep State clash is a showdown between a presidency that is far too powerful
versus federal agencies that have become fiefdoms with immunity for almost any and all abuses,"
I wrote in an FFF article a year ago.
Since then, Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by fewer than 50,000 votes in a handful of
swing states that determined the Electoral College result. There were numerous issues that
could drive that relatively small number of votes. But machinations by the Deep State probably
cost Trump far more votes than it took to seal his loss.
... ... ...
The first three years of Trump's presidency were haunted by constant accusations that he had
colluded with Russians to win the 2016 election. The FBI launched its investigation on the
basis of ludicrous allegations from a dossier financed by the Hillary Clinton presidential
campaign. FBI officials deceived the FISA Court to authorize surveilling the Trump campaign. A
FISA warrant is the nuclear bomb of searches, authorizing the FBI "to conduct simultaneous
telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S. person target's
home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office,
vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails," as a FISA court decision noted. The FISA
court is extremely deferential, approving 99 percent of all search warrant requests.
Leaks from federal officials spurred media hysteria that put Trump on the defensive even
before he took his oath of office in January 2017. A 2018 Inspector General (IG) report
revealed that one FBI agent labeled Trump supporters as "retarded" and declared, "I'm with her"
(Clinton). Another FBI employee texted that "Trump's supporters are all poor to middle class,
uneducated, lazy POS." One FBI lawyer texted that he was "devastated" by Trump's election and
declared, "Viva la Resistance!" and "I never really liked the Republic anyway." The same person
became the "primary FBI attorney assigned to [the Russian election-interference] investigation
beginning in early 2017," the IG noted.
FBI chief James Comey leaked official memos to friendly reporters, thereby spurring the
appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump. A 2019 Inspector General
report noted that top FBI officials told the IG that they were "shocked," "stunned," and
"surprised' that Comey would leak the contents of one of the memos to a reporter. The IG
concluded, "The unauthorized disclosure of this information" information that Comey knew only
by virtue of his position as FBI Director" violated the terms of his FBI Employment Agreement
and the FBI's Prepublication Review Policy." The IG concluded that by using sensitive
information "to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for
the over 35,000 current FBI employees" and the many thousands more former FBI employees" who
similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information." The IG report warned that
"the civil liberties of every individual who may fall within the scope of the FBI's
investigative authorities depend on FBI's ability to protect sensitive information from
unauthorized disclosure."
But the only penalty that Comey suffered was to collect multimillion-dollar advances for his
book deals.
The Steele dossier
In December 2019, another Inspector General report confirmed that the FBI made "fundamental
errors" to justify surveilling the Trump campaign. The FBI refrained from launching a FISA
warrant request until it came into possession of a dossier from Christopher Steele, a former
British intelligence agent. The Steele dossier played "a central and essential role in the
decision by FBI [Office of General Counsel] to support the request for FISA surveillance
targeting Carter Page, as well as the FBI's ultimate decision to seek the FISA order," the IG
report concluded. The FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a
"well-developed conspiracy" between Russians and the Trump campaign. The IG found that FBI
agents were "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter
Page" in the Steele dossier but the FBI relied on Steele's allegations regardless.
The FBI withheld from the FISA court key details that obliterated the dossier's credibility,
including a warning from a top Justice Department official that "Steele may have been hired by
someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC [Democratic National
Committee]." The CIA disdained the Steele dossier as "an internet rumor," one FBI official told
IG investigators.
Many if not most of the damning details involving Russiagate have still not been disclosed.
But the occasional disclosures are doing nothing to burnish the credibility of the key players.
On January 12, 2017, Comey attested to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court that the
Steele dossier used to hound the Trump campaign had been "verified." But on the same day, he
emailed the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, "We are not able to sufficiently
corroborate the reporting." That email was revealed this past February, thanks to a multi-year
fight for disclosure by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
If the FBI's deceit and political biases had been exposed in real time, there would have
been far less national outrage when Trump fired Comey. Instead, that firing was quickly
followed by the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the Russian
charges. In April 2019, Mueller admitted there was no evidence of collusion. Conniving by FBI
officials and the veil of secrecy that hid their abuses had roiled national politics for
years.
Not one FBI official has spent a single day in jail for the abuses. In January, former FBI
assistant general counsel Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced after he admitted falsifying key
evidence used to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. A federal prosecutor
declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action. But a federal
judge believed that a wrist slap was sufficient punishment" 400 hours of community service and
12 months of probation.
The Deep State defeated Trump in part because the president appointed agency chiefs who were
more devoted to secrecy than to truth. Bureaucratic barricades were reinforced by judges who
repeatedly defied common sense to perpetuate iron curtains around federal
agencies.
Syria
Trump's failure to extract the United States from the Syrian civil war was one of his
biggest foreign policy pratfalls. Each time he sought to exit that quagmire, the Washington
establishment and Deep State agencies pushed back.
When Trump tried to end CIA assistance to Syrian terrorist groups in July 2017, a Washington
Post article portrayed his reversal in apocalyptic terms. Trump responded with an angry tweet:
"The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful
payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad." That disclosure spurred a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request by the New York Times for CIA records on payments to Syrian rebel groups. The
CIA denied the request and the case ended up in court.
CIA officer Antoinette Shiner warned the court that forcing the CIA to admit that it
possessed any records of aiding Syrian rebels would "confirm the existence and the focus of
sensitive Agency activity that is by definition kept hidden to protect U.S. government policy
objectives." Of course, "kept hidden" doesn't apply to the CIA when it was engaged in "not for
attribution" bragging to reporters. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius proudly cited an
estimate from a "knowledgeable official" that "CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded
100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years."
Federal judges, unlike Syrian civilians slaughtered by U.S.-funded terrorist groups, had the
luxury of pretending the program didn't exist. In a decision last July, the federal appeals
court of the Second Circuit stressed that affidavits from CIA officials are "accorded a
presumption of good faith" and stressed "the appropriate deference owed" to the CIA. The judges
omitted quoting former CIA chief Mike Pompeo's description of his agency's modus operandi: "We
lied, we cheated, we stole. It's like we had entire training courses."
Since Trump's tweet did not specifically state that the program he was seeking to terminate
actually existed, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend it was still top secret. The judges
concluded with another kowtow, stressing that they were "mindful of the requisite deference
courts traditionally owe to the executive in the area of classification." Judge Robert Katzmann
dissented, declaring that the court's decision put its "imprimatur to a fiction of deniability
that no reasonable person would regard as plausible."
On February 9, another federal appeals court shot down a FOIA request from BuzzFeed
journalist Jason Leopold who had sought the same records on the basis of Trump's tweet. But the
federal appeals court for the District of Columbia unanimously blocked Leopold's request: "Did
President Trump's tweet officially acknowledge the existence of a program? Perhaps. Or perhaps
not. And therein lies a problem." The judges proffered no evidence that Trump had tweeted about
a program that didn't exist. The judges reached into an "Alice in Wonderland" bag of legal
tricks and plucked out this pretext: "Even if the President's tweet revealed some program, it
did not reveal the existence of Agency records about that alleged program." Since Trump failed
to specify the exact room number where the records were located at CIA headquarters, the judges
entitled the CIA to pretend the records didn't exist.
Only a federal judge could shovel that kind of hokum. Well, also members of Congress and
editorial writers, but that's a story for another month.
* * *
In his final months in office, Trump repeatedly promised massive declassification which
never came.
Was the president stymied by persons he had unwisely appointed, such as CIA chief Gina
Haspel and FBI chief Christopher Wray? Or was that simply another series of empty Twitter
eruptions that Trump failed to follow up? Instead, his legacy is another grim reminder of how
government secrecy can determine political history.
Have Deep State federal agencies become a Godzilla with the prerogative to undermine
elections? Unfortunately, there's no chance that federal judges would permit disclosure of the
answer to that question.
Former CIA and NSA boss Michael Hayden proudly proclaimed,
""Espionage is not just compatible with democracy; it's essential for democracy."
And how can we know if the Deep State's espionage is actually pro-democracy or subversive of
democracy? Again, don't expect judges to permit any truths to escape on that score.
Secrecy is the ultimate entitlement program for the Deep State. The federal government is
creating trillions of pages of new secrets every year. The more documents bureaucrats classify,
the more lies politicians and government officials can tell. Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson
warned in 2019, "If people don't have the facts, democracy doesn't work."
Actually, it is working very well for the FBI, CIA, and other Deep State agencies.
capsrule 8 minutes ago
Not much of a clash. Trump had his *** handed to him because he was a moron who
handicapped himself by filling his cabinet with horrible people that sabotaged him and his
agenda at every turn - including his incompetent son in law and daughter. Not once did he
go on offense. He was reduced to pathetic Twitter rantings begging DOJ to "Do
something!"
No_Pretzel_Logic 16 minutes ago
The USA is a captured nation and has been for quite awhile.
Little is as it seems to be. Good luck...
Wise Limit 18 minutes ago (Edited)
Donald Trump was a jester. A reality TV actor to give the masses the appearance they got
what they wanted while they pacified conservatives and spent four years to plan and
strategize the next steps in the infiltration, takeover and destruction of the country.
Voting is a sham.
... ... ...
Wise Limit 11 minutes ago (Edited) remove link
Remember all those promises from Trump and the GOP if they "just got the majority" in
2016?
1. Dreamers will be gone.
2. Obamacare will be gone.
3. Hillary will be gone.
4. Mexico will pay for the wall.
Politicians are the greatest actors. Politics is done. Time to fight for secession of
Southern conservative states.
No_Pretzel_Logic 12 minutes ago remove link
It seems that there is merit to what you say but, I cannot square all the overblown
attempts to nail him and to impeach him on bogus grounds. Then to try again a second
time.
The Dems and Deep Staters (incl media) could have just kept-up the usual partisan
fighting, sniping, etc.
Trump was obviously a true threat to many. I'll bet Ric Grenell and John Radcliffe
acquired ALOT of valuable info about important people.
Wise Limit 5 minutes ago (Edited)
This is all that needs to be squared right here. This was after the election, after the
"she would be in jail" rhetoric.
I got played too. I just didn't figure it out until 2018 when I saw Trump and the GOP
lied again, the Democrats took the House and suddenly "Q" appeared to distract the masses
from the fact they didn't fulfill any of their promises.
Gospel According To Me 6 minutes ago (Edited)
The Deep State is a threat to our very existence as a mostly peaceful oligarchy. They
will stop at NOTHING to destroy anyone who attempts to stop them. Trump could never defeat
them alone and everyone he hired was quickly cotrrupted by those Deep State actors. They
became close allies with our own communists and the CCP. These sick individuals probably
had a role in the plandemic and were happy to see all the business failures, etc, as a path
to keeping power. If Trump wins in 2024 he must get rid of thousands of government SES
employees in every agency or they will destroy his presidency again.
Unfortunatley, the best hope to turn things around is complete economic collapse, which
is likley. The leftists will continue to buy votes, but when the cities burn it won't be
enough. Trump's team better understand it takes money to fight the globalists and a real
dirty campaign like the Dems run. No holds barred...tell Americans what a s***hole the
leftists have made America into. Wide open borders with millions pouring across and jobs
drying up. Rampant crime and soaring inflation.
Allow legal voters only with ID! It will work! Pray for a leader to get us out of this
perverse woke mess.
zod 6 minutes ago
trump was the most entertaining, in a long line of the same, 'illusion of choice' we've
always had.
2pac 12 minutes ago
Don't worry - Durham investigation should be done any day now.
The USA health care system is failing for many due to a number of reasons including
outrageous premiums and piss-poor care with HMOs and basically a corporatized system. People
are numbers, not patients anymore.
The roads are crumbling.
Crime in every major city is literally out of control, from LA to NYC, from ****cago to
Houston. Homicides and violent assaults (by joggers) out of control.
USPS notified me today that 4 packages I mailed out will be delayed because of both
equipment and labor problems.
What next? More blackouts or failed internet? Droughts?
Jim in MN 15 hours ago remove link
Under Obama US life expectancy actually decreased for consecutive years, something that's
never supposed to happen in a 'developed economy'. Of course Trump fixed it, and now the
globalist scum are fixing us....permanently.
Once again, with feeling: None of the 'control measures' does anything. End it all now.
They just want us all in their databases anyway. They don't care about death tolls, or even
vaccines. It's not about that.
The vaccine passports in the UK already link to your entire medical history, biometric,
genetic and ethnic data, criminal history, vehicle registration and employer data.
All they need is your bank account and internet/social media.
Then it's just................................CHINA.
And THAT is what they want, and what they are doing.
Money quote: " Zerohedge has more traffic than Huffington Post, Vox, Vice, The Atlantic and
pretty well any of the other bluecheck day camps for aspiring establishment shills."
Late Stage Globalism Is A Tale of
Narratives vs Networks
Over the past few weeks in my weekly
#AxisOfEasy newsletter I've been covering how Big Tech and the corporate media tried,
unsuccessfully, to keep a lid on the Wuhan Lab origin narrative. At one point I half-joked
"I'll shut up about this when it's safe to talk about Ivermectin" . This week, I did end up
writing a piece about Ivermectin, namely how doctors can't even mention it in their videos or
podcast appearances without being penalized by social media platforms.
Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist who has studied bats (from which COVID-19
purportedly originated) was recently on
Triggernometry , the UK based podcast that my company, easyDNS , has been sponsoring since mid-2020. It turns out that
neither Weinstein nor Triggernometry can say the word "Ivermectin" in their shows. If they do
they'll get an automatic takedown by YouTube and a strike on Facebook for violating community
standards.
Matt Taibbi recently posed the question " Why has
"˜Ivermectin' become a dirty word? " He cites Dr. Pierre Kory in his testimony to a
US Senate Committee hearing on medical responses to COVID-19 in December 2020. Kory was
referring to an existing medicine that was already FDA approved that he was describing as a
"wonder drug" in treating COVID-19, that drug was Ivermectin.
This Senate testimony was televised and viewed by approximately 8 million people. YouTube
removed the video of this exchange. They later suspended the account of the United States
senator who invited Dr. Kory to speak. (Kory also appeared on Brett Weinstein's show and they
took down that as well).
Associated Press for their part "fact
checked" the senate testimony, and because, in their words "there is no evidence that
Ivermectin is a "˜miracle drug' against COVID", they labeled it as false:
CLAIM: The antiparasitic drug ivermectin "has a miraculous effectiveness that obliterates"
the transmission of COVID-19 and will prevent people from getting sick.
AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. There's no evidence ivermectin has been proven a safe or effective
treatment against COVID-19.
... ... ...
But I'm looking beyond that, outside of network TV. The hottest news outlets are fast
becoming independent journalists like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald , self-publishing via their Substack.
That's mainly email.
Joe Rogan has a larger audience than Rachel Maddow and Don Lemon combined. So too does Steve
Bannon, btw. The few times I've been on his
Warroom I was astounded at the reach of his audience. According to company sources he's
doing between 2.5 and 3.5 million downloads per day. The last people I would ever expect to be
tuning into Bannon are telling me "I saw you on Warroom". (It's mind-blowing).
Zerohedge has more traffic than Huffington Post, Vox, Vice, The Atlantic and pretty well any
of the other bluecheck day camps for aspiring establishment shills.
It's because of independent, renegade journalists and people writing outside of major
outlets that these stories are starting go mainstream despite the best efforts of Big Tech,
enforcing whatever canon the corporate press deems to be truth, or the establishment anointed
"fact checkers" who try to step in whenever something looks to gain traction:
The Wuhan lab origin was suspected for over a year (and the Fauci emails prove it).
Zerohedge was on it almost immediately and
got deplatformed for their troubles. It was finally pushed over the line in a
Medium post by Nicholas Wade over a year later.
Ivermectin may be next round and it looks like if it gets anywhere it will be thanks to
people like Matt Taibbi and Bret Weinstein.
What is the common thread here? It's the power of decentralized networks and open source
protocols vs narrative control that is promulgated from global governments, amplified by the
corporate media, and enforced by technocratic platforms.
... ... ...
It may seem like the censorship is absolute and that the narrative and the spin is
overwhelming. But take solace that it only appears that way because the facade is breaking.
As more people realize that the centralized technocratic system is failing, those who's
privilege and position are premised on it have to double down, triple down. They have to burn
the boats.
They're fully committed now and because they have no other choice they have to overstep and
overreach. Too much, too soon. Too late.
Back in the mid-1990s when irony was still a thing, British TV had a popular celebrity
gameshow called
Shooting Stars hosted by comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. It was filled with
slapstick, surreal, anarchic humor, and while it appeared to stick to standard gameshow
conventions, everything was actually arbitrary: rules could be made up or ignored as and when
Vic and Bob felt like it
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of
time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that
glorifies it."
- Frédéric Bastiat, French economist
If there is an absolute maxim by which the American government seems to operate, it is that
the taxpayer always gets ripped off.
With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke
around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.
Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we're getting swindled,
cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and
fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a
profit at taxpayer expense.
The overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian
regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless
surveillance of Americans' private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT
team raids of Americans' homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments
meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies
domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip
searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that
collect and disseminate data on Americans' private transactions; and militarized agencies with
stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.
Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and the
agencies under their command -- Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Justice,
Treasury, etc. -- have switched their allegiance to the Corporate State with its unassailable
pursuit of profit at all costs and by any means possible.
By the time you factor in the financial blowback from the COVID-19 pandemic with its
politicized mandates, lockdowns, and payouts, it becomes quickly apparent that we are now ruled
by a government consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly
unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.
As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program,
follow the money trail.
When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being
surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other
than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them,
and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American
police state.
Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.
On the roads : Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by
issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and
red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of
corruption,
collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting
drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit
sharing by imposing a vehicle
miles-traveled tax , which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.
In the schools: The security industrial complex with its tracking, spying, and
identification
devices has set its sights on the schools as " a vast, rich market " -- a $20 billion market, no
less -- just waiting to be conquered. In fact, the public schools have become a microcosm of
the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of
surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners,
as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies.
Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and
weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools -- at great
taxpayer expense and personal profit -- into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are
school truancy
laws , which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the
schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school
districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for
"unauthorized" absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making
the schools any safer.
In the endless wars abroad : Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the
government's endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police
forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and
incompetent government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country
dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour . Future wars and
military exercises waged around the globe are expected to
push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053 . Talk about fiscally irresponsible:
the U.S. government is spending money it doesn't have on a military empire it can't afford.
War spending is bankrupting America.
In the form of militarized police : The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands
out six-figure
grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a
veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault
weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has,
according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, "
paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams ." The end result? An explosive
growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency
on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within
police forces that they are at war -- and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000
SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover,
government-funded
military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.
In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture : Under the guise of fighting the war on
drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions
of dollars' worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they "suspect" may be
connected to criminal activity. Then -- and here's the kicker -- whether or not any crime is
actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen's property, often
divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police are actually
being
trained in seminars on how to seize the "goodies" that are on police departments' wish
lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to "pay for
sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car."
By the security industrial complex : We're being spied on by a domestic army of government
snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of "precrime," this government of
Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading
everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend.
Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you
communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used
against you eventually, at a time and place of the government's choosing. This far-reaching
surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for
an
omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government -- the Surveillance State -- that
came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn't even
touch on the government's bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying
and tracking the American people from birth to death.
By a government addicted to power: It's a given that you can always count on the
government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the
citizenry's inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized
one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war
on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes,
school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate
responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the
police state's hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state
powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing
programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., "we the people" may
well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers
to protect us from ourselves.
These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the
name of the national good -- against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our
freedoms -- by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with
megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the
reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And,
as always, it's we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken
for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.
This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.
Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives.
Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority
of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few
Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called
representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and
uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in
the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers,
drones, and cell phone tracking technology.
All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those
are your tax dollars at work.
It's your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls,
your text messages, and your movements. It's your money that allows out-of-control police
officers to burst into innocent people's homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side
of the road. And it's your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted
for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to
speak their truth to their elected officials.
Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it's a
police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of
school for attending a virtual class while playing with a toy gun, remember that it is your tax
dollars that are paying for these injustices.
There was a time in our history when our forebears said "enough is enough" and stopped
paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground
and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance,
and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people.
Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.
Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we've let
bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to
such an extent that we're back where we started.
Once again, we've got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.
Once again, we've got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which
demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.
And once again, we've got to decide whether we'll keep marching or break stride and make a
turn toward freedom.
But what if we didn't just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government's
outrageous demands for more money?
What if we didn't just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection
bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?
What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we
did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we
refuse to support?
As I make clear in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , if the government and its emissaries can just
take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can't
claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of
time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that
glorifies it."
- Frédéric Bastiat, French economist
If there is an absolute maxim by which the American government seems to operate, it is that
the taxpayer always gets ripped off.
Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and
keeping them there." Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by
inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to
"boost profits" at taxpayer expense .
The US is not capitalist. There are no "capitalist powers." There are only managerial
states. Read Orwell who, yes, was a socialist.
The US was overtaken by ex-Trotskyites in the form of Neocons, eg. Irving Kristol. They
redefined the US from a nation-state into an ideological state, as the Soviet Union had been.
But we do not have any particular ideology here; the ideology is always changing.
The US empire does not serve the interests of the American people, you'll agree. But it's
not as simple as "capitalism." These ideological battles are theatre. They are not the real
battles. They are pretend religions, like sports teams, which motivate and justify war for
two different elites.
Read James Burnham, another ex-Trotskyite, on Machiavellians and, separately, on the
managerial state. However, Burnham became something akin to a Neocon; so, certainly, don't
come to the same conclusions as he did.
The US is not capitalist. There are no "capitalist powers." There are only managerial
states. Read Orwell who, yes, was a socialist.
Posted by: Weaver | Jun 22 2021 19:35 utc | 15
This is a rather strange interpretation. The power of the managers stems fro the power of
large active shareholders, while the majority of shares may be passively owned by middle
class in the form of retirement savings. As it was explained: "Contrary to popular beliefs,
there are no bulls and bears on Wall Street, but sheep and wolves. And the money is not made
by the bah bah crowd", followed by the distinction between "smart money" and the rest of
investors. The financial games that we discussed in the case of Boeing may seem stupid in
terms of "maximizing long term stock value", but excellent for providing gains for active
investors who got artificial run-up in stock prices followed by selling to the "bah bah
crowd".
Weaver "China seems to have defined "communism" as a rejection of democracy."
What is democracy? In the west, it has become apparent that whoever controls the media
controls democracy. We elect rulers. We do not get any say in formulating many laws as in
each new law being put to a referendum. China voted with its feet during the revolution. Many
culture elect or otherwise have local leaders who everyone in the community knows and the
community leaders decide on or elect who has positions at the next level of governance and so
forth. In that way, China is very democratic beginning at the grass roots level.
The Chinese government have done a huge amount in bringing millions of people out of poverty,
creating better living conditions for its people. When there is constantly and increase in
prosperity at all levels, even if some prosper more than others, the people have an
optimistic outlook.
Democracy at a national level where voters do not personal know the candidate requires
accurate information to enable an informed vote. In that way, democracy in the west is non
existent - it is an illusion but the sheeple cling to it.
Compared to the so called west, China government is very much of the people for the
people.
@ Peter AU1 (# 23), name a democracy that isn't a suzerainty. We don't elect rulers. We
elect puppets that have been selected by the rulers. Who owns the media? Who creates majority
of money in your nation?
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
"Democracy" is a temporary phase of history which allows the Global Financial Syndicate to
take control from the earlier generation of dominant power players: the monarchies.
Long ago and far away, a group of very clever paleo-banksters figured out a way to stop
those annoying periodic slave revolts... eventually it came to be known as "the two party
system" (democracy/Republic) and it's working like a charm...Rulers make the slaves fight
each other.
World Financiers & Banksters ENSLAVEMENT plan using democracy:
– Create a REVOLUTION & steal a region
– Create a Private CENTRAL BANK (First Bank of the USA, BoE-1694)
– Fund & control new rich individuals (Kleptocrats)
– Fund & control political PARTIES & MEDIA
– Nationalize the central bank (the Fed, BoE-1946)
Enslave & control people by DOMINANCE over economic & political powers & call
it a DEMOCRACY. An interesting FRACTAL emerges when one analysis the formation of
democracies.
What we have is "representative" democracies designed by the economically powerful solely
for their interests and in this sense would always be functioning anti-democratically. In a
money democracy (where the fundamental element of influence is the unit of money), the
political and legal system is influenced and shaped by systems of power to protect and
enhance those systems of power.
"There are none so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The
truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They
feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes."
– Goethe
Your understanding of democracy and the prevalent Chinese understanding of democracy are
divergent.
It is true that all of the political decisions in China are made by the communists; the
CPC. But do note that the CPC has almost 100 million members . These are not simply
voters like political parties have in the US, who just align themselves with a party
and vote for it every couple years. These 100 million members of the CPC are actual
decision-makers.
Of course, that is a lot of work and responsibility and not everyone in China wants to
commit that much of their life to politics. With that said, how much of your life do
you commit to politics? Does your biennial vote actually carry any weight, and do you take
full responsibility for the consequences of it? Of course not on both points.
Those Chinese people who choose to do so live democracy. You, on the other hand,
just play a shallow democracy game that is little more than a reality TV show like
Survivor . Does Trump get voted off the island? Clinton? Sanders? That is your choice.
Does America slaughter some more dark skinned people in the Global South? Do the banks get
bailed out with your wealth? These things you get no say in.
Communists don't oppose democracy. They oppose the crappy reality TV "The Democracy
Show!™" sham that westerners love to hate.
I look on it as somewhat of a mixed group. Fellow travelers do the same thing but for
different reasons. Finance, anglo supremacy ect. Amongst the vassal states in same cases
straight out corruption as in selling their service es to the highest bidder, amongst the
five-eyes, the elite in particular, in the current events of trying to bring down Russia and
China, continued anglo dominance of the world is a very big driver. The anglosphere has been
a dominant force in the world for close to 500 years and many are truly afraid of this
ending. The cant envisage a world that is dominated by cultures other than anglo or
anglo/europe.
Robin, "the Imperial Pottery Barn rule" is an extremely good analogy. I'm going to have a
hard time citing you if I ever use that. I've also seen US foreign policy described as
"rubblization," with regard to Syria especially.
I wonder who is still buying this brown high-fructose corn syrup carbonated water. Only
people completely obvious to their health do so. Boycotting Coca-cola is probably the easiest and
healthiest boycott possible. From commnets: " Woka Cola can kiss my ***. "
In a letter dated June 11, the
American Civil Rights Project (ACRP) noted that on Jan. 28, the general counsel of Coca-Cola
demanded law firms seeking to keep the company as a client must commit that at least 30 percent
of billed time would be from "diverse attorneys," and at least half of that time would be from
black attorneys.
The ACRP, speaking on behalf of "a set of concerned Coca-Cola Company shareholders,"
demanded that the soft drink company either "publicly retract the discriminatory
outside-counsel policies" or otherwise "provide access to the corporate records related to the
decision of Coca-Cola's officers and directors to adopt and retain those illegal policies."
Coca-Cola's race-specific contracting policy , according to the ACRP, has exposed the
corporation and its shareholders to "material risk of liability" for potentially violating
anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits
employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
The letter further alleged that all of Coca-Cola's decision makers knew, or should have
known, that the policy was potentially illegal. It said those who were not so aware of the
legal risks either have failed their responsibility or "relied on the inexcusably flawed advice
of counsel."
... ... ...
Coca-Cola, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, came under fire in
February, when its employees were allegedly instructed to be "less white" as part of a
"Confronting Racism" training course featuring interviews with sociologist Robin DiAngelo, the
author of a 2018 book called "White Fragility."
"In the U.S. and other Western nations, white people are socialized to feel that they are
inherently superior because they are white," reads one of the slides, allegedly sent from an
"internal whistleblower" and posted on Twitter by YouTube commentator Karlyn Borysenko. The
post went viral.
1 hour ago remove link
Coca Cola is brown high-fructose corn syrup carbonated water that makes one fat through
empty calories. It's perhaps the easiest and healthiest boycott possible. Do it, white man...
do it. play_arrow 51 play_arrow
Ghost of SilverIsMoney 59 minutes ago
I got off my sugary soda addiction 6years ago by switching to Seltzers.
They still have the soda bite without any garbage attached.
TacoNasty 50 minutes ago
I unfortunately got addicted to diet soda because my parents gave it to me since I was a
young toddler.
Coke's anti-White racism finally got me to quit.
I feel so much healthier... especially, my sleep is so much better!
ted41776 1 hour ago
yelp, a publicly traded company, has a category named "black-owned businesses" that they
regularly promote
discrimination laws?
crickets
overbet 1 hour ago
I regret that I already dont drink that **** so I cant boycott it any further. Avoiding
anything processed got me from a flabby 250lb desk jockey to a lean 190lb heavy lifting gym
rat after a few years.
Automatic Choke PREMIUM 49 minutes ago
you can short the stock.
TacoNasty 50 minutes ago
Good job!!! Props to you. I dropped from 220 to 180 during quarantine due to watching my
diet much more closely and lifting.
MaskTard 53 minutes ago
Woka Cola can kiss my ***. All Coke products in this household were poured down the
drain long ago.
sleepyhollow 51 minutes ago
Same here. Stopped drinking Coke, buying woke products and watching woke sports such as
the NFL, NBA, etc.
Virgil Krenshaw PREMIUM 31 minutes ago (Edited)
Sue. Them. Silly. Go on the offensive against wokeness. It's discrimination. It's
race-based harassment. And it's against the law. Document any HR sessions that are woke.
Build evidence of a pattern of behavior. Then go for the throat.
Very interesting to see shareholders threatening to sue. Courts recognize management's
fiduciary duty to shareholders, but overwhelmingly defer to executives' "business judgment"
on what's best for a company. But these woketards are now so obviously undermining company
value that I think courts will probably intervene.
How could A&E ever justify its decision to cancel "Cops," AKA the source of half its
revenue, as a sound business judgment that would add shareholder value?
William Dorritt 44 minutes ago
The following list presents notable Coca-Cola subsidiaries, brands and products:
Coca-Cola (Coke)
Diet Coke
Coca-Cola Zero
Sprite
Fanta
Dasani
Ciel
Smartwater
Minute Maid
Simply Orange
Del Valle
Powerade
Vitaminwater
Odwalla
Fuze Beverage
Honest Tea
Chimesickle007 17 minutes ago
Thank god none of them are on my shopping list
tyberious 52 minutes ago (Edited)
Started out as a poison, got rid of Cocaine and added an even more addictive and far
deadlier substance, GMO high fructose corn syrup with a healthy dose of glyphosate!
Lt. Shicekopf 42 minutes ago
I do not drink Coke, watch the NFL, use Gillette products, I eschew Starbucks, shun the
airlines, avoid the NBA like the plague...and I feel much better about myself.
Automatic Choke PREMIUM 59 minutes ago
Stop "woke"
dump Coke.
MoneyMonkey 50 minutes ago
Incidence of diabetes (aka "the sugars") is highest amongst jogger Americans, so it
seems fair they get to be scum sucking lawyers for a company slowly killing their own
kind.
Southern_Boy 9 minutes ago (Edited)
Drank Coke daily (3 to 6 cans or bottles) for almost 60 years. They've lost my business
thanks to this "Woke Business". As I understood it, they hired an activist lawyer who
basically has cost them billions in sales.
What is the fastest way to create lots of DEBT (money)? Wars, civil war, technological
waves, credit bubbles (speculative, housing,...), infrastructures...
What is the real purpose of war? To capture & control more areas for EXPLOITATION? War
is the fastest way to create lots of debt for all parties.
"the real value of a conflict, the true value, is in the debt it creates. You control the
debt, you control everything."
Money Power = Land x Lives x Loans
Putting Afghanistan in further debt, enables it to be exploited... What are its revenue
sources? Who pays for its security and infrastructure? Will NATO leave by September?
Who wants to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt?
Those Uyghur jihadists stuck in Idlib province in Syria and in refugee camps in Turkey are
bound to get a warm welcome from the Taliban when Ankara finally ships them off to Kabul as
part of this proposed "security force" to protect the airport so the CIA can continue to ship
out its heroin.
The US MSM is ablaze with "Taliban against Afghan forces" headlines, conveniently forgetting
that the Taliban are Afghan forces too, in fact they preceded the current "Afghan forces" in
government until the US intervention.
So why do their guys always beat our guys? Because their guys fight for their country and our
guys fight for us.
@ ToivoS, why did the U$A withdraw from Vietnam? There was conscription in the U$A, thereby
the rich were at risk. Also, the U$A was being constrained by money creation due to the gold
standard. Both of these issues have been addressed.
Name a nation that the U$A has WITHDRAWN its military after occupying it, other than
Vietnam. Aren't we still in Germany, Japan, South Korea, ...?
It ain't over 'til it's over.
How much DEBT has the Afghanistan conflict created so far? In trillions? Who got that
money?
@ CJC #10
re: . . . Turkey to retain control of airport after NATO withdraws
It's more than NATO.
The US-Taliban agreement:
The United States is committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United
States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel,
private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel within
fourteen (14) months following announcement of this agreement. . .
here
@ Max
re: . . . why did the U$A withdraw from Vietnam?
The US had no choice because the conscription-based US Army was broken, with troops refusing
to obey orders and fragging their superiors etc. . .So Washington pulled out the troops and
ended the draft.
The US "experts" who are crying about a possible, or inevitable, return to Talban
government haven't read the agreement.
The US-Taliban Agreement of Feb 29, 2020 called for all foreign forces to leave Afghanistan
by May 2021, and recognized that the outcome would be a return to a Taliban government. For
example one agreement condition, II-5:: "The Taliban will not provide visas, passports,
travel permits, or other legal documents to those who pose a threat to the security of the
United States and its allies to enter Afghanistan." . .
here
re: Why is the US in Afghanistan?
Decades ago Washington had its own "Silk Road" strategy, to move into the -Stans in Central
Asia after the uSSR breakup. There was a large interest in Kazakhstan up north, as well as
the other -Stands including Afghanistan. It was of course a road to nowhere but as we know
the creeps in Washington ain't too bright. There were no seaports to accommodate this road,
for one thing. There were some other considerations, like an energy pipeline, but it was all
just going nowhere until 9-11 came along, giving the US to do what it does worst, employ its
military.
@ Abe 32
re: This simplistic "views" are as inaccurate as insulting.
You need to get out more.
. . .from Fragging: Why U.S. Soldiers Assaulted Their Officers in Vietnam
During its long withdrawal from South Vietnam, the U.S. military experienced a serious
crisis in morale. Chronic indiscipline, illegal drug use, and racial militancy all
contributed to trouble within the ranks. But most chilling of all was the advent of a new
phenomenon: large numbers of young enlisted men turning their weapons on their superiors.
The practice was known as "fragging," a reference to the fragmentation hand grenades often
used in these assaults. . . here
Glad to hear that Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan is not letting the US use Pakistan
as a base for its continued machinations, in spite of heavy US pressure, and that Pakistan as
a whole was saying #AbsolutelyNot. Kudos Pakistan.
According to M. K. Bhadrakumar:
"Washington is now considering the hiring of Pentagon contractors (mercenaries) to secure
Kabul airport. But that will be a hugely controversial step with grave consequences, as
apparent from Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's brusque rejection of the very idea of
American military presence on Pakistani soil in relation to the Afghan situation."
MKB also places all this into the context of "the US' grand project to create rings of
instability in [Russia and China's] adjacent regions -- Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Hong
Kong, Myanmar, Afghanistan."
You forget the ISIS group that magically appeared in Afghanistan a few years ago. The same
group that immediately attacked the Taliban, forcing the Taliban to dedicate its best forces
to countering the threat instead of fighting the puppet child sex slaver Quisling warlord
regime. What's more likely than continuing the occupation in the name of "fighting ISIS"?
Just like Iraq was reinvaded and reoccupied in the name of "fighting ISIS" and continues to
be occupied to this day?
This "fairly good" relationship is mainly done in spite to China and to gain another pawn
on the SCS theatre.
It's being wined and dined by the school jock after China gave him the finger like a
back-up shag. But Vietnam knows the score, it works for them for now and it would be stupid
not to play along as long as it is aligned to its interests.
A large number of its businesses exporting to the west are, you guessed it, are founded
and operated by the Chinese for the lower wages and to skirt quotas, tariffs etc.
Vietnam is still a communist state, how is this fact not lost in the face of full spectrum
demonisation of China for being communists in the minds of the 5 eyes populace is a most
interesting question indeed.
It's as moronic as "China is authoritarian!" but Saudi Arabia is A-OK!
Today democracy and human rights are just fig leaves of the hegemony, war cry for the
[colonization of] expendables.
"... ...the prerogative to define extremism includes the power to attempt to banish certain ideas from acceptable discourse. The report warns that "narratives of fraud in the recent general election"¦ will almost certainly spur some [Domestic Violent Extremists] to try to engage in violence this year." ..."
"... If accusations of 2020 electoral shenanigans are formally labeled as extremist threats, that could result in far more repression (aided by Facebook and Twitter) of dissenting voices. ..."
...the prerogative to define extremism includes the power to attempt to banish certain ideas
from acceptable discourse. The report warns that "narratives of fraud in the recent general
election"¦ will almost certainly spur some [Domestic Violent Extremists] to try to
engage in violence this year."
If accusations of 2020 electoral shenanigans are formally labeled as extremist threats, that
could result in far more repression (aided by Facebook and Twitter) of dissenting voices.
How will this work out any better than the concerted campaign by the media and Big Tech last
fall to suppress all information about Hunter Biden's laptop before the election?
The Biden administration is revving up for a war against an enemy which the feds have chosen
to never explicitly define . According to a March report by Biden's Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, "domestic violent extremists" include individuals who "take overt steps
to violently resist or facilitate the overthrow of the U.S. government in support of their
belief that the U.S. government is purposely exceeding its Constitutional authority." But that
was the same belief that many Biden voters had regarding the Trump administration. Does the
definition of extremism depend solely on which party captured the White House?
The report notes that the "Department of Defense is reviewing and updating its definition of
prohibited extremist activities among uniformed military personnel." Bishop Garrison, the chief
of the Pentagon's new Countering Extremism Working Group, is Exhibit A for the follies of
extremist crackdowns on extremism. In a series of 2019 tweets, Garrison, a former aide to
Hillary Clinton,
denounced all Trump supporters as "racists." Garrison's working group will "specifically
define what constitutes extremist behavior" for American soldiers. If Garrison purges Trump
supporters from the military, the Pentagon would be unable to conquer the island of Grenada.
Biden policymakers also intend to create an "anti-radicalization" program for individuals
departing the military service. This initiative will likely produce plenty of leaks and
embarrassing disclosures in the coming months and years.
The Biden report is spooked by the existence of militia groups and flirts with the fantasy
of outlawing them across the land. The report promises to explore "how to make better use of
laws that already exist in all fifty states prohibiting certain private "˜militia'
activity, including"¦state statutes prohibiting groups of people from organizing as
private military units without the authorization of the state government, and state statutes
that criminalize certain paramilitary activity." Most of the private militia groups are guilty
of nothing more than bluster and braggadocio. Besides, many of them are already overstocked
with government informants who are counting on Uncle Sam for regular paychecks.
As part of its anti-extremism arsenal, DHS is financing programs for "enhancing media
literacy and critical thinking skills" and helping internet users avoid "vulnerability
to"¦harmful content deliberately disseminated by malicious actors online." Do the feds
have inside information about another Hunter Biden laptop turning up, or what? The Biden
administration intends to bolster Americans' defenses against extremism by developing
"interactive online resources such as skills-enhancing online games." If the games are as
stupefying as this report, nobody will play them.
The Biden report stresses that federal law enforcement agencies "play a critical role in
responding to reports of criminal and otherwise concerning activity." "Otherwise concerning
activity"? This is the same standard that turned prior anti-terrorist efforts into
laughingstocks.
Fusion Centers are not mentioned in the Biden report but they are a federal-state-local law
enforcement partnership launched after 9/11 to vacuum up reports of suspicious activity.
Seventy Fusion Centers rely on the same standard"""
If you see something, say something """that a senior administration official invoked in a
background call on Monday for the new Biden initiative. The Los Angeles Police Department
encouraged citizens to snitch on "individuals who stay at bus or train stops for extended
periods while buses and trains come and go," "individuals who carry on long conversations on
pay or cellular telephones," and "joggers who stand and stretch for an inordinate amount of
time." The Kentucky Office of Homeland Security recommended the reporting of "people avoiding
eye contact," "people in places they don't belong," or homes or apartments that have numerous
visitors "arriving and leaving at unusual hours," PBS's Frontline reported. Colorado's Fusion
Center "produced a fear-mongering public service announcement asking the public to report
innocuous behaviors such as photography, note-taking, drawing and collecting money for charity
as "˜warning signs' of terrorism," the ACLU complained.
Various other Fusion Centers have attached warning labels to gun-rights activists,
anti-immigration zealots, and individuals and groups "rejecting federal authority in favor of
state or local authority." A 2012 Homeland Security report stated that being "reverent of
individual liberty" is one of the traits of potential right-wing terrorists. The Constitution
Project concluded in a 2012 report that DHS Fusion Centers "pose serious risks to civil
liberties, including rights of free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, racial and
religious equality, privacy, and the right to be free from unnecessary government intrusion."
Fusion Centers continue to be bankrolled by DHS despite their dismal record.
The Biden report promises that the FBI and DHS will soon be releasing "a new edition of the
Federal Government's Mobilization Indicators booklet that will include for the first time
potential indicators of domestic terrorism""related mobilization." Will this latest publication
be as boneheaded as the similar 2014 report by the National Counterterrorism Center entitled
"Countering Violent Extremism: A Guide for Practitioners and Analysts"?
As the Intercept
summarized , that report "suggests that police, social workers and educators rate
individuals on a scale of one to five in categories such as "˜Expressions of
Hopelessness, Futility,' "¦ and "˜Connection to Group Identity (Race, Nationality,
Religion, Ethnicity)' "¦ to alert government officials to individuals at risk of turning
to radical violence, and to families or communities at risk of incubating extremist
ideologies." The report recommended judging families by their level of "Parent-Child Bonding"
and rating localities on the basis in part of the "presence of ideologues or recruiters."
Former FBI agent Mike German commented, "The idea that the federal government would encourage
local police, teachers, medical, and social-service employees to rate the communities,
individuals, and families they serve for their potential to become terrorists is abhorrent on
its face."
The Biden administration presumes that bloating the definition of extremists is the surest
way to achieve domestic tranquility. In this area, as in so many others, Biden's team learned
nothing from the follies of the Obama administration. No one in D.C. apparently recalls that
President Obama perennially denounced extremism and summoned the United Nations in 2014 to join
his "campaign against extremism." Under Obama, the National Security Agency
presumed that "someone searching the Web for suspicious stuff" was a suspected extremist
who forfeited all constitutional rights to privacy. Obama's Transportation Security
Administration relied on
ludicrous terrorist profiles that targeted American travelers who were yawning, hand
wringing, gazing down, swallowing suspiciously, sweating, or making "excessive complaints about
the [TSA] screening process."
Will the Biden crackdown on extremists end as ignominiously as Nixon's crackdown almost 50
years earlier? Nixon White House aide Tom Charles Huston explained
that the FBI's COINTELPRO program continually stretched its target list "from the kid with a
bomb to the kid with a picket sign, and from the kid with the picket sign to the kid with the
bumper sticker of the opposing candidate. And you just keep going down the line." At some
point, surveillance became more intent on spurring fear than on gathering information. FBI
agents were
encouraged to conduct interviews with anti-war protesters to "enhance the paranoia endemic
in these circles and further serve to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind
every mailbox," as a 1970 FBI memo noted. Is the Biden castigation campaign an attempt to make
its opponents fear that the feds are tracking their every email and website click?
Biden's new terrorism policy has evoked plenty of cheers from his Fourth Estate lapdogs. But
a
Washington Post article fretted that the administration's report did not endorse enacting
"new legal authority to successfully hunt down, prosecute, and imprison homegrown extremists."
Does the D.C. media elite want to see every anti-Biden scoffer in the land put behind bars?
This is typical of the switcheroo that politicians and the media play with the terms
"terrorists" and "extremists." Regardless of paranoia inside the Beltway, MAGA hats are not as
dangerous as pipe bombs.
The Biden report concludes that "enhancing faith in American democracy" requires "finding
ways to counter the influence and impact of dangerous conspiracy theories." Bu t permitting
politicians to blacklist any ideas they disapprove won't "restore faith in democracy."
Extremism has always been a flag of political convenience, and the Biden team, the FBI, and
their media allies will fan fears to sanctify any and every government crackdown. But what if
government is the most dangerous extremist of them all?
In reality big tech is the part of neoliberal elite that control the politics and politician
(the USA politics and politicians were privatized during Reagan and nothing changed since that
period). They also has strong ties with intelligence community often emerging from some some
intelligence agency plan and DAPRA or CIA funds. So it is strange to be suprozed that they will
always take the side of the government -- they control the goverment...
The Democrats in Congress want comprehensive regulation of social media which will
ultimately allow regime regulators to decide what is and what is not "disinformation." This has
become very clear as Congress has held a series of Congressional hearings designed to pressure
tech leaders into doing even more to silence critics of the regime and its preferred
center-left narratives.
Back in February, for instance, Glen Greenwald reported:
For the third time in
less than five months , the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies
to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more
content from their platforms.
House Democrats have made no secret of their ultimate goal with this hearing: to exert
control over the content on these online platforms. "Industry self-regulation has failed,"
they said, and therefore "we must begin the work of changing incentives driving social media
companies to allow and even promote misinformation and disinformation." In other words, they
intend to use state power to influence and coerce these companies to change which content
they do and do not allow to be published.
Greenwald is probably right. The end game here is likely to create a permanent "partnership"
between big tech in which government regulators will ultimately decide just how much these
platforms will deplatform user and delete content that run afoul of the regime's messaging.
It might strike many readers as odd that this should even be necessary. It's already become
quite clear that Big Social Media is hardly an enemy of mainstream proregime forces in
Washington. Quite the opposite.
Jack Dorsey, for instance, is exactly the sort of partisan regime apparatchik one expects
out of today's Silicon Valley. For example, during October of last year ,
Twitter locked down the account of the New York Post , because the Post reported a story on
Hunter Biden that threatened to hurt Biden's chances for election.
Over 90 percent of political donation money coming out of Facebook and Twitter goes to
Democrats.
Yet, it's important to keep in mind that this isn't going to be enough to convince
politicians to pack up and decide to leave social media companies alone. The regime is unlikely
to be satisfied with anything other than full state control of social media through permanent
regulatory bodies that can ultimately bring the industry to heel. Regardless of the ideological
leanings of the industry players involved, they're likely to see the writing on the wall. As
with any regime where the regulators and legislators hold immense power -- as is the case in
Washington today -- the regime will generally be able to win the "cooperation" of industry
leaders who will end up taking a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" position.
Silicon
Valley Is Ideologically Allied with the Regime. But That's Not Enough.
It's been abundantly clear for at least a decade that ideologically speaking, Silicon Valley
is as
politically mainstream as it gets. The old early-2000s notion that Silicon Valley harbors
secret libertarian, antiestablishment leanings has been disproven dozens of times over.
Moreover, Washington has a long history of co-opting tech "geniuses" to serve the whims of
the regime. Even back in 2013 Julian Assange already saw the "ever closer union" between
government agents and Silicon Valley. Assange saw how federal agencies were hiring Silicon
Valley workers as "consultants" and saw where the "partnership" was headed. He concluded "The
advance of information technology epitomized by Google heralds the death of privacy for most
people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism."
But even if Silicon Valley is packed full of stooges for the NSA --
as appears to be the case -- this still doesn't mean that Silicon Valley firms are willing
to happily hand over their property to the federal government. After all, Silicon Valley CEOs,
managers, and stockholders are all still at least partly in it for the money. All else being
equal, they prefer profit to loss, and they want freedom to make decisions free of regulatory
control. They probably don't care about freedom in the abstract, but they care about it for
themselves.
The Threat of Regulation Creates Support for the Regime
On the other hand, once federal policymakers and regulators start making threats, the game
changes entirely. All of a sudden, it makes a lot of sense to pursue "friendly" relations with
the state as a matter of self-preservation. If Washington has the ability to destroy your
business -- and if it has become impossible to "fly under the radar" -- then it makes a lot of
sense to make Washington your friend.
Under these circumstances, there's little to be gained from blanket opposition to federal
regulation, and a lot to be gained from embracing regulation while merely working to ensure
that regulation benefits you and your friends.
Big Business versus Small Business
So, it should never surprise us when big business ultimately ends up siding with the regime.
It would be folly not to, especially if one has the means to hire lobbyists, attorneys, and PR
consultants which can help Big Business negotiate effectively with regulators. Needless to say,
the outcomes of these negotiations are likely to end up helping the big players at the expense
of smaller ones who aren't even present at the negotiating table.
For small firms that have little hope of influencing federal policy, it still makes sense to
simply oppose federal activism altogether and hope for the best. But if your firm manages to
get a seat "at the table" it's best to seize the opportunity. To quote an old saying among
lobbyists: "if you're not at the table, you're on the menu."
But let us not forget that even when private firms can bring immense amounts of resources to
bear for purposes of influencing public policy and negotiating with bureaucrats: the regime
itself ultimately holds the advantage. No private firm in the world has the resources to ignore
or veto the wishes of the regime's army of regulatory, prosecutors, and tax collectors. No
private firm enjoys anything approaching the coercive monopoly power of the state.
But this doesn't mean those firms can't share in this power. And that's very often what
happens. Faced with a "join us or be destroyed" ultimatum from federal regulators or lawmakers,
most private firms choose the "join us" option. Of course, many smaller firms aren't even
offered the choice.
Tillyoudrop 9 minutes ago (Edited)
Wwwwrong.
BIG BUSINESS is the Regime, they own this fxxxing place, and they control you by the
balls.
AriusArmenian 3 minutes ago remove link
All the major social media companies in the US were funded and controlled by the CIA
from startup.
There is not a future end-game - it has been the CIA's agenda from the beginning.
The CIA along with Watt Street and the MIC owns and controls the US from top to bottom -
and they intend for the lumpen white people to fall on their swords. This is all to the
interests of the rich and powerful button pushers. I pity the young people like idiots so
easily used by the elites.
freedommusic 10 minutes ago
Well when DARPA, the DOD, CIA, et al, created your company what choice do you have?
What did you think this company is YOURS Mr Z?
We created LifeLog with The Peoples money, handed it
over to you so there is plausible deniability, and are now weaponizing this data against
the very people who have funded it.
Welcome to the MO of monolithic government.
bunnyswanson 1 minute ago
Big Business is the regime. Unfair competition is the name of their game. Monopolizing
their industry is their goal. Oversight committees should have stopped them but simple men
who define themselves by what they own sell out eagerly.
Back in the day of newspapers, the Bolsheviks had PRAVDA ( which laughingly means TRUTH
)
thoughtbubble 3 minutes ago
Democrats have Twitter (which not ironically means TWITS).
AriusArmenian 3 minutes ago remove link
All the major social media companies in the US were funded and controlled by the CIA
from startup.
There is not a future end-game - it has been the CIA's agenda from the beginning.
The CIA along with Watt Street and the MIC owns and controls the US from top to bottom -
and they intend for the lumpen white people to fall on their swords. This is all to the
interests of the rich and powerful button pushers. I pity the young people like idiots so
easily used by the elites.
Of course you've heard the name " George Soros ," often invoked as a sort of folk demon on the
American and international right, it's likely that you have some vague notion of why you think
he's a bad guy, or maybe you think the whole thing is a bunch of hype.
However, if you're a freedom lover, there's nothing "hype" about the influence that George
Soros has around the world attacking your freedom. Indeed, you probably vastly underestimate
the influence that he has on politics.
From the perspective of someone who values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
there is no more dangerous man today than George Soros. This is not hyperbole, it is the simple
truth. While we don't plan to paint a picture of a man standing behind the scenes, rubbing his
hands together and cackling as he plays puppet master over each and every attack on freedom
around the world, Soros acts as a strawman and a caricature of what is actually going on in the
world.
George Soros, his
money , and his NGOs
are bankrolling and influencing public policy and opinion from the local level all the way up
to the national level. Entire nations have been made to bow to the Soros agenda, but perhaps
more importantly for our purposes, key local officials in government are increasingly wholly
owned subsidiaries of the Soros machine.
American political culture focuses almost entirely on Presidential elections, with
Congressional and gubernatorial races getting much less attention from the general public. When
it comes to local politics, unless you live in a large city, chances are good that you don't
know much about city politics. For example: Who is your local district attorney or county
prosecutor?
Most people have no idea. It's a low-key office, generally staffed by someone looking to do
public service, not advance their career. There is little glamor, low pay, and lots of
thankless work to be done at this level, which means that for the most part, this is not where
social climbers begin their careers.
That being said, these elected officials have enormous amounts of power because they decide
who gets prosecuted, who doesn't, and what charges are levied against them. If your DA decides
that the local band of looters are actually peaceful protesters, they won't ever see the inside
of a courtroom. Similarly, if the local DA isn't a fan of the right to self-defense, one must
consider this when choosing whether or not to pull your firearm if a mob of them shows up on
your lawn.
Part of this is just the very nature of bureaucracy, the plainer term for what people mean
when they talk about "the deep state." The government rests on men doing things, chief among
these are what Vladimir Lenin called "special bodies of armed men"
: cops, courts, and jails. According to Lenin, this is the very essence of the state.
Libertarians will sympathize with this definition of the state. At its core, the state is a man
with a gun who will throw you in a cage or kill you if you fail to comply. Everything else is
just window dressing.
The local prosecutor is a chokepoint in the special bodies of armed men. The attorney
general isn't euphemistically called "top cop" for no reason and in his own way, the local
prosecutor is also a "top cop," albeit with a much smaller jurisdiction. This also means that
he has more direct control over the individuals in his district, as the attorney general deals
more in broad brushstrokes.
Who is your local DA? George Soros knows. He might very well be his paymaster.The campaigns
for local DAs and the like aren't shy about stoking racial resentment and animosity. The
Democratic Party's playbook hasn't changed much since the days of Jim Crow, it's just that it
has found new ways to make political hay out of sowing racial divisions among Americans. One
Soros-produced ad for Noah Phillips campaign for District Attorney of Sacramento County,
focuses almost exclusively on a black
boy in a hoodie .
It is of course unrealistic to expect that even highly bureaucratic roles are entirely
apolitical, however, the Soros DAs have ratcheted up the partisanship, not just in the race,
but in the actual execution of the office. As of September 2020, there were
31 Soros-backed DAs in the United States . That might not sound like a lot, but it includes
the DAs of Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, and St.
Louis. All told, tens of millions of Americans are now victims of the Soros racket in the form
of their local top prosecutor.
Some examples of the Soros machine at work in America's DA offices include:
After the last round of rioting, looting, and arson in St. Louis, Circuit Attorney Kim
Gardner dismissed charges against all 36 people arrested. She's on the take from Soros for
$307,000 . This is also the prosecutor who filed charges against the McCloskeys.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon got over $2 million
from the Soros operation , he ended cash bail and is no longer prosecuting the crimes
of trespassing, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, prostitution, or driving without a
license.
Kim Foxx is the Illinois State's Attorney and has received
$807,000 from Soros. She also declined to prosecute rioters, saying "The question it
comes down to is, is it a good use of our time and resources? No, it's not." Foxx likewise
declined to prosecute hate crime hoaxer, Jussie Smollett.
Philly District Attorney Larry Krasner has received
$1.7 million from Soros. He won't be prosecuting rioters, looters, and arsonists.
Krasner was very open about the ideology driving his permitting chaos in the city:
"Prosecution alone will achieve nothing close to justice -- not when power imbalances and
lack of accountability make it possible for government actors including police or
prosecutors to regularly take life or liberty unjustly and face no criminal or career
penalty."
Krasner is worth calling out for special attention because he filed 75 cases against the
police and has represented both Occupy Philadelphia and Black Lives Matter. At his victory
party, supporters chanted, "F*** the police! F*** the police!" He generally declines to
call himself a "prosecutor," instead labelling himself a "public defender with power."
The results in Philadelphia are stunning as charges are dropped in 60 percent of all
shooting cases – though we suspect your odds of being a conservative self-defense
case and having your charges waived are rather slim. Shootings in Philadelphia were up 57
percent year over year from 2019 to 2020.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who's working off
$620,000 in Soros money, proclaims that "[t]he criminal justice system isn't just
massive and brutal, it's also racist." He doesn't prosecute crimes such as solicitation,
public camping, or public urination, which has certainly
transformed San Francisco into a paradise on earth . Homicide rates have increased,
burglary cases have increased by 42 percent, motor vehicle theft increased by 31 percent,
and arson rates increased by 45 percent. He was formerly an advisor to Hugo Chavez and his
parents were members of the Weather
Underground , a far-left terrorist organization who directly participated in the
robbery of an armored car. His victory party included obscene anti-police chants.
DA Mike Schmidt of Portland, who's received
$230,000 in Soros money, also declined to prosecute rioters who burned the city for
months while besieging a federal building. He openly sympathized with the rioters saying
that they "represent the instinctive reactions of people who have been gassed repeatedly,
who have been struck with kinetic projectile weapons."
If the Soros machine can capture a District Attorney's office in San Francisco, which is
extremely expensive, there is little preventing them from capturing prosecutorial powers in
Omaha, Annapolis, or Colorado Springs – or indeed your hamlet.
The Soros Machine
and Racial Unrest
Much like the Democrat Party he supports, George Soros is not the slightest bit afraid to go
into the mud of the politics of racial resentment. The Open Society Foundations are the primary
mechanism for Soros delivering money to political activists in the United States and around the
world. In 2020, The Open Society Foundations unveiled plans to spend
$220 million on "efforts to achieve racial equality in America."
To show you the relative priority that the Soros machine places on "racial equality" as
opposed to electoral politics, the Soros machine only spent
$28 million on the Democrat Party in 2020 .
When Soros says "racial equality," he means something very different from what you or the
average American means when they say it. What Soros deems "racial equality" might more
accurately be called "racial revenge," though the left prefers to use the term "racial equity."
We will dive more into the ideology motivating Soros later, but our article on
the Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism is also an excellent resource on the deep
philosophy of the Soros machine.
What Are the Open Society Foundations?
It's important to know how the Soros machine operates so that you can learn to look for it.
The Open Society Foundations is the main umbrella under which Soros distributes money. It
includes a number of organizations, most of which you've probably never heard of and most of
which feature very innocuous, even bland-sounding, names. The think tank used to generate the
ideology is New America, formerly known as the New America Foundation, the name of which is
much more direct about what it intends to create.
So what is an "Open Society?" Well it's based on a phrase used by Karl Popper , a
somewhat obscure 20th Century thinker known best for his " paradox of tolerance ," which
essentially says that liberals should stop tolerating diversity of opinion when it begins to
threaten liberalism.
Where does the Soros operation put its money in America in order to transform the country
into an "open society?" It aims to abolishing
the police and invest $1.5 million into the Community Resource Hub for Safety &
Responsibility, another one of these blandly named organizations working to undo the American
way of life. Additionally, his money has been
linked to the urban unrest in Ferguson in 2014 . In total he spent
$33 million fomenting chaos in the formerly safe suburb of St. Louis.
Of course, no rogue's gallery of the radical left would be complete without mentioning Black
Lives Matter (BLM), another one of these vaguely innocuous-sounding organizations that Soros
spends his money on. And boy howdy, did he spend money on BLM - George Soros spent
$33 million on BLM alone .
What Is the Philosophy of the Open Society
Foundations?
We've seen the modus operandi of the Soros machine, but what is the ideology that motivates
it?
Soros' umbrella organization is The Open Society Foundations. The phrase "open society" is
one of those things that sounds so unassailable that no one could be against it. After all, are
you for a closed society?
This is the framing trick used by the left since time immemorial. Something vague and
innocuous sounding is picked as a name which means something very, very different to those in
the know. So what is an "open society" to Soros and his retinue?
It is a concept developed by Karl Popper, Soros' intellectual hero. Popper was not a
Cultural Marxist, in fact he was highly critical of Marxism. However, there is so much overlap
in terms of end results that it becomes a distinction without a difference.
Karl Popper didn't invent the concept of the open society, despite his association with the
term and his development of the idea – that dubious honor falls to a Frenchman by the
name of Henri Bergson. However, we can credit most of what the open society is understood as
today as springing from the mind of Karl Popper.
There are some key takeaways about what an open society actually is. First, the open society
is an atomized society. People are to be seen not as part of any kind of social organism, but
rather as radically separate individuals. The individual is not an essential building block of
society, it is the end to itself. Social norms and traditions are seen as necessarily
oppressive.
The open society is hostile to the notion of natural law and instead puts man-made laws,
properly called "legislation," over and above a more natural law flowing from a set of first
principles, most notably God. Again, like Cultural Marxism, it seeks to "dethrone God" from
society, replacing it with a cult of human judgment.
Popper also believed in a culture of constant critique, this is a point of overlap with
Cultural Marxism; and humanitarianism, which is a loaded word designed to sound innocuous, but
which actually means something far more specific than "being nice to people."
Perhaps most frighteningly, the "open society" is just that – open. That is, entirely
without any sort of privacy. While the notion of a "right to privacy" as interpreted by United
States courts as a justification is troubling in practice, far more troubling is Popper's
conception of a society where every facet of a person's life is in the public sphere,
irregardless of their consent.
Free speech and free elections were seen as a necessity for such a society, however, Popper
and the Open Society Foundations had different interpretations for this. Free speech does not
apply to opponents of the open society unless they are critiquing society from the left –
the only way to complain about Comrade Stalin is to say how much better we would all be if
there were but two of him. Similarly, free elections means that of the kind we had in 2020
– one with absolutely no safeguards against abuse and taking place behind closed doors
under the supervision of ideologically motivated "monitors" with rampant fraud.
It's not just in America, it's a worldwide phenomenon.
George Soros: King of the Color
Revolution
George Soros' primary weapon for changing countries to be more pliable to his desires is the
"color revolution." You've probably heard of revolutions occurring, generally in post-Soviet
states, but also elsewhere. They have names like the Yellow Revolution (the Philippines), the
Rose Revolution (Republic of Georgia), the Orange Revolution (Ukraine), and the Saffron
Revolution (Myanmar).
There are some common themes to a color revolution which are worth noting for those wishing
to prevent such a thing from happening in their own country. A disputed election where there is
widespread cheating on the part of the "opposition" candidate generally kicks things off. The
"opposition" is controlled by the Soros machine and friendly to NATO or other Atlantacist
political organizations. There are then street rallies where violent operatives hide in crowds
of otherwise peaceful protesters.
The government then responds and there is outcry from "humanitarian" organizations that the
government has dealt sternly with what are effectively terrorists using human shields. There
are generally operatives within the command structure who are sympathetic to Soros and his
allies in Western governments.
There have been mixed success with color revolutions. They fail more often than they
succeed. But they do succeed, especially where one defines success not so much as overthrowing
the existing government, but forcing it to accept radical concessions that dramatically remake
the political culture in the country. Color revolutions have resulted in what was effectively
regime change in the Republic of Georgia ( twice ), Ukraine , the Arab World , and Belarus .
George Soros is deeply embedded in color revolutions around the world through the auspices
of his Open Society Foundations NGO. The playbook should look somewhat familiar to most
Americans after the summer riots of 2019 and 2020, as well as the aftermath of the
2020 elections .
It's important to remember that George Soros is not a god. He is simply a man with a lot of
money. Thus, we should be cautious in attempting to attribute each and every action on the far
left to him, particularly in the view that he is some kind of micromanaging puppet master who
is involved in the trenches of making policy or street activism. He is not.
He is a real-world supervillain and he is able to direct the law, constitutional, and
political culture of entire nations using his money and his vision for what society ought to
look like. He is able to get away with it thanks to general ignorance of just how effective he
is and a coordinated effort by the media to smear anyone who calls him out as a dangerous
fanatic.
It is George Soros, however, who is the dangerous fanatic. He is gunning for you, your
property, your children, and ultimately your way of life.
play_arrow
7thGenMO 4 hours ago
It is a bit of a red herring to focus only on Soros when he is part of a network - our
friends of intelligence that:
- Gun down American sailors in lifeboats after firebombing their ship.
- Infiltrate the financial and, accordingly, the political systems.
- Steal military technology.
- Sell poor American kids as sex slaves.
- Etc., etc., etc.
gregga777 5 hours ago
George Soros, aka Gyorge Schwartz, was a Nazi collaborator and assisted the SS in
confiscating wealth from Hungarian ****. The Holtzman Amendment prohibits anyone who
participated in Nazi persecution from living in the United States. Why is George Soros even
allowed in the US not to mention being allowed to live here? Does that Law only apply to
Gentiles and not to ****?
Lordflin 5 hours ago
When later asked how he felt about that part of his life... he said that aiding his Nazi
stepfather to plunder his own people... made him feel powerful...
RedCharles 17 minutes ago
Compare Soro's moral position with Einstein's take on Gandhi's moral position.
Operation Paperclip brought the best of Nazi middle management and scientists to the US
and Canada. Wernher Braun for example.
Canada's Deputy PM is the descendant of a Ukrainian Nazi propagandist.
gregga777 5 hours ago (Edited)
NASA hero SS-Sturmbannführer Werner von Braun was an unindicted Nazi war criminal.
He was responsible for deaths amongst slave laborers, probably numbering in the thousands,
at the Mittelwert Dora V-2 assembly plant. But, 95-year old retired factory worker
Friedrich Karl Burger was recently deported back to Germany because in 1945 he had served a
few weeks as an 18-year old concentration camp guard. The 2010 Holtzman Amendment prohibits
anyone who participated in Nazi persecution from living in the United States.
Fluff The Cat 5 hours ago
Millions of illegals get away with violating our sovereignty, yet the state will throw
the book at the average Joe citizen for a misdemeanor. People like Soros and Gates are
untouchable for a reason. It's not just because they have so much money but rather because
they fill roles which help facilitate radical transformations to our detriment.
Gold Bug XXX 5 hours ago remove link
Thankfully, the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft that exposes Soros' Sabbatean
Frankist origins is still online. Anyone who wants to know the real story about Soros and
the wealthy patron family behind him needs to read Rabbi Marvin Antelman's 2 book series:
Eliminate The Opiate available on Amazon. Antelman was the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Rabbinic Court of America from 1974 to 2004 and he exposes both who and what is behind
Soros and his agenda. Literally, this is THE book every American needs to read now.
This is the group behind Fabian Socialism, the group exposed by George Orwell (Eric
Blair) in his book 1984, as well as in Animal Farm. This is the philosophy of of modern
progressive Democrats in the USA and the liberal Labour party in Britain. This is the group
behind the Rhodes Trust, that created the Rhodes Scholarships, the London School of
Economics (Soros is a grad) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs who created
the CFR branch in the USA. Why do you think we have so many Rhodes Scholars and graduates
of the London School of Economics in the Obama and Biden administrations and leading the
far left?
Soros has sponsored everything evil from NAMBLA to BLM. He (and Bloomberg) funded the
anarchy and nationwide explosion in violent crime that we are seeing in every Blue City
where they installed their radical, Marxist prosecutors and DAs like Gascon in LA, Larry
Krasner in Philly, Kim Gardner in St. Louis, and Kim Foxx in Chicago - all cities where
prosecutors are emptying the jails, not prosecuting crime, and letting chaos reign supreme
so they can Federalize the Police (Soros' primary agenda) giving the federal government
more political power. This will extend the corruption we already see in our Intel Agencies,
the DOJ, all the Courts, and especially in the rogue FBI which is now a purely NKVD,
Brownshirt SA, STASI political police force focused inward on political dissidents and no
longer a legitimate law enforcement agency.
America had better wake up and wake up now, because with the purge of conservatives,
Christians and patriots from the military led by MIC Ratheon board member, the bitter
affirmative action general known as Lloyd Austin and the bat ****e crazy radical Marxist
Bishop Garrison, if we lose the police and the military - we will relive the Bolshevik
Revolution... the round ups, the torture the gulags and the death.
And then just like Solzhenitsyn warned, we'll burn in the camps wondering what would
have been if only we had resisted...
Rogan took exception with Stelter being incensed that more people were watching shows on
YouTube than watching his show, according to Fox News .
"They didn't even understand the way they were describing it. They were describing it as if
they're entitled to viewers," Rogan ranted.
"They were saying, "˜There are shows on YouTube right now that get more views than
this show.' This is because the market has spoken and your show's f***in terrible . Well, Brian
Stelter's show keeps slipping and slipping and slipping in the ratings."
"How about Brian Stelter talking to the press secretary, "˜What are we doing wrong?
What are we doing wrong?' Like, hey motherf---er, you're supposed to be a journalist ," Rogan
said. "They're obviously being told a certain amount of what to do. And maybe he'd be an
interesting guy if he had his own f---in podcast that you can rely on his own personality and
be himself. I don't know. I can't imagine doing that gig."
"He's the worst," Rogan guest and progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski said. Stelter has
"outright [called] for censorship under the guise of combatting the spread of conspiracy
theories."
They "use that for f---ing everything," Kulinski said.
Rogan then turned his ire to Don Lemon's show: "So is Don Lemon's. It's the same thing.
Everyone knows they're not real. They're not real humans."
"And they wonder why they get no views," Kulinski concluded.
Recall,
this week we noted that Stelter, who just last week groveled at the feet of White House
Press Secretary Jen Psaki - asking how the media can better cover President Biden - has failed
to attract at least one million viewers for 11 straight weeks , and averaged just 752,000 on
Sunday, his smallest audience of the year.
If contemporary American liberalism has any High Priests, foremost among them would have to
be Jon Stewart. Arguably, he's the functional equivalent of a supreme pontiff. So much of
contemporary American liberalism hinges on aesthetic presentation" the ever-present need to
convey that you and your peers "get it"" and Stewart pioneered the perfect public sensibility
tailored to this ambition. For years, cultural liberals' sense of savviness and ironic
detachment, coupled with an underlying pretension to earnestness, was cultivated and affirmed
by Stewart. His method of communicating political information on The Daily Show became the
dominant style not just of mainstream corporate comedy, but of left-liberal politics as a
whole. Everyone from establishment Democrats to cynical online leftists speaks of Stewart with
worshipful reverence.
Stewart is also very smart. Like any good leader of a religious order, he knows on occasion
he must chide his fellow clergymen for their doctrinal blindspots, tactical blunders, or
personal indiscretions . He knows how to gently but firmly advise parishioners when they've
gone astray, or gone too far. He also mostly kept his head down throughout the Trump
presidency" declining to weigh in on every fleeting micro-scandal" which was a wise decision,
so as to not get himself too brain-melted by the endless frenzy of that period. He didn't even
join Twitter until this past January.
Stewart recognizes when to "read the room" and direct a course correction in the prevailing
sentiments of popular liberalism when its dogmas have become too untenable to continue. Who
else was going to do it, Joe Biden? Nowhere near enough funny-guy sway. It takes the cultural
prestige of a leader like Stewart to truly make a difference. And when he decides it's time for
one of those gentle-but-firm course corrections, liberals listen intently" because liberalism
is underrated for its ability to adapt and self-correct, at least in the arena of public
presentation. This is best accomplished by reframing its past failures as a big joke, and
there's no one better positioned to do so than Stewart.
Accordingly, the rapid transformation of the lab leak theory from shameful racist trope into
cool-kid conventional wisdom need not occasion any recriminations or blame" just more
self-deprecating laughter. Never mind that during all the Zoom banter Stewart presumably
participated in over the past 15 months, the theory was either scornfully dismissed or ignored.
That's all in the past; Trump is gone. Eventually Stewart got it.
But he wasn't imparted with this knowledge by some divine revelation. A campaign of Twitter
sleuths and Medium posts is what punctured a false consensus. Stewart merely consecrated the
shift within a certain strand of the cultural mainstream, thereby granting license to liberals
who need permission from their entertainment idols before they form opinions about
anything.
This volatility within liberalism is often fodder for mockery. It can make adherents look
and sound incoherent. But malleability is part of liberalism's strength; after all,
conservatives are always complaining that liberals control most every institution. To what do
they attribute this...?
It's why the big "face-off" this week between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, desperately
hyped by the flagging corporate news industry, could result in Putin lavishing Biden with
praise for his statesmanship and sterling moral character, and no Democratic elected official
taking issue. Memories of how similar
diplomatic niceties were portrayed vis-a-vis the previous President simply vanish. Stephen
Colbert didn't sneer at the "collusive" implications. The last five years of spy-thriller hype
can just wash away, with the snap of a finger.
It's why Ashli Babbitt "" an unarmed protester shot dead at point-blank range by an agent of
the state" was presumed worthy of summary execution by the nation's liberal class, even as they
make other questionable police killings the guiding impetus of their entire political program.
Babbitt had bad ideas, she was deluded by YouTube misinformation, she was a de facto white
supremacist, whatever. She might've even been trespassing at the time the bullet was pumped
into her throat. The public still doesn't have the name of her assailant" this information has
been concealed by the relevant police agency . But Jon Stewart wouldn't go near that one...
yet. Promoting a certain interpretation of January 6 still has a utility for liberals that
clinging to lab leak denialism no longer does.
So much of it all is a facade" but facades can overlay the accrual of real power . Stewart
just has enough self-awareness to poke his head through the facade every now and then, when the
conditions are safe, and help right the ship.
The National Security Agency ( NSA ) has agreed to release records on the FBI 's improper spying on thousands of
Americans , the secretive agency disclosed in a recent letter.
The agreement may signal a rift between the NSA and the FBI, according to attorney Ty
Clevenger.
Clevenger last year filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of The
Transparency Project, a Texas nonprofit, seeking information on the FBI's improper searches of
intelligence databases for information on 16,000 Americans.
The searches violated rules governing how to use the U.S. government's foreign intelligence
information trove, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama nominee who currently presides
over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, wrote in a
2019 memorandum and order that was declassified last year.
The FBI insisted that the queries for all 16,000 people "were reasonably likely to return
foreign-intelligence information or evidence of a crime because [redacted]," Boasberg wrote.
But the judge found that position "unsupportable," apart from searches on just seven of the
people.
Still, Boasberg allowed the data collection to continue, prompting Elizabeth Goitein,
co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice,
to
lament that court's decision on the data collection program, authorized by Section 702 of
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), "is even more inexplicable given that the
opinion was issued shortly after the government reported submitting FISA applications riddled
with errors and omissions in the Carter Page investigation."
After the judge's order was made public, Clevenger filed FOIA requests for information on
the improper searches with both the FBI and the NSA.
The FBI rejected the request .
In a February letter ( pdf ), an
official told Clevenger that the letter he wrote "does not contain enough descriptive
information to permit a search of our records."
The NSA initially declined the request as well, but later granted an appeal of the decision
, Linda Kiyosaki, an NSA official, said in a letter ( pdf )
this month.
"You had requested all documents, records, and other tangible evidence reflecting the
improper surveillance of 16,000 individuals described in a 6 December, 2019, FISC Opinion,"
Kiyosaki wrote.
Clevenger believes the NSA's new position signals a rift between the two agencies,
potentially because the FBI
has repeatedly
abused rules
governing searches of the intelligence databases while the NSA has largely not.
"There's been a battle between them, for example, Mike Rogers tried to shut off FBI access
to the NSA database back in 2016," Clevenger told The Epoch Times, referring to how Adm. Mike
Rogers, the former NSA director,
cut out FBI agents from using the databases in 2016 .
"And so there's been some history of the NSA trying to limit the FBI's access because they
know that the FBI is misusing the data intercepts," he added.
The NSA and FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
It seems that the wokesters who claim that they are "anti-racists" still can't tolerate the
memory of a man who defeated history's most murderous racist. The Thursday defacing of a statue
in Canada is the latest effort to cancel Hitler's implacable foe.
A Downtown statue of Sir Winston Churchill has been vandalized after someone dumped red paint
all across the replica of the former British prime minister...
Churchill, who served as prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, is
seen as a national hero for his leadership during the Second World War but held many views
that would be deemed racist.
Perhaps the 20th century's greatest adversary of communist and fascist dictatorships,
Churchill has of course been found wanting by today's dictators of political fashion. This
week's vandalism follows several such instances over the last year involving a U.K. statue of
Churchill in London's Parliament Square. In Canada, Mr. Labine reports:
Elisebeth Checkel, the president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Edmonton, said this
is the first instance of the statue being vandalized that she's heard of and was disappointed
to see it happen.
She said Churchill has a complicated legacy and believes it is important to look at him in a
balanced way.
"If we look at any historical figure, we will find the same thing," Checkel said. "If we look
at almost any person from the 1880s, we would find their views were if not repugnant to us
nowadays, we would find they were disagreeable for sure. If you look at Churchill's later
actions and life as he grew, as we all hope to do, his views did change. The balance should
be celebrated because without Churchill we would not even have the right to protest in this
country."
Licia Corbella
writes in the Calgary Herald that this week's vandalism of the statue is "another act of
woke totalitarianism." She adds:
Mark Milke, president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Calgary, says it's chilling to
contemplate what the world would be like now had Churchill not been there.
"Imagine if Churchill hadn't been there and the United Kingdom either did a peace treaty with
Hitler or fell during an invasion," said Milke...
"Nazi Germany would have controlled much of Europe... with the Soviet Union controlling the
other half and Imperial Japan raping Asia. Canada and the U.S. would have been pretty much
alone in the world..."
"Churchill is not a Civil War general from the South fighting to protect slavery. He's not
Joseph Stalin or Chairman Mao or Adolf Hitler," continued Milke.
No he's not. In fact Churchill was a stalwart opponent of the ideologies promoted by all
three of the 20th century's most infamous mass murderers. "For the historically illiterate who
like to throw paint on statues," Ms. Corbella notes the bloody legacy of Churchill's enemies
and adds:
What never seems to get mentioned is these statues are works of art. This destruction is not
unlike the Taliban destroying the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001. These woke folk are
Talibanesque.
As for Churchill, Ms. Corbella asks: "If we allow his legacy to be torn down, whose, pray
tell, can stand?"
Fortunately Ms. Corbella is not standing alone. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney tweets :
People should continue to debate Churchill's complex legacy & record, but vandalizing
public property like this is shameful.
No member of the greatest generation can meet the standards of contemporary wokeness. But we
should still honour those who secured our peace and freedom.
Canadian Parliament member Pierre Poilievre adds :
Don't schools teach history anymore?
Now the woke warriors attack the statue of Winston Churchill--the greatest anti-fascist of
all time. He beat Hitler and Mussolini for crying out loud.
Do these vandals wish he had lost?
Coincidentally it was on this day 81 years ago when Churchill addressed the British House of
Commons after the German army had overrun France. Said
Churchill:
I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival
of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of
our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be
turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If
we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward
into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United
States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new
Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British
Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their
finest hour."
If wokesterism could last for a thousand years, would it ever result in a great
civilization?
Last week Bill Maher of HBO's "Real Time" did a commentary on something he believes deeply
destructive. Maher, who has described his politics as liberal, libertarian, progressive and
practical, is a longtime and occasionally brave foe of wokeness in its extreme manifestations.
He zeroed in on one aspect that fuels a lot of grievance, and that is the uninformed sense that
America has largely been impervious to improvement.
Mr. Maher called this "progressophobia," a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Steven
Pinker. Mr. Maher defines it as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them
incapable of recognizing progress. It's like situational blindness, only what you can't see is
that your dorm in 2021 is better than the South before the Civil War."
His audience laughed uncertainly. You could tell they didn't want to get caught laughing at
the wrong thing and weren't certain what the wrong thing was. Normally they're asked to laugh
at right-wing idiocy, which is never in short supply.
"If you think that America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could
vote, you have progressophobia," Mr. Maher said. Look at the changes America has made on
disputed issues like gay marriage and marijuana legislation. "Even something like bullying. It
still happens, but being outwardly cruel to people who are different is no longer acceptable.
That's progress. Acknowledging progress isn't saying, 'We're done,' or, 'We don't need more.'
And being gloomier doesn't mean you're a better person."
He was asking for perspective, a hard thing to do when you're a comic because a comic's
tools are exaggeration, satire and sarcasm. But Mr. Maher maintained earnestness.
"In 1958," he said, "only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage. Now Gallup
doesn't even bother asking. But the last time they did, in 2013, 87% approved. An overwhelming
majority of Americans now say they want to live in a multiracial neighborhood. That is a
sea change from when I was a kid." Mr. Maher was born in 1956.
He barreled on: "In a country that's 14% black, 18% of the incoming class at Harvard is
black. And since 2017, white students are not even a majority in our public colleges. Employees
of color make up 47% of Microsoft , 50% of Target, 55% of the Gap, as
companies become desperate to look like their TV commercials."
"The 'Friends' reunion we just had looked weird, because if you even suggested a show today
about six people all of whom were straight and white, the network would laugh you out of the
room and then cancel you on Twitter . And yet there is a recurrent theme
on the far left that things have never been worse."
The comedian Kevin Hart had recently told the New York Times , "You're witnessing white
power and white privilege at an all-time high." Mr. Maher: "This is one of the big problems
with wokeness, that what you say doesn't have to make sense or jibe with the facts, or ever be
challenged, lest the challenge itself be conflated with racism."
He added: "Saying white power and privilege is at an all-time high is just ridiculous.
Higher than a century ago, the year of the Tulsa race massacre? Higher than when the KKK rode
unchecked and Jim Crow unchallenged?" He acknowledged that "racism is unfortunately still with
us," and its "legacy of injustice" lingers. "I understand best I can how racism singes a
person's soul so much they might see it everywhere. But seeing clearly is necessary for
actually fixing problems, and clearly racism is no longer everywhere. It's not in my home, and
it's probably not in yours if I read my audience right, and I think I do. For most of the
country the most unhip thing you could ever be today is a racist."
You know leftist overreach is extreme when Bill Maher and Jon Stewart are calling out its
absurdities. Maher's bit is interesting--if you watch the video you'll see that he hasn't
totally wandered off the reservation of the left, but he is objectively looking around and
recognizing that all of this progressive indoctrination is causing problems.
Jon Stewart's rant brilliantly illustrated the folly of the Never Trumpers who have
allowed their disdain for the Orange Man to cloud their view of reality. He was 12 months too
late to point it out, but at least he got there eventually.
Chris Breidenbaugh
Marxist and Fascist tyrants have always required a boogey man. The Bolsheviks had the
bourgeoisie. Nazi Germany had the Jews, Castro, Chavez and the North Koreans have the US.
Today's US marxists have racism. An undeniable, invisible scourge that must be irradiated, no
matter how irrelevant it is in modern society. But it will never and can never be irradiated.
How will BLM rally the troops if there is no racism? Who will pay for Al Sharpton and Jesse
Jackson's limos if racism were "gone"? For todays US marxists, the goal is not to end racism.
It's to enact marxist policies to control the masses. Racism is just a tool; a means to an
end. You can see a direct correlation to the rise of marxist policies and the prevalence of
anti-racism fervor. When racism no longer serves it purpose for these marxists, it will be
kicked to the curb. They'll find a new boogey man and start the whole process over.
Patricia Barnes
Cultural elites (i.e. Hollywood, publishers) for decades have pushed the narrative that all
whites are one grandfather removed from a cruel Southern plantation owner wielding a bull
whip over a sniveling black slave on his knees. All to sell movie tickets and books.
RICHARD SANDOR
Patrica : Yes, I have learned quite a bit about this inter-racial part of America History
from watching " Finding Your Roots ." Quite an insight into how complicated slavery was
because even some African Americans owned slaves . The cultural divisions between the North
and South were huge . And finding a solution to this cultural divide was terribly difficult.
mrs
r fortin
To quote the racist Maxine Waters, we have to "push-back" against rewarding and giving more
power to the racist woke mob or we will become more divided than ever!
BRIAN MOORE
Maher's point will gain no traction on the left. Without "you're a racist", they would have
to produce cogent arguments, and they cannot.
SEAN ESSIG
"progressophobia," a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. Mr. Maher
defines it as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of
recognizing progress.
Absolute genius!
Gary Blakely
In the past we only had two genders, now we have 72 genders. That's progressive.
In the past we had 3,446 black hangings in the US, now we have had 40,000 black people
murdered in Chicago alone. That's progressive.
I could go on. Please feel free to enhance this list.
The Free Beacon reports that U.S. intelligence officials haven't come to a conclusion about
whether or not the students being investigated were spies, but RedState is told that whether or
not one wants to use the term "spy," those students were sent back to the United States with
specific information-gathering directives with the purpose of helping Beijing understand the US
government's response to the pandemic at a much deeper level than they could through
publicly-available documents. Those students (spies) were charged with reporting back on public
policy changes, economic response and damage, impacts on the healthcare system
(equipment/hospital bed shortages, etc), supply chain impacts (including how long it took
things like semiconductors from China to reach the United States), civil unrest, and more.
In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:
Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2
Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research
on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research
Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
Names of Chinese spies working in the US or attending US universities
Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who've received money from
the Chinese government
Details of meetings US government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies
and members of Russia's SVR
How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the
death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA
Dong also has provided DIA with copies of the contents of the hard drive on Hunter Biden's
laptop, showing the information the Chinese government has about Hunter's pornography problem
and about his (and Joe's) business dealings with Chinese entities. Some of the files on Dong
has provided shine a light on just how it was that the sale of Henniges Automotive (and their
stealth technology) to Chinese military manufacturer AVIC Auto was approved.
Again, according to sources, Dong told DIA debriefers that at least a third of Chinese
students attending US universities are PLA assets or part of the Thousand Talents Plan and that
many of the students are here under pseudonyms. One reason for using pseudonyms is that many of
these students are the children of high-ranking military and party leaders.
As we initially reported, DIA has high confidence in the veracity of Dong's claims. The fact
that since our original report, which was pooh-poohed by Langley apologists, the New York Times
published a rare interview with Dr. Shi Zhengli (the WIV "Bat Woman"), ABC News has started an
"investigation" into COVID-19 origins, and now the actual name of the defector has been
published in an anti-Trump, CIA-friendly blog, demonstrates what sources told RedState today:
"This defector has the rest of the intelligence community and the LEO community scared
sh**less."
The Free Beacon reports that U.S. intelligence officials haven't come to a conclusion about
whether or not the students being investigated were spies, but RedState is told that whether or
not one wants to use the term "spy," those students were sent back to the United States with
specific information-gathering directives with the purpose of helping Beijing understand the US
government's response to the pandemic at a much deeper level than they could through
publicly-available documents. Those students (spies) were charged with reporting back on public
policy changes, economic response and damage, impacts on the healthcare system
(equipment/hospital bed shortages, etc), supply chain impacts (including how long it took
things like semiconductors from China to reach the United States), civil unrest, and more.
In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:
Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2
Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research
on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research
Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
Names of Chinese spies working in the US or attending US universities
Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who've received money from
the Chinese government
Details of meetings US government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies
and members of Russia's SVR
How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the
death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA
Dong also has provided DIA with copies of the contents of the hard drive on Hunter Biden's
laptop, showing the information the Chinese government has about Hunter's pornography problem
and about his (and Joe's) business dealings with Chinese entities. Some of the files on Dong
has provided shine a light on just how it was that the sale of Henniges Automotive (and their
stealth technology) to Chinese military manufacturer AVIC Auto was approved.
Again, according to sources, Dong told DIA debriefers that at least a third of Chinese
students attending US universities are PLA assets or part of the Thousand Talents Plan and that
many of the students are here under pseudonyms. One reason for using pseudonyms is that many of
these students are the children of high-ranking military and party leaders.
As we initially reported, DIA has high confidence in the veracity of Dong's claims. The fact
that since our original report, which was pooh-poohed by Langley apologists, the New York Times
published a rare interview with Dr. Shi Zhengli (the WIV "Bat Woman"), ABC News has started an
"investigation" into COVID-19 origins, and now the actual name of the defector has been
published in an anti-Trump, CIA-friendly blog, demonstrates what sources told RedState today:
"This defector has the rest of the intelligence community and the LEO community scared
sh**less."
lay_arrow
Chief Joesph 2 hours ago
This story is totally unbelievable. First of all, the DIA is the wrong agency to turn
over information to, since it only analyze stuff that has military implications, (which of
course bioagents would be of an interest to them), but they never make any releases of
information available to the public. So, it's very doubtful the author would have gotten
any information directly from them. They are literally more secretive than the CIA. And,
the business of who had F/J visas and who went to American schools is totally irrelevant to
DIA too, which also makes this report suspicious about it's authenticity. This is simply
not the way military intelligence works.
Rudolph 1 hour ago (Edited)
Reads like a fiction. Mass number of spies in US gov't even CIA FBI must not be told of
Dong's defection ?
AmadausVoltaire 1 hour ago
Yeah, my tolerance for Hopium is so high that this story barely took the edge off...
Drowsapp123 3 minutes ago
Oh so now the Deep State is going to give me the straight story!
Wow they must have gotten jeeeeeeesus.
Never mind our military wants to go after China. This information will be totally
unbiased. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Someone tell the block heads in the military that we're not going to win when all the
parts to our war machine come from China. Seriously. This. Is. Dumb.
It was Fauci who had this crap going on in labs of Fort Detrick. When it was made
illegal here the research effort was shipped to Wuhan. There it was funded by Fauci / USSA.
China is being used as a patsy. Did China put on Event 201 where they did an exercise of a
corona pandemic in Sept 2019?? NO. It's the Davos Crowd. The Banking Cartel. Never forget
it or we'll have yet ANOTHER world war where your sons / daughters die for them. WW1 / WW2
were fought to make the world safe for the Banking Cartel and allow them to loot the
world.
pro·le·tar·i·at 35 minutes ago
Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
Dr. Anthony Fauci
bombdog PREMIUM 34 minutes ago
Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who've received money
from the Chinese government
Joe Biden
Huginn 33 minutes ago
Swallwell
Captain Carrot 28 minutes ago
Don't forget Sheldon Adelson (Trumpy's Boss)...!
Johnny Walker 2 hours ago
US has bio weapons labs in 25 countries.
"They kept tampering with the virus for a few years, trying to make it more infectious
and more deadly. After gain-of-function research was forbidden by the US government in
2014, it was promptly offshored to Wuhan lab. The research was quietly continued with US
grants coming (partly) from the notorious Dr Fauci via the equally notorious Peter Daszak
and his EcoHealth Alliance, the beneficiary of
$39 million grant from the Pentagon . The Pentagon is a great humanitarian organization
known for its love of mankind, right? "
4.5% (inflated) infection rate and 99.7% (deflated) survival rate is not any kind of
weapon. Perhaps the research was leading to it, but covid was not any kind of obviously
effective weapon. Dont believe the neocon jibberish. The weapon was the a test of the
ability to manipulate the media and politicians to create panic and fear and submission.
Obviously totally effective.
Gotta try and keep us distracted from the tribe going on a real-estate shopping spree
via BlackRock while small hat AG Garland calls "white supremacy" the greatest terrorist
threat.
"Look over there!! It's CHINA!!!"
BaNNeD oN THe RuN 1 hour ago
Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
So what, they obtained a copy of the Event 201 document from the Johns Hopkins Center
for Health Security.
Still it was pleasant to read a speculative propaganda piece not written by Epoch Times,
well done.
Sid Finch 32 minutes ago
This feels like more theatre to keep narrative alive. If the CDC or anyone proved a
virus exists, it would be good start. Their own PCR manuals concede that it hasn't. Anyone
can read them. It's more about creating panic to get more to want the magic mystery potion
injection. I see 4 healthy British Airways pilots died this week, and fllying does increase
clotting risks.
seems the public has become bored with the china/wuhan/bats/commies narrative, so we
needs to spice it up. facts or no facts, doesn't matter. it's all about the
clicks...........
so, umm......until some real news organizations update us on this world-shattering
story, ima take it with lott's wife.
VladLenin 2 hours ago
This sounds like BS. Someone here called it... Steele...
He approached the DIA after being in the US for 2 weeks? As a counter-intel guy, he
should know DIA HUMINT is for sh!t. They're the JV team. The only reason he might go to
them is if they had already pitched him (and maybe the Chinese found out).
So in a world of compartmentalization, this guy knows everything about everything.
Even being a high level guy, we all know executive types are incapable of doing stuff for
themselves. So, in between budget meetings and picking the new picture of Mao for the
lobby, he was downloading data to a thumb drive?
If I had to guess, this guy probably did defected. But his exploits are an amalgamation
of many potential intel sources. Pin some sh!t on him so he won't re-defect.
C urious it was to
read that the Russian judiciary ruled last Wednesday that Alexei Navalny's political
network is an extremist movement. Its members should be grateful that the courts recognized it
as a movement, given Navalny's nationwide support has never exceeded 3 percent or so, but on
paper they are now liable to arrest and prosecution and, if convicted of one or another charge,
could be fined or imprisoned.
There have been no arrests, so far as has been reported. But think of all those chances
Western intel agencies and their clerks in the press may now have to lionize a new cohort of
oppositionists as Navalny's heroic followers. Let us not forget, a kooky poseur journalist
named Oleg Kashin had the nerve to call Navalny "Russia's true leader" in a recent
New York Timesopinion piece.
There is no limit to the silliness in all matters Russian, it seems. At least not at the
Times .
I say "curious" because, in the ordinary conduct of statecraft as we have had it for the
past seven decades, the Moscow's court's ruling, exactly a week prior to President Joe Biden's
first summit with President Vladimir Putin, would have to be counted obtuse. Wouldn't minding
one's manners -- especially given that the Navalny network's significance resides solely in the
minds and news pages of Western propagandists -- be the wise course?
I don't think so. I have no clue as to the independence or otherwise of the Russian
judiciary, but it is unthinkable the Russian leader did not know in advance of what the courts
were about to determine. I think Russia was indeed minding its manners -- a different and
altogether more honorable set of manners than American pols and diplomats have exhibited lo
these many decades.
In a sensible read, the court ruling was a calculated gesture in response to Biden's
commitment,
announced during a Memorial Day speech, to confront Putin in Geneva on June 16 with the
question of human rights in the Russian Federation. "We will not stand by and let him abuse
those rights," saith the man from Scranton.
We will not stand by, Moscow replied in so many words, as you grandstand at Russia's
expense. Recall in this connection, Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, has lately made
it a habit to note
that Moscow is monitoring human rights in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 protests at the Capitol.
"We have no taboo topics," Lavrov said in evident response to Biden's speech. "We will discuss
whatever we think is necessary."
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, and President Vladimir Putin meeting with
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, 2017. (President of Russia)
It would be very wrong to take this matter as a passing spat as the Russian and American
presidents find their feet with one another. In my view, the court judgment last week and
Lavrov's remarks on human rights as a two-way street make the Geneva encounter far more
important than it may have otherwise turned out to be.
Five Principles
To understand this, we must go back and back and back some more until we reach the early
1950s, when newly independent India and newly socialist China were working out how two very
large neighbors ought best to conduct their relations. It was while negotiating a bilateral
agreement on this question in 1953 that Zhou Enlai, Mao's cultured, subtle, farsighted premier,
first articulated his Five Principles, the ethical code by which the People's Republic would
conduct its relations with all nations.
These were incorporated into the Sino–Indian Agreement of 1954 and have been
justifiably well-known since. Note that four of the five have to do with respectful conduct and
parity:
– Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty;
– Mutual nonaggression;
– Noninterference in the internal affairs of other nations;
– Equality and mutual benefit among nations;
– Peaceful coexistence.
A year after New Delhi and Beijing signed their accord, Zhou's principles were reiterated at
the historically monumental conference of nonaligned nations Sukarno hosted at an Indonesian
hill station called Bandung. When the Non–Aligned Movement was formally constituted six
years after that, the Five Principles effectively became the non–West's statement -- of
aspiration, of intent -- to the West: This is what we have to offer the postcolonial world, the
NAM said in so many words. This is our contribution to a new and peaceable world order. This is
how we will manage our relations with others.
The Grand Mosque of Bandung, Indonesia, with its twin minarets, adjacent to the city square
in Asia-Afrika Street, 2008. (Prayudi Setiadharma, Wikimedia Commons)
The United States never had any time for the NAM. As readers of a certain age will recall,
it dismissed the movement, with-us-or-against-us style, as a badly dressed bunch of
crypto–Communists or Soviet dupes. The decades since are an easy lesson in why Washington
took this utterly awful position: It has not once, not in any given year, observed even one of
Zhou's principles. It has always, in any given year, abused all five.
Vladimir Putin
One may admire or detest Vladimir Putin, but he is undeniably possessed of an excellent
grasp of history, as many of his speeches attest. I doubt he thinks very specifically about the
NAM or Zhou's principles, but, without naming them, these are what he will have on the table
when he meets Joe Biden.
This is the meaning of the oddly timed court judgment against Navalny's apparatus and the
message Lavrov conveyed in response to Biden's Memorial Day speech: Internal affairs are to be
resolved internally.
Geneva will mark the start of a long and welcome process. Its importance will lie in its
formalization of a stance Russia -- and China, too -- have adopted since those two
catastrophically stupid mistakes Biden and Secretary of State Blinken made last March, when
Biden called Putin a murderer and tin-eared Blinken hollowly lectured the Chinese about human
rights and democracy.
President Joe Biden in Oval Office, April 27. (White House, Adam Schultz)
Beijing and Moscow have ever since stiffened their backs toward the U.S., giving as good as
they get on all the questions with which Washington customarily browbeats others.
If we have begun a process, where will it lead? In my read to an excellent place, where
nations mind the better set of manners noted above -- Zhou Enlai's manners, let us say.
Before this century is out, and very possibly before the midway mark, Zhou's Five Principles
stand to become the norm in international relations. Zhou's true topic was parity between West
and non–West. This will be achieved, and strange it is that the opening months of the
Biden administration have opened us to this salutary prospect. The U.S. will otherwise lead us
all into an egregiously messy period of history, and I do not think rising powers -- Russia,
China, India, others -- will find this acceptable.
One other matter must be clarified as Geneva approaches.
I do not know the merits of the case against Navalny or, since last week, the ruling against
his followers. But I have always found it curious that The New York Times and the other
major dailies recite as rote that Navalny and his people consider the two charges of
embezzlement (and the two convictions) that put him in jail in the first place to be "trumped
up" or "politically motivated." Why doesn't the Times ' Moscow bureau do the gumshoe
work and inform readers whether or not this is so?
True, Times ' Moscow correspondents are among the worst in my lifetime, but this kind
of kabuki requires one to consider carefully whether the charges are indeed legitimate.
My read: The legal case against Navalny probably holds water, and the American press uses the
power of omission to avoid acknowledging this.
Pitiful, if this is the case.
The larger point here: We must learn to put all such questions aside in contexts such as we
have now in U.S.–Russia relations. Anyone who has ever been in a Marxist reading group
knows the importance of distinguishing between primary and secondary contradictions. Let us not
forget the essential lesson, no matter anyone's political stripe.
What is the primary contradiction here? It is Washington's refusal to observe the principles
of noninterference and sovereignty, and it is vital far, far beyond bilateral relations that
Russia defends these. The Navalny case and the associated matter of human rights are, plainly
and simply, a secondary contradiction -- and one it is imperative to leave to Russians to
resolve.
Geneva in June, a rather nice place to be. Let us see if Biden and Putin mind their manners
-- and whose manners these turn out to be.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is
Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century . Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via
his Patreon site .
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
of Consortium News .
After four years of Russia, Russia, Russia is our mortal enemy and has compromised the
former US President to our great national peril, don't you think it is wonderful Biden brought
a thaw to those very same hostilities he and his party spent the last four years trying to
foment? ( /s)
Boy, was this unexpected and fun. Jon Stewart, former star of the Daily Show (back when it
was funny), hooked up Monday night with his old protege, Stephen Colbert. When Stewart was
running the Daily Show, he had a liberal bent but he would also take on liberal hypocrisy. That
bit of integrity was on display again last night (today is Tuesday) when the insufferable
Stephen Colbert asked his old boss what he thought about the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is the
exchange:
"I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science. Science has, in many ways, helped
ease the suffering of this pandemic, which was more than likely caused by science ," Stewart
said after Colbert asked how he was feeling about the scientific response to COVID-19.
"Do you mean perhaps there's a chance that this was created in a lab?" asked Colbert,
adding "There's an investigation."
" A chance? " shot back Stewart – kicking the door open.
" Oh my god, there's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we
do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease
is the same name as the lab. That's just a little too weird, don't you think? And then they
asked those scientists – they're like 'how did this so wait a minute, you work at the
Wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab. How did this happen?' and they're like ' mmmm – a
pangolin kissed a turtle? ' and you're like 'no the name of your lab! If you look at the
name! Can I let me see your business card. Show me your business card. Oh – I work at
the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. Oh, cause there's a coronavirus loose in Wuhan. How did that
happen? '
'Maybe a bat flew into the Cloaca of a turkey and then it sneezed into my chili. And now
we all have Coronavirus."
Stewart landed one final joke as Colbert desperately tried to control the situation;
"HOLD IT, HOLD IT! What about this, what about this listen to this! 'OH MY GOD, there's
been an outbreak of chocolately goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania. What do you think
happened?'
'Oh I don't know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean?'
" Or it's the fucking chocolate factory ! Maybe that's it!" Stewart screamed.
Boy oh boy. Liberal land did not like that. Click
here to enjoy the tsunami of liberal hysteria in the aftermath of getting punched in the
nut sack by truth.
John Stewart always stroke me as an old-school 'New-Deal' type liberal who had a nuanced
view of the world. Ironically, when Dubya was in office Stewart was always there to criticize
and poke fun at him and the Republicans so he was pretty much their enemy no.1 in the media,
but this time around it is the batshit crazy progressives that are foaming on their mouths for
seeing him apply the same stuff he used to unleash against the Republicans. The Colbert's
interview actually sums up the insanity of the progressives nicely.
My hats off to John Stewart for standing up to non-sense when he sees it. James
says: June 17,
2021 at 9:48 am
Krystal & Saager were on Joe Rogan yesterday and the three of them watched the clip
together – quite approvingly.
Not everyone on the left is an idiot or a sellout. These three people, and Jon Stewart, have
great integrity and intelligence. Krystal & Saager are living proof that the left and the
right can work together to take on the establishment.
I see many commenters referring to President Putin as Vlad. For the last time, the
shortening of Vladimir is not Vlad, it's Volodya. Vlad is short for Vladislav. Just because
American idiots journalists didn't bother to do a little research doesn't mean you couldn't
either.
I see many commenters referring to President Putin as Vlad. For the last time, the
shortening of Vladimir is not Vlad, it's Volodya. Vlad is short for Vladislav.
...
Posted by: Andrew Ho | Jun 17 2021 0:55 utc | 74
You're forgetting that this is an English Language conversations among Speakers of
English. Their most common method of shortening a person's name is by omitting the surplus
syllables from the end of a long name.
In English, if the short version of a person's name bears no resemblance to the name itself,
then it's a Nickname.
It's not disrespectful to talk ABOUT someone using a conventional shortening of their
name. It would only be disrespectful if one used it when speaking TO the individual without
first asking how he/she prefers to be addressed. And that's a universal precaution.
Queen Elizabeth is nicknamed "Liz" by the irreverent and "BoJo" is widely recognized for
Boris. Somehow I have a vague notion Merkel has been dubbed "Tante," but this may be the
onset of dementia. ("Lilibet" has been revived for a great-granddaughter, but that was more a
WWII thing for Elizabeth II.) Before Macron was elected I off-handedly referred to him as
"monster," but that really provoked one of the regulars at another blog, Crooked Timber. (Our
host may be pleased to know they are allergic to MoA?)
Nicknames may be both expressions of affection and of scorn.
Comments for this article are pretty instructive about the particular strata of US population
mindset right now. Reminds the mood of dissidents in the USSR.
Tucker Carlson dropped several bombshells on his show Tuesday night, chief among them was
from a Revolver News report that the FBI was likely involved in organizing the Jan. 6 Capitol
'insurrection,' and were similarly involved in the kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor
Gretchin Whitmer .
" Why are there so many factual matters that we don't understand about that day? " asked
Carlson.
" Why is the Biden administration preventing us from knowing? Why is the administration
still hiding more than 10,000 hours of surveillance tape from the US capitol on January 6th?
What could possibly be the reason for that - even as they call for more openness... they could
release those tapes today, but they're not. Why?"
Carlson notes that
Revolver News has dissected court filings surrounding the Capitol riot, suggests that
unindicted co-conspirators in the case are likely to have been federal operatives.
We at Revolver News have noticed a pattern from our now months-long investigation into 1/6
-- and in particular from our meticulous study of the charging documents related to those
indicted. In many cases the unindicted co-conspirators appear to be much more aggressive and
egregious participants in the very so-called "conspiracy" serving as the basis for charging
those indicted.
The question immediately arises as to why this is the case, and forces us to consider
whether certain individuals are being protected from indictment because they were involved in
1/6 as undercover operatives or confidential informants for a federal agency.
Key segment from Tucker:
"We know that the government is hiding the identity of many law enforcement officers that
were present at the Capitol on January 6th, not just the one that killed Ashli Babbitt.
According to the government's own court filing, those law enforcement officers participated
in the riot - sometimes in violent ways . We know that because without fail, the government
has thrown the book at most people who were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6. There was a
nationwide dragnet to find them - and many are still in solitary confinement tonight. But s
trangely, some of the key people who participated on Jan. 6 have not been charged ."
Look at the documents , the government calls those people 'unindicted co-conspirators.'
What does that mean? Well it means that in potentially every case they were FBI operatives
... in the Capitol, on January 6th."
"For example, one of those unindicted co-conspirators is someone government documents
identify only as "person two." According to those documents, person two stayed in the same
hotel room as a man called Thomas Caldwell - an 'insurrectionist.' A man alleged to be a
member of the group "The Oathkeepers." Person two also "stormed the barricades" at the
Capitol on January 6th alongside Thomas Caldwell. The government's indictments further
indicate that Caldwell - who by the way is a 65-year-old man... was led to believe there
would be a "quick reaction force" also participating on January 6th. That quick reaction
force Caldwell was told, would be led by someone called "Person 3," who had a hotel room and
an accomplice with them . But wait. Here's the interesting thing. Person 2 and person 3 were
organizers of the riot . The government knows who they are, but the government has not
charged them. Why is that? You know why. They were almost certainly working for the FBI. So
FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6th according to
government documents. And those two are not alone. In all, Revolver news reported there are
"upwards of 20 unindicted co-conspirators in the Oath Keeper indictments, all playing various
roles in the conspiracy, who have not been charged for virtually the exact same activities
and in some cases much, much more severe activities - as those named alongside them in the
indictments."
Revolver , meanwhile, has important questions about January 6th
In the year leading up to 1/6 and during 1/6 itself, to what extent were the three primary militia groups (the Oath Keepers,
the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters) that the FBI , DOJ , Pentagon and
network news have labeled most
responsible for planning and executing a Capitol attack on 1/6 infiltrated by agencies of the
federal government, or informants of said agencies?
Exactly how many federal undercover agents or confidential informants were present at the
Capitol or in the Capitol during the infamous "siege" and what roles did they play (merely
passive informants or active instigators)?
Finally, of all of the unindicted co-conspirators referenced in the charging documents of
those indicted for crimes on 1/6, how many worked as a confidential informant or as an
undercover operative for the federal government (FBI, Army Counterintelligence, etc.)?
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has demanded an explanation from FBI Director Christopher Wray:
We recommend you read the entire
Revolver piece, which includes the fact that at least five individuals involved int he
"Whitmer Kidnapping Plot" were undercover agents and federal informants .
_Rorschach 7 hours ago
Just remember folks
a Klan meeting is always 33 FBI agents
and 2 ACTUAL white supremacists
Dragonlord 7 hours ago
No CIA? I am disappointed.
_Rorschach 7 hours ago (Edited)
Glowies are never at the meetings
theyre busy planting bombs for the false flag afterwards
Misesmissesme 6 hours ago
90% of "terrorists" would never commit acts of terror if the US Guv wasn't coercing them
to commit said acts. The wrong people are in jail.
Wonder who in government started the ball rolling on 9/11 before it got away from
them?
Sedaeng PREMIUM 6 hours ago
it never got away from them! They directed through and afterwards... Patriot act just
'happened' to be on standby just in case? ha!
Not Your Father's ZH 6 hours ago (Edited)
Amid this chronic Machiavellian conniving, here are creatures who know how to act
right:
"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from
people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record; while on the
banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry
and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the
banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks of the river." ~ Will
Durant, "The Story of Civilization"
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a
monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss , the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich
Nietzsche
"Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow.
There is no humor in Heaven." ― Mark Twain
thomas sewell 6 hours ago
everything in the USA is bull sheet. its all polluted with mind fook.
the last 1+ year has gone beyond any psycho drama i could ever imagine.
krda 5 hours ago
Didn't Brennan issue the 9/11 hijackers' visas?
zedwork 1 hour ago
Yes, but no planes. That would have been way too risky when you can just add them into
the live feed later using CGI.
Bob Lidd 1 hour ago
You mean like what happen in the 1993 WTC bombing.....??
How there hasn't been a day of reckoning yet is beyond me.
SexyJulian 6 hours ago
And stacks of bricks.
E5 5 hours ago
The FBI does not have the right to commit a crime. They chose to run an operation they
should disavow all agents involved and they know it. Arrest them.
With Wray out there spreading fear about the Great White Supremacy Threat, you can bet
the FBI is working overtime to make something newsworthy happen. Remember folks: 3
"militia" = 2 FBI informants + 1 patsy
Until the JFK murder/coup is brought to light, you can bet it's all hoax, including
Trump being an 'outsider'. He's not. He did everything Israel told him to do.
GhostOLaz 3 hours ago
America's perception of the FBI comes from TV "programs", not history or reality.
Joiningupthedots 1 hour ago
"Why is the administration still hiding more than 10,000 hours of surveillance tape from
the US capitol on January 6th?"
For the same reason the UK government wont release the Skripal Tapes from Salisbury,
UK.......LMAO.
Its an inside job........OBVIOUSLY!
Faeriedust 2 hours ago
So. Incidents are being staged and then used as excuses for more draconian State
security powers. How is this different from the behavior of known historical groups such as
the SS and the KGB? How can this be interpreted except as the actions of a totalitarian
State?
Sizzurp PREMIUM 6 hours ago
Scary stuff. They manufacture their own crimes to suit their political narrative and
agenda. This is straight out of the Nazi playbook.
Garciathinksso 6 hours ago
this is SOP for FBI, long rich history of manufacturing crimes and low, mid and high
level corruption . Prior to that the BOI was even worse.
JaxPavan 7 hours ago remove link
The chickens coming home to roost.
This was a "color revolution" by us, against us. And, it was designed to fail. Like a
freakish side show.
Why? Let off political steam. Keep all the people in their respective aisle of the
democan and republicrat uniparty bus. Distract political attention away from the full
****** plandemic lockdowns. Keep the rest of the world agape for a few more years thinking
things will fall apart on their own, while their resources are extracted. . .
Jam 47 minutes ago
This scam getting some press now is better late than never, but not by much. Some of
these media types being all surprised by this must have lived pretty sheltered lives and
are lacking any street smarts. This set up was obvious since day one, this is the same
bunch that won't call out these crooks for rigged elections.
Oxygen Likes Carbon 48 minutes ago
It should be painfully clear that with the level of surveillance in 2021, nobody can
walk into high security governmental building, without being arrested. Let alone organize a
mass demonstration then go into Capitol Building during the day, while the politicians
being there, to take ... selfies.
... without some help, or coordination from some governmental services.
anti-bolshevik 7 hours ago (Edited)
Replace 'unindicted co-conspirators.' with Agent Provocateurs.
The entire chain-of-command that authorized / planned / executed / gave material support
to this Operation should be indicted and prosecuted.
In this course of its investigation, researchers at Fordham discovered that EVERY
SINGLE ONE of the 138 terrorist incidents recorded in the USA between 2001-2012 involved
FBI informants who played leading roles in planning out, supplying weapons, instructions
and even recruiting Islamic terrorists to carry out terrorist acts on U.S. soil.
Enraged 56 minutes ago
With FBI Director Comey, Assistant Director McCabe, and FBI agent/covert CIA agent
Strzok acting against President Trump, this should be considered treasonous, and hopefully
they will be prosecuted.
The question is who authorized the latest actions on January 6 since Comey, McCabe, and
Strzok were fired.
Conductor "Corn Pop" Angelo 38 minutes ago
I can think of two to start with. Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. Both refused
additional security even after being told that the latest intel suggested there was going
to be a protest at the capital building on Jan 6th. The two were offered National Guard
troops, in addition to Capital Police, to help out, but refused. IIRC, both the Senate and
House Sgt at Arms lost their jobs over this, too
Make it three, Mayor Bowser had the same intel and did nothing
Andro1345 7 hours ago
These are old tricks by the FBI. They have been just as bad as the CIA for years.
So many instances going back so far. They plan things, set it up, help to encourage and
supply sheep to do these things. If I had someone trying to encourage me to get on board
something similar my first guess would be a government operative, seriously.
WeNamedTheDogIndiana 1 hour ago
I attended protests after the election, and it was obvious to be that the rallies at our
state capitol were infiltrated by FBI/deep state stooges. A number of them were talking
civil war, and said it too boldly in my opinion, and then many of them were carrying AKs,
when that was not necessary.
The only rally that I attended that seemed uncorrupted was the first protest in DC a few
weeks after the election.
taketheredpill 7 hours ago
Don't be shocked if the FBI funded some of the trips, hotels etc.
And for sure the FBI operatives "wound up" the participants...
But you won't find out for 10 years.
Alfred 7 hours ago
Not just infiltrated.
The FBI actually creates the organizations they then infiltrate.
Someone goes on a good rant here or there, can expect to be befriended by someone of
like mind. Thereafter that someone undergoes radicalization and then organization via FBI
sting ops. They get funding, they get resources, they get ready, they get busted.
Ha! It's all shake-n-bake, baby!
ProudZion 6 hours ago
...The proud boys was led by a FBI agent....
Mad Muppet PREMIUM 1 hour ago
They're called Agents Provacateurs and it's nothing new. The Government always initiates
the violence they say they want to prevent.
Ms No PREMIUM 1 hour ago remove link
"Informants" is a very misleading title. They aren't out there ferretting info of people
up to no good. It's more an infiltration and steering game and always has been.
They are basically agents without the boundaries of law. Good front guys too. They will
keep them out of trouble and protect them if they can but if it gets too hot they are
expendable and even easily patsied. It's all actually actually technically illegal because
even when they do real informant work it's actually entrapment.
We used to be protected from these things and now you see the reason behind that.
Nothing is new it just has different names and since it's always avoided by media, some of
it doesn't even have proper names, at least for the public.
It's basically false flag color revolution operations.
QuiteShocking 6 hours ago (Edited) remove link
The USA's standing in the world is vastly diminished by the continue lies and
mischaracterizations of what happened on Jan 6th by the democrats. The police officer died
from a stroke and not from the rioters. The unarmed white woman was executed by capital
police and no one was held responsible. The democrats have continued to blatantly lie and
mislead on what really happened on Jan 6th for political gain...
Max21c 7 hours ago
We recommend you read the entire
Revolver piece, which includes the fact that at least five individuals involved int
he "Whitmer Kidnapping Plot" were undercover agents and federal informants .
People were already aware that the FBI kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor
Gretchen Whitmer was an FBI thing from the start and all throughout. Just as many if not
most of these things are as they involve the secret police creating the plots and then
unraveling the plots they've created and managed and orchestrated all along the way.
Angular Momentum 7 hours ago
The states need to outlaw entrapment in cases like that. The FBI moles need to be
punished as severely as the dupes.
junction 7 hours ago
The FBI and the CIA apparently fund the so-call White Supremacist organizations. Your
tax dollars at work. Meanwhile, total silence for a decade from the FBI as Jeffrey Epstein
ran a transnational white slavery operation out of his Manhattan mansion, aided by the
Israeli Mossad.
Max21c 7 hours ago
The intelligence community and secret police community were well aware of what was going
on with the Epstein operation. It's not just the US side either as the UK and Israelis were
aware of it also.
Uncle Sugar PREMIUM 7 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Trump is better than Xiden, but
He left Chris Wray running the FIB
He didn't prosecute Comey, Brennan, anyone
He pushed the "Vax"
He spent worse than a drunken sailor
Conclusion - He's not the answer
OldNewB 6 hours ago
He should have pardoned Snowden.
otschelnik 7 hours ago
Well looks like the DOJ is bringing back the Obummer spygate team. John P. Carlin who
was head of DOJ/National Security Division is now deputy AG. He let the FBI give 4 civilian
contractors access to the NSA database for 702 inquiries, which Admiral Rogers stopped.
Also back is Lisa Monoco who oversaw the FISA warrants for Carter Page, and now she's going
to be heading up Garland's domestic terror task force.
That's all very ominous.
Farmer Tink 4 hours ago
I didn't realize that Carlin was back. He tried to defend his actions in the annual
report to the FISA court but Adm. Mike Rogers, on whose watch the NSA found out what the
DOJ was doing, carried the day. I also didn't realize that Lisa Monaco was the one in
charge of those illegal Page warrants. It's just sickening that they are being rewarded.
Thanks for the info.
glenlloyd 2 hours ago (Edited)
With such a high percentage of those 'involved' in the "insurrection" (said loosely
here) and the so called Whitmer kidnapping being from FBI / CIA / other intelligence
agencies AND those same people end up apparently being in leadership roles in these groups
that are supposedly going to be doing the kidnapping and insurrecting, then it's really
hard not to come to the conclusion that the fault was with the FBI et al.
It just seems like the FBI et al were way more involved in this than they should have
been, if you're going to suggest that it was the others that are to blame. The tough pill
to swallow is the claim that it was the people the FBI et al infiltrated and coerced into
do these things, that are to blame.
Things really do stink with this.
newworldorder 5 hours ago
How are these actions are not "entrapment."
InfiniteIntellRules 5 hours ago
I will stop, just too many tales of FBI corruption. Last 1
Under COINTELPRO, FBI agents infiltrated political groups and spread rumors that loyal
members were the real infiltrators. They tried to get targets fired from their jobs, and
they tried to break up the targets' marriages. They published deliberately inflammatory
literature in the names of the organizations they wanted to discredit, and they drove
wedges between groups that might otherwise be allied. In Baltimore, the FBI's operatives in
the Black Panther Party were instructed to denounce Students for a Democratic Society as "a
cowardly, honky group" who wanted to exploit the Panthers by giving them all the violent,
dangerous "dirty work." The operation was apparently successful: In August 1969, just five
months after the initial instructions went out, the Baltimore FBI reported that the local
Panther branch had ordered its members not to associate with SDS members or attend any SDS
events.
EVERY MAJOR EVENT. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
heehaw2 6 hours ago
All happened under Trumps watch. He said he was going to lead the March to Capital
building, then totally disappeared.
MrNoItAll 7 hours ago
Got to hand it to them. Those Fed guys sure know how to stage a riot to get media
attention and shape public opinion. How else could they explain why all the guard troops
were needed in D C. When getting them there could have been the primary goal of this staged
event.
lightwork 7 hours ago
In the early 70's it seemed that a government informant/ mole was instrumental in the
activities of virtually every left wing group in the country. It became common knowledge
that whomever was most vocal and advocated the most activist positions was usually "that
guy". It was effective since paranoia caused most groups to disintegrate.
otschelnik 8 hours ago remove link
Probably more snitches than that.
Oath Keeper Thomas Caldwell who is one of the lucky few released but still charged is a
former FBI contractor who had top secret security clearance according to his lawyer.
Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio who was arrested 2 days before the riot for vandalism (burning
a BLM banner), had been an informer to the FBI and law inforcement in Florida, according to
his lawyer.
They forgot Antifa and BLM in their list of groups.
State sponsored terrorist groups favored by Liberal Elites and their secret police are
generally omitted and immune.
heehaw2 6 hours ago
George Bush Senior, then head of CIA was in Dallas when JFK was assinated. Ol George
announced as President the New World order
QE49er 6 hours ago
Reichstag Fire style false flag.
Ruff_Roll 6 hours ago
It makes perfect sense that FBI or government supported operatives were acting as agents
provocateurs on 1/6, organizing and instigating the riot, and subsequently let off as
"unindicted co-conspirators." Pelosi was probably in on it, too.
TheySayIAmOkay 7 hours ago
This is the biggest "duh" ever. Of course the government is involved. Just like they
were in 9/11. Just like they were stealing the election. Just like they are in at least
some of these mass shootings (the FBI was warned about the Parkland shooter multiple
times). Just like they will be in the next big incident that massively strips rights from
the people.
The Deep State is real. And it is the upper echelons of the FBI, DHS, CIA, ATF, etc.
They are the shadow government that wags the tail. They can do whatever they want and
nobody can do anything about it. Do you think if Ted Cruz or Nancy Pelosi killed someone
they'd get away with it? No. They are figures. The limits of their power can be stripped
with a single, stupid, scandal. How about John Brennan? I have absolutely no doubt in my
mind he could. Because who will hold him accountable? Nobody in the CIA or FBI went down
for not listening to the FBI agent about the 20th hijacker. Mueller got PROMOTED! He's deep
state. Brennan was regional chief of the CIA in Riyadh leading up to 9/11. He got...
PROMOTED! Deep state.
3-fingered_chemist 7 hours ago
The fact the Capitol had essentially zero security the day all members were present to
tally the EC votes and people still think this wasn't faked?
Jim in MN 7 hours ago
Speaking as someone who actually attended the earlier 'Stop the Steal' rally in DC, I
said at the time that the Jan. 6th event didn't smell right and felt like a setup.
Recommended that folks stay away, expect trouble and stay frosty at that time.
Note that the FBI was/is also deeply involved in the BLM riots. AKA a criminal
conspiracy to destabilize US civil order. Of course a lot of mayors and police chiefs are
also involved in that criminal conspiracy.
The more you know.....
jammyjo 7 hours ago
FBI is making contact with unstable people, and do nothing but keep them on a list of
"assets" to be activated when needed.
Patmos 7 hours ago
Gives new meaning to false narrative. More than just spin, they actually create the
events themselves. Not quite a false flag, because nothing really happened.
Is anyone involved going to stand up and say no? Or have they all just decided to
reserve themselves to being corrupt little b!tches?
Feck Weed 7 hours ago
FBI is the US domestic secret police force for the Globalist Empire. Nationalism is the
enemy of the globalists...
The men on the street corners with "The End is Nigh" placards are beginning to
resemble Walter Kronkite in demeanor as well as credibility.
But then again Walter was one of the CIA's finest...
Nona Yobiznes 7 hours ago
I guess the crazy conspiracy theorists were right again.
benb 3 hours ago (Edited)
Dumb Hannity used to call the FBI "The Crown Jewel of Law Enforcement,."
C Rabbit PREMIUM 7 hours ago
Why has the FBI never released the surveillance videos from the Alfred P. Murrah
Buildings and the others around it from the morning of April 19, 1995. "It's still under
investigation."
Why have the videos from all around the Pentagon taken on the morning of 9/11 never been
released?
Why does the CIA refuse to release all of their files on the JFK assassination?
Why? Why? Why?
Muffdiver2269vIII 7 hours ago
Ahh, they are waiting for Durham to complete the reports?
wootendw PREMIUM 6 hours ago
"Congressman Matt Gaetz calls on FBI Director Christopher Wray to fully disclose the
role and involvement of FBI operatives during the January 6th Capitol riot."
That would be self-incrimination.
radical-extremist 7 hours ago (Edited)
FBI will never talk because that would be revealing "classified methods and
procedures".
Why of course they troll the boards looking for "extremists" to exploit. They befriend
them and groom them, until they eventually enable them to commit the crime itself.
Conspiracy to commit the crime isn't near as sexy as the real thing, let's put these people
away for life. If there's collateral damage now and then, so be it. "Justice" comes at a
cost. /s
If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his
defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people
that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the
law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of
finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a
case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for
the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the
law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this
realm-in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass,
or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest
danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes
personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or
governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious
to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.
Reddit is one of the world's most influential news and social media platforms. The website
attracted
over 1.2 billion visits in April 2021 alone, making it the United States' eighth most visited
site, ahead of other leviathans like Twitter, Instagram and eBay. Now majority-owned by a much
larger corporate publishing empire, Reddit is also far ahead of more established news sites,
garnering three times the numbers of Fox News and five times those of The New York
Times .
That is why it was so surprising that so little was made of the company's decision to
appoint foreign policy hawk Jessica Ashooh to the position of Director of Policy in 2017, at
which time it was also the eight most visited site in the U.S. Ashooh, who had been a Middle
East foreign policy wonk at NATO's think tank the Atlantic Council, was appointed at around the
same time that the Senate Select Intelligence Committee was
demanding more control over the popular website, on the grounds that it was being used to
spread disinformation. In her role as Director of Policy, she oversees all government relations
and public policy for the company, in addition to managing content, product and advertising.
Yet a Google search for "Jessica Ashooh Reddit" filtered between late 2016 and early 2017
(after she was appointed) elicits
zero relevant results, meaning not one media outlet even mentioned the questionable
appointment.
This is all the more hair-raising, given her resume as a high state official -- all of which
raises serious questions about the extent of collaboration between Silicon Valley and the
national security state.
A hawk's talons on Syria
The Atlantic Council is the de-facto brains of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and
takes
funding from the military alliance, as well as from the U.S. government, the U.S. military,
Middle Eastern dictatorships, other Western governments, big tech companies, and weapons
manufacturers. Its board of directors has been and
continues to be a who's who of high U.S. statespeople like Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and
Condoleezza Rice, as well as senior military commanders such as retired generals Wesley Clark,
David Petraeus, H.R. McMaster, James "Mad Dog" Mattis, the late Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, and
Admiral James Stavridis. At least seven former CIA directors are also on the board. As such,
the council chooses to represent both political wings of the national security
state.
Ashooh's LinkedIn resume epitomizes the troubling relantionship between think tanks and big
tech
Between 2015 and 2017, Ashooh was Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council's Middle East
Strategy Task Force, working directly with and under Madeline Albright and Stephen Hadley. This
is particularly noteworthy, given both these individuals' roles in the region. As Bill
Clinton's secretary of state, Albright oversaw the Iraq sanctions and the Oil for Food Program,
denounced as "genocide" by the
successive United Nations diplomats charged with
carrying them out. In an infamous interview with 60 Minutes , Albright casually brushed
off a question about her role in the killing of half a million children,
stating "the price is worth it." Meanwhile, Hadley was deputy or senior national security
advisor to the government of George W. Bush throughout the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions,
surely the greatest crimes against humanity thus far in the 21st century.
Ashooh appears to be as hawkish as her bosses. Her particular area of expertise is the war
in Syria, regarding which she has been among the most belligerent voices, constantly calling
for more American intervention to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. In a 2015
interview with Al
Jazeera , she praised the U.K. government's decision to bomb the country, claiming that the
British public was "coming around" to the idea of war. A shocked interviewer asked "how will
the British airstrikes [on] Syria make the British public any safer?" Ashooh replied that it
was "generally a positive decision" because "it goes a long way in improving international
consensus on the way forward on Syria," although she lamented that there wouldn't be "much
improvement in the situation without ground troops." There will be "no political solution
without a military element," she predicted, essentially making the pitch for war.
Ashooh has also constantly praised and supported Syria's opposition forces. In 2016, she
said that she was
very happy that "fighters on the ground from a number of key factions" were uniting against the
"Assad regime." She condemned Russia for claiming these opposition forces were members of
terrorist groups like Al-Nusra, Jaysh al-Islam or ISIS, insisting that these were "moderate"
rebels.
Of course, the idea that there was still any measurable distance between "moderate" rebels
and outright militant jihadists by 2016 was
hard to maintain . Even The Washington Post by this time was
admitting as much, noting that so-called moderates were now so "intermingled" with al-Nusra
that it was difficult to tell them apart.
Nevertheless, the New Hampshire native took to the pages of The New York Times to
demand that the U.S. arm the opposition. Of course, it was already doing so, the CIA
spending
$1 billion per year fielding rebel mercenary armies in the conflict -- with one in every 15
dollars the agency
spent going to this endeavor. All of this Ashooh surely knew, yet she maintained that the
West must continue to "jack up the price" of Russia defending Assad. "As long as [Assad]
remains in power and remains the figurehead of the Syrian government this conflict won't end,"
she said , laying out
her regime-change-or-bust position. Just weeks before unexpectedly taking over at Reddit,
Ashooh seemed to still be in full foreign-policy-hawk mode, condemning Obama in the pages of
The Washington Post for his apparent softness on Syria and
demanding that Trump "restore U.S. credibility" by "order[ing] targeted, punitive strikes
against the Assad regime."
Ashooh attends British Polo Day at Abu Dhabi's Ghantoot Racing and Polo Club. Photo | Ahlan
Dirty war, dirty warrior
Ashooh is actually even more involved in the Syrian conflict than one might realize from her
hawkish opinions alone. Between 2011 and 2015, she worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the United Arab Emirates, in her own words , "[p]rovid[ing] senior decision
makers with policy analysis and strategic advice, with a particular focus on Syria."
At that time the UAE was using its enormous financial clout to arm and fund a myriad of
jihadist groups attempting to overthow the secular strongman Assad and establish some kind of
Islamic state. Far from a conspiracy theory, this comes straight from the horse's mouth, as
then-Vice President Joe Biden revealed in a Q&A session in 2014. The future president
frankly stated :
The Saudis, the Emiratis, what were they doing? They poured hundreds of millions of
dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad,
except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist
elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. "
Under pressure, he later apologized
for his loose lips.
MintPress News asked the Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs to comment on precisely
what Ashooh's role was, but they failed to respond.
Ashooh is pictured during her time as a "consultant" in Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo |
Academyalumni
Ashooh herself appears to have been a relatively major player in the Syrian Civil War. In
her previously mentioned Washington Post
article , she notes that her boss was a former Emirati Air Force General and that she was
flown to Istanbul in 2013 to attend an emergency meeting with leaders of the Syrian opposition,
as well as ambassadors from unnamed Arab and Western states, in order to plan a response to a
reported chemical weapons attack and to help the U.S. "coordinate with the Syrian
opposition."
At the same time as she was advising the nation on Middle Eastern affairs, the UAE was
widely accused of flying ISIS and al-Qaeda leaders into Yemen to help them intensify the
Saudi-led onslaught on the impoverished nation and of smuggling
U.S.-made weaponry -- including small arms, TOW missiles and Oshkosh fighting vehicles -- to
the jihadist groups. While Ashooh's writing is careful to maintain a distinction between the
"moderate" rebels she supports and the fundamentalist radicals she does not, it certainly is
noteworthy that the entities she worked for consistently seem to end up in league with the most
regressive forces in the region. MintPress also reached out to Reddit for comment on why
they appointed Ashooh, given her past history, and on the wider phenomenon of government
penetration of social media. The company initially promised to issue a response to the inquiry
but has not followed through with it.
Regime change is on the table for more than just one Middle Eastern nation. In a 2017
paper for the
Center for the National Interest -- a think tank established by former Republican President
Richard Nixon and the "Godfather of Neoconservatism,"
Irving Kristol -- Ashooh explores the different options for forcing regime change in Iran,
but concludes that overthrowing the "odious regime" is an impossible task right now, and
criticizes the idea as a quixotic dream.
Nevertheless, she is far from an Iran dove. An Atlantic Council report
she co-wrote insists that "Iranian interference in the Arab world must be deterred," and that
"America's friends and partners must be reassured that the U.S. opposes Iranian hegemony and
will work with them to prevent it."
Ashooh's commitment to fighting against Middle Eastern dictatorships might seem more
principled if she did not appear so enamored of the least democratic one of them all. In 2016,
she accompanied Albright and Hadley to Saudi Arabia and praised the monarchy's dynamic
leadership on the economy and its nurturing of a new generation. "It was really really exciting
to see that level of energy and the level of government support for these young people who were
interested in shaping their own futures it was just wonderful," she
said . In an
article about her experience for business news website Market Watch , she waxed
lyrical about how forward-thinking the Saudi government is and how the country has become "a
hub for the dynamic and positive change that is swelling up throughout the region." Presumably,
this excludes Yemen, a nation they were bombing
relentlessly . In a 2020
interview , Ashooh revealed that her dream job would be U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
One of her
earliest comments on her public Reddit page (made before she began working
there) is deflecting the Kingdom from criticism of its dreadful
treatment of women.
Ashooh's Reddit account, which doesn't identify her real identity, uses the moniker,
arabscarab
As part of the Atlantic Council, Ashooh was tasked with envisaging a new Middle East for the
21st century. Given her output
, it seems that she advocates for a transition towards a more privatized, free-market economic
setup, not completely unlike the shock therapy tried in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.
"We have to "encourage states to make the reforms that move economies from state-based to ones
that support entrepreneurship, because the age of state-based economies is over," she
said at a
talk at New York University in 2015, adding:
You've got to move to support entrepreneurship in the region and let people take advantage
of the natural industrial tendencies of people in the Middle East. My God, if you've ever
been to a Turkish bazaar or a market in Cairo you know that these countries are perfectly
capable of having functioning market economies. But the state has gotten in the way.
Ashooh's LinkedIn
profile also notes that in 2010, she worked as an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning "on
a variety of strategic and economic development issues," but does not go into any more detail
about what those issues were. A further biography merely states that her
consultancy agency "provid[ed] strategic and management consulting services to the Ministry of
Planning of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Northern Iraq." Unsurprisingly, the
organization has links to the U.S. military; the agency's lead partner being a former Army
captain.
Think Tankie
Ashooh comes from a relatively prominent New Hampshire family of Lebanese descent, the most
notable of which is probably her uncle Richard . Richard Ashooh was Donald
Trump's Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration and a former executive at weapons
manufacturer BAE Systems. Unlike her uncle, Jessica appears to lean more Democratic, having
donated money to a number of local politicians, as well as to anti-Trump Republican groups
aimed at convincing them to vote blue, such as Right Side PAC and the now infamous Lincoln
Project. However, she also appears to have great respect for many Republicans, having written
her
doctoral thesis at Oxford University on the Middle East policy of the George W. Bush
administration. She also
stated that the person she would have most liked to have met was 41st President George Bush
Senior, describing him as possessing "incredible amounts of strategy, finesse and restraint."
Thus, her political views appear to be exactly in the center of the neoliberal "
blob " in Washington.
Ashooh also worked
for the right-wing think tank the CATO Institute and is a Term Member of the more
Democratic-aligned Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR's term member program is
intended to, in its own words, "cultivate the next generation of foreign policy
leaders."
Surveillance Valley
How and why, then, did a hawkish young mandarin hothoused at elite universities and in the
halls of state power end up an executive at an anarchic messageboard site with an
anti-establishment reputation? Virtually everyone else in senior roles at Reddit has relevant
backgrounds in marketing or tech, having worked with comparable companies such as Yelp, Expedia
and Snapchat.
Tom Secker -- a journalist, podcaster and
researcher who runs SpyCulture.com ,
an online archive about government involvement in the entertainment industry -- was deeply
skeptical. "That someone whose entire career has been in international relations and foreign
affairs is now the senior policy wonk at Reddit is simply bizarre. Given her ties to the CFR,
Atlantic Council and the like, it's downright suspicious," Secker told MintPress .
Underneath the surface, however, the Atlantic Council has been rapidly expanding its
influence and control over big social media companies. In 2018, it announced that it would be
partnering with Facebook to promote trustworthy sources and derank, demote and even delete low
quality or fake news, thus effectively curating what the platform's
2.85 billion worldwide users see in their news feeds. But the effect of recent algorithmic
changes has been to throttle alternative media traffic in favor of establishment sources such
as CNN , Fox News and The New York Times . Even such more mainstream
liberal sites as Mother Jones have seen their numbers crater. Facebook later
admitted that they were directly targeting Mother Jones because of its left-leaning
content, raising the question that if such a middle-of-the-road liberal outlet was being
penalized, wasn't the collapse in traffic to more radical publications surely deliberate? Given
the Atlantic Council's funding and the identities of those on its board , their control over
social media is tantamount to state censorship on a global level.
Earlier this year, Facebook also hired NATO press officer Ben Nimmo to be its intelligence
chief, in another move that
dismayed free-speech advocates. In the past, Nimmo has identified a Welsh pensioner and an
internationally known Ukranian pianist as Russian bots, raising more questions about the
suitability of the Atlantic Council to be an arbiter of truth online.
The Facebook-Atlantic Council link mirrors that of Microsoft with
NewsGuard , a new piece of software purportedly trying to fight fake news by placing either
green shields or red warning logos, corresponding to an outlet's credibility, beside all links
in its browser, Microsoft Edge -- this credibility being decided entirely by NewsGuard itself.
Newsguard pushed Microsoft to install the software on all its products as standard. Again,
however, NewsGuard's system rated establishment websites like Fox News and CNN as
trustworthy but independent media as suspect. And again, a glance at its advisory board makes it clear that
this is a state operation. Those in key positions included George W. Bush's Secretary of
Homeland Security and former NSA and CIA Director General Michael Hayden; ex-White House
Communications Director Don Baer; and former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Worse still, NewsGuard is also linked to a PR agency
employed in whitewashing the Saudi
government's human-rights record and its role in the carnage in Yemen.
Twitter, too, has some extremely troubling links with state power. In 2019 Gordon MacMillan,
a senior Twitter executive responsible for the Middle East region, was
outed as an active duty officer in the British Army's 77th Brigade, a unit dedicated to
online operations and psychological warfare. Far from causing a scandal, only one major U.S.
outlet even mentioned
the story, and the journalist in question resigned from the profession weeks later,
claiming the existence of a network of top-down state censors who quash stories that
threaten the power and prestige of the national security state. To this day, MacMillan remains
in his post at Twitter, strongly suggesting the social media company knew of his role before he
was hired.
Over the past few years, Twitter, Reddit and Facebook have
announced the deletion of hundreds of thousands of accounts linked to sources in Russia,
Iran, China and other enemy states,
often on the recommendation of Western governments or state-sponsored intelligence
organizations. However, they never seem willing or able to find any manipulation of their
platforms by Western governments. Thus, the upshot of this has been to slowly dissuade critics
of Western foreign policy from using their services.
"The mainstream media-politik establishment has managed to get a hold over Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram -- shadow-banning and downrating posts considered 'Russian propaganda' or
whatever other excuse they use to marginalize perspectives and content outside of the
mainstream," Secker told MintPress . "Audiences for this sort of content are
increasingly pissed off and alienated by the major social media sites."
Increasingly, unwelcome political voices are either brushed off by centrist pundits as
repeating Russian talking points or smeared as being amplified by Kremlin-based bot farms. The
popularity of movements on the left like
Black Lives Matter or the Bernie
Sanders' campaign were written off as partially linked to Russia, while others
suggested that the January 6 insurrection in Washington was essentially a Russian
operation.
The irony is that many of the wildest accusations against Putin that have fed this climate
of suspicion began life in Atlantic Council documents. For example, the organization has
published a series
of studies that suggest that virtually every European political party challenging the
neoliberal status quo in some way -- from Labour and UKIP in the U.K. to Syriza and Golden Dawn
in Greece and PODEMOS and Vox in Spain -- are secretly controlled by Russia, functioning as the
"Kremlin's Trojan Horses," in its words.
The Atlantic Council is also deeply intertwined with a U.K. government-funded organization
called the Integrity Initiative, something that purports to be a group defending democracy from
disinformation. However, in practice, it appears to be doing the opposite: planting
disinformation about politicians' supposed links to Russia in order to undermine them. The
Integrity Initiative is a government-backed cluster of journalists who operate in unison to
conduct propaganda blitzes on
unsuspecting publics. In 2018, it
launched a successful operation to prevent Colonel Pedro Baños being appointed
Spain's head of national security. Considering Baños too soft on Russia for the Atlantic
Council and other hawks' liking, the initiative sprung into action, creating a storm of protest
that led to another individual being chosen.
Reddit actually played a key role in a 2019 propaganda blitz against anti-war Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn. A few days before the U.K.'s general election, Corbyn promoted documents leaked
on the platform that showed that Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson was negotiating with
American companies, putting much of the country's National Health Service up for sale. With
just days to go before polls opened, it could have proved a game changer. Reddit quickly came
to Johnson's rescue, however,
asserting that the documents were part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The story in
the pliant British press switched from "Boris Johnson is selling off the NHS" to "Corbyn
promotes Russian disinfo," thus greasing the skids for an easy victory for the hardline
anti-Russia Conservative Party, an outcome the hawks at the Atlantic Council were no doubt
relieved by, given Corbyn's open skepticism about war, empire and nuclear weapons. The veracity
of the documents was not challenged.
For a while
Founded in 2005, Reddit has grown to become one of the world's largest and most influential
websites. However, it began life as an anarchistic messageboard whose culture was profoundly
libertarian and anti-establishment. For years, the company's administrators took a near free
speech absolutist position. Aaron Swartz, Reddit's co-founder, was an open source hacktivist
and even attempted to download and publish the entirety of academic publisher Jstor's library.
When authorities got wind of what he was doing, they threatened him with 40 years in prison, an
action that caused him to take his own life in 2013.
Reddit's own position on free information and free speech was often so extreme it caused
huge controversy. The site became the internet's largest source of child pornography. It was
only after CNN began reporting on it to a nationwide audience that
things began to change. Other, grossly offensive communities like /r/BeatingWomen and
/r/CoonTown were also protected.
Nevertheless, the culture established by anarchistic tech bros remained for some years, with
the site resembling darker corners of the internet like 4Chan and 8Chan as much as more
family-friendly mainstream social media like Facebook.
Ashooh's arrival in 2017 coincided with a new era in the site's history. Gone were the days
of protecting communities that would bring in bad publicity. Her team quickly
brought in a new content policy and began to delete communities that violated it. Last
year, she oversaw the banning of over
2,000 communities in a single day, including /r/The_Donald, the main Donald Trump
subreddit, and /r/ChapoTrapHouse, the most active left-wing community. These decisions have
helped the money flow in; since 2017 revenue has more than tripled .
However, what has been lost across the internet is the liberatory potential of these
technologies. In the 1990s and 2000s, many predicted that the internet would usher in a new era
of egalitarianism and genuine democracy, helping even to reduce barriers and tensions between
nations. For a while, the new medium allowed political actors to challenge the status quo and
gain huge followings quickly. Alternative media was easily outperforming legacy media, and
challenging the status quo when it came to news. Seeing that, the reaction since 2016 has been
swift, as the elite have moved to retighten their grip over the means of communication.
Ashooh's jump from national security state official to Reddit Director of Policy is just one
more point of reference on that chart.
One of them is only capable of having 2-3 sentence discussions and then needs to be
shuffled off out of the public eye.
toady 14 hours ago
It's amazing how he's managed to "fail up" for his entire life.
brown_hornet 14 hours ago
That's what [neoliberal] dems do.
RattieNomNom 18 hours ago
where is his cocaine-infused son? he could keep talks going
Stormtrooper 17 hours ago
This Summit will be a victory for Biden because it will be just a media show for the
American (or whatever we are now that we do not have a legitimate Federal government tying
the states into a Constitutional union) sheeples.
The Summit will be in one of the movie studios where the Biden "White House" exists.
Putin will be an actor and the whole episode will be structured to make Biden appear to
know where he is at.
Enjoy the show.
JohnnyCrypto 18 hours ago remove link
Is Obama going with them?
yerfej 18 hours ago
No, Rice and Jarrett will be there instead. Oblama will be busy ginning up race hatred
somewhere in some inner city shythole.
You are conveying information to me as to who said that. But where is evidence that this
was indeed done? I will tell you that this person has said that, that person has said this. But
where is the evidence? Where is proof? With -- when there is -- when there are charges --
without -- evidence, I can tell you, you can take your complaint to the International League of
Sexual Reform.
In his article Paul Robinson details how since the 16th century Russian imperialism had
been rooted in a specific Russian form of Christian messianism ("Third Rome") which in turn
has lead to imperial over-extension and internal break-down. But no more! Russia has learned
it`s lesson and is now a pragmatic country without exceptionalism and imperial ambitions.
In the lower half of the article RT links to another article with the headline: "Love thy
neighbor? Putin says religious values of 'mercy' & support for vulnerable underpin
Russian civilization through history "
Russia's peak was after the defeat of Napoleon's Grand Army at the start of the 1800s.
Britain and France then focused on it as the main European enemy (with Napoleon finally
defeated at Waterloo and Germany not yet unified) and destroyed its military during the
Crimean War (1853-1856). The Japanese administered the coup de grace with the Russo-Japanese
war (1904-1905) during which they destroyed the Russian fleet. The taking of Eastern Europe
after WW2 was a defensive maneuver by Stalin, as any detailed reading of the correspondence
and actions of the day would attest - for example, Stalin handed back Austria and allowed the
US/UK a free hand in Greece, Italy and Western Europe when many were ripe for
socialist/communist victories.
Russia is a weak shadow of the USSR and the Russian Empire, it has to accept the reality
of its situation. Unfortunately it will take much longer for the US to do so.
@fyi 30 Russia has nothing to gain from invading Ukraine. She refused to do so in 2014.
Putin was never happy about the Donbass insurrection, just could not get them crushed and
massacred because the Russion people would not have understood nor accepted that. Russia had
the opportunity to occupy if not all of Ukraine then at least Novorossija (all the east and
northeast from Charkov to Odessa oblast) three times at minimum since 2014. From a merely
military point of view they could do it anytime within a week, or faster. They had even
larger exercises than the latest transferring 300k servicemen with full equip from the far
east and central Siberia to the western part.
The political repercussions would be grave. NS2 would certainly the first victim. And for
which gain? Russia, instead of EU and (to some extent, US) had to foot the bill for that
bankrupt failed state. As to the popular uprising, even when real (or just PD), there was a
popular uprising against the Nazis in Donbass. NATO sides with Nazis, the Greens love them.
German Chancellor aspirant Annalena Baerboeck boasted before the Atlantic Council, that her
Grandpa in winter 1945 (together with his Hitler Wehrmacht and SS comrades) fought "for the
reunification of Europe" - against the evil Russkis.
The West is already fighting for and alongside with Nazis, also in those Baltic
shitholes.
Odessa is not likely to be attacked by Russia in spite of the city's past historical
associations with Russia. If everyone is expecting a Russia attack on Odessa then NATO
strategies in the Black Sea will be based on such an assumption. So Russian strategy must be
based on what everyone least expects the Russians to do.
If the Russians were so minded as to want to cut off Ukrainian access to the Black Sea,
they could do so by building up their naval forces at the Kerch Strait and near Sevastopol,
as
a show of force. If they were to target a city, not that they need to, that city would be
Mariupol on the Azov Sea.
I suspect most people in Odessa and Mikolayiv in SW Ukraine are by now so fed up with Kiev
that they would, if given an opportunity, switch their loyalties to Russia without the
Russians having to fire a shot.
Summits are good - if they are successful. But when they fail, potentially crashingly, they
can quickly lead to escalation. Biden is just as much in his fifties as his predecessor. This
generation is not capable of coming to terms with the current power situation. For them, the
usa is still the undisputed leading power. They act accordingly arrogantly. Geneva could
backfire - on all of humanity.
Sorry Aquadraht but my smartphone changed your name in my comment @ 38. I was too busy fixing
up other deliberate changes my smartphone was making to my comment to notice.
1.Putin has already won the hearts of humanity.
2.The purpose of computing accelerated algorithms have been useful tools of economics,
politics & psychopaths.
3.The favorite play of Joe is the dumb dementia card. Let's not forget the badass boss his
authentic meanness projects.
4. Narily consuming news, I have observed a financial front setup for the dollar demise in
Russia via some big fund there. Equally important is their positioning a system of trade that
excludes SWIFT. (I read it on this blog) What's the point of BIS killing Putin? Just out of
hate, spite, what? No. Hes got an elite euro pedigree. I expect a mean Joe in Switzerland
with all his marbles lined up. Putin won't quake, then what will the Pentagon play be?
Thanks b.
Expect nothing.
Biden is a cold war thug and a Russia hater. Being his age he will be running on his 20's
brain cells and memories and prejudices. He was the Obummer point man in Ukraine and Kurt
Volker with that belligerent mind set are likely music to Biden's ears. Biden just has to
reassert that the killers are back in charge after the tragi-comedy of Trump and the clown
cart. Biden has a mission to merely demonstrate the return of the magi
neo-cons.
Yes it will fail. It will be seen as pathetic at first and a week later as useless.
The USA has NEVER grasped the flower of peace and no world leader has offered that flower
so consistently as has Putin or lately Xi. And yet the USA shits on their hand of greeting.
This is a tragedy for all across this world as we witness the idiocy of squandered resources
on military might.
I do not expect the USA to clean house and sack the colony of warmongers occupying their
foreign policy advice team. I suspect the state is not in control of its destiny but rather
run by a self perpetuating mindset within the military/academia/media that glorifies itself,
ensures its succession, and then glorifies itself some more. An echo chamber of ego, fear and
loathing.
Passer by@44 I firmly believe that history books still need massive infusions of facts, but I
am not an adherent of Critical Race Theory, which substitutes moralizing for scientific
analysis, only to do a bad job with the morals (notably, the notion of collective hereditary
guilt plays a major part in much of it...and CRT is deliberately left vague so that the more
extreme positions can be reserved while more reasonable ones are defended in lieu.) And I
also believe that re-defining "democracy" as "social democracy" while ignoring how democracy
is class collaboration in pursuit of national conquest (or defense when things go badly.)
Pretending that the past democrats weren't is a way of flattering ourselves that we are so
enlightened we know better and will have true democracy as soon as we reform the bad people's
minds. It's opposing an imaginary ideal to a straw man reality in defense of illusions. The
fundamental motive I think is anti-communism, but that's my opinion I guess. The multipolar
world of 1900 wasn't unipolar because "white," that's hare-brained CRT crap in my judgment. I
don't agree with it.
But history books really need to concentrate on what happened without moralizing on
motives, which are always mixed. Children will grow up and figure that out eventually, except
for the religious ones who mentally consign others to hell.
Babylon 5 is a space war TV series, so if the argument is supposed to be that multipolar
is more peaceful, the logic escapes me. If the idea is that if "states" are equal, then it's
democratic strikes me as ideology. In the US, the idea that this or that state has rights
that ordinary people do not (variations on residual sovereignty usually,) has *never* been
essential to progress. The people having rights, majority rule, yes. But those things and
states' rights rarely even aligned. States' rights to maintain slavery or Jim Crow are the
primary examples. But I can't think of any real states' rights that work out to progress for
real people, as opposed to legal abstractions like a state. Consider the attitude of the
federal government to the states' right to decriminalize/legalize marijuana.
fyi 30
What you wrote about Ladakh and China vs. India is rubbish too (as always when you cluelessly
write about China). As MK Bhadrakumar detailed a while ago, it is not China who is the bully
in the Himalayas and Kashmir/Jammu. It is India who constantly changed the status quo by
occupations and annexions like in Sikkim, and with Nepalese territories too.This was the case
under the congress governments already to some extent, and radicalized with the Hindutva
fascists of Janata/RSS in power. It is them who build tens of military airfields and roads
around the LAC, deploying ten thousands of servicemen.
China is not interested in conflicts. It wants to guarantee the safety of the
Sichuan-Tibet-Xinjiang Highway which is crucial for the development of Western Chinese
provinces. It is the Janata regime who tries to menace and cut that connection.
China made a ton of modest and reasonable proposals, from Zhou Enlai's memorandum in 1954
on, to settle all border disputes and uncertainties in the Himalayas. And though China kicked
the Indian's butts miserably in 1961, they pulled back from Southeast Tibet, the area India
boasts as Arunachal Pradesh, British robbery prey from the Chinese empire.
The nationalist and fascist fools in Delhi have nothing real to win in the Himalayas. They
are fighting uphill, and face tremendous cost for their poor country. They continue
provocations though.
@ 46 spudski.. me either... everyone i know has one though.. oh well.. they will just have to
catch up with us!
@ 50 aquadraht... what you have to realize is fyi filters everything thru his religious
bigotry... once you figure that out - then it all becomes obvious why he concludes what he
does... it is all based on a narrow religiously intolerant position...
Very good, though I'm doubtful about the weapons worry. Isn't it the case that 1) both sides
still have significant ICBM and sub-based MRBMs? 2) Isn't it also the case that neither side
has reliable anti-ballistic missile defenses? Aren't we still very much living under a
Mutually Assured Destruction paradigm? So what if the Russians have hypersonic missiles? Are
they going to be able to saturate US missile launching systems? No.
I have a hard time believing we want war. To take on an enemy with the manpower and
productive capacity of China would be suicidal. If there is an alliance between Russia and
China and you throw in Russia's natural resources - doubly so. My take is that what we want
is an excuse to continue spending on defense - it's a business model - and Russia provides
the bogeyman.
Whatever Washington could throw at Russia, the residual Russian forces would penetrate
American defenses and wreak havoc on the American homeland.
You're being polite here.
Russia's nuclear arsenal would do much more than "wreak havoc on the American homeland":
it would reduce its entirety into a radioactive wasteland. There would be no
redneck-in-the-middle-of-Wyoming standing after such attack. The USA would become some kind
of cursed land where nothing grows for millennia.
Russian Government does not need to directly intervene then; a series of small incidents
could be caused during which the city of Odessa organizes a self-defense Unit called Rus
Protection Force and asks for help from Lugansk People's Republic.
The key consideration is to deny a legitimate beach head to the NATO forces.
In any case, I think the Russian Government is resigned to another decade or more of
confrontation with West; they already have concluded that the sanctions against the Russian
Federation will never be removed, that they would be ejected from SWIFT, and should invest
more in autarky lest they reprise the experience of Iran.
The US aircraft you were searching for is the F-15. The new version is the F-15EX which is
now in production after the Gulf states handily paid for the bulk of the R&D. Initially
it will replace the old F-15C/D single seat interceptors but in the longer term will also add
to or replace the F-15E multirole fighter/bomber. There is no overlap in functionality
between the F-15EX and the F-35.
Thank you for that rebuttal. Fyi, I sense the writer is a china russia basher lurking
behind a thin masquerade of faux shia sophistication and all intended to give shia a bad
name. Tacky.
There is a drink waiting for you at the bar of excommunicated souls ;)
In 1900 the world was more unipolar than any time in the last 3000 years. Anglo
colonialism was at a peak, Caucasians directly controlled Africa and South East Asia. white
Colonialism and genocide were everywhere. China was still crushed by European powers, Russia
was incredibly weak.
It takes a lot of word salad and spinning to say the world in 1900 was multi-polar.
Doesn't matter what you think if critical race theory...that has zero relevance here.
>>Babylon 5 is a space war TV series, so if the argument is supposed to be that
multipolar is more peaceful, the logic escapes me
Well, it was a film about different civilisations overcoming war and conflict - the whole
point about constructing the Babylon 5 space station was to avoid war and to find ways to
communicate with each other, no matter how different the various space species can be.
The multipoar space station was constructed after a disastrous Earth War against another
space civilisation, in order to fix conflicts in the Galaxy.
I really recommend you that Sci Fi series.
>>The multipolar world of 1900 wasn't unipolar because "white,"
Unless you are from another race, in which case you will see massive white dominance all
over around the world during those years.
>>Babylon 5 is a space war TV series, so if the argument is supposed to be that
multipolar is more peaceful, the logic escapes me
Well, it was a film about different civilisations overcoming war and conflict - the whole
point about constructing the Babylon 5 space station was to avoid war and to find ways to
communicate with each other, no matter how different the various space species can be.
The multipoar space station was constructed after a disastrous Earth War against another
space civilisation, in order to fix conflicts in the Galaxy.
I really recommend you that Sci Fi series.
>>The multipolar world of 1900 wasn't unipolar because "white,"
Unless you are from another race, in which case you will see massive white dominance all
over around the world during those years.
Yes, that seems like a fair assessment. In 1900 there was indeed not only rivalry between
european-american colonial powers, but also between European Colonial Powers and powerful
European countries who were at disadvantage for lack of colonies...Germany.
Here's what's goin' down. (According to my 95% WRONG predictions.) Nothing whatever of the
slightest importance will be discussed at the Putin/Biden 'summit'. No significant accords
will be established, and virtually nothing will occur. EXCEPT:
This will be a rollicking Royal Send-Up for the benefit of Joe Biden. Why? The logic is
dirt simple. Biden is always on the hairy edge of being removed from office for
incapacitation. Russia would then be dealing with the amateur and insanely aggressive Kamala
Harris. It's about sticking with the Devil You Know.
Therefor, Putin will provide the feeble Joe Biden with an all-in Royal Send-Up. Putin will
praise Biden to the heavens. He will even toss in some empty but hugely auspicious
'concession'. Which will be hailed by the indentured media as a Tremendous Victory.
All solely to keep the feeble Master of Bargain Basement Politics in 'charge'.
>>In 1900 the world was more unipolar than any time in the last 3000 years. Anglo
colonialism was at a peak, Caucasians directly controlled Africa and South East Asia. white
Colonialism and genocide were everywhere. China was still crushed by European powers, Russia
was incredibly weak.
It takes a lot of word salad and spinning to say the world in 1900 was multi-polar.
Doesn't matter what you think if critical race theory...that has zero relevance here.
In my previous comment @8 above, I concurred with b that a significant faction within the
Outlaw US Empire's elite governing aparat are delusional while other factions are very much
aware of the stark reality of the Empire's condition--particularly its domestic condition. A
shining example of this was published today by Global
Times , of which there are three total articles I hope barflies will read, although
they might have read the first two as I linked and commented about them when they were
published. Franz Gayl is a 64-year-old retired US Marine major who worked at the Pentagon as
an analyst and wrote two reality-based articles for publication by Global Times for
what are obvious reasons when read--the Outlaw US Empire has zero chance of winning a war
against China over Taiwan, and he advocated against such a stupid undertaking. But reality
just cannot be mentioned--the Narrative Must Hold at All Costs!!--as with the continuous
stream of lies about the state of the USA's economy that have been ongoing since Reagan and
his VooDoo Economics. For a self-declared Christian nation, it most certainly has
forgotten--buried very deeply--the admonition from Proverbs 16:18: Pride goeth before the
fall. And genuine patriots like Franz Gayl get crucified for trying to avert that fall. Just
like wanting to kill Assange for telling the truth--the Outlaw US Empire is facing the same
stark reality that Gorbachev and the USSR faced in the early 1980s. And guess what, Putin
just said that's exactly what the USA's facing today at the SPIEF to the heads of global
media:
" But problems keep piling up. And, at some point, they are no longer able to cope with
them. And the United States is now walking the Soviet Union's path, and its gait is confident
and steady." [My Emphasis]
At least Clueless Joe @11 sees through the bologna and gets it correct. I highly suggest
this op/ed . As Putin
told the global media heads, Russia is all about Russia and Russians, and is willing to
partner with other nations that can aid Russia in its development that's aimed at benefitting
all Russians . Defending genuine strategic interests is NOT Imperialism. the big
problem for the Outlaw US Empire is that since WW2's end it's seen the entire planet as its
strategic interest, which was the first post-war BigLie it told to itself and swallowed
whole.
NBC pushed regular neocon garbage, so it is not very interesting interview. We saw better
executed similar attempts to attack Putin in the past. The guy is really second rate: too pushy,
too opinioned to be a good interviewer. He really is not interested in Putin opinions, he need to
push the agenda of his handlers. He demonstrated zero respect as if Russia is a US vassal (it was
in 1990 under alcoholic Yeltsin) . In other words he is a regular Pressitute. This neocon pushed
the label killer on Putin, while this label is appropritate to any recent US presendent to much
greater measure. Just look at how many people were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in attempt to
achive "full spectrum Dominance" and enhance andcement global neoliberal empire. But some moments
when Putin destroyed neocon agenda are pretty educational.
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week sat down for an interview with a US media outlet
for the first time in nearly three years . NBC's Keir Simmons talked to Putin for about 90
minutes, and released a teaser segment Friday night.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation centered on the Russian leader's
perspective on American politics and his personal thoughts and comparison of Donald Trump and
Joe Biden. Putin called the former president "extraordinary" and "talented" while noting that
Biden is "radically different" and is a quintessential "career man" in politics .
https://www.youtube.com/embed/oh_obIUJ7HA
"Well even now, I believe that former U.S. president Mr. Trump is an extraordinary
individual, talented individual, otherwise he would not have become U.S. President," Putin told
Simmons.
" He is a colorful individual. You may like him or not. And, but he didn't come from the
US establishment, he had not been part of big time politics before , and some like it some
don't like it but that is a fact."
"...President Biden is a career man. He has spent virtually his entire adulthood in
politics," Putin said in part.
"That's a different kind of person, and it is my great hope that yes, there are some
advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements, on behalf
of the sitting U.S. president."
Also interesting is Putin's response to the March George Stephanopoulos interview with Biden
wherein the US President dubbed Putin a "killer" with "no soul". Putin responded in this new
NBC clip:
"Over my tenure, I've gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles and from all kinds
of areas under all kinds of pretext, and reasons and of different caliber and fierceness and
none of it surprises me."
Putin called the "killer" label "Hollywood macho."
Putin also took aim at a recent
Washington Post report over Russia-Iranian military relations and the transfer of advanced
satellite systems. "It's just fake news," Putin dismissed. "At the very least, I don't know
anything about this kind of thing. Those who are speaking about it probably will maybe know
more about it. It's just nonsense, garbage."
activisor 2 hours ago
Funny how Putin has become leader of the free world! He and Lavrov are streets ahead
of the rest, and have massive support outside Russia based on their common sense approach
to world events. He will be hard to replace.
yerfej 2 hours ago
EVERYONE with common sense realize Putin is the ONLY current leader who gives a ****
about his country and people and is willing to cooperate with any country that isn't
wandering around the globe looking to tell everyone else what they can say or do or
think.
No_Pretzel_Logic 2 hours ago
How fascinating that you speak for "everyone" with common sense. That's quite a
skill.
Do tell us about the responses from people you've polled in the Scandinavian
countries, Poland, UK, France, etc.?
George Bush League 2 hours ago
You can start by not being such an pathetic condescending azzhole.
smellmyfingers 54 minutes ago
Putin, articulate, intelligent, answers without a teleprompter and without babbling or
stumbling.
Is he perfect? Obviously not nor is he a messiah. But I'd bet people have more
confidence in him out in front than the corruption and lies the USA and many other
western nations have that are completely compromised.
chunga 2 hours ago remove link
Dmitry Orlov has got some interesting translations from Putin at the thing in St.
Petersburg.
Early in the pandemic, I had been furiously writing articles about lockdowns. My phone rang
with a call from a man named Dr. Rajeev Venkayya. He is the head of a vaccine company but
introduced himself as former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation.
Replay Unmute Duration 0:22 / Current Time 0:22
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Emmanuel Macron slapped in face during visit to town The G7 summit: What you need to know
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His Role NOW PLAYING
I did not know it then, but I've since learned from Michael Lewis's (mostly terrible) book
The Premonition that Venkayya was, in fact, the founding father of lockdowns. While working for
George W. Bush's White House in 2005, he headed a bioterrorism study group. From his perch of
influence "" serving an apocalyptic president" he was the driving force for a dramatic change
in U.S. policy during pandemics.
He literally unleashed hell.
That was 15 years ago. At the time, I wrote about the changes I was witnessing, worrying
that new White House guidelines (never voted on by Congress) allowed the government to put
Americans in quarantine while closing their schools, businesses, and churches shuttered, all in
the name of disease containment.
I never believed it would happen in real life; surely there would be public revolt. Little
did I know, we were in for a wild ride"¦
The Man Who Lit the Match
Last year, Venkayya and I had a 30-minute conversation; actually, it was mostly an argument.
He was convinced that lockdown was the only way to deal with a virus. I countered that it was
wrecking rights, destroying businesses, and disturbing public health. He said it was our only
choice because we had to wait for a vaccine. I spoke about natural immunity, which he called
brutal. So on it went.
The more interesting question I had at the time was why this certified Big Shot was wasting
his time trying to convince a poor scribbler like me. What possible reason could there be?
The answer, I now realized, is that from February to April 2020, I was one of the few people
(along with a team of researchers) who openly and aggressively opposed what was happening.
There was a hint of insecurity and even fear in Venkayya's voice. He saw the awesome thing
he had unleashed all over the world and was anxious to tamp down any hint of opposition. He was
trying to silence me. He and others were determined to crush all dissent.
This is how it has been for the better part of the last 15 months, with social media and
YouTube deleting videos that dissent from lockdowns. It's been censorship from the
beginning.
For all the problems with Lewis's book, and there are plenty, he gets this whole backstory
right. Bush came to his bioterrorism people and demanded some huge plan to deal with some
imagined calamity. When Bush saw the conventional plan" make a threat assessment, distribute
therapeutics, work toward a vaccine" he was furious.
"This is bulls**t," the president yelled.
"We need a whole-of-society plan. What are you going to do about foreign borders? And
travel? And commerce?"
Hey, if the president wants a plan, he'll get a plan.
"We want to use all instruments of national power to confront this threat," Venkayya
reports having told colleagues.
"We were going to invent pandemic planning."
This was October 2005, the birth of the lockdown idea.
Dr. Venkayya began to fish around for people who could come up with the domestic equivalent
of Operation Desert Storm to deal with a new virus. He found no serious epidemiologists to
help. They were too smart to buy into it. He eventually bumped into the real lockdown innovator
working at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
Cranks, Computers, and Cooties
His name was Robert Glass, a computer scientist with no medical training, much less
knowledge, about viruses. Glass, in turn, was inspired by a science fair project that his
14-year-old daughter was working on.
She theorized (like the cooties game from grade school) that if school kids could space
themselves out more or even not be at school at all, they would stop making each other sick.
Glass ran with the idea and banged out a model of disease control based on stay-at-home orders,
travel restrictions, business closures, and forced human separation.
Crazy right? No one in public health agreed with him but like any classic crank, this
convinced Glass even more. I asked myself, "Why didn't these epidemiologists figure it out?"
They didn't figure it out because they didn't have tools that were focused on the problem. They
had tools to understand the movement of infectious diseases without the purpose of trying to
stop them.
Genius, right? Glass imagined himself to be smarter than 100 years of experience in public
health. One guy with a fancy computer would solve everything! Well, he managed to convince some
people, including another person hanging around the White House named Carter Mecher, who became
Glass's apostle.
Please consider the following quotation from Dr. Mecher in Lewis's book: "If you got
everyone and locked each of them in their own room and didn't let them talk to anyone, you
would not have any disease."
At last, an intellectual has a plan to abolish disease" and human life as we know it too! As
preposterous and terrifying as this is "" a whole society not only in jail but solitary
confinement" it sums up the whole of Mecher's view of disease. It's also completely wrong.
Pathogens are part of our world; they are generated by human contact. We pass them onto each
other as the price for civilization, but we also evolved immune systems to deal with them.
That's 9th-grade biology, but Mecher didn't have a clue.
Fanatics Win the Day
Jump forward to March 12, 2020. Who exercised the major influence over the decision to close
schools, even though it was known at that time that SARS-CoV-2 posed almost risk to people
under the age of 20? There was even evidence that they did not spread COVID-19 to adults in any
serious way.
Didn't matter. Mecher's models" developed with Glass and others" kept spitting out a
conclusion that shutting down schools would drop virus transmission by 80%. I've read his memos
from this period" some of them still not public" and what you observe is not science but
ideological fanaticism in play.
Based on the timestamp and length of the emails, he was clearly not sleeping much.
Essentially he was Lenin on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. How did he get his way?
There were three key elements: public fear, media and expert acquiescence, and the baked-in
reality that school closures had been part of "pandemic planning" for the better part of 15
years. Essentially, the lockdowners, over the course of 15 years, had worn out the opposition.
Lavish funding, attrition of wisdom within public health, and ideological fanaticism
prevailed.
Figuring out how our expectations for normal life were so violently foiled, how our happy
lives were brutally crushed, will consume serious intellectuals for many years. But at least we
now have a first draft of history.
As with almost every revolution in history, a small minority of crazy people with a cause
prevailed over the humane rationality of multitudes. When people catch on, the fires of
vengeance will burn very hot.
The task now is to rebuild a civilized life that is no longer so fragile as to allow insane
people to lay waste to all that humanity has worked so hard to build.
... Average hourly earnings for workers in leisure and hospitality rose to $18.09 in May,
the highest ever and up 5% from January alone, according to Labor Department data released on
Friday. Pay rose even faster for workers in non-manager roles, who saw earnings rise by 7.2%
from January, far outpacing any other sector.
That higher pay could be a sign that companies are lifting wages as they seek to draw people
back to work after more than a year at home. Some businesses are struggling to keep up with
higher demand as more consumers, now fully vaccinated, get back to flying, staying in hotels
and dining indoors. Job gains in leisure and hospitality this year have so far outpaced gains
in other sectors.
But it is too soon to know whether the boost will be enough to help speed up hiring at a
time when many workers are still facing other obstacles, including health concerns and having
to care for children and other relatives.
"The fact of the matter is, the pandemic is still going on," said Daniel Zhao, a senior
economist for Glassdoor. "The economy is running ahead of where we are from a public health
situation."
Some 2.5 million people said they were prevented from looking for work in May because of the
pandemic, according to the Labor Department.
... ... ...
Employment in leisure and hospitality is still in a deep hole when compared with pre-pandemic
levels. The industry added 292,000 jobs in May, with about two-thirds of that hiring happening
in restaurants and bars. But overall employment is still down 2.5 million jobs, or 15% from
pre-pandemic levels, more than any other industry.
... ... ...
Some people who previously worked at hotels or restaurants moved on to other types of jobs
during the pandemic, such as packaging goods at a warehouse, and it's too soon to know whether
they will switch back as more of the economy reopens, said Zhao.
...About half of states are putting an early end to a $300 federal supplement to weekly
unemployment benefits, winding them down as soon as June 12. The supplement expires nationwide
on Sept. 6.
(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte and Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan
Oatis)
For these Fauci religious cultists, if the death rate from Covid is 0.074% but the death
rate from the "vaccine" is 0.073%, the "vaccine" will be a miraculous, smashing success.
China's Foreign Ministry blasted the resurgent interest in the Covid-19 lab-origin theory,
noting that the journalist behind a report about Wuhan scientists falling ill is the same one
who peddled lies that led to the Iraq War.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin took aim at Michael R. Gordon, a national
security correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and one of the authors of the report that
added fuel to speculation about Covid-19's lab origin.
"Not long ago, Michael R. Gordon, an American journalist, by quoting a so-called
"˜previously undisclosed US intelligence report,' hinted [at] a far-fetched connection
between the "˜three sick staff' at the Wuhan lab and the Covid-19 outbreak," Wang said
at a briefing on Friday.
"Nineteen years ago, it was this very reporter who concocted false information by citing
unsubstantiated sources about Iraq's "˜attempt to acquire nuclear weapons,' which
directly led to the Iraq War," he charged, referring to the 2003 US invasion.
The WSJ
piece , published on May 23, cites "a previously undisclosed US intelligence report" as
saying that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell seriously ill in
November 2019 with symptoms "consistent" with Covid-19 as well as a seasonal flu.
The report got picked up by other mainstream media, which recently began shifting their
coverage on Covid-19's origins from outright dismissing theories that the virus was man-made
to admitting that a lab leak remains a possibility.
Furthermore, I wouldn't personally point to Gordon as the source for the "Wuhan Lab Leak
Hypothesis" "" I would point to the Jewish neocon Josh Rogin.
Rogin, like Gordon, spent years promoting various atrocity hoaxes in the Middle East and
pushing wars for Israel, and is the original source for the version of the "Wuhan Lab theory,"
that is currently circulating, writing a
Washington Post column promoting the hoax on April 14, 2020.
The point of course is that everywhere you look, there are neocons "" most of them Jewish ""
promoting this Wuhan Lab stuff. They are the absolute source of the claim "" they and a Falun
Gong Hong Kong CIA feminist woman, Li-Meng Yan.
She is claiming to be a "whistleblower," despite the fact that she in no way meets the
definition of that term. The term necessarily implies insider knowledge "" usually, a
whistleblower is an employee or former employee of the organization they are blowing the
whistle on.
Though none of the media promoting her says it outright, there is an implication that she
worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. She did not. She worked at a university in Hong Kong
when she was funded by Steve Bannon to write a paper making the claim that the supposed
coronavirus is a Chinese bioweapon.
Bannon has recently been associated with Guo Wengui, a billionaire who was exiled from China
for fraud and various crimes. In June of last year, Bannon declared that Guo is now the real
ruler of China in a bizarre video on a boat.
While they were on the boat in front of the Statue of Liberty saying they were going to
"overthrow the government of China," they flew planes around with signs announcing their new
government.
No one understood what was going on, and even Fox News
reported on "confusion" regarding the banners and the livestream on the boat. The
livestream has since been deleted, and there is no news from the Federal State of New China.
But there is a Wikipedia page documenting this
incredibly strange event.
Guo also runs a fake news website (I use that term in the most literal sense) where he
published the Hunter Biden footjob videos.
The point is: this is a very weird operation, and it is absurd to take a person funded by
these people seriously, as Tucker Carlson shamefully has.
(I'm not attacking Tucker over this, he's overall great and is sometimes just really slow on
the uptake, unfortunately "" but it is shameful to get involved with a Hong Kong woman who was
literally given money by Steve Bannon and his "Federation of New China" group to write a fake
science paper.)
To pretend that she is a whistleblower, to pretend that political organizations funding
papers with a predetermined outcome is serious science, is non-serious behavior.
The first time I heard the Wuhan lab leak theory it was being promoted by neocon extremist
Tom Cotton. It was then promoted by neocon extremist Mike Pompeo, who was then in the process
of trying to start a war with China. Now, it is being promoted by the Jews of CNN.
There is no one involved in claiming that the supposed coronavirus came from a Chinese lab
who doesn't have vested interests in starting a war with the Chinese. This goes for all of
these Jews, as well as Steve Bannon, who has actually declared "overthrowing the government of
China" (his words) to be his goal.
It's very obvious to see how people who want a war with China would use this hoax, and it is
great that China is making the link to the Iraqi WMD hoax. It truly is the same thing.
The United States is a country with a lot of problems. None of those problems are the fault
of China. China is not promoting gay sex to children, they are not flooding us with millions of
brown people, they did not steal our election, they did not take all of our freedoms and
collapse the economy.
Our enemies are domestic and they are Jewish. Any attempt to fear-monger and attack China is
intended as a distraction from what is going on in this country, and intended to stoke a
war.
Furthermore, this "lab leak" nonsense is designed to get people to continue to believe in
this coronavirus hoax.
Though none of the media promoting her says it outright, there is an implication that
she worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. She did not. She worked at a university in
Hong Kong when she was funded by Steve Bannon to write a paper making the claim that the
supposed coronavirus is a Chinese bioweapon.
Bannon has recently been associated with Guo Wengui, a billionaire who was exiled from
China for fraud and various crimes. In June of last year, Bannon declared that Guo is now
the real ruler of China in a bizarre video on a boat.
This style of presentation is updated "internet culture" gonzo that stands on the
shoulders of Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and in a sense Mark Twain.
That fact that today's Anglospheric system no longer has a place within itself for this
type of "dominant narrative-jamming" creativity, and to write like this means one has chosen
to become a hunted outcast, means this culture is in a death spiral. It's no longer a
self-renewing organism, but simply a collection of isolated biomass units used and thrown
away by the masters.
"Nineteen years ago, it was this very reporter who concocted false information by citing
unsubstantiated sources about Iraq's "˜attempt to acquire nuclear weapons,' which
directly led to the Iraq War," he charged, referring to the 2003 US invasion.
Either the neo-cons thought no one would notice or the noe-cons didn't notice
themselves.
I'm leaning towards the latter, especially with sloppy drunk Steve Bannon and a "Falun
Gong Hong Kong CIA feminist woman" in the mix. Is this really the best they can do?
These times we're living in are absolutely surreal. Not surprised though, we've been doing
this for a long time now. Alas, a great many of my fellow White Americans will fall for it
completely & be all in for a war with China. None of them ever even contemplating what
that would mean for us & the world. But, these are the same people who boast "we're
number one" when we rank at or near the bottom in positive stats for all developed nations,
beset with crippling societal ills. The same people who think we can vote ourselves out of
this mess & Trump will win in "˜24 & somehow save the day. The same people who
think our best days are ahead when our productivity base has been utterly gutted, our
infrastructure is collapsing & our ability to maintain it & the skill set needed to
sustain that productivity/infrastructure is slipping away. The same people who boast of "muh
freedoms" when their freedoms & their children's future is being pulled from right under
their feet. The same people who think we'll always be on top even when every example of
history shows that every empire in history has collapsed. We're racing toward a cliff but
they still think "god" is on their side & won't let it happen or we'll stay on top
because, well, "we're America"..
Utter denial & abject delusion seem to be a central aspect of our people..
" There is no one involved in claiming that the supposed coronavirus came from a Chinese
lab who doesn't have vested interests in starting a war with the Chinese. This goes for all
of these Jews, as well as Steve Bannon, who has actually declared "overthrowing the
government of China" (his words) to be his goal."
" History often repeats itself, first as a tragedy and second as a farce"
Karl Marx.
The tragedy of the WMD of Iraq follows many other tragedies that got young Americans to
spill their blood for the sake of special interests making a killing as war profiteers. The
farce of " China spread the Corona virus will the biggest tragedy to hit America if the
waning bald eagle tries to poke the rising dragon.
Andrew Anglin, is one of the few American journalists who stand boldly for the truth. Not
bad for someone labelled a Neo Nazi by Wikipedia.
"The problem of empires is that they think they are so powerful that they can afford
small inaccuracies and mistakes. "But problems keep piling up. And, at some point, they are
no longer able to cope with them. And the United States is now walking the Soviet Union's
path, and its gait is confident and steady."
The current consensus that Covid was likely a Wuhan lab leak was triggered by an article
by Nicholas Wade, a former science writer for the NY Times and an impeccably
establishmentarian journalist. Previous attempts by right wingers or maverick scientists to
advance this hypothesis were ignored or scorned by the establishment press. Wade could not be
so easily dismissed. His article, plus the release of emails by Fauci acknowledging the
possibility of a lab-created virus (which he publicly ridiculed) and the revelation that
Fauci had funded bat research at Wuhan, have changed the game entirely. My own suspicion is
that the Biden administration is preparing to throw Fauci under the bus and has signaled the
press that he is now fair game. He has served his purpose and can now be used as a scapegoat.
It is unlikely that the Wuhan release will ever be definitively proven. It is more important
to realize that this research is not restricted to Wuhan or China and that steps should be
taken to shut down all such research world-wide, including the USA, lest we have a succession
of these disasters.
The USA has been using bio-warfare for 200 years plus and can NEVER be trusted not to
carry on such research. It controls c.200 labs, worldwide, where research into pathogens and
vectors, particularly arthropods, and the collection of pathogens, is carried out. It used
biological agents in Korea in the early 50s, and against Cuba (African Swine Fever and
dengue) in the 70s, and God knows where else, and against its own people, most infamously the
Tuskegee syphilis abomination. And it is responsible for SARS CoV2, you can be sure.
The West has been trying to bring down China since they tried to turn them all into opium
addicts. Americans were complicit with the British in this and many of the so-called deep
state players made their money from the opium trade. Apparently the same families control the
present day drugs trade and the laundering of the profits from it; the so-called drug cartels
are mostly minor actors well below those who run the operation at the top. Members of the
cartels are often sacrificed but those at the top remain the same.
@Ber t we have is the Josh Hawley demand to declassify everything related to Covid from
day-1, and since he made that proposal, it has been crickets from everyone else, which is
again indicative that no one in the power elite has any incentive or goal to do more than
batter their usual targets.
All that said "" the best practices at this stage of overwhelming deception is to start
with what we can in fact establish and prove as actual plain fact, and proceed from there. If
you start from what you suspect or theorize, you will soon be enmeshed in fevered
propositions ("missiles hit the pentagon on 9/11") that crap all over the genuine facts and
do nothing but hand-craft a made-to-order, wild goose chase. This is very welcome by those
who want to control the entire denouement, to serve their own agenda.
"¦ many other tragedies that got young Americans to spill their blood for the
sake of special interests making a killing as war profiteers.
Agree the main thrust of your post, Joe.
It is also worth remembering that very many innocent souls in countries across the world
have been going about their daily lives when they were attacked, maimed and killed, their
houses destroyed, infrastructure wrecked etc by those same young Americans. Some countries at
this very hour are occupied and are being looted by the same.
Perhaps not a comfortable thought for Americans to add in as they see their country now
descending into certifiable lunacy.
But what goes around does have a habit of coming around, sooner or later.
@Anon t Ron Unz has been saying from the beginning. If you look at it geostrategically,
this is most plausible conclusion. They released the virus in China but those who created it
suffered a massive blowback and even worse China came out of it even stronger than ever
before. They were hoping China would crumble but instead got stronger while they weakened.
That's why they are fanning out a major Anti-China propaganda campaign to contain her now
openly with an overwhelming support of western citizens. This frenziness displayed by western
politicians is the reflection that China is on the verge an unstoppable economic powerhouse
within a few years and they need to put the brakes right now. It is an implicit admission of
desperation. The tussle between China and the US is going to dramatically intensify.
A country can't bring another country down by giving it "Most Favored Nation Trading
Status".
Then sending all it's major corporations there to make big deals.
And how has it served the United States where practically every item, pill in the US is
"Made in China"?
The American people were sold out decades ago in order for the 1% and their Congressional
lackeys to make major bucks. We were even working with them to create a deadly virus!
President Vladimir Putin said Russia doesn't want to stop using the dollar as he accused the
U.S. of exploiting the currency's dominance for sanctions and warned the policy may rebound on
Washington.
Russia has to adopt other payment methods because the U.S. "uses its national currency for
various kinds of sanctions," Putin said late Friday in St. Petersburg at a videoconference with
representatives of international media organizations. "We don't do this deliberately, we are
forced to do it."
Settlements in national currencies with other countries in areas such as defense sales and
reductions in foreign-exchange reserves held in dollars eventually will damage the U.S. as the
greenback's dominance declines, Putin said. "Why do U.S. political authorities do this? They're
sawing the branch on which they sit," he said.
Putin spoke a day after Russia announced it will eliminate the dollar from its oil fund to
reduce vulnerability to sanctions, a largely symbolic move as the switch in holdings will take
place within the central bank's reserves. Russia has tried with limited success to shift away
from the dollar for years amid international sanctions over Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea
and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, as well as for alleged cyber attacks, election
meddling and espionage operations.
The Russian leader's comments came ahead of his first summit meeting with U.S. President Joe
Biden in Geneva on June 16. While he praised Biden as one of the world's most experienced
leaders, Putin said he expects no breakthrough in relations with the U.S. at the talks.
And he offered a warning at Friday's meeting for the U.S., based on what he said was his own
experiences "as a former citizen of the former Soviet Union."
"The problem with empires is that they think they can afford small errors and mistakes,"
which gradually accumulate, Putin said. "There comes a time when they can no longer be dealt
with. And the U.S., with a confident step, a confident gait, a firm step, is walking straight
along the path of the Soviet Union."
Sanctions are the "gentlemanly" neo-imperial language of gunboat diplomacy, never better
expressed than the attempts of the British government in the early 1950s to discipline a newly
democratic Iran. First the British Labour Government, then a Conservative government under a
splenetic Churchill, tried to put a halt to the runaway popularity of Mohammed Mossadegh, prime
minister of Iran, and his policy to shut down the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and nationalize
Iran's own oil. The British sabotaged their own company, refused to distribute the oil, and did
everything else they could to impoverish Iran. This was only after the AIOC had refused to
budge from its insistence on taking practically all of the profits and to refrain from treating
Iranian oil workers as subhuman. Ironically, the British needed AIOC money to finance their own
program of industrial nationalization and the welfare state. As is so often the case, the
"sanctions" merely hardened anti-imperial sentiment, and were succeeded by a joint US-UK
directed regime-change coup d'etat
None of this need suggest a diminution in the importance of national sovereignty. Sovereign
nations should be free to trade with whomsoever they choose, to protect which domestic
industries they consider worthy of protection. That is their right. They also have the right to
enter into trade agreements with others for the purpose of regulating the conditions of trade
between them, provided that they enter into such agreements without duress, bribery or
punishment.
Questions of Definition
The Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) explains that sanctions have become one of the most
favored tools for governments to respond to foreign policy challenges. The term sanctions
can refer to travel bans, asset freezes, arms embargoes, capital restraints, foreign aid
reductions, and trade restrictions, and represent efforts to coerce, deter, punish, or shame
entities that are considered by those who wield them to endanger their interests. They are
generally viewed as a lower-cost, lower-risk course of action in calculations that balance
diplomacy against war. Yet sanctions can be just as devasting in terms of loss of human life.
They may be particularly attractive in the case of policy responses to foreign crises in which
national interest is considered less than vital, or where military action is not feasible.
Sanctions that blanket entire populations generally do most damage to poorer and more
vulnerable social strata, who lack the means to avoid or compensate for their consequences. The
USA has more than two dozen sanctions regimes. Some target specific countries such as Cuba and
Iran, others target specific categories of person or institution or even specific named
individuals. Sanctions have been used in efforts of counterterrorism, counter-narcotics,
nonproliferation, democracy and human rights promotion, conflict resolution, and cybersecurity.
They are frequently applied as a form of punishment or reprisal for behavior in which it is
alleged that the target has engaged and of which the applying entity disapproves.
In the case of the UN Security Council sanctions resolutions must pass the fifteen-member
council by a majority vote and without a veto from any of the five permanent members: the
United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The most common types of UN
sanctions, binding for all member states, are asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes.
The UN relies on member states for enforcement, with all the idiosyncrasies and abuses that
this entails. The council-imposed sanctions against Southern Rhodesia in 1966 were intended to
undermine Ian Smith's white supremacist regime and were followed in 1977 by another set of
comprehensive UN sanctions against apartheid South Africa. They have been applied more than
twenty times since 1990 against targeting parties to an intrastate conflict, as in Somalia,
Liberia, and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The European Union imposes sanctions as part of its Common Foreign and Security Policy. They
must receive unanimous consent from member states in the Council of the European Union, the
body that represents EU leaders. The EU has levied its sanctions more than thirty times.
Individual EU states may also impose harsher sanctions independently within their national
jurisdiction.
The USA resorts to economic and financial sanctions more than any other country. Presidents
may issue an executive order that declares a national emergency and invokes special powers to
regulate commerce for a period of one year, unless extended by the president or terminated by a
joint resolution of Congress. Most of the more than fifty states of emergency declared by
Congress remain in effect today. Congress may pass legislation imposing new sanctions or
modifying existing ones.
In 2019, the United States had comprehensive sanctions regimes on Cuba, North Korea, Iran,
Sudan, and Syria, as well as more than a dozen other programs targeting individuals and
entities (currently some 6,000). Existing U.S. sanctions programs are administered by the
Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), while other departments,
including State, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Justice, may also play an integral role. The
secretary of state can designate a group a foreign terrorist organization or label a country a
state sponsor of terrorism, both of which have sanctions implications. State and local
authorities may also contribute to enforcement efforts.
The practice of sanctions received a significant boost with the formation of the World Trade
Organization, which recognizes the legitimacy of sanctions as a response to the failure of
parties in a trade dispute to reach agreement on satisfactory compensation. A complainant may
ask the Dispute
Settlement Body for permission to impose trade sanctions against the respondent that has
failed to implement. The complainant's retaliatory response may not go beyond the level of the
harm caused by the respondent. The complainant should first seek to suspend obligations in the
same sector as that in which the violation or other nullification or impairment was found,
unless the complainant considers it impracticable or ineffective to remain within the same
sector The complainant is allowed countermeasures that are in effect and would in other
circumstances be inconsistent with the WTO Agreement. In other words, the result is that a
complainant responds to one trade barrier with another trade barrier, contrary to the
liberalization philosophy underlying the WTO. Such measures are nearly always harmful for both
the complainant and the target. Although such retaliation requires prior approval by the DSB 1,
the countermeasures are applied selectively by one Member against another. The suspension of
obligations is temporary and the DSB is obligated to maintain a review of the situation for as
long as there is no implementation. The suspension must be revoked once the Member concerned
has fully complied with the DSB's recommendations and rulings.
In a 2019 decision
the WTO allowed China to impose trade sanctions on $3.6 billion of American goods on the
grounds that the USA had not followed WTO rules in the way it imposed duties on what it
regarded as unfairly cheap Chinese goods. The ruling concluded a case that China brought
against the USA in 2013 that stemmed from levies placed on more than 40 Chinese goods. At issue
were subsidies that the USA accused China of providing to its companies so that they can sell
goods more cheaply overseas.
The case touched on some of the deep politics of neoliberalism for which the WTO is supreme
icon, and which make the very notion of sanctions problematic as evidenced in frequent
criticisms of the WTO . These are that free trade benefits developed countries more than
developing countries; that countries should trade without discrimination means a local firm is
not allowed to favor local contractors, giving an unfair advantage to multinational companies
and imposing costs for local firms; ; it is important that nations be allowed to assist in the
diversification of their economies and not be penalized for favoring emerging industries; free
trade is not equally sought across different industries "" notably, both the US and EU retain
high tariffs on agriculture, which hurts farmers in developing economies; principles of free
trade often ignore environmental considerations, considerations of labor equity and cultural
diversity.
After 9/11 "" still one of the least understood events in modern history "" and amidst the
subsequent US invasions of the sovereign countries of Afghanistan and Iraq, and
de-stabilization of many others (including Libya, Syria, Ukraine), the USA set about disrupting
what it deemed the financial infrastructure supporting terrorists and international criminals,
(but not including the USA itself). The Patriot Act awarded Treasury Department officials
far-reaching authority to freeze the assets and financial transactions of individuals and other
entities suspected of supporting terrorism, and broad powers to designate foreign jurisdictions
and financial institutions as "primary money laundering concerns." Treasury needs only a
reasonable suspicion""not necessarily any evidence""to target entities under these laws. The
centrality of New York and the dollar to the global financial system means these U.S. policies
are felt globally. Penalties for sanctions violations can be huge in terms of fines, loss of
business, and reputational damage. Sanctions regimes today increasingly impact not merely the
primary targeted countries or entities but also those who would do business with such countries
or entities.
Questions of Effectiveness
Sanctions have a poor track record, registering a modest 20-30 percent success rate at best,
according to one source, Emily Cashen, writing for World Finance in 2017. According to leading
empirical analyses, between 1915 and 2006, comprehensive sanctions were successful, at best,
just 30 percent of the time. The longer sanctions are in place, the less likely they are to be
effective, as the targeted state tends to adapt to its new economic circumstances instead of
changing its behavior.
Examples of "successful" applications of sanctions (always judged from the very partial
viewpoint of those who impose them) are said to include their role in persuading the Iranian
leadership to comply with limits to its uranium enrichment program. But if this was "success,"
why then did the USA break its agreement with Iran in 2018? And why was there an agreement in
the first place if Iran had never had nuclear weapons nor was likely to produce them on its own
account without serious provocation. Sanctions are also said to have pressured Gadaffi in
handing over the Lockerbie suspects for trial, renouncing the nation's weapons of mass
destruction and ending its support for terrorist activities. But then, if that was "success,"
why did NATO bomb Libya back to the stone age in 2011?
Sanctions that are effective in one setting may fail in another . Context is everything.
Sanctions programs with relatively limited objectives are generally more likely to succeed than
those with major political ambitions. Furthermore, sanctions may achieve their desired economic
effect but fail to change behavior. Only correlations, not causal relationships, can be
determined. The central question is one of comparative utility: Is the imposition of sanctions
better or worse than not imposing sanctions, from whose viewpoint, and why? Best practices are
said to combine punitive measures with positive inducements; set attainable goals; build
multilateral support; be credible and flexible: and give the target reason to believe that
sanctions will be increased or reduced based on its behavior.
In cases where the targeted country has other trading options unilateral measures have no
real impact or may be counterproductive. Sanctions against Russia over Ukraine may have simply
helped to push Russia closer to its eastern neighbors, notably China.
To bypass sanctions Russia has shifted its trade focus towards Asia. Asian non-cooperation with
the sanctions helps explain why Russia was expecting to grow its trade with China to $200bn by
2020. For several countries in western Europe, the sanctions had a double-edged sword.
Russia is the European Union's third largest commercial partner, and the EU, reciprocally, is
Russia's chief trade partner, accounting for almost 41 percent of the nation's trade prior to
the sanctions. In 2012, before the Ukrainian crisis began, the EU exported a record
€267.5bn ($285bn) of goods to Russia. Further, US sanctions against Russia
increasingly and patently had nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do with US interest
in exploiting its imperial relationship with West European vassal states to grow its LNG
(liquefied natural gas) market in competition with Russia, and by doing everything possible to
obstruct "" and to coerce European nations into helping it obstruct "" Russia's Nord Stream 2
oil and gas pipeline that will bring cheap Russian oil to Europe without passing through
Ukraine. The very opposite of principles of globalization and free trade.
The USA can afford to be aggressive in sanctions policies largely because (for the time
being, and that time is getting shorter by the day) there is no alternative to the dollar and
because there is no single country export market quite as attractive (for now and even then,
one must wonder about China) as the USA. Sanctions that are effective in one setting may fail
in another. Context is everything. Sanctions programs with relatively limited objectives are
generally more likely to succeed than those with major political ambitions. Furthermore,
sanctions may achieve their desired economic effect but fail to change behavior. Only
correlations, not causal relationships, can be determined. The central question is one of
comparative utility: Is the imposition of sanctions better or worse than not imposing
sanctions, from whose viewpoint, and why? Best practices are said to combine punitive measures
with positive inducements; set attainable goals; build multilateral support; be credible and
flexible: and give the target reason to believe that sanctions will be increased or reduced
based on its behavior.
Sanctions and Human Misery
Since the early 1990s, the US, Europe and other developed economies have employed sanctions on
other nations more than 500 times , seeking to assert their influence on the global stage
without resorting to military interventions. Yet military interventions tend to happen in any
case suggesting that in some cases the sanctions are intended to "soften up" the target prior
to armed conflict).
The economic stranglehold of stringent sanctions on Iraq after the successful allied
invasion of 1991 caused widescale malnutrition and prolonged suffering, and a lack of medical
supplies and a shortage of clean water led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern
history. Sanctions all but completely cut off the oil trade. Iraq lost up to $130 billion in
oil revenues during the 1990s, causing intense poverty to many Iraqi civilians. Prior to the
embargo, Iraq had relied on imports for two thirds of its food supply. With this source
suddenly cut off, the price of basic commodities rose 1,000 percent between 1990 and 1995.
Infant mortality increased 150 percent, according to a report by Save the
Children, with researchers estimating that between 670,000 and 880,000 children under five
died because of the impoverished conditions caused by the sanctions. Then US Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright notoriously excused this horrendous slaughter as "worth the
price ." During the Gulf War, almost all of Iraq's essential infrastructure was bombed by a
US-led coalition, leaving the country without water treatment plants or sewage treatment
facilities, prompting extended outbreaks of cholera and typhoid.
Targeted sanctions can be equally devastating. The de facto
boycott on Congolese minerals, for example, has led to the loss of more than 750,000 jobs in
the nation's mining sector. The loss of income resulting from this mass redundancy has had
a severe impact on child health in the nation, with conservative estimates recording a 143
percent increase in infant mortality. Despite an international shift away from comprehensive
sanctions, this Congolese suffering indicates targeted measures are still not free from ethical
quandaries.
Application of sanctions became more popular at the end of the first cold war because
previously targeted nations could negotiate for relief with the oppositional superpower. In the
succeeding era of greater enthusiasm for sanctions it became clear that they could have dire
consequences for civilian populations, and this helps account for increased popularity of
targeted sanctions.
Sanctions of Spite: Syria and the Caesar Act
There are many current examples of the murderous horror of the impact of sanctions by
"civilized," usually western powers, especially when their targets are poorer countries such as
Venezuela and Syria. Not untypically, some of the behaviors that the imperialists seek to
change are themselves the consequence of past imperial aggression.
The secular regime of Bashar Assad in Syria has faced a ten-year existential threat from the
Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda affiliates, ISIS and other jihadist entities supported by an array
of global and regional actors including the USA, UK, and other NATO members, Israel, Jordan,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE. Whatever the regime's defects they are at the very
least comparable and in some cases dwarfed by those of many of Syria's opponents in the Arab
world.
The significance of genuine popular support for Assad , demonstrated in numerous polls, has
been marginalized by western mainstream media. The regime's survival, with air support from
Russia and ground support from Hezbollah and Iran, is extraordinary by any measure. Yet the USA
has continued to interfere in the affairs of Syria with a view to its continuing impoverishment
and destabilization by allowing Turkey to occupy large areas of the north west and populate
these with jihadist emigrees; funding Kurdish forces to secure Syria's oil resources on behalf
of the USA, and for maintaining prisons and camps for ISIS supporters, by maintaining its own
military bases; and permitting a constant succession of Israeli bombing attacks on what Israel
claims are Iranian-backed militia or Syrian Arab Army militia working in collaboration with
Iran; and approving further Israeli incursions into the Golan Heights.
Defeat of ISIS and recovery of non-Kurdish areas outside of Idlib by the Syrian Arab Army
(SAA) took place in conditions of considerable economic challenge, exacerbated by US-imposed
sanctions against both Syria and its neighbor Lebanon. This had a corrosive impact on relations
among top regime figures. Bashar al-Assad's billionaire first cousin and richest man in Syria,
Rami Makhlouf, complained in early 2020 of regime harassment and arrests of employees. Until
then, the Makhlouf family enjoyed exclusive access to business opportunities and monopolies on
hotels, tobacco, and communications, partly
camouflaged by a philanthropic empire that assisted many Syrians through the conflict .
Some $30 billion of the country's wealth, representing 20% of all deposits in Lebanese banks,
was trapped by Beirut's financial implosion, exacerbated by the unprecedented explosion ""
possibly accidental, possibly sabotage "" in the city's harbor area on August 4. Syrian
businessmen needed Beirut's banks to conduct business abroad, and to evade sanctions. A regime
crackdown on money transfer companies made matters worse by creating
a dollar shortage , depriving thousands of families who were dependent on foreign
remittances. Before the explosion, purchasing power of the Syrian pound was already worth 27
times less than before the start of the conflict.
Deteriorating economic conditions ravaged Syria's surviving pretensions to socialist
principle. In the first decade of Bashar's rule, there had been big gains in healthcare in
terms of available beds, hospitals, and nursing staff. But by now there were 50% fewer doctors,
30% fewer hospitals. Before the conflict, 90% of pharmaceutical needs were filled by Syrian
factories. By 2018 those factories which remained had trouble getting raw materials and
replacement parts for equipment because of sanctions. Before the conflict there was improved
land irrigation and food security. In 2011, abject poverty stood at less than one percent,
rising to 35 percent by 2015. The percentage of those facing food insecurity had fallen from
2.2% in 1999 to 1.1% in 2010. Now, 33% lacked food security. One third of homes were
damaged or destroyed, 380,000 killed and 11 million displaced since 2011.
Economic conditions were worsened by ever tightening economic sanctions and US enforcement
of the so-called Caesar Act from June 2020 (named after a faked human rights scandal in 2015).
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act sanctioned the Syrian government, including President
Bashar al-Assad, for alleged war crimes. The purposes were to cripple Syria for the purposes of
regime change, while luring Russia further into the Syrian quagmire. The Act targeted 39
individuals and entities, including the president's wife, Asma. Anyone doing business with the
regime, no matter where, was potentially vulnerable to travel restrictions and financial
sanctions. The Caesar Act smeared the Syria Central Bank as a "˜money laundering'
institution and sought to render it impossible for Syrian companies to export and import from
Lebanon. It made it difficult or impossible for Syrians abroad to transfer money to family
members. The Act contributed to devaluation of the Syrian pound which tumbled from 650 Syrian
pounds to one US dollar in October 2019 to 2600 to the US dollar in summer 2020.
The Caesar Act (alongside legal initiatives in Europe designed to charge senior
administration officials with war crimes) were designed to stymie reconstruction, hit the
construction, electricity, and oil sectors, and cripple the Lebanese private companies that
would otherwise lead reconstruction efforts. Sanctions prevented non-U.S. aid organizations
from assisting reconstruction. An opposition leader predicted it would result in "
even greater levels of destitution, famine, and worsening criminality and predatory
behavior " and would precipitate regime change, migratory flight, excess deaths, and youth
deprivation. In a climate of regulatory confusion, sanctions often encourage over-compliance.
Prospects of reconstruction investment funds from Russian companies were
negatively impacted . Blumenthal ascribed responsibility for the Caesar sanctions
initiative to a "years-long lobbying campaign carried out by a network of regime-change
operatives working under cover of shadowy international NGOs and Syrian-American diaspora
groups." The country had already suffered severe US and EU economic sanctions. A 2016 UNESCO
report found that sanctions had brought an end to humanitarian aid because sanctions
regulations, licenses, and penalties made it so difficult and risky (Sterling 2020). In 2018,
United Nations Special Rapporteur, Idriss Jazairy, observed that sanctions impacted negatively
on
After 500,000 civilians returned to Aleppo following its liberation in 2016, US sanctions
and UN rules prohibited reconstruction. Returnees were allowed "shelter kits" with plastic but
rebuilding with glass and cement walls was not allowed because "˜reconstruction' was
prohibited.
In brazen acknowledgment of US support for the HTS terrorists of Idlib, the Caesar Act
exempted Idlib province, as well as the northeast areas controlled by US troops and the SDF. It
designated $50 million for "˜humanitarian aid' to these areas. Other US allies pumped in
hundreds of millions of dollars more in aid, further exacerbating pressure on the Syrian pound
and substantially increasing prices for all commodities in regime-controlled areas.
"best-designed sanctions can be self-defeating, strengthening the regimes they were designed
to hurt and punishing the societies they were supposed to protect."
They recalled the destruction of Iraq's middle class in the 1990s, when US sanctions killed
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis:
"Their effect was gendered, disproportionately punishing women and children. The notion that
sanctions work is a pitiless illusion." .
Several European nations (Italy, Poland, Austria, Greece, Hungary) indicating unease with
the continuing stagnation of US and EU sanctions policy, restored tacit contacts with Damascus.
While the EU was an important source of humanitarian aid for internally displaced people in
Syria and for displaced Syrians abroad, it continued to refrain from dealing directly with
Damascus
or from support for reconstruction efforts, on the grounds of continuing instability.
Conclusion
Under indubitably wise international leadership, acting within a framework of equitable
political power among nation states whose sovereignty is sacrosanct, then perhaps sanctions
policies might sometimes be strategically appropriate. These conditions clearly do not apply.
The increasing weaponization of sanctions is a powerful contribution to a crumbling world
order, one that invokes the grave danger of over-reaction by an aggrieved victim, in a context
of intense economic and military competition between rival nuclear powers.
Oliver Boyd-Barrett is Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and at
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is an expert on international media, news,
and propaganda. His writings can be accessed by subscription at Substack at https://oliverboydbarrett.substack.com.
A comprehensive roundup of the sanctions-based aggression being imposed on the world by
the bankster dominated west. I really don't think the majority of citizens have a clue what
is being done by their rulers, nor any idea of the sheer hatred being fostered by those
actions. The time for waking up is well overdue, the west has been sucked dry by those same
policies (especially the US) and the fall is imminent.
"The increasing weaponization of sanctions is a powerful contribution to a crumbling world
order, one that invokes the grave danger of over-reaction by an aggrieved victim, in a
context of intense economic and military competition between rival nuclear powers."
Fact: "War is the health of the state" [Randolph Bourne]- meaning, the "business" of
governments is always war- war on its citizens, war on other nations, it never ends.
Invade the world, invite the world. Economic cold war vs. 1/3 of the world's landmass and
population. Seemingly purposeful hollowing out of it's middle class, the abolition of
educational/societal standards to placate the demands of wokeness and the replacement of it's
historical population with an eclectic mix of third world strivers, corrupt east asians and
south american day laborers. Oh, and an increasingly debt centric economy.
The USA is obviously a very prudent country which focuses on it's own long term survival
first and foremost. I expect it to do quite well in the coming years.
My good friend in Canada says that it seems to be a "BioSecurity Fascist State" forming
also. And it's not against Cuba , it's against the populace of Canada. Worse than anything in
the US.
Sanctions strike hard at the very essence of positive international relationship ""
trade.
U.S. economic sanctions are insulting, provocative, corrosive and largely ineffective.
However, trade is hardly the essence of positive international relationship.
Britain traded massively with Germany right up until Britain attacked Germany in 1914.
Germany traded even more massively with the Soviet Union right up until Germany attacked the
Soviet Union in 1941. Were it not for Japanese trade with China, the Mukden Incident that, in
1931, opened the conflict that developed into World War II in Asia""well, it probably would
not have occurred. In short, the trade premise that underlies your article needs to be
revisited.
Sanctions is war. US wars are always cloaked behind our alleged love for democracy and
freedom, but alleged friends beginning with Saudi Arabia and impacting every country South of
our border, prove we are liars, interested only in preserving the best interests of our
wealthiest citizens.
The purpose of US foreign policy is to enhance the profits of global US Corporations
regardless what the consequences are to local targeted populations. The US has extraordinary
power over the EU, but the Russian pipeline is evidence that EU support is cracking.
Shame on the USA for failing to respect the national sovereignty of other nations big and
small. Our constitutional form of government is not a model example of the fruits of
democracy and freedom, as both are crippled by original design, for profit prisons and
schools, toll roads, and the moral hazards imposed by misguided religious fanatics who impose
their will on a disinterested public.
Winston Churchill was a great one for blockades. Churchill, the MoFker is responsible for
5 million deaths. During the 2nd World War he shipped grain from India to Britain and left
the Indians to starve. Five million Bengalis and east Indians died of starvation. Let's hope
when the tide turns all this is forgotten and forgiven.
The war against Japan was instigated by blocades.
The war against Iran is the next.
Syria policy has nothing to do with oil or Assad being a dictator. It is a continuation of
Israel's policies. The whole purpose of these wars is to establish an independent Kurdish
state so that the pressure on Israel could be reduced and states in the region could be
destabilized. While the US was busy trying to fight Israel's wars in ME, China has become a
strategic threat with no signs of slowing down the process of overtaking the US as the
dominant superpower of the world. Despite all the damage these policies have caused, even the
so-called conservatives in the US keep repeating nonsensical ideas like "Kurds deserve a
state." Not realizing that there is no such thing as "deserving a state" or that this just a
zionist project that offers nothing to the US.
Regarding China, sanctions should be used more not less, unless the US wants to be the
secondary power. However, they are not needed with other countries. In ME, the US should wash
its hands off Israel and let the most moral army of the world protect their own country. That
country is a huge liability and problem for the US, it offered the US nothing other than
selling American military secrets and earning 1.5 billion Muslims' disdain. To counter Russia
and Iran, the US should double down on cooperating with Turkey, increase investments and
military support so that Turks can be more active in Central Asia and Afghanistan as well.
This is the smartest and the most efficient way for the US to achieve its goals in Asia and
ME. Which would be slowing China's growth, Russia's creeping in the South, and Iranian
activity in Arab ME.
However, the US basically does the opposite of everything it should. Turning
neutral/unfriendly with Turkey is one of the dumbest things the US foreign service could do,
considering the fact that Turks are the historical enemies of all three of China, Russia, and
Iran, and they did exactly that? Why? For Israel whose feelings were hurt by Erdogan of
course. Currently, the US government is a hostage to vocal minorities and interest groups.
Therefore, its relative decline will not stop unless actual Americans with no double
allegiances step up and take back their government.
Canada is a pathetic American colony, selling their resources cheap in return for being
allowed to have a few crappy hockey teams and access to degenerate American entertainment.
The Brits tell them to murder white Germans, they do it. The Americans tell them to murder
Afghans, they do it...
The US government is a menace to all, including the US population. All US presidents are
war criminals, and sanctions are only one aspect of their endless criminality.
Sanctions are the modern day adaptation of siege warfare. It's essentially a
"˜starve them out' approach to foreign policy. Theoretically, one presumes, the goal is
to cause enough instability to harm the targeted regime. But I can't think of a single time
they have succeeded at anything but causing mass suffering to those at the bottom of the
power pyramid.
In the case of sanctions on Iraq and the subsequent corrupt Oil-For-Food Program, the
sanctions became a vehicle to transfer billions of dollars to oligarchs and their pet
politicians" as usual.
Hundreds of suspected members of criminal networks have been arrested by authorities around
the world after being duped into using an encrypted communications platform secretly run by the
FBI to hatch their plans for alleged crimes including drug smuggling and money laundering.
In the global sting operation dubbed "Operation Trojan Shield," an international coalition
of law-enforcement agencies led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation covertly monitored the
encrypted communications service Anom, which purported to offer a feature cherished in the
criminal underworld: total secrecy.
The sting was revealed this week in a series of news conferences by authorities in the U.S.,
Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Alleged members of international criminal organizations
adopted the platform as a means to communicate securely, unaware that authorities were covertly
monitoring 27 million messages from more than 12,000 users across more than 100 countries,
officials said.
The takedown involved more than 9,000 law-enforcement offices around the world that had
searched 700 locations in the previous 48 hours alone, U.S. and European officials said early
Tuesday. Police forces had in recent days carried out more than 800 arrests in 16 countries and
seized more than 8 tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and 2 tons of synthetic drugs, as well
as 250 firearms, 55 luxury vehicles and over $48 million in various currencies. More than 150
threats to human life were also disrupted, officials said.
In the U.S., the FBI charged 17 foreign nationals operating in places including Australia,
the Netherlands and Spain with distributing encrypted Anom communications devices, saying they
violated federal racketeering laws typically used to target organized-crime groups, officials
said. Eight of those individuals are in custody and nine remain at large, they said.
The global effort put any other companies offering such services on notice that
law-enforcement agencies world-wide consider developing and selling technology aimed at
defeating their ability to monitor and intercept communications to be unlawful""the latest
salvo in a debate unfolding globally about how to balance security and privacy on technology
platforms.
Authorities, who see encrypted platforms like Anom as providing a haven for illicit activity
beyond the reach of government monitoring, signaled that intelligence agencies and law
enforcement would aggressively seek to infiltrate platforms designed in such a way that they
can be used by terrorists and criminal gangs to evade detection.
"The immense and unprecedented success of Operation Trojan Shield should be a warning to
international criminal organizations""your criminal communications may not be secure; and you
can count on law enforcement world-wide working together to combat dangerous crime that crosses
international borders," said Suzanne Turner, the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego
field office.
... ... ...
Trojan Shield grew from when the FBI developed a confidential human source involved in the
development of Anom and used that access to make, market and distribute the devices around the
world, according to an affidavit unsealed in U.S. federal court this week. The source, who had
been involved in selling other secure devices to criminal networks before trying to develop
Anom, agreed to cooperate with the bureau in order to reduce his or her own criminal exposure
and lessen a potential sentence, court documents say.
With the source's cooperation, the FBI and its law-enforcement partners secretly built into
Anom the ability to covertly intercept and decrypt messages. The FBI relied on the source's
relationships with criminal gangs in Australia to help distribute the first batch of devices,
with word of the service spreading organically after that, documents say.
Europol said Anom was used by more than 300 criminal groups in more than 100 countries,
including Italian organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs and international drug-trafficking
organizations. In court filings, the bureau detailed extensive conversations about narcotics
trafficking, cryptocurrency transactions, cash smuggling, corruption and other illicit activity
flowing through Anom's systems.
My good friend in Canada says that it seems to be a "BioSecurity Fascist State" forming
also. And it's not against Cuba , it's against the populace of Canada. Worse than anything in
the US. <
>
The problem with conspiracy theories (CIA invented term to whitewash CIA participation in
killing of JFK) that some of them in ten to twenty years no longer viewed as conspiracies. They
enter mainstream.
An online poll this week from Ipsos reported 15% of Americans agree that the government,
media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Not 15% of
Republicans or conservatives, but of Americans. That's a lot.
... ... ...
America is a lonely place. When you hold to a conspiracy theory, you join a community.
You're suddenly part of something. You have new friends you can talk to on the internet ...
... One of the enduring and revealing songs of America asks "Which side are you on / Which
side are you on? / You go to Harlan County / There is no neutral there / You'll either be a
union man / Or a thug for J.H. Blair."
... ... ...
Conspiracy believers don't believe what the mainstream media tell them. Why would they?
Newsrooms are undergoing their own revolution, with woke progressives vs. journalistic
traditionalists, advocacy versus old-school news values. It is ideological. "We are here to
shape and encourage a new reality." "No, we are here to find and report the news." It is
generational: The young have the upper hand and the Slack channel. The woke are winning.
...
When you think your country has grown completely bizarre...Think of what normal human beings
have been asked to absorb the past year. The whole country was shut down and everyone was told
to stay in the house. They closed the churches, and the churches agreed. There was no school
and everyone made believe""really, we all made believe!""screens were a replacement. A bunch of
13-year-old girls in the junior high decided they were boys and started getting shots, and no
adults helped them by saying, "Whoa, slow down, this is a major life decision and you're a
kid." The school board no longer argues about transgender bathrooms, they're on to transgender
boys wanting to play on the girls team. Big corporations now tell you what you should think
about local questions, and if this offends you, they don't care. There were riots and protests
last summer and local government seemed overwhelmed.
"The bots' mission: To deliver restaurant meals cheaply and efficiently, another leap in
the way food comes to our doors and our tables." The semiautonomous vehicles were
engineered by Kiwibot, a company started in 2017 to game-change the food delivery
landscape...
In May, Kiwibot sent a 10-robot fleet to Miami as part of a nationwide pilot program
funded by the Knight Foundation. The program is driven to understand how residents and
consumers will interact with this type of technology, especially as the trend of robot
servers grows around the country.
And though Broward County is of interest to Kiwibot, Miami-Dade County officials jumped
on board, agreeing to launch robots around neighborhoods such as Brickell, downtown Miami and
several others, in the next couple of weeks...
"Our program is completely focused on the residents of Miami-Dade County and the way
they interact with this new technology. Whether it's interacting directly or just sharing
the space with the delivery bots,"
said Carlos Cruz-Casas, with the county's Department of Transportation...
Remote supervisors use real-time GPS tracking to monitor the robots. Four cameras are
placed on the front, back and sides of the vehicle, which the supervisors can view on a
computer screen. [A spokesperson says later in the article "there is always a remote and
in-field team looking for the robot."] If crossing the street is necessary, the robot
will need a person nearby to ensure there is no harm to cars or pedestrians. The plan is to
allow deliveries up to a mile and a half away so robots can make it to their destinations in
30 minutes or less.
Earlier Kiwi tested its sidewalk-travelling robots around the University of California at
Berkeley, where
at least one of its robots burst into flames . But the Sun-Sentinel reports that "In
about six months, at least 16 restaurants came on board making nearly 70,000
deliveries...
"Kiwibot now offers their robotic delivery services in other markets such as Los Angeles
and Santa Monica by working with the Shopify app to connect businesses that want to employ
their robots." But while delivery fees are normally $3, this new Knight Foundation grant "is
making it possible for Miami-Dade County restaurants to sign on for free."
A video
shows the reactions the sidewalk robots are getting from pedestrians on a sidewalk, a dog
on a leash, and at least one potential restaurant customer looking forward to no longer
having to tip human food-delivery workers.
We're talking about the COVID-19 injections, of course. They were always the end game;
that's why the COVID-19 "vaccine" propaganda is so relentless. It's everywhere. The syndicate
news channels, newspapers, websites, celebrities, professional sports figures etc. continuously
pimp the toxic injection message. They don't call them injections but "vaccines", of course,
even though by definition they are not vaccines and thus it's technically illegal to formally
classify them as such. Words matter, especially when it comes to the subject of our health, and
thus we refuse to use the word "vaccine" when referencing these gene therapy experiments.
Meanwhile, people are now literally virtue-signaling that they've either already received or
are intending to get these Big Pharma injections. Shockingly, parents are
subjecting their own children to these toxic treatments ; for a disease that for anyone
under the age of 70 and in reasonably good health has effectively a zero percent chance of
dying from. We'll wager many of your friends and family members are getting it.
Walmart Will Give 740,000 Employees a Free Smartphone (cbsnews.com) 37 Posted by
EditorDavid on Sunday June 06, 2021 @06:39PM from the company-lines dept. "Walmart will
give
740,000 employees free Samsung smartphones by the end of the year ," reports CBS News, "so
they can use a new app to manage schedules, the company announced Thursday." The phone, the
Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro, can also be used for personal use, and the company will provide free
cases and protection plans. The phone's retail price is currently $499... Up until now,
associates at Walmart stores used handheld devices they shared to communicate, but an initial
test with employee smartphones was received well and will now be expanded upon, Walmart
said...
The company promised that it would not have access to any employee's personal data and
can "use the smartphone as their own personal device if they want, with all the features and
privacy they're used to." The test will be expanded by the end of the year, Walmart
said.
Earlier this year, Walmart announced pay increases for nearly a third of its U.S.
workforce of 1.6 million. In February, digital and store workers saw their starting hourly
rates increase from $13 to $19 depending on their location and market.Hmmm
(
Score: 3 , Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06, 2021 @06:48PM (
#61460698 )
Probably will be used to clock them in and out when they enter and exit the premises, and track
their movements to ensure they are working and not lollygagging. Maybe even track bio info to
adjust health insurance prices.
If you think this is just a free gift done out of generosity, you're quite naive.
Reply to This ShareNo thank you (
Score: 3 ) by RitchCraft (
6454710 ) on Sunday June 06, 2021 @07:11PM ( #61460772 ) It
would be wise for Walmart employees to put that phone in a locker on premises before leaving.
Having your corporate overlord knowing everything you do outside of work is creepy ...
peeping Tom creepy. Wal-mart states they won't collect your data but we'll be reading a news
story within two years finding out they did just that. "We're sorry for data that was
collected. It was a configuration oversight on our part. We promise to do better moving
forward." yadda, yadda, yadda.
Reply to This ShareNot surprised... (
Score: 5 , Interesting) by Pollux ( 102520 ) < speter@@@tedata...net...eg > on Sunday June 06, 2021
@07:36PM ( #61460814 )
Journal
I was talking last week with someone who works customer service at a nearby Walmart.
She told me that people are either leaving or moving up the chain, and it's hard to keep new
employees retained. She had one who was in for three days, then just went AWOL and was never
heard from again.
I asked her what starting salary was. (The Walmart's in out-state MN.) She said
$11.50.
I guess Walmart can't help but behave this way. What they should be doing is raising
salaries. Instead, they choose to offer a "perk" of a "free" phone w/ a "free" phone plan. I
say "free", because no doubt the phone will be a data goldmine for corporate. How? Let me count
the ways.
1) Track employee movements within the store;
2) Determine quantity and length of employee breaks;
3) Track employee movements outside the store;
4) Track employee searches;
5) Track employee social media posts;
6) Monitor employee spending behaviors;
7) Mine employee messages;
And so on, and so forth...And any one of these data mining operations can be used to
punish employee misbehavior, hustle Walmart services (Moneygram springs to mind), not to
mention sell to interested 3rd parties. (With Walmart commanding the largest fleet of employees
in the United States, imagine how many other companies would be willing to pay for generalized
data on employee behavior. Better yet, image how much someone would be willing to pay to
advertise directly to 1.6 million people.)
The latest Novichok victims were exposed to the deadly agent as a result of a leak from a
nearby UK laboratory, authorities have confirmed.
Charlie Rowley, 45, and Dawn Sturgess, 44, fell ill at a house in Amesbury on Saturday,
after being exposed to Novichok "" the same nerve agent that poisoned ex-Russian spy Sergei
Skirpal.
Rt.com reports: Two people,
this time a British couple in their 40s with no link to Russian intelligence, were affected by
a chemical substance on Saturday. Four days later, the UK's counter-terrorism chief said the
chemical that hit them was the same that sent former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and
his daughter, Yulia, into a coma in early March.
Back then, it took mere hours for the UK government to pin the blame on Moscow and unleash a
massive diplomatic offensive together with its allies. Moscow, still waiting for compelling
evidence to be produced, has been shut out of the investigation, and it has raised a number of
questions about the poisoning "" none of which have been answered.
Linking the two poisonings "is clearly a line of enquiry" for UK investigators, but the new
incident doesn't look likely to answer any of those concerns either.
The new victims, 45-year-old Charlie Rowley and his 44-year-old girlfriend Dawn Sturgess
were discovered in Amesbury, some 12 km (7 miles) north of Salisbury. Both scenes, though, are
located around Porton Down, which houses a secretive government chemical lab.
Porton Down has been a crucial part of the Skripal case investigation. It was there that the
chemical agent was identified as Novichok in both cases. Back in March, UK officials cited this
as proof that the substance came from Russia "" only to later be contradicted by the lab's
chief executive, who said they weren't really able to verify the agent's origins.
As for the location of the new scene relative to the old one, 12 km doesn't seem like an
improbably large distance. Plus, a friend of the victims said the couple had been to Salisbury
before they fell ill. The UK Home Secretary's working theory is that the exposure was
accidental, which begs the question: how would that be possible after four months and a massive
clean-up operation? Also, why were there only two random people in the whole 12km radius that
were affected?
Curious timing
Investigators say it's unclear if the supposed Novichok came from the same batch that
poisoned the Skripals in March. But, according to experts, the nerve agents of the Novichok
family lose their potency very quickly, which makes it unlikely that a trace powerful enough
had survived for four months to strike again at this particular moment.
And the moment is significant for two reasons "" two events key to Russia's international
image. One is the hugely successful FIFA World Cup, where the English team just secured a
quarter-final spot. British fans seem to be enjoying themselves in Russia, and berating British
politicians and media for their efforts to scare them away from the event.
The other is the preparations for a summit between US President Donald Trump and Russia's
Vladimir Putin. A date and a place for the meeting "" Helsinki, Finland, July 16 "" were set
just last week, and a possible rapprochement between the two rival superpowers seems to be
keeping British officials up at night.
Nobody died, again
One of the key questions asked back in March was: why did the Skripals survive if they were
indeed exposed to a military-grade nerve agent? While UK officials peddle Novichok as a deadly
nerve agent manufactured by the Soviets, claiming its recent use was the first chemical attack
in Europe since World War Two, it appears to have a surprisingly low lethality rate.
A friend of the couple described Rowley becoming increasingly ill over the course of the
day, before finally being taken to the hospital. There, the supposedly deadly Novichok gave
doctors enough time to treat the couple for a completely different diagnosis: the medics
initially believed that the couple had taken contaminated drugs (Rowley is a registered heroin
addict). Samples from the two were only sent to Porton Down on Monday, two days after they were
admitted.
Back in March, the Skripals were similarly discovered slipping in and out of consciousness
on a park bench. They were also treated for an opioid overdose at first, before the diagnosis
switched to nerve agent poisoning. Both ultimately survived and have now been discharged from
the hospital.
Analysts have repeatedly questioned the apparent low lethality of the supposed
"military-grade nerve agent." Russian officials, as well, have said that if such a deadly
substance had indeed been used, survival would be impossible.
British officials are still investigating the incident. However, this time "" now that
Novichok has been brought up "" they seem less inclined to point fingers, even as England fans
frolic in Russia and Theresa May's handling of Brexit continues to divide the public.
Google's critics have said for years that it should be treated like a public utility. On
Tuesday, Ohio's attorney general filed a lawsuit asking a judge to rule that the search company
is one.
The case adds to the legal woes confronting the Alphabet Inc. GOOG 0.68% subsidiary, which
also faces antitrust lawsuits from the Justice Department and a separate consortium of states
led by Colorado and Texas. The company is contending with cases in countries around the world
where its dominance as a search provider has sparked a push by regulators to corral its
power.
Amid the array of court challenges, Ohio said that it is the first state in the country to
bring a lawsuit seeking a court declaration that Google is a common carrier subject under state
law to government regulation. The lawsuit, which doesn't seek monetary damages, says that
Google has a duty to provide the same rights for advertisements and product placement for
competitors as it provides for its own services.
"When you own the railroad or the electric company or the cellphone tower, you have to treat
everyone the same and give everybody access," said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a
Republican.
A Google spokesman said that the remedies sought in the Ohio lawsuit would worsen the
company's search results and impair businesses' ability to connect directly with customers.
"Ohioans simply don't want the government to run Google like a gas or electric company," a
spokesman said. "This lawsuit has no basis in fact or law and we'll defend ourselves against it
in court."
The FBI and Australian Federal Police
ran an encrypted chat platform and intercepted secret messages between criminal gang
members from all over the world for more than three years. From a report: Named Operation
Ironside (AFP) / Trojan Shield (FBI, Interpol) on Monday, law enforcement agencies from
Australia, Europe, and the US conducted house searches and arrested thousands of suspects
across a wide spectrum of criminal groups, from biker gangs in Australia to drug cartels across
Asia and South America, and weapons and human traffickers in Europe.
In a press conference on Monday, Australian police said the sting operation got underway
in 2018 after the FBI successfully seized encrypted chat platform Phantom Secure. Knowing that
the criminal underworld would move to a new platform, US and Australian officials decided to
run their own service on top of Anom (also stylized as AN0M), an encrypted chat platform that
the FBI had secretly gained access to through an insider. Just like Phantom Secure, the new
service consisted of secure smartphones that were configured to run only the An0m app and
nothing else.
According to a commenter at SANS "Part of the decision to stop monitoring and making arrests
was a blog posting (since deleted) detailing the behavior of the ANoM app, this March, which
didn't correctly attribute the backdoor to the FBI."
Well, now the criminals can't trust any encryption. That means that it can slow them down
quite a bit for a while.
Meanwhile most of the ransom for the pipeline ransomware is also recovered, which likely
means that it's possible to track Bitcoin.
Governments may be slow, but they can be relentless in pursuing their targets if they really
want. Re:STFU! (
Score: 4 , Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @03:40PM (
#61466816 )
Anyone can track Bitcoin transactions from wallet to wallet. The paydirt is that the LEOs
know which wallets to watch and can follow the trail.
Tainted Bitcoins are a big thing, and even tumbled coins just mean more tainted coins that
currency exchanges will not accept. You might be able to find an individual to trade, and maybe
an escrow service so you can do a multisig transaction so the other party doesn't rob you blind
when trading to something like XMR to the ill-gotten gains.
It was a closed-source black-box proprietary encryption system.
As we've pointed out time and again: You can't trust it if you can't check it. Your security
is totally at the mercy of the system's authors and operators.
But crooks are apparently no smarter than Pointy Haired Bosses. (Thank goodness.)
The left love their saint Dr Fraud and he could do no wrong in their eyes.
And they see democrats as superheroes who try to save the world when the latter are only
good at stealing.
Meat Hammer 6 hours ago
That's all of this in a nutshell: liberals see themselves as enlightened, superior
beings, and conservatives as vermin who deserve extermination. And they wonder why we keep
buying guns.
Plus Size Model 18 minutes ago remove link
Both groups see themselves this way because they have been cognitively conditioned
accordingly. It's all part of the plan.
I can go into any liberal bookstore and pick up a stack of books on protesting, civil
action, making stickers, posters, organizing, setting up fundraisers, etc. I come to ZH and
alI I see are bots and the occasional poster complaining about how things are never going
to get better. Think long and hard about this!!!
I can't emphasize enough how much people should read up on information operations and
long term strategic psychological warfare. There are plenty of good books in the open
domain and the US military does not copyright their work.
On June 6, 1968, Robert Kennedy had just won the California Democratic presidential primary,
when he was shot dead, five years after his brother. David Talbot has shown in his book
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years , published in 2007 by Simon &
Schuster, that Robert had never believed in the conclusion of the Warren Commission Report, and
that, had he succeeded in becoming the next American president, he would have done his utmost
to set up a new investigation. Whether he would have been able to get to the bottom of it is
another matter. But it is a reasonable assumption that the forces that had killed John were the
same that killed Robert on his way to reclaim the White House. After all, as Laurence Leamer
writes in Sons of Camelot : "Bobby had been the president's alter ego and protector. . .
. He had loved his brother so intensely and served him so well that within the administration
it was hard to tell where one man ended and the other began."
[1] After 1963, Robert was still his brother's continuation. He was the heir and the
avenger.
That is why I have argued before -- and I repeat in
my new book -- that the ultimate key to the JFK whodunit is in RFK's assassination, which
has a very clear, unmistakable Israeli signature. RFK's assassination is a masterwork of false
flag operation, designed by a supremely intelligent, Machiavellian, and organized cabal, the
same that orchestrated one year earlier, with Johnson's complicity, the attempted false flag
attack on the USS Liberty (watch the new groundbreaking four-part documentary film
Sacrificing
Liberty ).
What is truly extraordinary, and demonstrates an unmatched expertise in the industry of
lies, is that the conspirators succeeded to get rid of Robert Kennedy while at the same time
blaming the assassination on their enemies -- the Palestinians -- and thereby giving themselves
both an alibi and a victim's role: through RFK, Israel was the target, they claim.
Sirhan Sirhan, the "virulent anti-Semite"
Just hours after Robert's assassination, the press informed the American people, not only of
the identity of the assassin, but also of his motive, and even of his detailed biography.
[2] Twenty-four-year-old Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was born in Jordan, and had moved to the
United States when his family was expelled from West Jerusalem in 1948. After the shooting, a
newspaper clipping was found in Sirhan's pocket, quoting Robert's following statement: "The
United States should without delay sell Israel the 50 Phantom jets she has so long been
promised." Handwritten notes by Sirhan found in a notebook at his home confirmed that his act
had been premeditated and motivated by his hatred of Israel.
That became the mainstream storyline from day one. Jerry Cohen of the Los Angeles
Times wrote a front page article, saying that Sirhan is "described by acquaintances as a
'virulent' anti-Israeli" (Cohen changed that into "virulent anti-Semite" in an article for the
Salt Lake Tribune ), and that: "Investigation and disclosures from persons who knew him
best revealed [him] as a young man with a supreme hatred for the state of Israel." Cohen infers
that "Senator Kennedy . . . became a personification of that hatred because of his recent
pro-Israeli statements." Cohen further revealed that, about three weeks before the shooting,
Sirhan wrote "a memo to himself" that said, "Kennedy must be assassinated before June 5, 1968,"
that is, Cohen notes, "the first anniversary of the six-day war in which Israel humiliated
three Arab neighbors, Egypt, Syria and Jordan."
[3]
After September 11, 2001, the tragedy of Robert's assassination was rewritten and installed
into the Neocon mythology of the "Clash of Civilizations" and the "War on Terror." A book
entitled The Forgotten Terrorist, by Mel Ayton (2007), purports to present "a wealth of
evidence about [Sirhan's] fanatical Palestinian nationalism," and to demonstrate that
"[Sirhan's] politically motivated act was a forerunner of present-day terrorism."
In 2008, on the occasion of the 40 th anniversary of Bobby's murder, Sasha
Issenberg of the Boston Globe recalled that the death of Robert Kennedy was "a first
taste of Mideast terror." He quotes Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz saying: "It was in some
ways the beginning of Islamic terrorism in America. It was the first shot. A lot of us didn't
recognize it at the time."
[4] That Sirhan was from a Christian family was lost on Dershowitz.
Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin took care to mention it
in TheForward , only to add that Islamic fanaticism ran in his veins anyway:
"But what he shared with his Muslim cousins -- the perpetrators of September 11 -- was a
visceral, irrational hatred of Israel. It drove him to murder a man whom some still believe
might have been the greatest hope of an earlier generation. . . . Sirhan hated Kennedy because
he had supported Israel."
And so, the Forward insists: "One cannot help but note the parallel between [Robert]
Kennedy's assassination and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In both tragic cases,
Arab fanaticism reared its ugly head on American soil, irrevocably changing the course of
events in this country."
[5] And the lesson: "In remembering Bobby Kennedy, let us remember not just what he lived
for, but also what he died for -- namely, the precious nature of the American-Israeli
relationship."
[6] In other words: let's propagate the narrative, for it is good for Israel.
On the fiftieth anniversary, the narrative was
well rehearsed : Robert got killed because he was "pro-Israel".
[7] Therefore his murder was a crime against Israel.
For anyone familiar with the history of the Kennedy clan, there is something odd in the
notion that the assassination of Robert Kennedy was a crime against Israel. Robert had not
been, in his brother's government, a pro-Israel Attorney General. He had infuriated Zionist
leaders by supporting an investigation led by Senator William Fulbright and the Committee on
Foreign Relations, aimed at registering the American Zionist Council as a "foreign agent",
which would had considerably hindered its efficiency.
[8]
In 1968, Robert Kennedy had not suddenly turned pro-Israel. He was simply trying to attract
Jewish votes, as everyone else. Robert's statement in an Oregon synagogue, mentioned in the May
27 Pasadena Independent Star-News article found in Sirhan's pocket, didn't exceed the
minimal requirements. Its author David Lawrence had, in another article entitled "Paradoxical
Bob," underlined how little credit should be given to such electoral promises: "Presidential
candidates are out to get votes and some of them do not realize their own inconsistencies."
[9] In fact, as Arthur Krock has noted, the supposed motive for RFK's murder is itself
paradoxical: "If this motive was his position that the United States was committed to preserve
Israel as a nation, his statement was made with more moderation than that of other important
political persons who said the same thing."
[10]
All things considered, there is no ground for believing that Robert Kennedy would have been,
as president of the U.S.A., particularly Israel-friendly.
Did Sirhan kill Robert Kennedy?
If we trust official statements and mainstream news, the assassination of Robert Kennedy is
an open-and-shut case. The identity of the killer suffers no discussion, since he was arrested
on the spot, with the smoking gun in his hand.
In reality, ballistic and forensic evidence shows that none of Sirhan's bullets hit Kennedy.
According to the autopsy report of Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner Thomas Noguchi, Robert
Kennedy was hit by three bullets, while a fourth went through his coat. All these bullets were
shot from behind Kennedy: two of them under his right armpit, following an upward angle, and
the third, the fatal bullet, behind his right ear, at point blank range. Dr. Noguchi reaffirms
his conclusion in his memoirs, Coroner (1983) . Yet the sworn testimonies of
twelve witnesses established that Robert had never turned his back on Sirhan and that Sirhan
was five to six feet away from his target when he fired. Moreover, Sirhan was physically
overpowered by Karl Uecker after his second shot, and, although he continued pressing the
trigger mechanically, his revolver was not directed towards Kennedy anymore.
By tallying all the bullet impacts in the pantry, and those that wounded five people around
Kennedy, it has been estimated that at least twelve bullets were fired, while Sirhan's gun
carried only eight. On April 23, 2011, attorneys William Pepper and Laurie Dusek gathered all
this evidence and more in a 58-page file submitted to the Court of California, with a request
that Sirhan's case be reopened. They pointed out major irregularities in the 1968 trial,
notably that the serial number of Sirhan's pistol did not match the serial number of the pistol
by which were test fired the bullets compared with those extracted from Robert's brain.
[11] Pepper also provided a computer analysis of audio recordings during the shooting, made
by engineer Philip Van Praag in 2008, which confirms that two guns are heard.
[12] Paul Schrade, a Kennedy confidant who was behind Robert during the shooting and
received one of Sirhan's bullets, has long believed there was a second shooter. He
testified at Sirhan's 2016 parole hearing, and told him: "the evidence clearly shows that
you were not the gunman who shot Robert Kennedy."
[13] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his sister Kathleen have joined Schrade and
support the call for a reinvestigation of the assassination.
[14]
The presence of a second shooter was mentioned by several witnesses and reported on the same
day by a few news outlets. There are strong suspicions that Robert's real assassin was Thane
Eugene Cesar, a security guard hired by the Hotel Ambassador, property of Zionist businessman
Myer Schine. Cesar was stuck behind Kennedy at the moment of the shooting, and some people saw
him draw his pistol. One of them, Don Schulman, positively saw him fire.
[15] Incredibly, Cesar's weapon was never examined, and he was never interrogated, even
though he did not conceal his hatred for the Kennedys.
[16]
Even if we assumed that Sirhan did kill Robert Kennedy, a second aspect of the case raises
question: Sirhan seemed to be in a state of trance during the shooting, and of disorientation
just after. More importantly, Sirhan has always claimed that he has never had any recollection
of his act. Fifty years after the facts, he continues to declare: "I was told by my attorney
that I shot and killed Senator Robert F. Kennedy and that to deny this would be completely
futile, [but] I had and continue to have no memory of the shooting of Senator Kennedy." He also
claims to have no memory of "many things and incidents which took place in the weeks leading up
to the shooting."
[17] Some repetitive lines written of a notebook found in Sirhan's bedroom, which Sirhan
recognizes as his own handwriting but does not remember writing, are reminiscent of automatic
writing: there is a whole page of fifteen repetitions of "RFK must die, Robert F. Kennedy
must be assassinated, assassinated, assassinated, assassinated," suddenly turning to "I
have never heard please pay to the order of of of of of."
[18]
Psychiatric expertise, including lie-detector tests, has confirmed that Sirhan's amnesia is
not faked. Therefore, experts in hypnosis and mental manipulation believe that Sirhan has been
submitted to hypnotic programming. "It was obvious that he had been programmed to kill Robert
Kennedy and programmed to forget that he had been programmed," stated Dr. Robert Blair.
[19] In 2008, Harvard University professor Daniel Brown, a noted expert in hypnosis and
trauma memory loss, interviewed Sirhan for a total of 60 hours, and concluded that Sirhan, whom
he classified among "high hypnotizables," acted involuntarily under the effect of hypnotic
suggestion: "His firing of the gun was neither under his voluntary control, nor done with
conscious knowledge, but is likely a product of automatic hypnotic behavior and coercive
control." During his sessions with Dr. Brown, Sirhan could remember having been accompanied by
an attractive woman, before suddenly finding himself at a shooting range with a weapon he did
not know. According to Brown's report, "Mr. Sirhan did not go with the intent to shoot Senator
Kennedy, but did respond to a specific hypnotic cue given to him by that woman to enter 'range
mode,' during which Mr. Sirhan automatically and involuntarily responded with a 'flashback'
that he was shooting at a firing range at circle targets." Later, attorney William Pepper found
an entry in the police file that showed that, just days before the assassination, Sirhan had
visited a firing range, accompanied by an unknown instructor.
[20]
Mossad, Mental control, and false-flag terrorism
We know that in the 1960s, American military agencies were experimenting on mental control.
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, son of Hungarian Jews, directed the infamous CIA MKUltra project, which,
among other things, were to answer questions such as: "Can a person under hypnosis be forced to
commit murder?" according to a declassified document dated May 1951.
[21] As Larry Romanoff has pointed out , MKUltra was an
overwhelmingly Jewish enterprise, with people like Dr. John Gittinger, Harris Isbell, James
Keehner, Lauretta Bender, Albert Kligman, Eugene Saenger, Chester Southam, Robert V. Lashbrook,
Harold Abramson, Charles Geschickter, and Ray Treichler.
[22]
In his book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted
Assassinations (2018), Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman has revealed that, in May 1968, the
month preceding Robert Kennedy's assassination, the Israeli Military Intelligence (AMAN) was
planning to assassinate Yasser Arafat by hypnotically programming a Palestinian. The idea was
proposed by a Navy psychologist named Binyamin Shalit, who claimed that, "if he was given a
Palestinian prisoner -- one of the thousands in Israeli jails -- with the right
characteristics, he could brainwash and hypnotize him into becoming a programmed killer. He
would then be sent across the Jordan, join the Fatah there, and, when the opportunity arose, do
away with Arafat." The proposal was approved. Shalit selected a 28-year-old Palestinian from
Bethlehem, whom he deemed easily suggestionnable. The operation failed, but it proves that, in
1968 precisely, Israel was practicing a method of assassination identical to the one used
against Robert Kennedy.
[23]
Moreover, manipulating Palestinians to make them commit crimes, or committing crimes and
blaming Palestinians for them, bears the signature of Israel. According to former Mossad agent,
Victor Ostrovsky, in 1991 elements of the Mossad were plotting an attempt on the life of
President George H. W. Bush. Bush had resisted an unprecedented pro-Israel lobbying campaign
that called for $10 billion to help Jews immigrate from the former Soviet Union to Israel,
complaining in a televised press conference on September 12 that "one thousand Jewish lobbyists
are on Capitol Hill against little old me."
[24] Worse, there was his policy of pressuring Israel to the negotiating table at the
Madrid Conference by freezing their loan guarantees. Israel had had enough of him. The plan was
to leak words to the Spanish police that terrorists were on their way, kill Bush and, in the
midst of the confusion, release three Palestinians captured earlier and kill them on the spot.
[25]
It is well known that Israel has a long history and a grand expertise in false flag
terrorism. A report of the U.S. Army School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), quoted by the
Washington
Times on September 10, 2001, described the Israeli Intelligence agency as: "Wildcard.
Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a
Palestinian/Arab act."
[26] That statement was made public on the day before 9/11.
The pattern dates from before the creation of the Jewish State, with the bombing of the King
David Hotel, headquarter of the British authorities in Jerusalem, in the morning of July 22,
1946. Six terrorists of the Irgun dressed as Arabs brought 225 kg of explosives hidden in milk
churns into the building. When a British officer became suspicious and gunshot ensued, the
Irgun members fled after igniting the explosives. The explosion killed 91 people, mostly
British, but also 15 Jews.
The strategy was repeated in Egypt during the summer of 1954, with Operation Susannah. The
goal was to compromise the British's withdrawal from the Suez Canal, demanded by Colonel Abdul
Gamal Nasser with support from President Eisenhower. Egyptian Jews trained in Israel bombed
several British targets, then put the blame on the Muslim Brotherhood. The accidental
detonation of an explosive device allowed the exposure of the conspiracy, which led to the
"Lavon Affair", from the name of the Defense Minister who was held responsible.
There are more of the same stories in Gordon Thomas's Gideon's Spies: the Secret History
of the Mossad (2009).
[27] By definition, false-flagged Arab terrorism is only exposed when it fails, and we
cannot know how many such operations have been set up by the Mossad. But from the revelations
of Ronen Bergman in Rise and Kill First, Sirhan sure looks like a typical made-in-Mossad
Palestinian patsy.
There are still, of course, unanswered questions, such as: How did Sirhan find himself in
the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel at midnight on June 6, 1968, with a pistol in his
pocket? Sirhan himself declared it was by accident, or by mistake, but then he doesn't remember
much of that evening. Another question is: Why did Kennedy, after finishing his speech, exit
the ballroom through the kitchen pantry, instead of walking through the crowd of his
supporters, as he usually did? To this question, there is an answer: according to a campaign
volunteer present at the scene and interviewed by Michael Piper, it was Frank Mankiewicz who
insisted that Robert go this way.
[28] Now, isn't it awkward that Mankiewicz had started his career in public relations "as
civil rights director for the western branch of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith," as
he mentions in his autobiography.
[29] (The ADL, remember, was founded in 1913 by the B'nai B'rith to defend the
convicted child rapist and murderer Leo Frank .)
[30] In 1991, Mankiewicz handled publicity for Oliver Stone's film JFK .
Bobby Kennedy was killed by a single shot to the back of his head. The shot was fired at a
range close enough to singe the hair on the back of his neck.
Sirhan was of course standing IN FRONT of Bobby, firing BLANKS. The reason for firing
those blanks was to cover up the sound of the OTHER gun.
The ONLY person who could have fired such a shot was one of the FBI "bodyguards".
Bobby was murdered because he had a good chance to be elected Prez o' US. And if Bobby
EVER became Prez, he would have re-opened the investigation of the murder of his brother,
JFK. So RFK was killed by the same people who killed JFK.
Although NO ONE talks about the "plane crash" that killed JFK, Jr., that was also an
assassination for the purpose of ensuring that NO ONE EVER made an honest investigation of
the murder of JFK, Sr.
My understanding is that Maheu was the conduit between the CIA and the Mafia
in at least the JFK assassination. Mafia includes both Italian and Jewish/Israeli groupings.
But the order and primary coverup was from the CIA (or acting former CIA). You don't usually
hear about military generals, but they had to be in on it too. LBJ was clearly not a
mastermind though must have been involved to a degree. Same with Hoover.
I was a college student in LA at the time of the RFK assassination,
not that it makes me an expert, but it made me aware then and concerned and
investigating ever since.
I have read all of Laurent Guyenot's works and most of it was powerfully eye opening,
especially about the history and "purpose" of the Old Testament Bible. I am grateful to him
for this work.
He seems to me on less solid ground when it comes to who can control things in the US.
m.k.ultra/cia/mossad cannot be separated. creating unwitting assassins is a major part of
why the program was created. sirhan sirhan's handler "the girl in the polka dot dress" was
seen by 25 witnesses but dismissed as a figment of the imagination of an overwrought campaign
worker who claimed she heard her say "we shot him, we shot him". the camel faced woman of the
joe/camel administration refused to allow sirhan sirhans parole even though bobby kennedy jr.
requested it. guess that handlers have to have to watch out for each other.
And he attacked the Israel A-bomb program and wanted to end the Federal Reserve, that
financial yeshiva. They were lining up to top him, then his brother.
I agree that it's a mystery he is still alive. Other than it would need someone in the DOJ
with the determination to see that he was carefully assassinated. You know there was a recent
attempt on his life, don't you? Right around the time Epstein died. As long as Barr was head
of DOJ I was extremely concerned about Sirhan.
Of course, originally they expected him to be executed and the California had the audacity
to eliminate the death penalty.
To understand Robert Kennedy's support for Israel, we have to enter the mental world of
post World War Two. Robert wanted Israel' s nuclear programme ended because the Cold War
required a bi polar between nuclear powers, US and USSR. A nuclear Israel would make Israel a
super power as has indeed happened. Otherwise Robert, a war vet, loved Israel as an epitome
of frontier America. Also Israel's social programme as contrasted with America's predatory
capitalism greatly appealed. Robert's visit to Israel and deprecation of the Arabs fitted
that era. The Arabs and Islam were not popular as backward peoples except for some Arabian
Nights nostalgia. I have read a book that Iranian agents were also involved in his
assassination. This was the era of the Shah who was covertly allied to Israel
I once read of a security expert who had been around during the 60's who believed RFK's
assassination was almost inevitable as RFK routinely disregarded security protocols regarding
his exposure to large crowds.
That others were involved is a given and the 'system' has protected them for decades,
just as it protected the assassins who killed JFK.
Since a president Robert would have been determined to get to who killed his brother, it
is practically a foregone conclusion they were both killed by the exact same crew.
Sirhan Sirhan wasn't a Muslim he was Christian Greek Orthodox variety. In 1948 When he was
4 years old armed Israeli troops cane to his family's 10 room house and gave them one hour to
pack up what they could carry and get out. His father was fired from his city of Jerusalem
water department job as soon as Zionists bribed blackmailed and threatened United Nations
delegates to declare Israel a nation.
The family went to live in a Greek Orthodox pilgrim hostel. 7 kids mostly boys youngest 4
how'd you like that. One of the boys was killed in a Zionist terrorist bombing at a crowded
rush hour intersection about a year before. The Church refugee program brought the Sirhan to
Pasadena Ca. They bought a house and settled in.
Having been kicked out of his home at age 4 by armed troops Sirhan was righteously
resentful of the Zionists. He grew more anti Zionist at Pasadena community college because of
pro Israel Jewish professors.
Kennedy ran in the California primary. He promised arms and support to Israel. So Sirhan
shot him.
Robert Kennedy was as anti White as his brothers. He lobbied for the 1965 and 1968
unlimited non White immigration and affirmative action bills. He marched at the head of MLK's
funeral, practically shoving the widow out of the way for photo opportunities. He also
massively supported the Hispanic cause and was one of the first anti White Democrats to lobby
for Hispanics to get affirmative action benefits. Although that didn't happen until 1970. By
the time JFK was elected, Robert was a hard core anti White.
He's dead. Sirhan Sirhan confessed to shooting Kennedy because of Kennedy's support for
Israel and the Israelis who stole his family's home.
If you're pro Israel and love the American politicians who give more to Israel than to the
American taxpayers, you would have lived Kennedy at the time.
If you're anti White and pro black and brown you should mourn Kennedy as an anti White,
pro black and brown pro black on White crime and pro affirmative action discrimination
against White Americans dead martyr.
If you are pro White and against affirmative action discrimination against White Americans
you are a misinformed ignoramus if you mourn Robert Kennedy.
If you are pro Palestinian and anti the Israeli property grabbers you are a misinformed
ignoramus if you mourn the pro Israel Kennedy.
All 3 Kennedy brothers were anti White. March 1961 less than 2 months after he became
President JFK issued executive order 10925 I believe it was mandating that all federal
agencies SHALL take affirmative action to hire blacks over Whites.
Ted lobbied for the 64 civil rights for all but Whites act, the 65 unlimited non White
immigration act. The 68 affirmative action act and every anti White law and judicial
appointment in his long career.
And Robert disdained Whites and slobbered over MLK Jesse Jackson Cesear Chavez and every
black and brown activist in existence. And he was a vociferous supporter of Israel and the
anti White Jewish organizations in America.
Someone shot him. Sirhan Sirhan claimed he shot Robert Kennedy. Robert was as much an
enemy of Whites and Palestinians as Johnson was.
Had Robert Kennedy become President he would have been as anti White as Nixon or
worse.
Sirhan Sirhan had an excellent motive; revenge. The Jews didn't. Robert Kennedy was a
puppet of jews both in domestic ( anti White) and foreign affairs.
Robert Kennedy was pro school de segregation and bussing , pro affirmative action, pro
Hispanic pro black soft on black crime and anti White.
Any White man who mourns the Kennedys is anti White negro lover and Zionist.
Israel does indeed have a history of unmasked false-flag operations: the Lavon Affair, the
attack on the Liberty, their proven awareness beforehand that the 9/11 attacks were going to
happen, where, and how.
So unless we're to assume they're invariably incompetent, it follows that there must also
have been false-flag operations that were never uncovered. Like, say, the assassination of
Robert Kennedy. But this is hardly proof that this was in fact what happened. It merely
demonstrates that it's not inconceivable.
Then there's Sirhan Sirhan himself. What was he like? Had he had similar episodes in the
past: committing violent acts and having no memory of them? Was he deranged in some way that
suggested such behavior was possible? We know, for example, that the young Adolf Hitler was
transported when he saw Wagner's Rienzi -- the story of a man who rises to become the
savior of his people. Obviously, this prefigured Hitler's later career. Was there anything in
Sirhan's life that prefigured an assassination attempt?
Was there other evidence that Sirhan was worked up about Kennedy and Israel? Surely there
should have been more than reading a clipping that Kennedy was for an arms sale. What was he
saying to people? What had he been reading? Was Sirhan even aware of who was running for
President?
If Israel was in fact behind the killing, how were they sure they would benefit? Was it,
in June, clear that if Kennedy lived, he would get the nomination and beat the Republican
nominee, and that if he did, that he would be dramatically worse for Israel than the apparent
alternatives at that point?
Sirhan doesn't remember anything (because of his hypnosis), therefore he is not
dangerous.
The Jews made a mistake by choosing a Christian Palestinian as their "typical
fanatical Muslim terrorist", but they hoped the gullible American public would not notice,
which of course was the case.
' On February 10, 2016, at his 15th parole hearing, he [Sirhan] was denied
parole again. One of Sirhan's shooting victims from that night, Paul Schrade, aged 91 at the
time of the hearing, testified in his support, stating his belief that a second shooter
killed Kennedy and that Sirhan was intended to be a distraction from the real gunman by an
unknown conspiracy '
Kennedy had been shot three times. One bullet was fired at a range of perhaps 1 inch (3
cm) and entered behind his right ear, dispersing fragments throughout his brain.[41] The
other two entered at the rear of his right armpit; one exited from his chest and the other
lodged in the back of his neck.[4
Wiki
Five other people were wounded by the "blanks" that SS fired after RFK had been shot.
Five other people were wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United
Automobile Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the
Continental News Service, and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll.[24]
@Triteleia Laxa g seems to point in a certain obvious direction, but Bergman's recent
book also includes a major new revelation. At exactly the same moment that Sirhan was being
wrestled to the floor of the Ambassador Hotel ballroom in Los Angeles, another young
Palestinian was undergoing intensive rounds of hypnotic conditioning at the hands of Mossad
in Israel, being programmed to assassinate PLO leader Yasir Arafat; and although that effort
ultimately failed, such a coincidence seems to stretch the bounds of plausibility.
Had a sinister grouping discovered how to create hypnotised assassins a half a century ago,
there is no interest of theirs that they would not be able to achieve by now.
Yet the group you accuse has not even been able to deal with the Palestinians. In the
meantime, countless peace settlements, successful ethnic cleansings, large scale massacres, and
more, have taken place around the world, ignored and/or forgiven.
My impression is that you paint the Israelis/"deep state neocons"/Jews as Saturday morning
cartoon villains. They are all powerful, utterly ruthless, constantly scheming, and yet somehow
never achieve more than the most ordinary of their aims. This is too funny.
And that made them bold enough to pin 9/11 on a bunch of Islamic terrorists. The system is
superb; when discussing 9/11 in 2011 with one of my American cousins, he looked at me like I
had come from Mars when I asked him about the the third building (7) falling down without being
hit. His answer was " what building you are talking about". That got me curious and I
researched to find out if my cousin's reaction was a rarity and to my big surprise it turned
out that up to that date only 25% of the American public were aware of the fall of three
buildings all in all. Free US media indeed!
@Godfree Roberts After all, whatever else you might say of him, long-reigning Erdogan, is
the poster boy for leader hubris yet he's still there.
Though if you make too many powerful enemies eventually someone is going to take a shot.
Think of it as the coalition of the willing.
We all crave and grow comfortable with the coutours of what did and didn't happen as if was
ordained. Thus Kerry made fun of W. Bush for sitting in that elementary school classroom on
live TV as if, regardless of what he (W) and those protecting him knew, he was safe as a
kitten.
I've mentioned the Vincennes/Lockerbie as elucidating in terms of the functionality of the
resolve. With the US and Iran, the two indisputable moving parties, conspiring to make Libya
the dirty dog.
Richard Nixon, via Henry Kissinger, was very good for the Israelis. Would mystery votes in
Illinois and Texas happen for Bobby like they did for John? We will never know. Joe Kennedy was
a ruthless, power driven man, which is why the Kennedy mystique has always been both amusing
and a mystery. Perhaps Joe could have pulled another presidential election off for another
son.
According to campaign workers at the scene, RFK wanted to exit the ballroom through the
crowd, but his press secretary, Frank Mankiewicz insisted that he leave through the pantry,
having arranged a midnight press briefing in a nearby room. Kennedy was told that he needed to
hold the briefing so that he could appear on the morning news the following day. Oddly,
Mankiewicz later denied having played this role, contradicting the accounts of Kennedy's staff.
As Guyenot points out, Mankiewicz was formerly a publicist for the Zionist ADL. Collins Piper,
by the way, goes off on a tangent suggesting that Iran somehow had a hand in the RFK
assassination.
Another loose end is of course the girl with the polka dot dress. Who was she? where did she
go? Here is one authors novel assessment: http://www.surfs-up.net/Downloads/RFK.pdf If
this writer is correct, the ADL also played a role in the silencing of the polka dot dress
girl.
@Triteleia Laxa ts. "Confused" was an oft repeated adjective to describe the victims state
of mind.
Vice made a documentary years ago that can easily be found on the internet, "worlds scariest
drug" was titled if memory serves me. Here's also some safety advice for travelers to Colombia,
proof of how common this is:
Now could someone be ordered to kill someone else while high on scopolamine? I have read of
no reports. But one thing is clear, a hypnotized like state – in which victims blindly
follow directions from strangers – can be induced chemically.
If you read the replies to this tweet, you can clearly see why Americans tolerate the
existence of billionaires: according to liberal ideology, the alternative would simply be too
much worse.
The whole legitimacy of capitalism to masses lies in the assumption it is a pure and
limitless meritocracy: you get monetarily rewarded in the exact proportion of your individual
qualities and hard work.
The moment you start to arrest and even execute billionaires for crimes related to the
economy (white collar crime), you're tacitly admitting the free market has a ceiling: you
cannot get indefinitely rich, therefore you're not entirely free. It may be a tall cage, but
it is still a cage - a precept that would kill the liberal concept of individual freedom.
That's why Westerners are completely ok with death penalties for crimes related to
individual defects (i.e. serial killers, rapists) or related to a violation of the game
(crimes against private property; robbery; rigging), but not with "white collar crimes" - no
matter how much more damaging white collar crimes are to society (e.g. only one middle
management guy got arrested in the aftermath of the crisis of 2008, and he got very little
time).
So, the problem isn't in the fact that Westerners don't recognize that extreme wealth
concentration is a problem, but that they think that this is a necessary evil, the price of
freedom. It's like the Egyptians servants building the pyramids for their dead pharaohs under
the fear the world will literally end if they don't.
"Stop indoctrinating our children. Stop teaching our children to hate the police. Stop
teaching our children that if they don't agree with the LGBT community that they're homophobic.
You have no idea each child's life," she said, adding "You don't know what their family
lifestyle consists of, you don't know the makeup of their life."
https://youtu.be/zxu3wdiXRF0
Ibrahim shut down school board members' objections several times - in between calling out
two teachers for posting their political beliefs online. When board members told her she wasn't
allowed to reference people by name, Ibrahim claimed those teachers called "for the death of a
former president," and that students who don't support Black Lives Matter should be "canceled
out."
"Why are we not allowed to say names? Why am I not allowed when they purposefully expose
themselves on social media, talking about calling for the death of a former president, or
saying that any child who doesn't believe in Black Lives Matter should be canceled out. Is this
what my tax dollars are paying for?" she asked.
"You're emotionally abusing our children and mentally abusing them," Ibrahim continued
RDinSC 1 hour ago
Never vote for anyone at any level of political office who does not openly and sincerely
oppose CRT and any and all woke indoctrination.
RedDog1 1 hour ago
I'm a super anti-racist. I'm especially against woke neo-racism.
BLOTTO 52 minutes ago (Edited)
Wait until she finds out that Drag Queen Roxy is reading 'The Hips on the DQ go swish
swish swish' to the kids at the local library.
Pooper Popper 1 hour ago
She Rocks!!!!!
Bang!!
high5mail 36 minutes ago
When I listen to this woman and look around me at all the fools who buy into the
"system" as it is, too scared to do what she is doing, it saddens me at the apathy and
cowardice of the general public which will sell their souls for protection on a non deadly
virus and take an unproved vaccine to virtue signal.
She is a modern day Joan of Arc. I would stand beside her in an instant. How many others
would do that or demand the same things she is demanding? Most are too busy trying to
figure out what gender they think they should be or trying on racist social agendas in the
"woke" category.
LONDON (Reuters) -The United States, Britain and other large, rich nations reached a
landmark deal on Saturday to squeeze more money out of multinational companies such as Amazon
and Google and reduce their incentive to shift profits to low-tax offshore havens.
Hundreds of billions of dollars could flow into the coffers of governments left
cash-strapped by the COVID-19 pandemic after the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies agreed
to back a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15%.
Facebook said it expected it would have to pay more tax, in more countries, as a result of
the deal, which comes after eight years of talks that gained fresh impetus in recent months
after proposals from U.S. President Joe Biden's new administration.
"G7 finance ministers have reached a historic agreement to reform the global tax system to
make it fit for the global digital age," British finance minister Rishi Sunak said after
chairing a two-day meeting in London.
The meeting, hosted at an ornate 19th-century mansion near Buckingham Palace in central
London, was the first time finance ministers have met face-to-face since the start of the
pandemic.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the "significant, unprecedented commitment" would
end what she called a race to the bottom on global taxation.
German finance minister Olaf Scholz said the deal was "bad news for tax havens around the
world".
Yellen also saw the G7 meeting as marking a return to multilateralism under Biden and a
contrast to the approach of U.S. President Donald Trump, who alienated many U.S. allies.
"What I've seen during my time at this G7 is deep collaboration and a desire to coordinate
and address a much broader range of global problems," she said.
Ministers also agreed to move towards making companies declare their environmental impact in
a more standard way so investors can decided more easily whether to fund them, a key goal for
Britain.
... ... ...
Key details remain to be negotiated over the coming months. Saturday's agreement says only
"the largest and most profitable multinational enterprises" would be affected.
European countries had been concerned that this could exclude Amazon - which has lower
profit margins than most tech companies - but Yellen said she expected it would be
included.
How tax revenues will be split is not finalised either, and any deal will also need to pass
the U.S. Congress.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he would push for a higher minimum tax, calling
15% "a starting point".
Some campaign groups also condemned what they saw as a lack of ambition. "They are setting
the bar so low that companies can just step over it," Oxfam's head of inequality policy, Max
Lawson, said.
But Irish finance minister Paschal Donohoe, whose country is potentially affected because of
its 12.5% tax rate, said any global deal also needed to take account of smaller nations.
The G7 includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and
Canada.
... Average hourly earnings for workers in leisure and hospitality rose to $18.09 in May,
the highest ever and up 5% from January alone, according to Labor Department data released on
Friday. Pay rose even faster for workers in non-manager roles, who saw earnings rise by 7.2%
from January, far outpacing any other sector.
That higher pay could be a sign that companies are lifting wages as they seek to draw people
back to work after more than a year at home. Some businesses are struggling to keep up with
higher demand as more consumers, now fully vaccinated, get back to flying, staying in hotels
and dining indoors. Job gains in leisure and hospitality this year have so far outpaced gains
in other sectors.
But it is too soon to know whether the boost will be enough to help speed up hiring at a
time when many workers are still facing other obstacles, including health concerns and having
to care for children and other relatives.
"The fact of the matter is, the pandemic is still going on," said Daniel Zhao, a senior
economist for Glassdoor. "The economy is running ahead of where we are from a public health
situation."
Some 2.5 million people said they were prevented from looking for work in May because of the
pandemic, according to the Labor Department.
... ... ...
Employment in leisure and hospitality is still in a deep hole when compared with pre-pandemic
levels. The industry added 292,000 jobs in May, with about two-thirds of that hiring happening
in restaurants and bars. But overall employment is still down 2.5 million jobs, or 15% from
pre-pandemic levels, more than any other industry.
... ... ...
Some people who previously worked at hotels or restaurants moved on to other types of jobs
during the pandemic, such as packaging goods at a warehouse, and it's too soon to know whether
they will switch back as more of the economy reopens, said Zhao.
...About half of states are putting an early end to a $300 federal supplement to weekly
unemployment benefits, winding them down as soon as June 12. The supplement expires nationwide
on Sept. 6.
(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte and Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan
Oatis)
Walmart
Will Give 740,000 Employees a Free Smartphone (cbsnews.com) 37 Posted by EditorDavid on
Sunday June 06, 2021 @06:39PM from the company-lines dept. "Walmart will give
740,000 employees free Samsung smartphones by the end of the year ," reports CBS News, "so
they can use a new app to manage schedules, the company announced Thursday." The phone, the
Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro, can also be used for personal use, and the company will provide free
cases and protection plans. The phone's retail price is currently $499... Up until now,
associates at Walmart stores used handheld devices they shared to communicate, but an initial
test with employee smartphones was received well and will now be expanded upon, Walmart
said...
The company promised that it would not have access to any employee's personal data and
can "use the smartphone as their own personal device if they want, with all the features and
privacy they're used to." The test will be expanded by the end of the year, Walmart
said.
Earlier this year, Walmart announced pay increases for nearly a third of its U.S.
workforce of 1.6 million. In February, digital and store workers saw their starting hourly
rates increase from $13 to $19 depending on their location and market.Hmmm
(
Score: 3 , Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06, 2021 @06:48PM (
#61460698 )
Probably will be used to clock them in and out when they enter and exit the premises, and track
their movements to ensure they are working and not lollygagging. Maybe even track bio info to
adjust health insurance prices.
If you think this is just a free gift done out of generosity, you're quite naive.
Reply to This ShareNo thank you (
Score: 3 ) by RitchCraft (
6454710 ) on Sunday June 06, 2021 @07:11PM ( #61460772 ) It
would be wise for Walmart employees to put that phone in a locker on premises before leaving.
Having your corporate overlord knowing everything you do outside of work is creepy ...
peeping Tom creepy. Wal-mart states they won't collect your data but we'll be reading a news
story within two years finding out they did just that. "We're sorry for data that was
collected. It was a configuration oversight on our part. We promise to do better moving
forward." yadda, yadda, yadda.
Reply to This ShareNot surprised... (
Score: 5 , Interesting) by Pollux ( 102520 ) < speter@@@tedata...net...eg > on Sunday June 06, 2021
@07:36PM ( #61460814 )
Journal
I was talking last week with someone who works customer service at a nearby Walmart.
She told me that people are either leaving or moving up the chain, and it's hard to keep new
employees retained. She had one who was in for three days, then just went AWOL and was never
heard from again.
I asked her what starting salary was. (The Walmart's in out-state MN.) She said
$11.50.
I guess Walmart can't help but behave this way. What they should be doing is raising
salaries. Instead, they choose to offer a "perk" of a "free" phone w/ a "free" phone plan. I
say "free", because no doubt the phone will be a data goldmine for corporate. How? Let me count
the ways.
1) Track employee movements within the store;
2) Determine quantity and length of employee breaks;
3) Track employee movements outside the store;
4) Track employee searches;
5) Track employee social media posts;
6) Monitor employee spending behaviors;
7) Mine employee messages;
And so on, and so forth...And any one of these data mining operations can be used to
punish employee misbehavior, hustle Walmart services (Moneygram springs to mind), not to
mention sell to interested 3rd parties. (With Walmart commanding the largest fleet of employees
in the United States, imagine how many other companies would be willing to pay for generalized
data on employee behavior. Better yet, image how much someone would be willing to pay to
advertise directly to 1.6 million people.)
"The bots' mission: To deliver restaurant meals cheaply and efficiently, another leap in
the way food comes to our doors and our tables." The semiautonomous vehicles were
engineered by Kiwibot, a company started in 2017 to game-change the food delivery
landscape...
In May, Kiwibot sent a 10-robot fleet to Miami as part of a nationwide pilot program
funded by the Knight Foundation. The program is driven to understand how residents and
consumers will interact with this type of technology, especially as the trend of robot
servers grows around the country.
And though Broward County is of interest to Kiwibot, Miami-Dade County officials jumped
on board, agreeing to launch robots around neighborhoods such as Brickell, downtown Miami and
several others, in the next couple of weeks...
"Our program is completely focused on the residents of Miami-Dade County and the way
they interact with this new technology. Whether it's interacting directly or just sharing
the space with the delivery bots,"
said Carlos Cruz-Casas, with the county's Department of Transportation...
Remote supervisors use real-time GPS tracking to monitor the robots. Four cameras are
placed on the front, back and sides of the vehicle, which the supervisors can view on a
computer screen. [A spokesperson says later in the article "there is always a remote and
in-field team looking for the robot."] If crossing the street is necessary, the robot
will need a person nearby to ensure there is no harm to cars or pedestrians. The plan is to
allow deliveries up to a mile and a half away so robots can make it to their destinations in
30 minutes or less.
Earlier Kiwi tested its sidewalk-travelling robots around the University of California at
Berkeley, where
at least one of its robots burst into flames . But the Sun-Sentinel reports that "In
about six months, at least 16 restaurants came on board making nearly 70,000
deliveries...
"Kiwibot now offers their robotic delivery services in other markets such as Los Angeles
and Santa Monica by working with the Shopify app to connect businesses that want to employ
their robots." But while delivery fees are normally $3, this new Knight Foundation grant "is
making it possible for Miami-Dade County restaurants to sign on for free."
A video
shows the reactions the sidewalk robots are getting from pedestrians on a sidewalk, a dog
on a leash, and at least one potential restaurant customer looking forward to no longer
having to tip human food-delivery workers.
The problem with conspiracy theories (CIA invented term to whitewash CIA participation in
killing of JFK) that some of them in ten to twenty years no longer viewed as conspiracies. They
enter mainstream.
An online poll this week from Ipsos reported 15% of Americans agree that the government,
media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Not 15% of
Republicans or conservatives, but of Americans. That's a lot.
... ... ...
America is a lonely place. When you hold to a conspiracy theory, you join a community.
You're suddenly part of something. You have new friends you can talk to on the internet ...
... One of the enduring and revealing songs of America asks "Which side are you on / Which
side are you on? / You go to Harlan County / There is no neutral there / You'll either be a
union man / Or a thug for J.H. Blair."
... ... ...
Conspiracy believers don't believe what the mainstream media tell them. Why would they?
Newsrooms are undergoing their own revolution, with woke progressives vs. journalistic
traditionalists, advocacy versus old-school news values. It is ideological. "We are here to
shape and encourage a new reality." "No, we are here to find and report the news." It is
generational: The young have the upper hand and the Slack channel. The woke are winning.
...
When you think your country has grown completely bizarre...Think of what normal human beings
have been asked to absorb the past year. The whole country was shut down and everyone was told
to stay in the house. They closed the churches, and the churches agreed. There was no school
and everyone made believe""really, we all made believe!""screens were a replacement. A bunch of
13-year-old girls in the junior high decided they were boys and started getting shots, and no
adults helped them by saying, "Whoa, slow down, this is a major life decision and you're a
kid." The school board no longer argues about transgender bathrooms, they're on to transgender
boys wanting to play on the girls team. Big corporations now tell you what you should think
about local questions, and if this offends you, they don't care. There were riots and protests
last summer and local government seemed overwhelmed.
Guess who has been overseeing this and making sure that it happens? Biden. Schumer.
Pelosi. McConnell, Feinstein and many others who have spent their entire life working
against we the people for their donors.
They stripped us of our jobs, wages, pursuit of
happiness and well being. They wrote away our health care through trade agreements and
imported foreign workers to keep our wages low. During Reagan people could work full time
in a grocery store and have a car, vacation home and great benefits from their employer.
Now both parents have to work full time and then some and still can't make ends meet.
They did that to us.
But they get to do insider trading, get great benefits that WE FCKING PAY FOR while they deny us the same thing.
And yet we've been returning them to
office time after time and they keep doing it. Duh! We can't vote our way out of the
current mess because the people who run the country don't get voted on. 23 Reply Share
Report Save
Well, don't forget the masters they serve (capitalists). Politicians aren't the root
of the problem. It's just important that we remember that they sure as fuck are
part of the problem and not the cure for it. 6 Reply Share Report Save
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 38 Reply Share Report Save View Entire Discussion (58
Comments) More posts from the WayOfTheBern community 2.3k Posted by u/_MyFeetSmell_ a self aware Russian Bot
6 days
ago
For much of his political career, President Biden was
a
custodian of the "neoliberal" order
. He was a fixture in a Washington establishment that promoted years of economic
globalization and, like political elites in many other countries, embraced the apparent virtues of free trade and fiscal
responsibility. Although he often appealed to blue-collar American values, Biden was a standard-bearer for a brand of
"third way" centrist politics that scoffed at class wars and allied itself to Wall Street. As vice president, he stood
behind a post-financial crisis recovery
that
critics argue was inadequate
and
boosted
wealthy and corporate interests
over those of the majority of Americans.
"It's going to create the strongest, most resilient,
innovative economy in the world. It's not a plan that tinkers
around the edges," Biden said of his proposed legislation on Wednesday. "It's a once-in-a-generation investment in America
unlike anything we've seen or done since we built the interstate highway system."
To be sure, Biden faces an uphill battle in Congress, with Republicans and even moderate Democrats wary of the ballooning
U.S. deficit and the possibility of growing inflationary pressures. But the sweep of his ambition is striking and could,
argued
left-leaning commentator Robert Kuttner
, mark a transformation of the Democrats from decades of being "a Wall Street
neoliberal party."
"Historians and politicians are already comparing the ambition with [Franklin D.] Roosevelt's New Deal or Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society program,"
Guardian
columnist Will Hutton
wrote enviously from across the pond. "In British terms, it's as though an incoming Labour
government pledged to spend £500bn over the next decade with a focus on left-behind Britain in all its manifestations --
real commitments to leveling up, racial equity, net zero and becoming a scientific superpower."
A flurry of recent reporting suggests Biden is
interested
in cloaking himself in the legacy
of great Democratic reformers,
including
that of FDR
, no matter
the
limitations of the analogy
.
But whatever his own personal views, his moves reflect a new political zeitgeist
in the West that was emerging during the chaotic years of the Trump presidency and took concrete shape amid the havoc and
ruin of the pandemic.
"Radical reforms -- reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades -- will need to be put on the table,"
noted
a Financial Times editorial last year
, which in and of itself was quite a statement given how much the well-heeled
readership base of the publication likely benefited from that previous policy direction. "Governments will have to accept a
more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to
make labour markets less insecure."
To help offset the deep cost of his infrastructure and jobs plans, Biden has proposed
significant
tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy
. Though this will
face
political resistance
from corporate lobbyists, it's an easier pitch now than it would have been when Biden became vice
president. The pandemic has illustrated the need for even the most laissez-faire of governments to bolster the social
safety net and abandon older fears over deficits and ingrained biases toward austerity.
"Simply put, America's economy over the past four decades has been far crueler and more unequal than either superrich
capitalists or affluent suburbanites need it to be,"
wrote
New York magazine's Eric Levitz
. "In truth, even a Western European-style welfare state (and the associated tax rates)
is not contrary to the enlightened material interests of the upper middle class; only the ultra-wealthy can be confident
that they will never have need for social insurance."
This is rhetoric echoed by the International Monetary Fund, an institution long seen as the embodiment of neoliberalism.
Ahead
of its annual meetings this week, it issued a report calling for advanced economies
to
use more aggressive taxation
to help redress the costs of the pandemic. That includes greater taxes on corporate profits,
inheritance, property and other measures that Republicans in Washington have routinely insisted would be damaging for the
national interest. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to set the tone for the meetings with a speech calling for
a
global minimum corporate tax rate
, which could disincentivize companies relocating offshore.
"Many countries could rely more on property and inheritance taxes,"
wrote
a trio of IMF economists
, arguing that narrowing inequality within societies was important for social cohesion. "Countries
could also raise tax progressivity as some governments have room to increase top marginal personal income tax rates, whereas
others could focus on eliminating loopholes in capital income taxation."
Biden's seeming abandonment of the legacy of neoliberalism may also extend to trade policy. It's unclear to what extent the
new administration may actually depart from the more protectionist course set by its nationalist predecessor. When asked
during a congressional hearing whether the goal of a trade agreement between two countries should be the elimination of
tariffs and trade barriers, Katherine Tai, the Biden-appointed U.S. trade representative, demurred.
"Maybe if you'd asked me this question five or 10 years ago, I would have been inclined to say yes,"
Tai
said
. But she said the experience of the last few years, including the emergency of the pandemic and the animus of the
Trump administration's trade wars, led her to believe "that our trade policies need to be nuanced, and need to take into
account all the lessons that we have learned, many of them very painful, from our most recent history."
"Everybody who was involved in business or government in the 1980s or 1990s has seen some of the promise of globalization come
through, but a lot of the harm has been unexpectedly broader, sharper, deeper," Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.)
told
the New York Times
earlier this year. "[Biden] believes we need to change direction on trade."
For now, Biden stands at the helm of a U.S. economy that is leading the Western world out of the pandemic.
"Amid steady
progress with coronavirus vaccinations, the U.S. economy is gathering so much steam that its gains will not stay at home,"
wrote
my colleague David Lynch
. "Demand for goods and services this year is expected to spill well beyond U.S. borders, making
the United States the largest single contributor to global growth for the first time since 2005, according to Oxford
Economics."
Thanks in large part to the stimulus bill, the United States will help add almost 1.5 percent to the global economy's growth
rate this year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. By the end of next year, global output
is projected to be around $3 trillion larger than it would have been absent new U.S. spending.
"The fact that there is a significant stimulus in the U.S. will boost global GDP, will boost exports from the euro area,"
European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane
told
CNBC last week
, adding that Biden's new spending "will be a significant engine for the world economy."
Vaccination rates are rising, but so are covid cases
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TheTrue2
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2 months ago
I wish we quit blowing our own horn regarding our contribution to Global GDP. The truth is that Japan
is also making a big contribution. The European are not far behind. This is a Global effort. To put
things into perspective, Global GDP is around 84,000 Billion dollars in 2020. One Trillion dollar is
1000 Billion dollars, so our contribution of 3000 billion dollars to the World Economy is only 3% most
of it is not our products and services is money that we are providing for loans through IMF, World
Bank and other financial institutions. The reality is that the long-term consequences of the crisis
will be severe. The pace of digitalization, automation and robotization is set to accelerate, further
depressing labor demand in the medium term. While productivity will experience some growth in economic
sectors embracing automation, average productivity growth will likely falter. Declining investments in
fixed capital, low average productivity growth and lower labor-force participation rates are expected
to weigh on potential output going forward. Global public debt has increased or will increase by 15%.
The money numbers are large, but the economic multipliers ratios and benefits to Labor will be less
than to Capital. Inequality still needs to be resolve. Is not only about the Benjamins.
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BillSamuel
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2 months ago
Well he's somewhere between neoliberal and progressive. His proposed corporate tax rate is exactly
halfway between the pre-Trump rate and the Trump rate. That's hardly progressive.
In international affairs, he remains a classic neo-liberal deeply committed to imperialism and the war
system, and backing foreign tyrants.
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A Real New Deal
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2 months ago
From his earliest days in politics as the Attorney General of Delaware, the former Senator For DuPont for
almost 40 years, and Vice President for 8 years, Joe Biden has always and forever been a lickspittle,
lackey, knave and varlet for what Mr. Tharoor calls the "neo-liberal world order" which actually calls
itself the One World/New World Order and which is crumbling rapidly everywhere after decades of
pillaging, plundering and polluting the planet by and for the super rich and their trans-national
corporations for their own evil profit. pleasure and amusement.
Now the little people are in open revolt worldwide from America to the Middle East to Britain to Italy to
Hong Kong to Brazil. The 0.01% and their plutocrats' puppets like Biden are becoming uneasy and some are
even running scared.
Joe Biden is trying to cover up all his previous crimes against humanity such as his Senate votes for the
Reagan and Bush tax cuts for the rich and big business, NAFTA, the WTO, most favored trade status for
China, repeal of Glass-Stegall, the ensuing trillions of dollars in taxpayer bail out money for Wall St.,
his support for the illegal wars of aggression under false pretenses in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc., etc.
and trying to tout himself as some kind of "secular savior" and a suddenly "transformed" Republican Lite
into a progressive. Only fools are falling for this mongrel dog trying to change his DNA.
Biden thinks that by throwing trillions of dollars in borrowed, fiat money on corporate welfare and
crumbs for the "little people" and proposing to raise taxes on big business and the rich he can "buy'
enough American votes to keep Congress in Democratic hands. lol. No Joe the people know what you are and
despite this they took you over Chump because of the pandemic and the bad economy. But already after a
few weeks in office your "popularity' is waning and your proposals are failing.
Biden will be a one term wonder POTUS and a total failure----if he lives that long.
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natecar
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2 months ago
"By the end of next year, global output is projected to be around $3 trillion larger than it would have
been absent new U.S. spending."
So we spend 4 Trillion on two stimulus bills and get 3 Trillion in economics benefits. That is exactly in
line with economics theory that government spending doesn't really have a multiplier effect. But it sure
does have a strong cost for future generations.
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A Real New Deal
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2 months ago
Joe Biden was always considered a straw man and a nattering nitwit as a U.S. Senator and Obama's
V.P. valet. His destructive actions since becoming POTUS simply further confirm his "peers" low
opinion and dismissal of him.
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ChuChuBelo
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I'm not convinced that the U.S. itself actually practiced neoliberalism. Huge deficits, government
subsidies of business, interest rate manipulation, trade protectionism, regulations that impede the free
market... I don't see how we ever really sought these policies.
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skyfall95
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Biden is no FDR. Not even close. FDR's top corporate profit rate was 40%. GOP+Dems later cut it to 35%;
Trump cut it to 21% in 2017. FDR's top personal income tax rate began at 63% (1933), rose to 94% (1944).
GOP+Dems cut it to 37%. Biden's proposals are nothing like FDR's.
Thank You. Both parties are equally responsible for these odious pro-corporate tax cutting policies,
the worst and most harmful occurring in my working lifetime between 1985 to current.
When you elect a bunch of corporate elitists who are more interested in their own wallets and cushy
government paid power jobs rather than doing what's best for the social, cultural and economic health of
their own taxpayers and voting citizens and allow their multinational corporate business donors to
dominate our policy making decisions that favor them, this is what we are left with. Explains the
massive hollowing out of our Education systems, health 'care' systems, safety net systems that keeps
the same sleazy people hoodwinking the serfs and the fiefs. They enjoy the drama of watching the little
people clawing at each others throats while they sit high above the fray. Dystopian isn't a far-off
description. Hope they're happy.
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Neoliberalism -- a.k.a "Reagan Democrats" have been a bane on America since their inception. I'm glad to
see the movement wane.
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Bandos WB
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(Edited)
Only took 40 years of failed policy (laffer curve/trickle down), dangerous levels of inequality and
economic anxiety (see Trumpists), to realize that massive spending targeted at the already wealthy does
not trickle down, that massive spending that benefits the wealthy does create economic bubbles and 40
years of flat wages.
We DO need to control inflation. However, we have been doing so by maintaining "the right" amount of
unemployment. In other words, we have been controlling inflation by ensuring human misery, lost wages,
livelihoods, increased mental health issue and crime. Oops.
It is time to control inflation by sucking money out of the economy from those who do not spend it; ie
the wealthy.
In short, spend to create broad based prosperity, get the unemployment rate to zero, and if there are
signs of inflation, raise taxes on incomes over 400k, estates, 2nd homes and the like.
Its that path or more demagogues and misery.
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Arthur J Montana
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When I was in college, my economic professors taught us the benefits of "free trade". It looks great on
paper.
I remember professors also teaching about the economic dislocation that occurs as other nation's with
better "efficiencies" start to replace industry in the U.S. The theory was that, while uncomfortable, the
economic dislocation associated with free trade would be transitory as displaced workers provide a pool
of labor for industry to re-direct to more modern industrial pursuits.
What the professors never taught (nor did they ever advocate) was that U.S. based companies would
intentionally flee the U.S. with technology transfers to other nations in exchange with low-paid,
non-union, labor pools; at the expense of the U.S. Labor Force. That was never taught or advocated by my
professors. That was the great Fleecing of America.
The professors also taught against double-standards in international trade with some nations subsidizing
their companies to achieve market dominance artificially; while the U.S. played it straight. In many
cases, that's exactly what happened to our steel industry; another Fleecing of America. Arguably,
Clinton's NAFTA (which I think was initiated during the H.W. Bush Administration) was the codification of
this Fleecing of America.
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And American workers have not forgotten NAFTA, which wrecked our entire domestic garment and textile industry.
Customers wouldn't have to train the algorithm on their own boxes because the robot was made
to recognize boxes of different sizes, textures and colors. For example, it can recognize both
shrink-wrapped cases and cardboard boxes.
... Stretch is part of a growing market of warehouse robots made by companies such as 6
River Systems Inc., owned by e-commerce technology company Shopify Inc., Locus Robotics Corp. and Fetch
Robotics Inc. "We're anticipating exponential growth (in the market) over the next five years,"
said Dwight Klappich, a supply chain research vice president and fellow at tech research firm
Gartner Inc.
As fast-food restaurants and small businesses struggle to find low-skilled workers to staff
their kitchens and cash registers, America's biggest fast-food franchise is seizing the
opportunity to field test a concept it has been working toward for some time: 10 McDonald's
restaurants in Chicago are testing automated drive-thru ordering using new artificial
intelligence software that converts voice orders for the computer.
McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said Wednesday during an appearance at Alliance Bernstein's
Strategic Decisions conference that the new voice-order technology is about 85% accurate and
can take 80% of drive-thru orders. The company obtained the technology during its 2019
acquisition of Apprente.
The introduction of automation and artificial intelligence into the industry will eventually
result in entire restaurants controlled without humans - that could happen as early as the end
of this decade. As for McDonald's, Kempczinski said the technology will likely take more than
one or two years to implement.
"Now there's a big leap from going to 10 restaurants in Chicago to 14,000 restaurants
across the US, with an infinite number of promo permutations, menu permutations, dialect
permutations, weather -- and on and on and on, " he said.
McDonald's is also exploring automation of its kitchens, but that technology likely won't be
ready for another five years or so - even though it's capable of being introduced soooner.
McDonald's has also been looking into automating more of the kitchen, such as its fryers
and grills, Kempczinski said. He added, however, that that technology likely won't roll out
within the next five years, even though it's possible now.
"The level of investment that would be required, the cost of investment, we're nowhere
near to what the breakeven would need to be from the labor cost standpoint to make that a
good business decision for franchisees to do," Kempczinski said.
And because restaurant technology is moving so fast, Kempczinski said, McDonald's won't
always be able to drive innovation itself or even keep up. The company's current strategy is
to wait until there are opportunities that specifically work for it.
"If we do acquisitions, it will be for a short period of time, bring it in house,
jumpstart it, turbo it and then spin it back out and find a partner that will work and scale
it for us," he said.
On Friday, Americans will receive their first broad-based update on non-farm employment in
the US since last month's report, which missed expectations by a wide margin, sparking
discussion about whether all these "enhanced" monetary benefits from federal stimulus programs
have kept workers from returning to the labor market.
Michael Hudson appeared
again on Moderate Rebels in an examination of Biden's policy direction, some of
which are clearly a continuity from Trump and others Neoliberal Obaman. This observation and
the following discussion reveals the modus behind what was initially Trumpian:
"So if you look at the sanctions against Russia and China as a way to split Europe and
make Europe increasingly dependent on the United States, not only for gas, and energy, but
also for vaccines."
Hudson calls it "the intellectual property monopoly" which was a major point in the
rationale he produced for his Trade War with China. But as we've seen, the global reaction
isn't as it was during the previous era from 1970-2000:
"So what we're seeing is an intensification of economic warfare against almost all the
other countries in the world, hoping that somehow this will divide and conquer them,
instead of driving them all together ." [My Emphasis]
And what we're seeing is the latter occurring as the Outlaw US Empire's Soft Power rapidly
erodes. As with their initial program, the discussion is long and involved.
And since I've been absent, I should suggest reading Escobar's latest bit of
historical review , which I found quite profound and an interesting gap filler in the
historical narrative of Western Colonialism.
US Troops Die for World Domination, Not Freedom May 31, 2021 Save
On Memorial Day, Caitlin Johnstone says it's important to block the propaganda that helps
feed a steady supply of teenagers into the imperial war machine.
Airman placing U.S. flags at military graves, May 27. (Arlington National Cemetery,
Flickr)
V ice President Kamala Harris spent
the weekend under fire from Republicans, which of course means that Kamala Harris spent the
weekend being criticized for the most silly, vapid reason you could possibly criticize Kamala
Harris for.
Apparently the likely future president tweeted "Enjoy the long weekend,"
a reference to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, instead of gushing about fallen troops and
sacrifice.
That's it, that's the whole entire story. That silly, irrelevant offense by one of the
sleaziest
people in the single most corrupt and murderous government on earth is the whole entire
basis for histrionic headlines from conservative media outlets like this :
Harris, the born politician, was quick to course correct.
"Throughout our history our service men and women have risked everything to defend our
freedoms and our country," the veep tweeted . "As we prepare to honor
them on Memorial Day, we remember their service and their sacrifice."
Which is of course complete bullshit. It has been generations since any member of the U.S.
military could be said to have served or sacrificed defending America or its freedoms, and that
has been the case throughout almost the entirety of its history. If you are reading this it is
statistically unlikely that you are of an age where any U.S. military personnel died for any
other reason than corporate profit and global domination, and if you are it's almost certain
you weren't old enough to have had mature thoughts about it at the time.
Whenever you criticize the U.S. war machine online within earshot of anyone who's
sufficiently propagandized, you will invariably be lectured about the second World War and how
we'd all be speaking German or Japanese without the brave men who died for our freedom. This
makes my point for me: the fact that apologists for U.S. imperialism always need to reach all
the way back through history to the cusp of living memory to find even one single example of
the American military being used for purposes that weren't evil proves that it most certainly
is evil.
But this is one of the main reasons there are so very many movies and history documentaries
made about World War II: it's an opportunity to portray U.S. servicemen bravely fighting and
dying for a noble cause without having to bend the truth beyond recognition. The other major
reason is that focusing on the second World War allows members of the U.S. empire to escape
into a time when the Big Bad Guy on the world stage was someone else.
From the end of World War II to the fall of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. military was used to
smash the spread of communism and secure geostrategic interests toward the ultimate end of
engineering the collapse of the Soviet Union. After this was accomplished in 1991, U.S. foreign
policy officially shifted to preserving a unipolar world order by preventing the rise of any
other superpower which could rival its might.
"In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense
Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era
will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or
the territory of the former Soviet Union.
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for
weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states
that part of the American mission will be 'convincing potential competitors that they need
not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests.'
The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose
position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter
any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy."
This is all U.S. troops have been fighting and dying for since the Berlin Wall came down.
Not "freedom", not "democracy" and certainly not the American people. Just continual
uncontested domination of this planet at all cost: domination of its resources, its trade
routes, its seas, its air, and its humans, no matter how many lives need to risked and snuffed
out in order to achieve it. The U.S. has
killed millions and
displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century in the reckless pursuit of
that goal.
And, as Smedley Butler spelled out 86 years ago in his still-relevant book War is a Racket , U.S.
military personnel have been dying for profit.
Nothing gets the gears of industry turning like war, and nothing better creates chaotic Wild
West environments of shock and confusion during which more wealth
and power can be grabbed. War profiteers pour immense resources into lobbying ,
think tanks and campaign donations to manipulate and bribe policy makers into making decisions
which promote war and military expansionism,
with astounding success . This is all entirely legal.
It's important to spread awareness that this is all U.S. troops have been dying for, because
the fairy tale that they fight for freedom and for their countrymen is a major propaganda
narrative used in military recruitment. While poverty plays a
significant role in driving up enlistments as predatory recruiters target poor and middle
class youth promising them a future in the nation with the worst income
inequality in the industrialized world, the fact that the aggressively propagandized
glorification of military "service" makes it a more esteemed career path than working at a
restaurant or a grocery store means people are more likely to enlist.
Without all that propaganda deceiving people into believing that military work is something
virtuous, military service would be the most shameful job anyone could possibly have; other
stigmatized jobs like sex work would be regarded as far more noble. You'd be less reluctant to
tell your extended family over Christmas that you're a janitor at a seedy massage parlor than
that you've enlisted in the U.S. military, because instead of congratulating and praising you,
your Uncle Murray would look at you and say, "So you're gonna be killing kids for crude
oil?"
And that's exactly how it should be. Continuing to uphold the lie that U.S. troops fight and
die for a good cause is helping to ensure a steady supply of teenagers to feed into the gears
of the imperial war machine. Stop feeding into the lie that the war machine is worth killing
and being killed for. Not out of disrespect for the dead, but out of reverence for the
living.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
of Consortium News .
Em , June 1, 2021 at 09:52
Instead of annually memorializing those dead youth, who were, in one way or the other,
coerced to go off to foreign lands to kill or be killed, by other youth, in the name of a
piece of dead symbolic cloth, wouldn't it be a better idea to honor them, while alive in the
prime of living (the world over) by affording them the means to learn, leading by example, to
discover for themselves – how to think critically as to what the real options are,
collectively as well as individually, for survival and thriving.
CNfan , June 1, 2021 at 04:06
"Global domination" for the benefit of a predatory financial oligarchy.
Peter Loeb , June 1, 2021 at 09:11
Read William Hartung's "Prophets of War " to understand the dynamics.
Thank you all for speaking your truth in this dystopian human universe so apparently
lacking human reason and understanding. As is so wisely introduced and recognized herein, the
murderous depravity of the "Wolfwitz Doctrine" being and remaining the public policy
formulation of our national governance, both foreign and domestic, is a fact that every U.S.
citizen should consider and understand on this Memorial Day.
As Usual,
EA
Realist , May 31, 2021 at 17:27
Well stated, perfectly logical again on this subject as always, Caitlin. You out the
warmongers for their game to fleece the public and rape the world all so a handful of already
fat, lazyass but enormously wealthy and influential people can acquire, without the slightest
bit of shame, yet more, more and more of everything there is to be had. You and General
Butler.
Will this message get through, this time? Maybe the billionth time is the charm, eh? Can
the scales suddenly fall from the eyes of the 330 million Americans who will then demand an
immediate end to the madness? On the merits, it's the only conclusion that might realise any
actual justice for our country and the rest of the world upon whose throat it keeps a knee
firmly planted.
Sorry, nothing of the sort shall ever happen, not as long as the entire mercenary mass
media obeys its corporate ownership and speaks nothing but false narratives every minute of
every day. Not as long as the educational system is really nothing more than a propaganda
indoctrination experience for every child born in the glorious USA! Not as long as every
politician occupying any given office is just a bought and paid for tool of the Matrix with
great talents for convincing the masses that 2 + 2 = 3, or 5, or whatever is convenient at
the time to benefit the ledgers of their plutocrat masters.
What better illustrates the reality of my last assertion than the occupancy of the White
House by Sleepy/Creepy Joe Biden who, through age alone, has been reduced to nothing more
than a sack of unresponsive meat firmly trussed up with ropes and pulleys that his handlers
pull this way or that to create an animatronic effect apparently perfectly convincing to the
majority of the American public? Or so they say, based upon some putative election
results.
Truly, thanks for the effort, Caitlin. I do appreciate that some have a grasp on the
truth. I look forward to its recapitulation by yourself and many others to no effect on every
Memorial Day in the USA. It would be unrealistic of me to say otherwise.
Rael Nidess, M.D. , May 31, 2021 at 12:54
Kudos for being one of a very few to mention the central driving ethic behind U.S. foreign
policy since the demise of the USSR: The Wolfowitz Doctrine. As central today as it was when
first published.
"... After Epstein's 2019 arrest, it emerged that Epstein had "directed" Bill Gates to donate $2 million to the MIT lab in 2014. Epstein also allegedly secured a $5 million donation from Leon Black for the lab. Ito was forced to resign his post as the lab's director shortly after Epstein's 2019 arrest. ..."
"... Epstein appears to have become involved with Brockman as early as 1995, when he helped to finance and rescue a struggling book project that was managed by Brockman. ..."
"... According to former Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe, Bill Clinton had been the main focus of Epstein's sexual blackmail operation in the 1990s, a claim supported by Epstein victim testimony and Epstein's intimate involvement with individuals who were close to the former president at the time. ..."
"... Despite tensions arising from the Clinton administration's pursuit of Microsoft's monopoly in the late 1990s, the Gates and Clinton relationship had thawed by April 2000, when Gates attended the White House " Conference on the New Economy ." Attendees besides Gates included close Epstein associate Lynn Forester (now Lady de Rothschild) and then secretary of the treasury Larry Summers, who has also come under fire for his Epstein ties. ..."
"... Huffington Post ..."
"... Huffington Post ..."
"... Black was deeply tied to Epstein, even having Epstein manage his personal "philanthropic" foundation for several years, even after Epstein's first arrest. ..."
"... Indeed, 2013 was also the year that the Gates mansion systems engineer, Rick Allen Jones, began to be investigated by Seattle police for his child porn and child rape collection, which contained over six thousand images and videos. Despite the gravity of his crime, when Jones was arrested at the Gates mansion a year later, he was not jailed after his arrest but was merely ordered "to stay away from children," according to local media reports. From Melinda's perspective, this scandal, combined with Bill Gates's growing association with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have posed a threat to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's reputation, well before Epstein's 2019 arrest. ..."
"... Evening Standard ..."
"... The likely reason for the continued cover-up of the true extent of Epstein's ties to Gates has much more to do with Gates's company Microsoft than with Bill Gates himself. While it is now permissible to report on ties that discredit Gates's personal reputation, the information that could tie his relationship with Epstein and the Maxwells to Microsoft has been omitted. ..."
"... If, as the Evening Standard ..."
"... This is hardly an isolated incident, as similar efforts have been made to cover up (or memory hole) the ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to other prominent Silicon Valley empires, such as those led by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk . One key reason for this is that the Epstein network's blackmail operation involved not only sexual blackmail but electronic forms of blackmail ..."
"... That Isabel and Christine Maxwell were able to forge close business ties with Microsoft after having been part of the front company that played a central role in PROMIS-related espionage and after explicitly managing their subsequent companies with the admitted intention to "rebuild" their spy father's work and legacy, strongly points to the probability of at least some Microsoft products having been compromised in some fashion, likely through alliances with Maxwell-run tech companies. The lack of mainstream media concern over the documented ties of the Epstein network to other top Microsoft executives of the past, such as Nathan Myhrvold, Linda Stone, and Steven Sinofsky, makes it clear that, while it may be open season on the relationship between Bill Gates and Epstein, such is not the case for Microsoft and Epstein. ..."
"... The ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to Silicon Valley, not just to Microsoft, are part of a broader attempt to cover up the strong intelligence component in the origin of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies. Much effort has been invested in creating a public perception that these companies are strictly private entities despite their deep, long-standing ties to the intelligence agencies and militaries of the United States and Israel . The true breadth of the Epstein scandal will never be covered by mainstream media because so many news outlets are owned by these same Silicon Valley oligarchs or depend on Silicon Valley for online reader engagement. ..."
"... Perhaps the biggest reason why the military/intelligence origins and links to the current Silicon Valley oligarchy will never be honestly examined, however, is that those very entities are now working with breakneck speed to usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which would make artificial intelligence, automation, mass electronic surveillance, and transhumanism central to human society. One of the architects of this "revolution," Klaus Schwab, said earlier this year that rebuilding and maintaining trust with the public was critical to that project. However, were the true nature of Silicon Valley, including its significant ties to serial child rapist and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and his network, to emerge, the public's trust would be significantly eroded, thus threatening what the global oligarchy views as a project critical to its survival ..."
"... What a menace these philanthropic organizations are to the ordinary and lowly. These billionaire creeps never stop plotting and figuring out even more ways to stomp on people and push their creepy agendas, which remain forever hidden. ..."
It further appears that Bill Gates, then head of Microsoft, made a personal investment in
CommTouch at the behest of Isabel Maxwell. In an October 2000
article published in the Guardian , Isabel "jokes about persuading Bill Gates to
make a personal investment" in CommTouch sometime during this period.
The Guardian article then oddly notes, regarding Isabel Maxwell and Bill Gates:
"In a faux southern belle accent, [Isabel] purrs: 'He's got to spend $375m a year to keep
his tax-free status, why not allow me to help him.' She explodes with laughter."
Given that individuals as wealthy as Gates cannot have "tax-free status" and that this
article was published soon after the creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
Isabel's statements suggest that it was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which
manages the foundation's endowment assets, that made this sizable investment in CommTouch.
Furthermore, it is worth highlighting the odd way in which Isabel describes her dealings
with Gates ("purring," speaking in a fake Southern accent), describing her interactions with
him in a way not found in any of her numerous other interviews on a wide variety of topics.
This odd behavior may be related to Isabel's previous interactions with Gates and/or the
mysterious relationship between Gates and Epstein during this time.
Isabel Maxwell as
CommTouch President
After 2000, CommTouch's business and clout expanded rapidly, with Isabel Maxwell
subsequently crediting investments from Microsoft, led by Gates, and Paul Allen for the
company's good fortune and the success of its effort to enter the US market. Maxwell, as quoted
in the 2002 book Fastalliances , states that Microsoft viewed CommTouch as a key "distribution
network," adding that "Microsoft's investment in us put us on the map. It gave us instant
credibility, validated our technology and service in the marketplace." By this time,
Microsoft's ties to CommTouch had deepened with new partnerships, including
CommTouch's hosting of Microsoft Exchange .
Though Isabel Maxwell was able to secure lucrative investments and alliances for CommTouch
and saw its products integrated into key software and hardware components produced and sold by
Microsoft and other tech giants, she was unable to improve the company's dire financial
situation, with CommTouch netting a loss of
$4.4 million in 1998 and similar losses well into the 2000s, with net losses totalling $24 million in 2000 (just one
year after the sizable investments from Microsoft, Paul Allen and Gates). The losses continued
even after Isabel formally left the company and became president emeritus in 2001. By 2006, the
company was over $170 million in debt. Isabel Maxwell left her position at CommTouch in 2001
but for years retained a sizable amount of CommTouch stock valued at the time at around $9.5
million . Today, Isabel Maxwell is, among other things, a " technology pioneer " of the World
Economic Forum.
Another indication of a relationship between Epstein and Gates prior to 2001 is Epstein's
cozy ties with Nathan Myhrvold, who joined Microsoft in the 1980s and became the company's
first chief technology officer in 1996. At the time, Myhrvold was one of Gates's closest
advisers, if not the closest, and cowrote Gates's 1996 book, The Road Ahead , which
sought to explain how emerging technologies would impact life in the years and decades to
come.
In December of the same year that he became Microsoft's CTO, Myhrvold traveled on Epstein's
plane from Kentucky to New Jersey, and then again in January 1997 from New Jersey to Florida.
Other passengers accompanying Myhrvold on these flights included Alan Dershowitz and "GM,"
presumably Ghislaine Maxwell. It is worth keeping in mind that this is the same period when
Gates had a documented relationship with Ghislaine's sister Isabel.
In addition, in the 1990s, Myhrvold traveled with Epstein in Russia alongside Esther Dyson , a digital
technology consultant who has been called "the most influential woman
in all the computer world." She currently has close ties to Google as well as the DNA testing
company 23andme and is a member of and
agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum. Dyson later stated that the meeting with
Epstein had been planned by Myhrvold. The meeting appears to have taken place in 1998, based on
information posted on Dyson's social media accounts.
One photo features Dyson and Epstein, with a time stamp indicating April 28, 1998, posing
with Pavel Oleynikov, who appears to have been
an employee of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center. In that photo, they are standing in front of
the house of the late Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear scientist and dissident, who is
alleged to have had ties to US intelligence.
Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, were supporters of Zionist causes
.
The photos were taken in Sarov, where the Russian Federal Nuclear Center is based. That same
day, another photo was taken that
shows Epstein inside a classroom full of teens, apparently also in Sarov, given the time
stamp.
Another Dyson
image , one without a visible time stamp but with a caption stating the photo was taken "at
Microsoft Russia in Moscow" in April 1998, shows Nathan Myhrvold. Dyson's caption further
states, "This was the beginning of a three-week trip during which Nathan and a variety of
hangers-on (including a bodyguard) explored the state of post-Soviet science." Epstein appears
to be one of the "hangers-on," given the photographs, dates, and the described purpose of the
trip.
Myhrvold and Epstein apparently had more in common than an interest in Russian scientific
advances. When Myhrvold left Microsoft to cofound Intellectual Ventures,
Vanity Fair reported that he had received Epstein at the firm's office with "young
girls" in tow who appeared to be "Russian models." A source close to Myhrvold and cited by
Vanity Fair claimed that Myhrvold spoke openly about borrowing Epstein's jet and
staying at his homes in Florida and New York. Vanity Fair also noted that Myhrvold has
been accused of having sex with minors provided by Epstein by none other than Harvard law
professor Alan Dershowitz, who stands accused of the same crime and who had previously flown
with Myhrvold on Epstein's private plane.
In addition, a former colleague of Myhrvold's at Microsoft later developed her own ties to
Epstein. Linda Stone , who joined
Microsoft in 1993 and worked directly under Myhrvold, eventually became a Microsoft vice
president. She introduced Epstein to Joi Ito of the MIT Media Lab after Epstein's first arrest.
"He has a tainted past, but Linda assures me that he's awesome," Ito later said in an email to
three MIT staffers. In Epstein's famous little black book, there are several phone numbers for
Stone, and her emergency contact is listed as Kelly Bovino, a former model and alleged Epstein
coconspirator. After Epstein's 2019 arrest, it emerged that Epstein
had "directed" Bill Gates to donate $2 million to the MIT lab in 2014. Epstein also
allegedly secured a $5 million donation from Leon Black for the lab. Ito was forced to resign
his post as the lab's director shortly after Epstein's 2019 arrest.
Nathan Myhrvold , Linda Stone , Joi Ito, Esther Dyson , and Bill Gates were all members of the Edge
Foundation community (edge.org website), alongside several other Silicon Valley icons. Edge,
which is described as an exclusive organization of intellectuals " redefining who and what we are ," was created by John
Brockman, a self-described "cultural impresario" and noted literary agent. Brockman is best
known for his deep ties to the art world in the late 1960s, though lesser
known are his various "management consulting" gigs for the Pentagon and White House during
that same period. Edge, which
the Guardian once called "the world's smartest website," is an exclusive online
symposium affiliated with what Brockman calls "the Third Culture." Epstein appears to have
become involved with Brockman as early as 1995, when he helped to finance and rescue a
struggling book project that was managed by Brockman.
Edge, however, is more than just a website. For decades, it was also instrumental in
bringing together tech executives, scientists who were often Brockman's clients, and Wall
Street financiers through its Millionaires' Dinner, first held in 1985. In 1999, this event
rebranded as the Billionaires' Dinner, and Epstein became intimately involved in these affairs
and the Edge Foundation itself. Epstein was photographed attending several of the dinners as
was Sarah Kellen, Ghislaine Maxwell's chief "assistant" and coconspirator in the
Epstein/Maxwell-run sex trafficking and blackmail scheme.
Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft and
Jeffrey Epstein at the 2000 Edge Billionaires' Dinner Source: https://www.edge.org/igd/1200
From 2001 to 2017, Epstein
funded $638,000 out of a total of $857,000 raised by Edge. During this period, there were
several years when Epstein was Edge's only donor. Epstein stopped giving in 2015, which was
incidentally the same year that Edge decided to discontinue its annual Billionaires' Dinner
tradition. In addition, the only award Edge has ever given out, the $100,000 Edge of
Computation prize, was awarded in 2005 to Quantum computing pioneer David Deutsch -- it was
funded entirely by Epstein. A year before he began donating heavily to Edge, Epstein had
created the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation to "fund and support cutting edge science around the
world."
Since the Epstein scandal, regular attendees of the Billionaires' Dinner, sometimes called
the Edge annual dinner, have referred to the event as an "influence operation." If one follows
the money, it appears it was an influence operation largely benefitting one man, Jeffrey
Epstein, and his network. The evidence points toward Myhrvold and Gates as being very much a
part of that network, even before Epstein's involvement in Edge increased
significantly.
It is worth exploring the ties between the "philanthropic" endeavors of Bill Gates and Bill
Clinton in the early 2000s, particularly given Epstein's and Ghislaine Maxwell's ties to the
Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative during that period. According to
former Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe, Bill Clinton
had been the main focus of Epstein's sexual blackmail operation in the 1990s,
a claim supported by Epstein victim testimony and Epstein's intimate involvement with
individuals who were close to the former president at the time.
Bill Gates at the White
House Conference on the New Economy in 2000, Source: LA Times
Despite tensions arising from the Clinton administration's pursuit of Microsoft's
monopoly in the late 1990s, the Gates and Clinton relationship had thawed by April 2000, when
Gates attended the White House " Conference on
the New Economy ." Attendees besides
Gates included close Epstein associate Lynn Forester (now Lady de Rothschild) and then
secretary of the treasury Larry Summers, who has also come under fire for his Epstein
ties. Another attendee was White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty, whose special
assistant Mark Middleton met with Epstein
at least three times at the Clinton White House. Middleton was fired after press reports
surfaced detailing his ties to illegal donations linked to foreign governments that had been
made to Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign. Another participant in the conference was Janet
Yellen, Biden's current Secretary of the Treasury.
Gates spoke at a conference panel entitled "Closing the Global Divide: Health, Education and
Technology." He discussed how the mapping of the human genome would result in a new era of
technological breakthroughs and discussed the need to offer internet access to everyone to
close the digital divide and allow the "new" internet-based economy to take shape. At the time,
Gates was backing a
company , along with American Telecom billionaire Craig McCaw, that hoped to establish a
global internet service provider monopoly through a network of low-orbit satellites. That
company, Teledesic, shut down between 2002 and 2003 and is credited as being the
inspiration for Elon Musk's Starlink.
Bill Clinton and Bill Gates entered the world of philanthropy around the same time, with the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launching in 2000 and the Clinton Foundation, in 2001. Not
only that but Wired described the
two foundations as being "at the forefront of a new era in philanthropy, in which decisions --
often referred to as investments -- are made with the strategic precision demanded of business
and government, then painstakingly tracked to gauge their success."
Other media outlets, however, such as the Huffington
Post , challenged that these foundations engaged in "philanthropy" and asserted that
calling them such was causing "the rapid deconstruction of the accepted term." The
Huffington Post further noted that the Clinton Global Initiative (part of the Clinton
Foundation), the Gates Foundation, and a few similar organizations "all point in the direction
of blurring the boundaries between philanthropy, business and non-profits." It noted that this
model for "philanthropy" has been promoted by the World Economic Forum and the Milken
Institute. It is also worth noting that several of Epstein's own "philanthropic" vehicles were
also created just as this new era in philanthropy was beginning.
The Milken Institute was founded by
Michael Milken , the notorious Wall Street "junk bond king," who was indicted on 98 counts
of racketeering and securities fraud in 1989. He served little prison time and was ultimately
pardoned by Donald Trump. Milken committed his crimes while working alongside Leon Black
and Ron Perelman at Drexel
Burnham Lambert before its scandalous collapse. Black was deeply tied to Epstein, even
having Epstein manage his personal
"philanthropic" foundation for several years, even after Epstein's first arrest.
Perelman was a major Clinton donor whose 1995 fundraiser for the then president was attended by
Epstein and whose companies offered jobs to Webster Hubbell and Monica Lewinsky after their
respective scandals in the Clinton administration. Like Gates, Milken has transformed his
reputation for ruthlessness in the corporate world into one of a "prominent philanthropist."
Much of his "philanthropy" benefits the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlements in
occupied Palestine.
Years after creating their foundations, Gates and Clinton discussed how they have "long
bonded over their shared mission" of normalizing this new model of philanthropy. Gates
spoke to
Wired in 2013 about "their forays into developing regions" and "cites the close
partnerships between their organizations." In that interview, Gates revealed that he had met
Clinton before he had become president, stating, "I knew him before he was president, I knew
him when he was president, and I know him now that he's not president."
Also in that interview, Clinton stated that after he left the White House he sought to focus
on two specific things. The first is the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which he
stated exists "thanks largely to funding from the Gates Foundation," and the second is the
Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), "where I try to build a global network of people to do their
own thing."
The Clinton Health Access Initiative first received an $11
million donation from the Gates Foundation in 2009. Over the last twelve years, the Gates
Foundation has donated more than $497 million to CHAI. CHAI was initially founded in 2002 with
the mission of tackling HIV/AIDS globally through "strong government
relationships" and addressing "market inefficiencies." The Gates Foundation's significant
donations, however, began not long after CHAI's expansion
into malaria diagnostics and treatments. Notably, in 2011, Tachi Yamada, the former president
of the Gates Foundation's Global Health program, joined CHAI's board alongside Chelsea
Clinton.
Bill Gates and Bill Clinton at the annual Clinton Global Initiative in 2010
Regarding the CGI, Epstein's defense lawyers argued in
court in 2007 that Epstein had been "part of the original group that conceived of the
Clinton Global Initiative," which was first launched in 2005. Epstein's lawyers described the
CGI as a project "bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement
innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges." The Gates Foundation
gave the CGI a total of $2.5 million between 2012 and 2013 in addition to its massive donations
to the CHAI and an additional $35 million to the Clinton Foundation itself. In addition to the
Gates Foundation donations, Gates's Microsoft has been intimately involved in other
"philanthropic" projects backed by Clinton.
In addition to these ties,
Hillary Clinton established a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the Gates
Foundation in 2014 as part of the Clintons' No Ceilings initiative. That partnership sought to
"gather and analyze data about the status of women and girls' participation around the world"
and involved the two foundations working "with leading technology partners to collect these
data and compile them." Months before the partnership was announced, Gates and Epstein met for
dinner and discussed the Gates Foundation and philanthropy, according to the
New York Times . During Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful run for president in 2016,
both Bill and Melinda Gates were on her
short list as potential options for vice president.
In addition, Epstein attempted to become involved in the Gates Foundation directly, as seen
by his efforts to convince the Gates Foundation to partner with JP Morgan on
a multibillion-dollar "global health charitable fund" that would have resulted in hefty
fees paid out to Epstein, who was very involved with JP Morgan at the time. Though that fund
never materialized, Epstein and Gates did discuss Epstein becoming involved in Gates's
philanthropic efforts. Some of these contacts were not reported by the mainstream press until
after the Bill and Melinda Gates divorce announcement. Yet, as mentioned, it was known that
Epstein had "directed" Gates to donate to at least one organization -- $2 million in 2014 to
the MIT Media Lab.
Recent revelations about Gates and Epstein meetings that took place between 2013 and 2014
have further underscored the importance Epstein apparently held in the world of billionaire
"philanthropy," with Gates reportedly claiming that Epstein was
his "ticket" to winning a Nobel Prize.
Norwegian media, however, reported in October 2020 that Gates and Epstein had met the Nobel
Committee chair, which failed to make a splash in international media at the time. It is worth
asking if Epstein managed to arrange such meetings with other individuals who also coveted
Nobel Prizes and if any such individuals later received those prizes. If Epstein had such
connections, it is unlikely that he would use them only once in the case of Bill Gates, given
the vastness of his network, particularly in the tech and science worlds.
The year 2013 is also when Bill
and Melinda Gates together met with Epstein at his New York residence, after which Melinda
allegedly began asking her soon-to-be ex-husband to distance himself from Epstein. While the
stated reason for this, in the wake of the Gateses' divorce announcement, was that Melinda was
put off by Epstein's past and his persona, it could potentially be related to other concerns
about Melinda's reputation and that of the foundation that shares her name.
Indeed, 2013 was also the year that the Gates mansion systems engineer, Rick Allen
Jones, began to be investigated by Seattle police for his child porn and child rape collection,
which contained over six thousand images and videos. Despite the gravity of his crime, when
Jones was
arrested at the Gates mansion a year later, he was not jailed after his arrest but was
merely ordered "to stay away from children," according to local media reports. From Melinda's
perspective, this scandal, combined with Bill Gates's growing association with convicted
pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have posed a threat to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's
reputation, well before Epstein's 2019 arrest.
2013 was also the year that the Maxwells become involved in the Clinton Foundation. That
year, Ghislaine Maxwell's TerraMar Project, which officially supported UN Sustainable
Development Goals as they relate the world's oceans,
made a $1.25 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of an effort to
form a Sustainable Oceans Alliance. TerraMar shut down shortly after Epstein's 2019
arrest.
Isabel Maxwell and Al Seckel at the World Economic Forum's 2011 Annual Meeting
Notably, Ghislaine's TerraMar Project was in many ways the successor to Isabel Maxwell's
failed Blue World Alliance, which was also ostensibly focused on the world's oceans. Blue World
Alliance was set up by Isabel and her now deceased husband Al Seckel, who had hosted a
"scientific conference" on Epstein's island. The Blue World Alliance also went under the name
Globalsolver Foundation, and Xavier Malina, Christine Maxwell's son, was listed as
Globalsolver's liaison to the Clinton Foundation. He was previously an intern at the Clinton
Global Initiative.
Malina
later work ed in the Obama administration at the Office of White House Personnel. He now
works for Google. It is also worth noting that during this same period, Isabel Maxwell's son,
Alexander Djerassi ,
was chief of staff at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the Hillary Clinton–run State
Department.
While the Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation intermingled, and the latter had ties
to Epstein and Maxwell, it also appears that Epstein had significant influence over two of the
most prominent science advisers to Bill Gates over the last fifteen years -- Melanie Walker and
Boris Nikolic.
A screenshot from a 2019 presentation Melanie Walker gave for Rockefeller
Foundation, where she is a fellow. Source: YouTube
Melanie Walker , now a celebrated neurosurgeon, met Jeffrey Epstein in 1992 soon after she
graduated from college, when he offered her a Victoria's Secret modelling job. Such offers were
often made by Epstein and his accomplices when recruiting women into his operation and it is
unclear if Walker ever actually worked as a model for the Leslie Wexner-owned company. She then
stayed at a New York apartment building associated with Epstein's trafficking operations during
visits to New York, but it is unclear how long she stayed there or at other Epstein-owned
properties. After she graduated from medical school in 1998, she became Epstein's science
adviser for at least a year. By 1999, she had grown so close to Prince Andrew that she
attended
a Windsor Castle birthday celebration hosted by the Queen along with Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell. During this period, Melanie appears on Epstein's flight logs under her birth name , Melanie
Starnes , though it looks like "Starves" on the flight logs.
The close relationship between Prince Andrew and Melanie Walker came under scrutiny after
Epstein's former housekeeper at the Zorro Ranch property, Deidre Stratton,
stated in an interview that Prince Andrew had been "given" a "beautiful young neurosurgeon"
while he stayed at Epstein's New Mexico property. Given that only one neurosurgeon was both
close to Prince Andrew and a part of Epstein's entourage at the time, it seems highly likely
that this woman "gifted" to Andrew was Melanie Walker. According to Stratton, Andrew "kept
company" with this woman for three days. The arrangement was set up by Epstein, who was not at
the property at the time. The exact timing of the stay is uncertain, but it likely took place
between 1999 and 2001.
"At the time, Jeffrey had this, she supposedly was a neurosurgeon, quite young, beautiful,
young and brilliant, and she stayed in the home with him At one point we had all these
different teas and you could pick the teas that you wanted and she asked me to find one that
would make Andrew more horny.
I'm guessing she understood her job was to entertain him because I guess, the fear, I
don't know; the fear would be that Andrew would say, "No I didn't really find her that
attractive." . . . He would tell Jeffrey that and then she would be on the ropes.
I'm guessing that, another theory is, that Jeffrey probably had her on retainer and she
knew what her job would be, should be, to make these people happy. . . . Sex was all they
thought about. I mean, I know for sure that Jeffrey would ideally like three massages a
day."
Sometime later, Walker moved to Seattle and began living with then Microsoft executive
Steven Sinofsky, who now serves as a
board partner at the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz. Andreesen Horowitz notably
backs Carbyne911, the Israel intelligence-linked precrime start-up funded by Epstein and his
close associate, former prime minister of Israel Ehud Barak, as well as another Israeli
intelligence-linked tech company led by Barak,
called Toka . Toka recently won contracts with the governments of Moldova, Nigeria, and
Ghana through the World Bank, where Melanie Walker is currently a director and a former special
adviser to its president. It is unclear when, how and under what circumstances Walker met
Sinofsky.
After moving to Seattle to be with Sinofsky and after a brief stint as a "practitioner in
the developing world" in China with the World Health Organization, Walker was hired as a senior
program officer by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006. Given that the main feature
of Walker's resume at the time was having been a science adviser to another wealthy
"philanthropist," Jeffrey Epstein, her hire by the Gates Foundation for this critical role
further underscores how Bill Gates, at the very least, not only knew who Epstein was but knew
enough about his scientific interests and investments to want to hire Walker. Walker went on to
become deputy director for Global Development as well as a deputy director of Special
Initiatives at the foundation. According to
the Rockefeller Foundation , where she is a fellow, Walker later advised Gates on issues
pertaining to neurotechnology and brain science for Gates's
secretive company bgC3 , which Gates
originally registered as a think tank under the name Carillon Holdings. According to
federal filings,
bgC3's focus areas were "scientific and technological services," "industrial analysis and
research," and "design and development of computer hardware and software."
During her time at the Gates Foundation, Walker introduced Boris Nikolic, Gates's science
adviser, to Epstein. Today, Melanie Walker is the cochair of the World Economic Forum's Global
Future Council on Neurotechnology and Brain Science, having previously been named a WEF Young
Global Leader. She also advises the World Health Organization, which is closely linked to Bill
Gates's "philanthropy."
At the WEF, Walker wrote an article in 2016 entitled "
Healthcare in 2030: Goodbye Hospital, Hello Home-spital ," in which she discusses how
wearable devices, brain-machine interfaces, and injectable/swallowable robotic "medicines" will
be the norm by 2030. Years before COVID-19 and the Great Reset–inspired efforts to change
health care in just this way, Walker wrote that while the dystopian scenario she was painting
"sounds crazy . . . most of these technologies are either almost ready for prime time, or in
development." Of course, a lot of those technologies took shape thanks to the patronage of her
former bosses, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates.
In the case of Boris Nikolic, after being introduced to Epstein through Walker, he
attended
a 2011 meeting with Gates and Epstein where he was photographed alongside James Staley,
then a senior JP Morgan executive, and Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and a
close Epstein associate. Nikolic was chief adviser for science and technology to Bill Gates at
the time, advising both the
Gates Foundation and bgC3. According to the mainstream narrative, this is supposed to be the
first time that Gates and Epstein had ever met. In addition, this may have been when Epstein
pitched the joint Gates Foundation–JP Morgan "global health charitable fund."
The 2011
meeting at Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion attended by James E. Staley, Larry Summers,
Jeffery Epstein, Bill Gates and Boris Nikolic
In 2014, Nikolic " waxed
enthusiastic " about Epstein's supposed penchant for financial advice ahead of a public
offering for a gene-editing company that Nikolic had
a $42 million stake in . Notably, both Nikolic and Epstein were clients of the same group
of bankers at JP Morgan, with Bloomberg later reporting that Epstein regularly helped those
bankers attract wealthy new clients.
In 2016, Nikolic cofounded Biomatics capital, which invests in health-related
companies at "the convergence of genomics and digital data" that are "enabling the development
of superior therapeutics, diagnostics and delivery models." Nikolic founded Biomatics with
Julie Sunderland, formerly the director of the Gates Foundation's Strategic Investment
Fund.
At least three of the companies backed by Biomatics -- Qihan Biotech , eGenesis , and
Editas -- were cofounded by George Church, a Harvard geneticist with deep ties to Epstein
and also closely associated with the Edge Foundation. Biomatics investment in Qihan Biotech is
no longer listed on the
Biomatics website. Church's Qihan Biotech seeks to produce human tissues and organs inside pigs
for transplantation into humans, while eGenesis seeks to genetically modify pig organs for use
in humans. Editas produces CRISPR gene-editing "medicines" and is also backed by the Gates
Foundation as well as Google Ventures.
After Epstein's death in 2019, it was revealed that Nikolic had been named the "successor
executor" of Epstein's estate, further suggesting close ties to Epstein despite Nikolic's
claims to the contrary. After details of Epstein's will were made public, Nikolic did not sign
a form indicating his willingness to be executor and
did not ultimately serve in that role.
Despite the relatively abrupt shift in the mainstream media regarding what is acceptable to
discuss regarding the Jeffrey Epstein–Bill Gates relationship, many of these same media
outlets refuse to acknowledge much of the information contained in this investigative report.
This is particularly true in the case of the Evening Standard article and Bill Gates's
odd relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell's sister Isabel and CommTouch, the company Isabel
previously led.
The likely reason for the continued cover-up of the true extent of Epstein's ties to
Gates has much more to do with Gates's company Microsoft than with Bill Gates himself. While it
is now permissible to report on ties that discredit Gates's personal reputation, the
information that could tie his relationship with Epstein and the Maxwells to Microsoft has been
omitted.
If, as the Evening Standard reported, Epstein did make millions out of his
business ties with Gates prior to 2001 and if Gates's ties to Isabel Maxwell and the Israeli
espionage–linked company CommTouch were to become public knowledge, the result could
easily be a scandal on a par with the PROMIS software affair. Such a disclosure could be very
damaging for Microsoft and its partner the World
Economic Forum , as Microsoft has become a key player in the WEF's Fourth Industrial
Revolution initiatives that range from digital identity and vaccine passports to efforts to
replace human workers with artificial intelligence.
There are clearly powerful actors with a vested interest in keeping the Epstein-Gates
narrative squarely focused on 2011 and later -- not necessarily to protect Gates but more
likely to protect the company itself and other top Microsoft executives who appear to have been
compromised by Epstein and others in the same intelligence-linked network.
This is hardly an isolated incident, as similar efforts have been made to cover up (or
memory hole) the ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to other prominent Silicon Valley empires,
such as those led by
Jeff Bezos and
Elon Musk . One key reason for this is that the Epstein network's blackmail operation
involved not only sexual blackmail but electronic forms of blackmail , something used to
great effect by Robert Maxwell on behalf of Israeli intelligence as part of the PROMIS
operation. Given its nature, electronic forms of blackmail through illegal surveillance or
backdoored software can be used to compromise those in power with something to hide, but who
were uninclined to engage in the exploitation of minors, such as those abused by Epstein.
That Isabel and Christine Maxwell were able to forge close business ties with Microsoft
after having been part of the front company that played a central role in PROMIS-related
espionage and after explicitly managing their subsequent companies with the admitted intention
to "rebuild" their spy father's work and legacy, strongly points to the probability of at least
some Microsoft products having been compromised in some fashion, likely through alliances with
Maxwell-run tech companies. The lack of mainstream media concern over the documented ties of
the Epstein network to other top Microsoft executives of the past, such as Nathan Myhrvold,
Linda Stone, and Steven Sinofsky, makes it clear that, while it may be open season on the
relationship between Bill Gates and Epstein, such is not the case for Microsoft and
Epstein.
The ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to Silicon Valley, not just to Microsoft, are part
of a broader attempt to cover up the strong intelligence component in the origin of Silicon
Valley's most powerful companies. Much effort has been invested in creating a public perception
that these companies are strictly private entities despite their deep, long-standing ties to
the intelligence agencies and militaries of the United
States and
Israel . The true breadth of the Epstein scandal will never be covered by mainstream media
because so many news outlets are owned by these same Silicon Valley oligarchs or depend on
Silicon Valley for online reader engagement.
Perhaps the biggest reason why the military/intelligence origins and links to the
current Silicon Valley oligarchy will never be honestly examined, however, is that those very
entities are now working with breakneck speed to usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,
which would make artificial intelligence, automation, mass electronic surveillance, and
transhumanism central to human society. One of the architects of this "revolution," Klaus
Schwab, said earlier this year that rebuilding and maintaining trust with the public was
critical to that project. However, were the true nature of Silicon Valley, including its
significant ties to serial child rapist and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and his network, to
emerge, the public's trust would be significantly eroded, thus threatening what the global
oligarchy views as a project critical to its survival .
I'm always impressed with the vigorous detail and documentation in your articles. What
a menace these philanthropic organizations are to the ordinary and lowly. These billionaire
creeps never stop plotting and figuring out even more ways to stomp on people and push their
creepy agendas, which remain forever hidden.
If we take ZH commentariat opinions as a representative sample of the US conservatives
opinion, Fauci days are now numbered. And not only because he over 80.
Speaking to Laura Ingraham, Paul asserted that "The emails paint a disturbing picture, a
disturbing picture of Dr. Fauci, from the very beginning, worrying that he had been funding
gain-of-function research. He knows it to this day, but hasn't admitted it."
The Senator also urged that Fauci's involvement has not been adequately investigated because
in the eyes of Democrats "he could do no wrong".
Paul pointed out that Fauci was denying that there was even any funding for gain of function
research at the Wuhan lab just a few weeks back, a claim which is totally contradicted by his
own emails in which he discusses it.
"In his e-mail, within the topic line, he says "˜acquire of perform research.' He was
admitting it to his non-public underlings seven to eight months in the past," Paul
emphasised.
The Senator also pointed to
the email from Dr. Peter Daszak , President of the EcoHealth Alliance, a group that
directly funded the Wuhan lab gain of function research, thanking Fauci for not giving credence
to the lab leak theory.
Ingraham asked Paul if Fauci could face felony culpability, to which the Senator replied "At
the very least, there is ethical culpability," and Fauci should be fired from his government
roles.
Earlier Paul had reacted to Amazon pulling Fauci's upcoming book from pre-sale:
In softball interviews with MSNBC and CNN Thursday, Fauci dismissed the notion that his
emails show any conflicts of interest, and claimed that it is in China's "best interest" to be
honest about the pandemic origins, adding that the US should not act "accusatory" toward the
communist state.
Roger Stone was given 9 years for lying to Congress. Fauci should be on the same
hook.
truth or go home 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Looks like Fauci is going the way of Gates, but he won't be arrested, because he is
doing the bidding of the overlords.
What could he be arrested for? Let's see: Misappropriation of government funds, lying to
a senator under oath, covering up a criminal operation, operating a conspiracy to deceive
the people of the United States.
Seems like Rand is willing to nail Fauci to the wall, but he is not willing to go after
the big kahuna - the entire hoax - the fake vaxxes, the fake lockdowns, the fake "cases",
the fake death count, the elimination of flu...
Lucky Guesst 10 hours ago
Fauci is owned by big pharma. All the major news channels have at least one big pharma
rat on the board. MSM continues to push the vaccines. They are all in bed together and need
busted up if not taken out.
SummerSausage PREMIUM 15 hours ago
2012- Fauci says weaponized virus research may produce a pandemic but it would be worth
it.
Jan 9, 2017 NIAD memo recommends lifting ban on funding weaponized virus research. Fauci
controls the funds.
Jan 4, 2017 - CIA/FBI/DNC - under Obama's direction are told, essentially, to get
Trump.
Obama is behind release of this virus, creating pandemic panic and lockdown to
facilitate stealing the 2020 election.
OBAMA must be investigated.
play_arrow
CheapBastard 10 hours ago
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak
it."
~ Anonymous
serotonindumptruck 17 hours ago remove link
Call me a pessimist, but I predict no accountability, no malfeasance, no criminal
charges will be filed against Fauci.
We've all witnessed similar criminal behavior being perpetrated by the wealthy elite
which result in no consequences.
Why should this be any different?
(((They))) now know that (((they))) can lie to us with impunity, and get away with
it.
alexcojones 16 hours ago
New Nuremberg Needed Now.
Fauci in the witness chair.
"So, Dr. Fauci, your decisions, your outright lies, led to thousands, perhaps millions
of unnecessary deaths."
Baric & Batwoman published their chimeric coronavirus with ACE2 receptor access in
2015. Funded by Fauci, of course.
Kevin 3 hours ago (Edited)
That document only shows that Gain Of Function research exists - not that the deaths,
falsely attributed to covid are due to the product of that research.
What self-respecting, lab-created, killer virus, supposedly so deadly that it warrants
the shutting down of the entire planet, is incapable of doing any more damage than the flu
does every year?
In the case of the UK, and according to its own official figures, it hasn't even been
able to do that compared to its history of seasonal flu.
So, 2020 was just a blip compared to the past and most of that blip in increased deaths
was due to the insane policies imposed rather than any lab-created Fluzilla. If you
subtract the deaths that occurred due to:
1. Kicking seniors out of hospital and dumping them into nursing homes where they died
because they no longer got the treatment they needed but where they could infect the other,
previously healthy residents.
2. The many tens of thousands of people who had life-saving surgeries and procedures
cancelled.
3. The huge increase in suicides.
..... I doubt there would even be that blip.
If those historically, insignificant 2020 death figures are due to a lab-created,
chimeric coronavirus then that's an epic fail of the scientists and an enormous waste of
money for their education and the G.o.F. research.
However, it has conned enough idiots into believing that there was a Fluzilla in 2020
and got them to beg for jabs that might be how a lab created, chimeric coronavirus with
ACE2 receptor access gets into their bodies and kills them.
The new con that it was a leaked GoF bio-weapon that caused the 2020 'pandemic' is just
a lie upon a lie.
But it will persuade many of the gullible and fence-sitters to get jabbed because they
will have accepted (subconsciously), that the Fluzilla must have existed last year and that
the only way to combat such a bio-weapon is to jab themselves with poison. Ironically, that
will create in their bodies what they fear most.
Befits 9 hours ago remove link
No, you are not thinking clearly. The Covid death numbers were clearly and horrifically
inflated
1) The CDC changed how death certificates were recorded. Co-morbidities ( cancer,
congestive heart failure, COPD for example) that co- morbidity was listed as cause of death
in part one of the death certificate for 2 decades until the CDC changed death
certificates. If that person had for example a flu At that time ( cough, stuffy nose etc)
it might be listed as a contributing factor ( part 2 of death certificate) person died of
co- morbidity but flu was a contributing factor. The CDC reversed these to make sure Covid
was the cause of death- but truth was people died with Covid not from Covid.
2) 95% of Covid listed deaths actually died of co- morbidities- with Covid not from
Covid. The CDC published that only 5% of " Covid " deaths had only Covid- the other 95% had
on average 4 co- morbidities. In other words their cause of death was co- morbidity not
Covid.
3) personal experience. I was a nurse. A close friend's brother had cancer for 7 years-
in and out of remission. He was " diagnosed with Covid via PCR, almost no symptoms but for
a slight cough and runny nose in March 2020. In April his cancer came back his liver shut
down and he was dead by May 2020. He died from liver cancer but his death was recorded as
Covid 19 simply because he had tested positive 60 days before on a Covid PCR test. This is
the fraud the CDC perpetrated.
4) Hospitals received greatly enhanced financial renumeration if a patient was "
diagnosed" with Covid. Compare hospital reimbursement ( Medicare) for a hospitalized Covid
patient v influenza patient - similar symptoms- on or off respirator. Bottom line the
medical system was financially rewarded for diagnosing " Covid" v influenza. Indeed the
hospital did not even have to confirm a " Covid diagnosis with the fraudulent PCR test to
diagnose Covid- just " symptom" based.
5) The PCR test can not diagnose any viral illness- simply by amplification cycles (30
plus) you can " find" Covid from a dead, partial RNA fragment. As Kary Mullis, Nobel prize
inventor of PCR testing said PCR testing is NOT a diagnostic tool. Hospitals and docs,
universities and public health departments, corporations, the CDC, FDA, used false PCR
testing to financially enrich themselves while destroying the lives and livelihoods of
millions inc careers of medical truth- tellers.
Fauci, the CDC, and the FDA knows all of this. Crimes v humanity trials must be
undertaken v every medical person- from Big Pharma, CDC, FDA, Doctor, nurse, hospital
administrator, public health official, corporate leader etc who used this Covid plandemic
for personal benefit or whom through their actions harmed another.
SoDamnMad 17 hours ago
Watch Tucker Carlson's expose on "Why they lied for so long" At 3:29 he goes into Peter
Danzak getting 27 "scientists" to write in the Lancet that the Covid virus didn't come from
the Wuhan Lab but rather from nature (with the HIV spliced into the genome). But he also
tells individuals at UNC NOT to sign the letter so that their gain-of-function research
isn't tied into this. His e-mail goes to Ralph Baric, Antoinette Baric, as well as Andre
Alison and Alexsei Chmura at EcoHealthAlliance who Fauci got the money to for funding GOF
Chinese research.
Fauci is 80. Why was he allowed to stay on so long?
He controls $32 billion in annual grants that all US scientists and researchers depend
on.
There's a whole lot more corruption to explore.
CatInTheHat 8 hours ago remove link
This whole thing feels CONTRIVED
Why does this even matter anymore?
China is NOT the problem here and focusing on CHINA DISTRACTS from a few things
here.
1 FORT DETRIK. A nefarious US BIOWEAPONS lab that Fraudci worked at for 20 years. FD
also works in conjunction with DARPA
2. Whenever it's WAPO or Buzzfeed (FFS!) who breaks a story related to the Rona, I am
convinced that the elite have called them up to DISTRACT the public from something more
important. Maybe that Fort Detrik was the source of the virus transferred to China via the
US MIC/CIA and the Wuhan military games in China in Nov of 2019. 2 weeks later the first
cases showed up at Wuhan.
3. This VACCINE has now killed over 5000 people and since the rollout for children
between 12-16, several hundred have now been hospitalized with MYOCARDITIS OR
PERICARDITIS.. In Israel a study conducted as the vax rolled out in YOUNG MEN, it was
revealed that one in 3,000 was suffering from MYOCARDITIS within 4 days of the jab.
MSM is now reporting on adolescents in several states hospitalized with INFLAMMATION.
... Which they blame on RONA. FUNNY how every one of those states have rolled out the jab
for CHILDREN
WE are being massively LIED too.
Also, Biden's press secretary PSAKI LIED when she said, today, that 63% of the
population has had the jab.
Wrong. Only 41% of the US population has had BOTH jabs. Anti gun Biden is now offering
guns in exchange for a vax in Virginia. And anti marijuana Biden offering MJ in AZ for
those who take the jab. Why the desperation?
For more perspective on the massive deaths piling up due to this jab, in 1976, when 50
people were killed after the Swine flu jab IT WAS PULLED FROM THE MARKET.
Many thousands who have not had the jab are reporting illness after being in close
contact with those who are vaxxed.
Lots and lots to DISTRACT from
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
ableman28 10 hours ago
True story....one of my VC firms investments was approached by the defense department to
create a wearable lapel style detector for chemical and biological weapons that would work
in very low concentrations giving people time to put on their CBW gear. Our investee said
sure, we'll take a crack at it, but where are we going to get all the biological and
chemical agents to test it with. The DOD response was don't worry, we have everything
you'll need. And they did.
The US bio weapons program was supposedly terminated by Nixon in 1969. And our official
policy is that we don't research or stockpile such things. ********.
Armed Resistance 15 hours ago (Edited) remove link
This virus was engineered at Ft. Detrick. It's the same place that made the
military-grade Anthrax the deep state sent to Tom Daschle and others in government post
9/11 to gin up more fear.
This was a Fauci-coordinated deep state bio weapon they released in Wuhan to kick off
the scamdemic and the "great reset". Releasing it China gave some cover to the deep state
and the people there are under total control of the state. The rest is just filler. Always
about more control.....
BeePee 15 hours ago
The virus was not engineered at Ft. Detrick.
You are a CCP troll.
Sorry you have such a low pay grade job.
Armed Resistance 15 hours ago (Edited)
Anybody who Questions the deep state is a CCP troll? Look in the mirror. You're the one
running cover for these satanists! You rack up downvotes like Jordan did points! ZH'ers can
spot a troll a mile away son.
louie1 PREMIUM 14 hours ago (Edited)
The US way is to put the perpetrators in charge of the inuiry to control the outcome.
Dulles, Zellick, Fauci
Mighty Turban of Gooch 11 hours ago
Our government is corrupt. As long as the Democrats and the MSM have Fauci's back, he
has nothing to worry about no matter what he's done.
He's just a typical lying bureaucrat and lying to the public thru the media outlets, as
we have seen countless times now by countless government 'officials', is not a crime. Lying
under oath however is. But now days we see these guys get away with that too without
consequence.
So don't hold your breath. There is absolutely nothing that can take these guys out.
Even if they throw one of their own under the bus, the best you can ever hope for is a
resignation as criminal charges would never happen.
dustinthewind 16 hours ago (Edited)
"The CDC Foundation operates independently from CDC as a private , nonprofit 501(c)(3)
organization incorporated in the State of Georgia."
"Because CDC is a federal agency , all scientific findings resulting from CDC research
are available to the public and open to the broader scientific community for review."
"The Board of Directors of the CDC Foundation today named Judith A. Monroe, MD, FAAFP,
as the new president and CEO of the CDC Foundation . Monroe joins the CDC Foundation from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), where she leads the agency's Office
for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support."
Gates is the largest private donor of the CDC and WHO. Gates is part of the World
Economic Forum who controls Fauci which using US taxpayers funds did gain of function
studies first in the US and caught moved to China where it was intentionally leaked to
blame the Chinese. John Kerry is also part of the WEF and is their man in Washington
calling the war mongering narrative against both China and Russia. Gates funded Imperial
College and Ferguson to write the code that was fake and used by many countries to justify
lockdowns. Gates is the largest ag landowner and wants to ban meat. Who just got hacked and
now it is blamed on Russia? Boris is destroying the UK and after a call from Gates gave 500
million pounds to vaccinate third world countries and lockdowns. Both fathers were tied to
Rockefeller Institute. Rand, connect the dots!
Fauci is under attack globally and has shown himself to be unreliable and should be
fired "" PERIOD! All the emails that have come out from an
FOIA request are interesting, and it shows he has information that was credible
concerning a leak from the lab in Wuhan. Let me make this PERFECTLY clear! This was NOT a
DELIBERATE leak by the Chinese government. If China wanted to really hurt the West, the
technology is there where a virus can be used as a delivery system, and as such, it can be
designed to attack specific genetic sequences meaning that it could target just Italian,
Greeks, English, Germans, or whoever.
COVID-19, based upon everything I see from our model and reliable sources, was created
in a lab and was DELIBERATELY unleashed to further this Great Reset. I BELIEVE someone from
this agenda bribed a lab technician to release it in the local community. China did NOT
benefit from this pandemic. The only ones who benefitted were the World Economic Forum
(WEF) consortium, which I know sold stocks and bonds ahead of the crash. They are also in
league with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the head of the WHO is a politician
and not even a doctor. That is like putting me in charge of surgery at a hospital. How can
Tedros Adhanom be in such a position with no background in the subject matter? Tedros appears at the World
Economic Forum and has participated in its agenda. The WHO should be compelled to turn over
ALL emails and communication ASAP. My bet is they pull a Hillary"¦Oh sorry. They
were hacked by Russians who destroyed everything.
The World Economic Forum is at the center of everything. When will someone investigate all
of these connections right down to creating the slogan, Build Back Better? Of course, they
will call this a conspiracy theory so they can avoid having to actually investigate
anything. My point is simple: produce the evidence and prove this is just a conspiracy
theory.
'John Kerry's Think Tank Calls for War With Russia Over Climate Change'
" America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent
national security threat it is."" John Kerry
Recently-appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry has announced his
intention of dealing with the pressing issue of global warming as a national security
concern. "America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent
national security threat it is," the 76-year-old former Secretary of State wrote. "I am
proud to partner with the President-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate
movement to take on this crisis." Kerry is a founding member of the Washington think tank,
the American Security Project (ASP) , whose board is a who's who of retired generals,
admirals and senators.
For the ASP, the primary objectives were:
A huge rebuilding of the United States' military bases,
Countering China in the Pacific,
Preparing for a war with Russia in the newly-melted Arctic.
The ASP recommends "prioritizing the measures that can protect readiness" of the
military to strike at any time, also warning that rising sea levels will hurt the combat
readiness of the Marine Expeditionary Force. Thus, a rebuilding of the U.S.' worldwide
network of military bases is in order.
Fort Detrik a US BIOWEAPONS lab working in tandem with the Wuhan lab. The US is the
leader in BIOWEAPONS research and has 100's of labs across the US and in other
countries.
FRAUDCI having worked at FD for 20 years.
MommickedDingbatter 12 hours ago
Without Nuremberg trials 2.0, this is all meaningless.
Nycmia37 16 hours ago remove link
Follow the science, lol. Just ask yourself who controls the science?? Big drug pharmas,
people is so stupid they believe in everything doctors tell them. The vast majority are on
the field to get rich and enjoy from the big bonuses and trips they get paid in order to
promote a drug. If they speak out they get called a conspiracy person. Nobody cant go
against this mafia because they have the total control, media, politicians, government. We
the people have to self educate about health and finance otherwise we will become zombies
like the majority of people.
SoDamnMad 7 hours ago remove link
Here are the 27 starting with Peter Daszak who signed THE LANCET letter saying ," We
stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not
have a natural origin. "
Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, New York
Charles Calisher, Colorado State University
Dennis Carroll, Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Texas
Fauci is protected at the very highest levels of the oligarchy. So regardless of these
revelations nothing serious will ever happen to him. At worst, he will step down and retire
to his villa in the south of France. Then the controlled MSM will refuse to mention him
again.
Clearing 17 hours ago
Gee, while you're at it, sue Fauci in his individual capacity. He doesn't get immunity
for lying. See below:
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government
officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless
the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is a form of
sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials
who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions" extending to "all
[officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law " Qualified
immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the
government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.
DemandSider 3 hours ago (Edited)
"PCR is separate from that, it's just a process that's used to make a whole lot of
something out of something. That's what it is. It doesn't tell you that you're sick and it
doesn't tell you that the thing you ended up with really was going to hurt you or anything
like that," Mullis said.
-Nobel Prize winning inventor of PCR being used as a "test" to perpetuate the scamdemic.
Mr. "small government" Rand Paul is only making it worse.
Almachius 2 hours ago
Never mind Fauci. White Supremacists are the greatest threat to America.
Obiden said so.
And Obiden is an honourable man.
Fiscal Reality 14 hours ago
Fauci doesn't give a crap what happens. He got his book deal payoff. He's praying to get
fired so he can cash in on his taxpayer funded pension and get a $10 million contract with
CNN.
2types PREMIUM 13 hours ago
Amazon pulled his book from presale so says the article. Probably in his best interest
to keep his mouth shut right now. Anything he says can and will be used against him. On
second thought.... maybe that's why water carrier Bezos suspended sales?
The murder of MilcÃades Contento marked the beginning of a nearly two-decade
extermination campaign
. From 1984-2002, at least 4,153 UP members - including
two presidential candidates, 14 parliamentarians, 15 mayors, nine mayoral candidates, three
members of the House of Representatives and three senators - were
murdered or disappeared , in what a Colombian court deemed was a "political genocide."
According to data presented to the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the purge claimed more than 6,000 victims through
murders, disappearances, torture, forced displacement and other human rights violations. From
May 1984 to December 2002, not a month passed without a murder or disappearance of a UP member.
In the 2002 elections that brought Ãlvaro Uribe to power, the Patriotic Union had been
so thoroughly wiped out that it failed to meet the electoral threshold and the government
removed the party's legal status.
According to a recent investigation by renowned Colombian journalist Alberto Donadio, the
extermination of the Patriotic Union was devised by Betancourt's successor, President Virgilio
Barco Vargas, implementing a plan concocted by of one of the most decorated spies in Israeli
history, Rafael 'Rafi' Eitan.
The revelations underscore the pivotal relationship that has developed between Israel and
Colombia - the United States' respective top allies in the Middle East and Latin America. Both
countries are testing grounds for military weapons and strategies that have long been exported
around the world. Following the success of the U.S. government's Plan Colombia in debilitating
the FARC guerrilla movement, it has been hailed as an exportable counterinsurgency model to be
applied from
Mexico to Afghanistan .
Israel, for its part, maintains the world's largest repression- and weapons-testing
laboratories in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where it has a captive population of
several millions Palestinians.
Through the presence of Rafi Eitan in Colombia, the burgeoning alliance of junior
partners of the U.S. empire deepened. Despite a series of scandals, the Israel-Colombia
relationship has only grown stronger over the years. Under President Iván Duque,
the two countries have renewed ties and Israeli military personnel have trained their Colombian
counterparts in "counter-terrorism."
Yet the systematic murder of the UP remains one of the most extreme cases of political
violence in Latin America. The scale of killing is especially striking because, unlike many of
the bloodiest U.S.-backed regimes of the 1980s, Colombia never became a dictatorship. The
killing of the UP - known among its perpetrators as El Baile Rojo (The Red Dance) - took place in an ostensible
"democracy."
'All intelligence work is a partnership with crime'
Involved in Israeli espionage since the establishment of the state, Eitan is primarily
remembered for capturing the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. However, he also
played a central role in several of the Mossad's most unsavory operations. "All intelligence
work is a partnership with crime. Morals are put aside," Eitan once remarked .
In 1965, Eitan
advised Moroccan King Hassan II on how to abduct and murder the leftist politician Mehdi
Ben Barka.
During a 1983 Mossad mission in the United
States, he disguised himself as an assistant prosecutor in the Israeli Ministry of Justice and
met with the inventor of the PROMIS surveillance software. After a visit to the Department of
Justice, Eitan obtained
the software and had an Israeli working in Silicon Valley install a backdoor in the program.
Fellow Mossad agent Robert Maxwell, (father of Ghislaine Maxwell, the notorious child sex
trafficker and partner-in-crime of Jeffrey Epstein), sold the PROMIS technology to dozens of
countries around the world, including Colombia.
According to a declassified CIA damage
assessment , Eitan urged Pollard to obtain material on
"signals intelligence and dirt on Israeli political figures, any information that would
identify Israeli officials who were providing information to the United States, and any
information on U.S. intelligence operations targeted against Israel."
According to a court document
, Pollard refused some of Eitan's requests "because he suspected that Eitan would use such
studies for improper political blackmail."
The discovery of the spying operation landed Pollard in prison. U.S. federal prosecutors
named Eitan as one of four co-conspirators but declined to file charges. With Eitan at the
center of a national embarrassment, he returned to Israel, never to set foot again in the
U.S.
Nevertheless, Eitan's elite status ensured he landed in a comfortable position. In the
1970s, he had served as deputy to Ariel Sharon, then national security advisor to Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Sharon, then a general in the army, arranged for Eitan to be appointed
as president of Israel Chemicals, the largest state-owned company in the country. This new
position left Eitan with ample free time to leverage his experience in black ops into a
position as a clandestine national security adviser to Colombia's president, Virgilio Barco
Vargas. With the Patriotic Union beginning to coalesce into a formidable political party, Barco
looked for any way to stop them. And Eitan's lifetime of experience waging war against the
Palestinian peasant population made him the perfect man for the job.
Eitan goes to Colombia
In 1985, Colombian President Belisario Betancourt and the FARC rebels negotiated a peace
accord to end nearly three decades of armed conflict. The agreement formalized the creation of
the Patriotic Union and saw ex-guerrillas join with communists, trade unionists, communal
action boards and leftwing intellectuals to form a party that would integrate the FARC into the
electoral political system . As negotiations were underway, Patriotic Union members were being
killed. In May 1986, Liberal Party leader Virgilio Barco won the presidency. Shortly after he
took office, the pace of assassinations of UP members skyrocketed. A whopping 400 members were
assassinated in the first 14 months of his term.
According to an investigation
by Donadio, Barco secretly brought the veteran Mossad agent Rafi Eitan to Colombia on August 7,
1986, seeking advice on how to defeat the FARC. After an initial clandestine meeting in
Colombia's presidential palace, Eitan spent months touring the country with Colombian advisors,
secretly funded by the Colombian energy giant Ecopetrol.
During the second meeting, President Barco explained Eitan's recommendation to Secretary
General Germán Montoya and a figure from the high military command present. Eitan
even offered to preside over the killings himself in exchange for another honorarium, but the
military commander rejected his offer, insisting that an all-Colombian force carry it out.
When Donadio
contacted Villamizar and asked him about the contract with KPI, though not mentioning the
Mossad spy's name, Villamizar answered him with a question. "Rafi Eitan?"
While Eitan sought to keep his activities in Colombia discreet, a profile in the Israeli magazine Makor
Rishon revealed that he played a central role in the March 1989 purchase of 20 Israeli Kfir
fighter jets. Eitan
"organized a visit by top army brass from Colombia - a visit which was followed by the
Colombians ordering many things from the [Israeli] air force, and it brought Israel much
benefit - but he himself was not permitted to participate in the meeting."
Following the purchase, Colombia sent several pilots to Israel for
training. The jets were
flown in numerous operations against the FARC over three subsequent decades.
A retired military officer, Klein started a mercenary firm called Hod Hahanit (Spearhead) in
1984, drawing from the pools of former Israeli police and special operations units.
According to the bookAll Is Clouded by Desire: Global Banking, Money Laundering, and International Organized
Crime , the mercenary outfit struck its first deal amid the civil war in Lebanon, supplying
the notoriously brutal Christian Phalangist militias - the same force that massacred between
800 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps under direct Israeli military
supervision in September 1982.
In 1987, Klein landed in Colombia to meet with Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Yithzakh Shoshani
and Arik Afek, both of whom had established themselves years before with lucrative deals
selling military equipment in Colombia. Shoshani subsequently
became the main conduit between Klein and his Colombian customers.
In 1990, Afek's decomposing body was
found with multiple gunshot wounds in the trunk of a car at Miami International Airport
after a pedestrian noticed the odor. He was reportedly being investigated by the CIA and was
wanted by Colombian authorities.
Klein told me in a telephone interview that he was working through the Israeli Ministry of
Defense and the state-owned weapons manufacturer, Israel Military Industries (IMI), which
had a contract with a Colombian data surveillance company obtained through Colombia's
Ministry of Defense. He said he was originally hired to provide security for the banana-growing
operations in the region of Uraba, where the American fruit company Chiquita had paid
millions of dollars to Colombian death squads.
Shoshani, he explained, worked for a company called AMKAN, which is a subsidiary of IMI. The
Colombian Federation of Cattlemen, long known for its ties to
paramilitaires, contacted Shoshani to have Eitan train a force to fight guerrillas.
With Shoshani guiding him, Klein returned to Israel in 1988 and met with top paramilitary
and military figures as well as wealthy businessmen. All of this, Klein assured me, was done
with the full knowledge of the Israeli government. "You can't do anything without permission
from the Ministry of Defense," he said.
Klein's statement upends the claim of then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who
told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Israeli Defense Ministry had denied Klein's
company a license and warned him to leave the country.
Death squad leader: 'I learned an infinity of themes in Israel'
Klein held three training sessions, each for around 30 people. Assisting him were three
trainers, all of whom were colonels in the Israeli army: Tzadaka Abraham, Teddy Melnik and
Amatzia Shuali.
Klein trained brothers Carlos and Fidel Castaño, the squad leaders who would
go on to form the notoriously violent United Self-Defense Forces, known in Spanish by its
acronym, AUC. Under the patronage of wealthy landowners, drug lords, ranchers, politicians and
the Colombian military, the AUC committed bloodcurdling massacres all over the country, even
using
chainsaws to murder and dismember peasants, all aimed at terrorizing communities into
fleeing from their land. The United Nations estimated in 2016 that the
AUC was responsible for 80% of the deaths in the conflict.
"I received instruction in urban strategies, how to protect oneself, how to kill someone or
what to do when someone is trying to kill you. ...We learned how to stop an armored car and
use fragmentation grenades to enter a target. We practiced with multiple grenade launchers,
and learned how to make accurate shots with RPG-7s, or shoot a cannon shell through a
window."
Castaño also "received lectures on how the world arms business operates,
and how to buy arms."
In addition to the military training he received, Castaño credits
his time in Israel with revolutionizing his entire worldview. During that period, the
soon-to-be mass-murderer became an ardent admirer of Zionism and became convinced it was
possible to stamp out the insurgency at home in Colombia:
"I admire the Jews for their bravery in confronting anti-Semitism, their strategy for
survival in the diaspora, the surety of their Zionism, their mysticism, their religion, and
above all for their nationalism... I learned an infinity of themes in Israel and [to] that
country I owe a part of my culture, my achievements both human and military, and while I
repeat myself, I did not learn only about military training in Israel.
"It was there that I became convinced that it was possible to defeat the guerrillas in
Colombia. I began to see how a people could defend itself from the whole world. I understood
how to get someone involved who had something to lose in a war, by making such a person the
enemy of my enemies. In fact, the idea of "autodefensa" [self-defense] weapons I copied from
the Israelis; every citizen of that country is a potential soldier."
Klein also trained
Jaime Eduardo Rueda Rocha, who in 1989 assassinated Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galán, the overwhelming favorite to win the upcoming election. Not only
had Klein trained the killer, but the weapon Rueda used was part of a shipment Klein
orchestrated of 500 Israeli-manufactured machine guns from Miami to the Medellin drug cartel,
according to a 1989 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
report . (In 2016, Miguel Alfredo Maza Márquez, head of Colombia's then
Administrative Department of Security (DAS), was convicted of participation in the plot to
murder Galán and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He has since testified
that top-ranking members of the military plotted Galan's assassiation.)
As the revelations that a military reserve officer had been training death squads created
an international scandal, the Israeli government filed charges, convicting Klein of
illegally exporting weapons and military expertise.
In 2001, the Colombian government tried Klein in absentia, sentencing him to eleven years in
prison. In 2007, Klein was arrested in Moscow on a warrant issued by Interpol, and spent three
years in prison. Colombia sought his extradition, but in November 2010 the European Court of
Human Rights ruled that Colombia could not guarantee his physical safety. The Russian
government complied with the ECHR's ruling and released Klein, allowing him to return to
Israel. Colombia has since requested his extradition, but the Israeli government has
refused.
Klein's company, Hod Hahanit, remains active to this day.
A joint effort?
While Donadio's groundbreaking investigation has created a controversy in Colombia, it does
not answer whether Rafi Eitan and Yair Klein's simultaneous and respective operations advising
the government and death squads were a joint effort or merely coincidental. For his part, the
lawyer Ernesto Villamizar
told Donadio that Eitan and Klein had nothing to do with each other. Klein corroborated his
claim, saying that he was unaware of any of Eitan's activities in Colombia.
However, an AP article references an Israeli media report that Rafi Eitan (spelled Eytan in
the article) was in Colombia at the same time as Klein and left days before the gunman armed
and trained by Klein murdered presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán:
It [the media report] said Rafael Eytan, an Israeli counterterrorism expert, denied
suggestions that he was a consultant to Israeli companies operating in Colombia and said he
had cut all business ties to that country.
According to the report, Eytan confirmed he flew to Colombia a week ago for private
reasons.
Beyond the vague suggestion of that article, there is no evidence of a connection
between Eitan and Klein. In some ways, it is even more remarkable that two Israelis advising
Colombian government in mass-murder of its political opponents were operating independent from
and unbeknownst to each other.
Israel-Colombia relations cool
After the fallout of Israelis training Colombian paramilitaries, the relationship between
the two top U.S. allies cooled, according to U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. But
as Plan Colombia was implemented, Israel and Colombia once again ramped up collaboration.
In December 2006, Colombia's Ministry of Defense hired another private Israeli security
company known as Global CST to "help the GOC [Government of Colombia] conduct a strategic
assessment of the internal conflict." Global CST is headed by Israel
Ziv , a career officer who, like Yair Klein, leveraged his military experience into a
profitable career advising and training despots around the world.
"General Ziv was a personal acquaintance of then-Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos,"
the cable notes. William Brownfield, then U.S. ambassador to Colombia commented that
"Ziv worked his way into the confidence of former Defense Minister Santos by promising a
cheaper version of USG [United States government] assistance without our strings attached."
Under Santos, Colombia sought to purchase Israel's Hermes-450, a drone under
development in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in wars against neighboring
Lebanon.
However, according to the diplomatic cable, Tel Aviv-Bogota relations again soured after it
emerged that Global CST interpreter and Argentine-born Israeli national Shai Killman "had made
copies of classified Colombian Defense Ministry documents in an unsuccessful attempt to sell
them to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia." These documents contained "high value
target (HVT) database information" - a reference to the FARC leadership the CIA assisted
the Colombian government in assassinating. The resulting fallout, combined with pressure from the U.S., compelled
Colombia to cancel the contract to buy Israeli drones.
Despite the strains in the decades-old relationship, the two countries have maintained
strong ties. In 2016, then-Israeli Ambassador to Colombia Marco Sermoneta boasted
that Colombia is the top recipient of Israeli aid.
The following year, as the extermination of social leaders and ex-combatants began, Israeli
military advisors visited Colombian military bases to give training courses in
"security."
President Ivan Duque, the handpicked successor of far-right former President Ãlvaro
Uribe, has worked assiduously to shore up Colombia's ties with Israel. In March 2020, he
appeared at the
American Israel Political Action Conference, boasting about his ties with Israel. Months later,
Duque and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the launch of the
Israel-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Meanwhile, Duque has undermined and attacked the landmark 2016 peace accord at every turn,
while turning a blind eye to the mass-murder of demobilized FARC guerrillas, trade unionists,
human rights defenders, environmental activists and social leaders - a scenario eerily
reminiscent of the political genocide of the Patriotic Union. Rather than a veteran spy
advising the Colombian government, Israel now has an official presence. In January 2020,
Israeli military Brigadier General Dan Glodfus visited
a Colombian military base to reinforce ties between the two countries. Amid a spate of
massacres in September 2020, Israel
dispatched 10 instructors to train Colombian Special Forces in "counter-terrorism."
https://www.sott.net/embed/kUw7_O_qZzIdzTrYkN_8d5AFCeF
With the recent
assassination of Francisco Giacometto Gómez, an elder activist and founding
member of the Patriotic Union, it seems that the campaign against the UP and the current
slaughter are indistinguishable.
About the Author: Dan Cohen is the Washington DC correspondent for Behind The Headlines. He has produced
widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. He tweets
at @ DanCohen3000 .
"HUNTSVILLE: The Army's experimental Multi-Domain Task Force is a "game changer" that's
turned the tide in "at least 10 wargames," the commander of US Army Pacific says. "Plans are
already changing at the combatant command level because of this." The key: the unit cracked the
Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2/AD) conundrum, Russia and China's dense layered defenses of
long-range missiles, sensors, and networks to coordinate them. "Before, we couldn't penetrate
A2/AD. With it, we could," Gen. Robert Brown said of the task force's performance in "at least
10 exercises and wargames. With the Multi-Domain Task Force," he told me after his remarks to
the AUSA Global conference here, "we could impact their long-range systems and have a much
greater success against an adversary. If I go into any more, it'd be classified."
"In the future, Brown said here last week, "all formations will have to become multi-domain
or they'll be irrelevant, [but] it's going to be years before it can happen." The Army's goal
is modernize enough forces to wage multi-domain warfare against either China or Russia -- but
not both at once -- by 2028." (Breaking Defense)
Comment: I was intrigued when, in April, SecDef Austin announced he was sending two units
with about 500 personnel to Germany. The units are a multi-domain task force and a theater
fires command. Sounded like a mere symbolic move. But there's nothing symbolic about these
particular units. They are an early implementation of the Pentagon's new multi-domain
operations doctrine which focuses on theater level operations. That doesn't mean mass divisions
and corps. It means theater level employment of global assets across the entire spectrum of
conflict. It's still billed as a concept rather than a full blown doctrine, but it's getting
there and is already being implemented in the Pacific theater.
In an Army Chief of Staff paper, "Army Multi-Domain Transformation Ready to Win in
Competition and Conflict" dated 16 March 2021, the multi-domain task force (MDTF) is described
as "theater-level maneuver elements designed to synchronize precision effects and precision
fires in all domains against adversary anti-access/ area denial (A2/AD) networks in all
domains, enabling joint forces to execute their operational plan (OPLAN) directed roles." The
MDTF's purpose is during competition, to "gain and maintain contact with our adversaries to
support the rapid transition to crisis or conflict"; during a crisis, to "deter adversaries and
shape the environment by providing flexible response options to the combatant commander"; and
if conflict arises, to "neutralize adversary A2/AD networks to enable joint freedom of
action."
Russia has been modernizing their doctrine, force structure and equipment in earnest for at
least the last decade. Surely China has been moving in the same direction. It's about time we
do the same. It will be several years, at least, before this doctrine can be fully implemented
with the necessary force structure and equipment. In many ways, our military has atrophied
terribly due to two decades of brigade level, at best, counterinsurgency operations. However,
we should, and apparently are, implementing this new doctrine now with the minimal force
structure changes of the MDTF and the inclusion of EW within cyber. Our current equipment can
be employed more effectively especially if land, sea, air and space systems are better
integrated. It's an evolution, not a revolution.
A2/AD is just modern defense IMO – is it really necessary to have a doctrine that
demands superiority over Russia or China at – lets say – 200 km from their border?
And at which point do we just call this outright agressive posturing ? DougDiggler
says: June
3, 2021 at 1:42 pm
Is this more Pentagon wishful thinking, like their exercise that involved firing a still
nonexistent hypersonic from a B-52? I get the feeling that NATO's ID Pol army would not fare
well in attacking the military professionals of Russia, not even in these proposed multi-front
"crumbling" attacks. However, it is nice that they're finally getting around to studying
Operation Bagration. However I think the operational heirs to that offensive have probably
improved on it and have also spent much time considering being on the receiving end of such a
nightmare. They play chess while we play Nintendo. Christian J. Chuba says:
June
1, 2021 at 5:32 pm
Wow. We've been pushing our navy up Russia and China's nose today and doing the same with
NATO war games on land and air patrols. I hope this doesn't give us a false sense of confidence
to be outright reckless.
For some reason we have become obsessed with depriving the Russians control of their arctic
coastline. I'm not saying we are control freaks (actually we are control freaks) but I can
easily see a situation developing up their if we think we have some technology edge. That is
one place Russia wants to be secure and for some reason, if there is water, we must have our
navy just outside that 12 nautical mile limit.
What kills me is that we do this in the name of 'freedom of navigation' but that route is
going to be mostly transporting Chinese stuff to Europe and only because the Russians are
paying for the necessary ice breakers and rescue stations. In other words, we are waving our
wand over waters that are only navigable because of Russian investment.
Can the MIC make anything other than cost over-runs these days? d74 says:
June
1, 2021 at 11:38 pm
The answer is too easy: no.
Not only are the costs insane, but the functionality is insufficient. Simply put, it doesn't
work or seem unfit for fighting. Stacking technologies is a dream that does not stand up to
warfare realities. 'Keep it simple' seems out of reach.
I followed the adoption of the 120mm mortar by USMC. They started with a good weapon, with
confirmed potential. The end point was tactical paralysis.
This is (was) a very small issue, and an old one. It is significant. blue peacock
says: June
2, 2021 at 9:42 am
Washington would be easy to spot in a game of chess. It's the player with no plan beyond
an aggressive opening. That is no strategy at all. The failure to think several moves ahead
matters.
While I don't agree with everything many pundits including Chas Freeman say about our
behavior with respect to China, I do see the point that Chas makes in the quote above. Iraq and
Afghanistan are great examples. Our political and governmental leadership have no sense of
"smarts", all they've known for decades is bully behavior under both Democrats and Republicans,
especially towards those they perceive as weak, like our "invasion" of Grenada. How would we
actually perform against a serious military rival like China or Russia? What would be the
reporting at hysterical CNN, MSNBC and Fox when a few carrier strike elements are sunk? Would
they be shrieking to unleash nuclear-tipped ICBMs? How would a "mission accomplished" George
Bush/Dick Cheney type with all their hubristic swagger react? The continental US has not been
attacked like ever. What happens when Seattle, Los Angeles and even DC are under actual missile
fire? How would contemporary woke Americans who have no tolerance for "sacrifice" react?
Do we have the force that reflects good value for money considering that we spend more than
Russia & China combined on the military? What type of military do we actually have relative
to the tens of trillions of dollars spent over the last decade on the credit card? What are the
metrics to evaluate actual effectiveness of a military beyond graphics and tables on Powerpoint
slides?
What would an actual strategic plan to crush the CCP look like? IMO, it begins with insuring
no dependence on a Chinese supply chain. Would the Party of Davos even allow that?
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that
war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our
poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth
of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish
from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address , November 19, 1863
Holman Jenkins aptly describes the journalists involved in the Steele affair as "lazy" (
"Two
Grifters and a Dossier," Business World, May 26). Of course, they are intellectually lazy
-- it's absurdly in their interest. When it comes to public figures, knowing less is a better
defense than actually doing their job. The 1964 Supreme Court case Sullivan v. New York
Times requiring "actual malice" has given the news business a perverse incentive. The less
journalists actually know about the veracity of a story, the more defensible their legal
position. Justice Clarence Thomas recently described the malice standard as "almost impossible"
to prove, and without a reporter unearthing counterfactual accounts, proving malice is properly
impossible. So reporters find a story they love with suspect, but well-placed, sourcing and run
it without corroboration.
The wholesale use of single, anonymous sourcing to print defamatory stories about public
figures is now commonplace. Rep. Adam Schiff and his staff continually leaked falsities about
the Russia investigation, and reporters dutifully printed every word of it. Let's overturn
Sullivan and watch how fast the 24-hour news cycle changes under the threat of the
plaintiffs bar.
"HUNTSVILLE: The Army's experimental Multi-Domain Task Force is a "game changer" that's
turned the tide in "at least 10 wargames," the commander of US Army Pacific says. "Plans are
already changing at the combatant command level because of this." The key: the unit cracked the
Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2/AD) conundrum, Russia and China's dense layered defenses of
long-range missiles, sensors, and networks to coordinate them. "Before, we couldn't penetrate
A2/AD. With it, we could," Gen. Robert Brown said of the task force's performance in "at least
10 exercises and wargames. With the Multi-Domain Task Force," he told me after his remarks to
the AUSA Global conference here, "we could impact their long-range systems and have a much
greater success against an adversary. If I go into any more, it'd be classified."
"In the future, Brown said here last week, "all formations will have to become multi-domain
or they'll be irrelevant, [but] it's going to be years before it can happen." The Army's goal
is modernize enough forces to wage multi-domain warfare against either China or Russia -- but
not both at once -- by 2028." (Breaking Defense)
Comment: I was intrigued when, in April, SecDef Austin announced he was sending two units
with about 500 personnel to Germany. The units are a multi-domain task force and a theater
fires command. Sounded like a mere symbolic move. But there's nothing symbolic about these
particular units. They are an early implementation of the Pentagon's new multi-domain
operations doctrine which focuses on theater level operations. That doesn't mean mass divisions
and corps. It means theater level employment of global assets across the entire spectrum of
conflict. It's still billed as a concept rather than a full blown doctrine, but it's getting
there and is already being implemented in the Pacific theater.
In an Army Chief of Staff paper, "Army Multi-Domain Transformation Ready to Win in
Competition and Conflict" dated 16 March 2021, the multi-domain task force (MDTF) is described
as "theater-level maneuver elements designed to synchronize precision effects and precision
fires in all domains against adversary anti-access/ area denial (A2/AD) networks in all
domains, enabling joint forces to execute their operational plan (OPLAN) directed roles." The
MDTF's purpose is during competition, to "gain and maintain contact with our adversaries to
support the rapid transition to crisis or conflict"; during a crisis, to "deter adversaries and
shape the environment by providing flexible response options to the combatant commander"; and
if conflict arises, to "neutralize adversary A2/AD networks to enable joint freedom of
action."
Russia has been modernizing their doctrine, force structure and equipment in earnest for at
least the last decade. Surely China has been moving in the same direction. It's about time we
do the same. It will be several years, at least, before this doctrine can be fully implemented
with the necessary force structure and equipment. In many ways, our military has atrophied
terribly due to two decades of brigade level, at best, counterinsurgency operations. However,
we should, and apparently are, implementing this new doctrine now with the minimal force
structure changes of the MDTF and the inclusion of EW within cyber. Our current equipment can
be employed more effectively especially if land, sea, air and space systems are better
integrated. It's an evolution, not a revolution.
A2/AD is just modern defense IMO – is it really necessary to have a doctrine that
demands superiority over Russia or China at – lets say – 200 km from their border?
And at which point do we just call this outright agressive posturing ? DougDiggler
says: June
3, 2021 at 1:42 pm
Is this more Pentagon wishful thinking, like their exercise that involved firing a still
nonexistent hypersonic from a B-52? I get the feeling that NATO's ID Pol army would not fare
well in attacking the military professionals of Russia, not even in these proposed multi-front
"crumbling" attacks. However, it is nice that they're finally getting around to studying
Operation Bagration. However I think the operational heirs to that offensive have probably
improved on it and have also spent much time considering being on the receiving end of such a
nightmare. They play chess while we play Nintendo. Christian J. Chuba says:
June
1, 2021 at 5:32 pm
Wow. We've been pushing our navy up Russia and China's nose today and doing the same with
NATO war games on land and air patrols. I hope this doesn't give us a false sense of confidence
to be outright reckless.
For some reason we have become obsessed with depriving the Russians control of their arctic
coastline. I'm not saying we are control freaks (actually we are control freaks) but I can
easily see a situation developing up their if we think we have some technology edge. That is
one place Russia wants to be secure and for some reason, if there is water, we must have our
navy just outside that 12 nautical mile limit.
What kills me is that we do this in the name of 'freedom of navigation' but that route is
going to be mostly transporting Chinese stuff to Europe and only because the Russians are
paying for the necessary ice breakers and rescue stations. In other words, we are waving our
wand over waters that are only navigable because of Russian investment.
Anyway, so they were able to develop a simulation? That's impressive.
Abridged version. See the original for full version.
Notable quotes:
"... In October 2014, the Obama administration imposed a moratorium on new funding for gain-of-function research projects that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more virulent or transmissible. But a footnote to the statement announcing the moratorium carved out an exception for cases deemed "urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security." ..."
"... the review process shrouded in secrecy. "The names of reviewers are not released, and the details of the experiments to be considered are largely secret," said the Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Marc Lipsitch, whose advocacy against gain-of-function research helped prompt the moratorium. ..."
"... In May 2014, five months before the moratorium on gain-of-function research was announced, EcoHealth secured a NIAID grant of roughly $3.7 million, which it allocated in part to various entities engaged in collecting bat samples, building models, and performing gain-of-function experiments to see which animal viruses were able to jump to humans. The grant was not halted under the moratorium or the P3CO framework. ..."
"... Shi Zhengli herself listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae: $665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance. ..."
"... EcoHealth Alliance's practice of divvying up large government grants into smaller sub-grants for individual labs and institutions gave it enormous sway within the field of virology. The sums at stake allow it to "purchase a lot of omertà" from the labs it supports, said Richard Ebright of Rutgers. ..."
"... now the spin doctors come around pointing the finger at china. Sure, china may have done the experimentation and research, but where did the funding, research resources, training, and direction come from? ..."
"... The US banned bioweapon development (in the US) and moved it to China with Fraudci in charge so that they could do human experiments and make lots of money on GMO "vaccines" And now the US is trying to spin the story and put the blame on China ..."
As the NSC tracked these disparate clues, U.S. government virologists advising them flagged
one study first submitted in April 2020. Eleven of its 23 coauthors worked for the Academy of
Military Medical Sciences, the Chinese army's medical research institute. Using the
gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, the researchers had engineered mice with humanized
lungs, then studied their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2. As the NSC officials worked backward
from the date of publication to establish a timeline for the study, it became clear that the
mice had been engineered sometime in the summer of 2019, before the pandemic even started. The
NSC officials were left wondering: Had the Chinese military been running viruses through
humanized mouse models, to see which might be infectious to humans?
In October 2014, the Obama administration imposed a moratorium on new funding for
gain-of-function research projects that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more
virulent or transmissible. But a footnote to the statement announcing the moratorium carved out
an exception for cases deemed "urgently necessary to protect the public health or national
security."
In the first year of the Trump administration, the moratorium was lifted and replaced with a
review system called the HHS P3CO Framework (for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and
Oversight). It put the onus for ensuring the safety of any such research on the federal
department or agency funding it. This left the review process shrouded in secrecy. "The names
of reviewers are not released, and the details of the experiments to be considered are largely
secret," said the Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Marc Lipsitch, whose advocacy against
gain-of-function research helped prompt the moratorium. (An NIH spokesperson told Vanity
Fair that "information about individual unfunded applications is not public to preserve
confidentiality and protect sensitive information, preliminary data, and intellectual
property.")
Inside the NIH, which funded such research, the P3CO framework was largely met with shrugs
and eye rolls, said a longtime agency official: "If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban
all of virology." He added, "Ever since the moratorium, everyone's gone wink-wink and just done
gain-of-function research anyway."
British-born Peter Daszak, 55, is the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York
City–based nonprofit with the laudable goal of preventing the outbreak of emerging
diseases by safeguarding ecosystems. In May 2014, five months before the moratorium on
gain-of-function research was announced, EcoHealth secured a NIAID grant of roughly $3.7
million, which it allocated in part to various entities engaged in collecting bat samples,
building models, and performing gain-of-function experiments to see which animal viruses were
able to jump to humans. The grant was not halted under the moratorium or the P3CO
framework.
By 2018, EcoHealth Alliance was pulling in up to $15 million a year in grant money from an
array of federal agencies, including the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland
Security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to 990 tax exemption
forms it filed with the New York State Attorney General's Charities Bureau. Shi Zhengli herself
listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae:
$665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At
least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance.
EcoHealth Alliance's practice of divvying up large government grants into smaller sub-grants
for individual labs and institutions gave it enormous sway within the field of virology. The
sums at stake allow it to "purchase a lot of omertà" from the labs it supports, said
Richard Ebright of Rutgers. (In response to detailed questions, an EcoHealth Alliance
spokesperson said on behalf of the organization and Daszak, "We have no comment.")
In July, the NIH attempted to backtrack. It reinstated the grant but suspended its research
activities until EcoHealth Alliance fulfilled seven conditions, some of which went beyond the
nonprofit's purview and seemed to stray into tinfoil-hat territory. They included: providing
information on the "apparent disappearance" of a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher, who
was rumored on social media to be patient zero, and explaining diminished cell phone traffic
and roadblocks around the WIV in October 2019.
Ebright likened Daszak's model of research -- bringing samples from a remote area to an
urban one, then sequencing and growing viruses and attempting to genetically modify them to
make them more virulent -- to "looking for a gas leak with a lighted match." Moreover, Ebright
believed that Daszak's research had failed in its stated purpose of predicting and preventing
pandemics through its global collaborations.
It soon emerged, based on emails obtained by a Freedom of Information group called U.S.
Right to Know, that Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet
statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific
unanimity.
Under the subject line, "No need for you to sign the "Statement" Ralph!!," he wrote to two
scientists, including UNC's Dr. Ralph Baric, who had collaborated with Shi Zhengli on the
gain-of-function study that created a coronavirus capable of infecting human cells: "you, me
and him should not sign this statement, so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn't
work in a counterproductive way." Daszak added, "We'll then put it out in a way that doesn't
link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice."
Baric agreed, writing back, "Otherwise it looks self-serving and we lose impact."
Baric did not sign the statement. In the end, Daszak did. At least six other signers had
either worked at, or had been funded by, EcoHealth Alliance. The statement ended with a
declaration of objectivity: "We declare no competing interests."
Daszak mobilized so quickly for a reason, said Jamie Metzl: "If zoonosis was the origin,
it was a validation of his life work . But if the pandemic started as part of a lab leak, it
had the potential to do to virology what Three Mile Island and Chernobyl did to nuclear
science." It could mire the field indefinitely in moratoriums and funding restrictions.
In a CNN interview on March 26, Dr. Redfield, the former CDC director under Trump, made a
candid admission: "I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of
this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped." Redfield added that he
believed the release was an accident, not an intentional act. In his view, nothing that
happened since his first calls with Dr. Gao changed a simple fact: The WIV needed to be ruled
out as a source, and it hadn't been.
After the interview aired, death threats flooded his inbox. The vitriol came not just from
strangers who thought he was being racially insensitive but also from prominent scientists,
some of whom used to be his friends. One said he should just "wither and die."
Peter Daszak was getting death threats too, some from QAnon conspirators.
Inside the U.S. government, meanwhile, the lab-leak hypothesis had survived the transition
from Trump to Biden. On April 15, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the House
Intelligence Committee that two "plausible theories" were being weighed: a lab accident or
natural emergence.
Even so, lab-leak talk was mostly confined to right-wing news outlets through April,
gleefully flogged by Tucker Carlson and studiously avoided by most of the mainstream media. In
Congress, the Energy and Commerce Committee's Republican minority had launched its own inquiry,
but there was little buy-in from Democrats and the NIH didn't provide responses to its lengthy
list of demands for information.
The ground began to shift on May 2, when Nicholas Wade, a former New York Times
science writer known in part for writing a controversial book about how genes shape the social
behavior of different races, published a lengthy
essay on Medium. In it, he analyzed the scientific clues both for and against a lab leak,
and excoriated the media for its failure to report on the dueling hypotheses. Wade devoted a
full section to the "furin cleavage site," a distinctive segment of SARS-CoV-2's genetic code
that makes the virus more infectious by allowing it to efficiently enter human cells.
Within the scientific community, one thing leapt off the page. Wade quoted one of the
world's most famous microbiologists, Dr. David Baltimore, saying that he believed the furin
cleavage site "was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus." Baltimore, a Nobel Laureate
and pioneer in molecular biology, was about as far from Steve Bannon and the conspiracy
theorists as it was possible to get. His judgment, that the furin cleavage site raised the
prospect of gene manipulation, had to be taken seriously.
Weedlord Bonerhitler, 1 hour ago
Gain of function research is weaponization. We are under attack by a biological weapon
designed in a laboratory to kill people. We are, in effect, at war.
KickIce, 1 hour ago, (Edited)
With who, Washington DC? FWIW, that would be my pick.
ted41776, 1 hour ago
Yes, except "we" moved this "research" to china many years ago to speed up the weaponization
of bioweapons. the original researchers came to the us from nazi Germany after WW2 (Project
Paperclip). it wasn't moving fast enough here because of that whole experimenting on humans
thing was looked down upon here in the US (at least in the past). so "we" hired china what "we"
couldn't do domestically on "our" own.
And now the spin doctors come around pointing the finger
at china. Sure, china may have done the experimentation and research, but where did the
funding, research resources, training, and direction come from?
gregga777, 1 hour ago
Gain of function research is weaponization
It's also insane. Hey, look at what we did! We made smallpox* in our gene sequencing
laboratory. Oops! It's release into the 'wild' was an unfortunate accident.
Anyone engaged in the research & development of making viruses or bacteria more lethal
or the resurrection of presumably extinct pathogens (e.g., smallpox*) are International War
Criminals. They should be arrested and placed on trial in a suitable jurisdiction. At the very
least they should be barred forever from working in any kind of even remotely related
laboratory research.
*The complete gene sequence of smallpox is apparently freely available over the
Internet.
is an example of GOF engineering that bat lady Shi Zhengli participated in, engineering
chimeras of SARS and SARS like coronaviruses and splicing with HIV to make it more
transmissible to humans.
Pax Romana, 1 hour ago
10 page article could have been condensed into one sentence: Fort Detrick -> Canadian Lab
-> Wuhan -> Spooks -> Election Fraud -> Vax -> State Control
ted41776, 1 hour ago
The US banned bioweapon development (in the US) and moved it to China with Fraudci in charge
so that they could do human experiments and make lots of money on GMO "vaccines" And now the US is trying to spin the story and put the blame on China
no, this covaids was MADE IN THE USA even if it was produced and manufactured in China under
US funding, direction, and supervision
brian91145, 1 hour ago
100% right that is the truth that everyone will know very soon
ted41776, 1 hour ago, (Edited)
not sure if it will make any difference
911: US training and funding bin laden for over a decade? WMDs, they got WMDs! pools of
molten metal caused by... kerosene (jet fuel)? building 7...
we gotta get that f||cker bin laden though
bammy arming cartels (fast and furious) and guns they got from him used to kill americans
(including cops and border patrol)? crickets
there is no election fraud, after seeing them spend 4 years trying to overthrow a president
who allegedly used fraud and russian collusion to get elected?
and on and on and on, the neverending 24/7 stream of lies and distortion
unfortunately, truth has become pretty worthless in this sick reality most people live
in
konputa, 1 hour ago
Designed in the US, manufactured in China. We've known this since early 2020.
CheapBastard, 1 hour ago
(((Vanity Fair))) has the same editorial weight that Teen Vogue has.
The article is meant to obfuscate the truth, not clarify it.
CheapBastard, 51 minutes ago, (Edited)
The author carefully avoids inconvenient but important truths including::
Fauci funded the Wuhan bioweapons lab thru NIH (proven by emails) Fauci lied repeatedly from
day#1 about the characteristics and origin of the deadly virus (also proven by emails) the
WHO lied repeatedly about the origin the involvement of Gates in this entire fiasco
S.Parker, · 1 hour ago
Fort Detrick, USA
Handful of Dust, · 4 minutes ago
· Bumbler-in-Chief Biden in the White House Backs 'Incredible' Dr. Anthony Fauci;
Refuses Comment on Explosive Emails Exposing the Lies & Deceit
Its a book! Damn Tylers it will take me days to read. · The Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 states:
"Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires,
retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or
knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so, shall be fined under this title
or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both."
Weedlord Bonerhitler, 1 hour ago
Don't need a next leak. Just need time for the leaky vaccines to do their work. A
vaccine that doesn't stop transmission and merely reduces symptoms, is not a vaccine, but an
evolutionary pressure upon the virus.
This is Marek's disease, found in chickens. A few decades ago, it was fairly
benign, but then it was treated with a vaccine that merely reduced symptoms to a minimum
without stopping the virus. Now, after evolving over a few decades while butting heads with
that leaky vaccine, it's so deadly to chickens that any unvaccinated flocks tend to be wiped
out by it, making vaccinating every chicken on Earth a necessity.
This is our future. They want people completely dependent on their vaccines to
survive.
"... Through a collaboration with Danish intelligence, the United States has conducted targeted espionage against senior politicians and officials in Norway, Sweden, Germany and France. That was one of the conclusions in an explosive report made by four employees of the Danish intelligence service (FE), according to Danmarks Radio (DR). ..."
"... Last year, NRK reported that the Danish-American spy cooperation was aimed at targets in Norway, but it was then unknown who the surveillance was aimed at. The new information indicates that the extent of espionage against Norway was far greater than previously known. ..."
Through a collaboration with Danish intelligence, the United States has conducted targeted espionage against senior politicians
and officials in Norway, Sweden, Germany and France. That was one of the conclusions in an explosive report made by four employees
of the Danish intelligence service (FE), according to Danmarks Radio (DR).
NRK mentions the Danish public broadcaster's findings as part of an international collaboration with Danmarks Radio, SVT, NDR,
WDR, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Le Monde.
Over several months, DR has met nine people with access to classified information from the intelligence service. All information
in the case has been confirmed to DR by at least two, often several, independent sources.
Last year, NRK reported that the Danish-American spy cooperation was aimed at targets in Norway, but it was then unknown
who the surveillance was aimed at. The new information indicates that the extent of espionage against Norway was far greater than
previously known.
NRK and DR do not know which Norwegian politicians and officials have been subjected to targeted espionage, but as one of DR's
sources says:
- It would not have been interesting for an intelligence service to spy on municipal politicians.
Tesla completely transformed the automotive landscape when it introduced the Roadster, pioneering the mass-market electric car and
reinventing
the car as we know
. It sold the first widely-available EV, and it did it with a product that you could easily live with every
day. The company has done more to further the electric game than anyone else and deserves total credit for making EVs a part of the
discussion when it comes to the future of the automobile.
Tesla
has
changed the world. It's also doomed.
The last mainstream automaker to be launched from scratch in the United States was Saturn, a heavily subsidized child of the GM
family. Even with those deep pockets, it failed. History is littered with dead automotive brands. The list of deceased automakers is
also replete with visionary leaders who pioneered new tech and aimed to dominate the luxury market.
The automobile game is tough. The dirty secret is
that the big brands only make around 6% margin on every car they sell
This is all to say: we've been here before. Hudson, Tucker, DeLorean (
twice!
),
Packard, and more. The stories here are all different in their specifics, with some succumbing to shady government dealing, others
losing to price wars. While the immediate causes of their failures might be unique, the fact that they failed certainly is not.
The consumer automobile game is devilishly tough. The dirty secret of the car making world is that the big brands only make around
6% margin on every car they sell. That's a pathetic amount of profit when compared to other well-known brands like Nike, Apple, or
Disney. Shoes, upscale electronics, and entertainment (as well as scores of other industries) all offer double the profit margins,
faster production times, less regulation, and fewer unionized workforces. Building cars is dumb. Car companies make billions of
dollars in profits because they sell so many cars, not because each car is so profitable. And therein lies the rub for Tesla.
Why Tesla is doomed
The only way to be successful at car manufacturing is to do it at a very large scale. You have to sell hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of cars per year to be stable. In 2018,
Tesla
shifted a total of 245,240 cars
. The
Tesla
Model 3
also became the best-selling luxury automobile in United States; last year was fantastic for Tesla. It also took the
company to the very brink of imploding.
Scaling up production lines and capacity is the activity that is killing Tesla, but scaling up further is the only thing that can
save it. The company is at the low point of a "production valley" where becoming capable of building 300,000 cars has made them
wildly unprofitable, but the only way to get to profit is to build even more capacity to enable it to make 700,000 – 1,000,000 cars.
Tesla could potentially have, or raise, the billions needed to do this. It could, that is, if the company could concentrate on doing
one thing at a time.
Tesla's worst enemy is Elon Musk. The serial entrepreneur has an affliction that many serial entrepreneurs have: Shiny Thing
Syndrome. Mr. Musk loves to chase after new challenges and novel projects. Tesla is currently producing 3 different cars, wall
chargers, charging stations, electric semi-trucks, photovoltaic roofs, and spearheading autonomous technology. Throw in the odd
flamethrower
,
underground
tunnels
, and a new
insurance
product
(not to mention
Space
X
), and you see a leader not focused on doing the hard work of pushing his company through a crisis of scale, but a man obsessed
with moon-shots and new projects.
Scaling up production is the activity that is
killing Tesla, but scaling up further is the only thing that can save it
It should be noted that Musk has never operated any business at this scale before. Running a nimble online service such as Paypal is
a very different thing than running a multinational car manufacturer -- especially one that is exclusively pursuing new technologies.
Quite frankly, Musk is not qualified to be CEO of Tesla any longer, and the mismatch of his skills to the company's needs could not
be worse timed for Tesla.
In the next 12 months, practically all other major global auto manufacturers have plans to release their own electric cars. Tesla
ate their lunch last year when it became the best-selling luxury car, but at that time, it was the only EV game in town. More
worryingly, the most common Tesla owner complaints happen to be the areas that traditional car companies excel at:
Fit
and finish
,
service
infrastructure
, and execution on timelines. When Porsche announced its
Taycan
electric sedan
, its #1 source of reservations was from current Tesla owners. This is a surefire sign that the Tesla customer
base is eager to upgrade to something better.
China, the world's largest car market, and the savior of many global brands, cannot save Tesla. Indeed, the current trade war
between the U.S. and China is
hurting
Tesla more
than any other car company. The current price for a Tesla Model 3 in China is approximately $73,000, with roughly
$30,000 of that price being the result of China's import tariffs. In January, Elon Musk broke ground on a Gigafactory in China, and
the total investment in the project is expected to exceed $4 billion,
according
to Goldman Sachs
. That is an amount of money Tesla, quite frankly, doesn't have to spend. After a disastrous first quarter 2019,
the company quickly raised $2.35 billion in stock and debt. Even with this recent cash infusion, Musk told employees the company
would be
out
of cash in 10 months
if spending continued at current levels.
The end of Tesla
Tesla will not go bankrupt. It cannot go bankrupt. At the moment, the company is still well-placed to raise another funding round
and could likely even do as many as three more funding events before investors stop lining up. Failure for Tesla won't happen
tomorrow, but it is coming. More and more evangelists are changing their tunes as competition in EVs gets fiercer. Wall street is
losing patience with broken promises and erratic CEO behavior. And the everyday consumer is finding more electric car options that
tempt their dollar now that Tesla is not the only game in town. No, Tesla's end will not happen tomorrow, nor will it be a dramatic
collapse.
Telsa is too valuable a brand to disappear in a cloud of Chapter 11 smoke. Again, history bears this out. The vast majority of
automotive brands from years past were acquired or absorbed into larger brands, where some succeeded brilliantly (Dodge) and others
slowly morphed into something unrecognizable (Hudson). Arguably, the Tesla brand is the most valuable piece of Tesla's balance sheet
as other manufacturers have caught up with their hard technology (batteries, chargers), and are rapidly chasing down their soft
technology (
Autopilot
).
The Tesla brand is global in reach, and still viewed favorably overall by the public.
The endgame for Tesla is an acquisition. It is the way of the automotive jungle -- the circle of corporate life, as it were. The
unknowable part at the moment is exactly who will acquire Tesla, as the list is quite long. Another car company is the reflexive
bet, but Silicon Valley and Chinese auto manufacturers are all likely bidders as well. Apple
already
offered to buy Tesla
back in 2013 for more than the company is worth at the time of this story. The field of suitors is wide
open, and the eventual winner could well come as a surprise to the everyday public.
Regardless of who steps up to the plate, it will be very surprising if the transaction is labelled as an acquisition. No -- this will
be a "merger" or "partnership" to protect egos and that all-important Tesla brand (again, the most valuable asset on their books).
Any upcoming news of a partnership with a Toyota or a Mercedes should not be seen as a life preserver thrown out in good faith, but
a wholesale pirate sacking of the company. Musk will quietly slip away to chase his shiny things, popping in for product launches
and tweetstorms, but the adults will be put in charge and set a profitable course. What happens after that, no one can know.
Before the pitchforks come out, make no mistake: The world is a better place for Tesla having existed. Electric cars are no longer
made out of old Porsche 914s by a guy in a shed. We are moving toward an electric future, all thanks to underdog Tesla. The world,
and Americans especially, are enamored with an underdog story. But more often than not, the underdog loses. That's why they are
underdogs. In the best of worlds, Tesla can influence Mercedes or a Chinese company from the inside to really nail electric cars and
make them the most affordable option for consumers. I hope that comes to pass for all our sakes.
Believe it or not, the president says that human rights R us.
Hear that, BLM? Women? Asian Americans? Hispanics? homeless? heavily indebted students? .
. the list goes on.
Biden said so, May 30, 2021
"I had a long conversation -- for two hours -- recently with President Xi, making it clear
to him that we could do nothing but speak out for human rights around the world because
that's who we are. I'll be meeting with President Putin in a couple of weeks in Geneva,
making it clear that we will not -- we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights." . .
here
..reminds me of Aeschylus: "In war, truth is the first casualty."
"... The Black Liberation Movement has made millionaires out of their grifter leaders and enabled the left to remain in power in every city in which rioting occurred. Their local opposition has been cleansed or cowed into submission. The movement continues its success as seen by its adoption by corporations seeking to reduce the power and influence of middle class Americans and by politicians seeking to entrence their power electorally. ..."
The continuing hypocrisy of Black Lives Matter was displayed vividly over the past
weekend– BLM
declared solidarity with Hamas but said nothing about a slew of murders and shootings
targeting black
communities .
There were at least 11 mass shootings in the country over the weekend that combined left
at least 17 people dead and 35 more wounded, according to CNN reporting and an analysis of
data from Gun Violence Archive (GVA),
local media and police reports.
I found it curious that none of the reporting made any mention about the race of the victims
or the perpetrators. Left me wondering so I did some digging. It appears that the majority of
these mass shootings involved black Americans as perpetrators or victims.
At least 55 people were shot across Chicago over the weekend, 12 of them fatally,
including a 15-year-old boy who
was shot in the head on the front porch of a home in Lawndale, and three double
homicides.
These shootings took place in predominantly black neighborhoods.
Of course. Much political and social capital has been squandered in recent years, all in
an attempt to adumbrate the singular reality that the deeply engrained social pathologies
in the "black community" have more to do with their failure to thrive than white systemic
racism does. We, meaning white America, cannot help them with this no matter how much self
abnegation we indulge in. Black America needs to adopt standards of belief and behavior
that are socially, culturally, and economically functional and they need to teach their
children those values. I have seen this happen with a certain fragment of that demographic,
but it needs to happen more widely. This may be offensive to some readers, but there is
truth in it.
Reply
Do blacks themselves need to be uniquely empowered (and protected) to speak up against
black on black violence? What has prevented the peace-seeking black community members from
taking charge of their own neighborhoods.
What Reign of Terror are they living under that those of us outside these communities do
not understand.
Latino gangs terrorize latino communities as well. The violent tyranny of the few
against the decent lives of the many is very, very wrong and should not exist in our
country. But it is a daily reality in our rapidly devolving inner city neighborhoods.
Reply
These minority neighborhoods can't have it both ways:
They can't object to successful methods like stop and frisk and then complain
about crime. "Snitches get stiches" is another "cute" saying encouraging crime.
After a time trying to help people who won't help themselves and are often openly
hostile, the cops grow cynical and less proactive; can you blame them?
Because it's "racist" to criticize any form of minority behavior, there can not be an
honest discussion about solutions to this problem and the beat goes on.
People (including the self-hating, phony "guilty" white liberals, BTW) who can live in
segregated neighborhoods continue to live in segregated neighborhoods.
I used to live in CT – very liberal blue state – totally segregated; BLM
signs on the "right" lawns.
Reply
TV
Yes here in Mpls the same blue haired tattooed
Nose ring wokes make up a large majority of
The BLM protests. The obligatory signs festoon
Whole neighborhoods. Do they march or picket
The areas where the majority of the shootings occur
And whose victims are all black? Ha! Too dangerous.
The near North side aka Nomi has had continuous
Gunfire for near 1200 days. Now they have running
Gun battles with "Ak" type fully automatic weapons.
It's become a tragedy writ large. Not a virtue
Signal to be seen.
Reply
Yes, it's hard to believe that so many are taken in by the rhetoric of Black Lives
Matter when there's evidence on a near-daily basis of black-on-black violence and murder.
It's truly a crime that so-called leaders don't decry it and demand a call to action for it
to stop, a crime that there's so little public discourse about underclass blacks basically
exterminating each other with impunity. It's a taboo subject, and can't be broached without
accusations of racism. We only hear righteous outrage when a member of the black underclass
is killed by a cop.
Reply
Why does the charge of "racism" cause so many to immediately recoil and retreat? It is
just a word, yet it has risen to weaponized effectiveness.
What does this word trigger in so many people who will immediately back down and
retreat. Pretty powerful tool -until more don't blink and don't stand down at its mere
mention.
Always felt there was an implied threat of "black violence' that accompanied every one
of Obama's political moves. We need to cleanse that threat out of our own psyches or else
this nation will be held hostage by a mere word.
Reply
Isn't this an interesting bit of Democrat deja vu, including charges of rigged
voting machines in 2008 the GOP would use to prevent Obama from winning and thereby
triggering a Second Civil War -- "the streets will run with blood .if Obama loses
.."
Thanks to two great political pundits – Erica Jong and Jane Fonda. They did
capture the zeitgeist of the times however, and continue to do so. The threat of black
violence, if you don't do what we went.
Fast forward to 2020 – and the world yet again feared "the streets would run
with blood", but this if Trump won re-election and Democrat Biden did not win.
But this time it bloody well appears it was the Democrats who rigged the voting
processes. Yet again it appears it is the Democrats accusing the GOP of what they were
already doing themselves.
Reply
The Black Liberation Movement has made millionaires out of their grifter leaders and
enabled the left to remain in power in every city in which rioting occurred. Their local
opposition has been cleansed or cowed into submission. The movement continues its success
as seen by its adoption by corporations seeking to reduce the power and influence of middle
class Americans and by politicians seeking to entrence their power electorally.
Some people who were black were shot by others who were black? Quit saying that, you,
you, what's the word: racist!; as none of that has been proved in court. Did any of these
'leaders' care about all those shootings in the Sanctuary City of Chicago when President
Hope and Change was in charge? (2016)
Total shootings 4379 Shot and wounded 3664 Shot and killed: 715
Assailant race by percentage
Whoa: you're saying the left behaves hypocritically and is willing to take losses in
order to get what they want?
Such insight!
Ethnic hypocrisy is the ancient problem here, but this focus on contemporary black
antics obscures the issue and is simply another avoidance strategy.
The recent missile duel in the eastern Mediterranean has shown that white conservatives
are more willing to stand up for the safety of non- or dual-citizens overseas than they are
for safety of their own white constituents, whom they refuse even to name.
There is nothing wrong with Obama with his financial success to buy in predominantly
white Martha's Vineyard. The question that blacks should ask however is are those leaders
who use racism and race to gain political power doing much to alleviate the social and
economic issues they face?
There are many successful blacks in all walks of life. Why aren't they celebrated and
used as role models instead of someone like George Floyd?
Reply
When you first went on the "BLM website" you immediately were linked to ActBlue
– a fund-raising arm of the Democrat party. There was no independent or "private"
donation link for BLM. Calling BLM "private" in this case would be a stretch for me
after that initial experience with BLM.
So the bigger question is, why is the State Dept etc pushing an arm of the Democrat
Party fund-raising machine within government operations? Did BLM formally dissociate
completely with ActBlue?
Reply
Because the State Dept., like the rest of the Democrat party, has accelerated
faster and faster to the left.
They've been selling out America for decades and now, like the rest of the Democrat
party, the last mask has dropped.
Reply
Having grown up in Chicago and still living nearby I would say "predominantly black"
neighborhoods is a media fiction, part of the narrative to displace the blame onto others
than black. I assure you these are black neighborhoods, once white now ruined for
generations. I have sympathy for blacks, so much so that I suggest we organize to supply as
much ammo as possible to help them rid the hood of evil doers. Mostly 9mm, drop off crates
in front of playgrounds and street corners so they can be easily found.
Reply
Larry's point that BLM doesn't care about Black lives is graphically shown and described
by this Officer Tatum podcast (it's short) of local newscasts, not shown by national news,
of Black children murdered by Blacks.
"There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love
their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears , so to speak, producing a kind of
painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their
liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it."
People keep expecting a drug that you "take." We have been taking this drug willingly, after
knowing all the risks, for the last ten years.
Executives at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP have voiced worries that workers who stay remote
could wind up as second-class corporate citizens, falling behind in
promotions and pay , so the company plans to track rates of advancement for office-based and
remote staff in an effort to make sure nobody lags behind.
Ford Motor Co. is
pushing ahead with digital efforts to help bring office workers back to its Dearborn, Mich.,
corporate headquarters, while eyeing a future where many of them continue to work from home,
company officials say.
For now, the auto maker is aiming for a gradual return of some employees to the sprawling
campus beginning in July, with "significantly reduced capacity" to retain social distancing, a
spokeswoman said.
Boston Dynamics, a robotics company known for its four-legged robot "dog," this week
announced a new product, a computer-vision enabled mobile warehouse robot named "Stretch."
Developed in response to growing demand for automation in warehouses, the robot can reach up
to 10 feet inside of a truck to pick up and unload boxes up to 50 pounds each. The robot has a
mobile base that can maneuver in any direction and navigate obstacles and ramps, as well as a
robotic arm and a gripper. The company estimates that there are more than 500 billion boxes
annually that get shipped around the world, and many of those are currently moved manually.
"It's a pretty arduous job, so the idea with Stretch is that it does the manual labor part
of that job," said Robert Playter, chief executive of the Waltham, Mass.-based company.
The pandemic has accelerated [automation of] e-commerce and logistics operations even more
over the past year, he said.
... ... ...
... the robot was made to recognize boxes of different sizes, textures and colors. For
example, it can recognize both shrink-wrapped cases and cardboard boxes.
Eventually, Stretch could move through an aisle of a warehouse, picking up different
products and placing them on a pallet, Mr. Playter said.
Biden backed down on Nordstream 2 and, at The Davos Crowd's insistence, he will back down on
the JCPOA.
Davos needs cheap energy into Europe. That's ultimately what the JCPOA was all about. The
basic framework for the deal is still there. While the U.S. will kick and scream a bit about
sanctions relief, Iran will be back into the oil market and make it possible for Europe to once
again invest in oil/gas projects in Iran.
Now
that Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer going to be leading Israel, the probability of
breakthrough is much much higher than last week. The Likudniks in Congress and the Senate just
lost their raison d'etre. The loss of face for Israel in Bibi's latest attempt to bludgeon Gaza
to retain power backfired completely.
U.S. policy towards Israel is shifting rapidly as the younger generations, Gen-X and
Millennials, simply don't have the same allegiance to Israel that the Baby Boomers and Silent
generations did. It is part of a geopolitical ethos which is outdated.
So, with some deal over Iran's nuclear capability in the near future, Europe will then get
gas pipelines from Iran through Turkey as well as gain better access to the North South
Transport Corridor which is now unofficially part of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Russia, now that Nordstream 2 is nearly done, will not balk at this. In fact, they'll
welcome it. It forms the basis for a broader, sustainable peace arrangement in the Middle East.
What's lost is the Zionist program for Greater Israel and continued sowing dissent between
exhausted participants.
But the big geopolitical win for Davos, they think, is that by returning Iran to the oil
markets it will cut down on Russia's dominance there. That the only reason Russia is the price
setter in oil today, as the producer of the marginal barrel, is because of Trump taking Iranian
and Venezuelan oil off the market.
With these negotiations ongoing and likely to conclude soon I'm sure the thinking is that
this will help save Iranian moderates in the upcoming elections. But with Iran's Guardian
Council paving the way for Ebrahim Raeisi to win the election that is also very unlikely(
H/T to Pepe
Escobar's latest on this ) :
So Raeisi now seems to be nearly a done deal: a relatively faceless bureaucrat without the
profile of an IRGC hardliner, well known for his anti-corruption fight and care about the
poor and downtrodden. On foreign policy, the crucial fact is that he will arguably follow
crucial IRGC dictates.
Raeisi is already spinning that he "negotiated quietly" to secure the qualification of
more candidates, "to make the election scene more competitive and participatory". The problem
is no candidate has the power to sway the opaque decisions of the 12-member Guardian Council,
composed exclusively by clerics: only Ayatollah Khamenei.
I have no doubt that Iran is, as Escobar suggests, in post-JCPOA mode now and will walk away
from Geneva without a deal if need be, but Davos will cut the deal it needs to bring the oil
and gas into Europe while still blaming the U.S. for Iran's nuclear ambitions because they've
gotten what they actually wanted, Netanyahu out of power.
Seeing the tenor of these negotiations and the return of Obama to the White House, the
Saudis saw the writing on the wall immediately and began peace talks with Iran in Baghdad put
off for a year because of Trump's killing Soleimani.
The Saudis are fighting for their lives now as the Shia Crescent forms and China holds the
House of Saud's future in its hands.
Syria will be restored to the Arab League and all that 'peace' work by Trump will be undone
quickly. Because none of it was actually peaceful in its implementation. Netanyahu is gone,
Israel just got
defeated by Hamas and now the rest of the story can unfold, put on hold by four years of
Jared Kushner's idiocy and U.S. neoconservatives feeding Trump bad information about the
situation.
The Saker put together two lists in his latest article (linked above) which puts the entire
situation into perspective:
The Goals:
Bring down a strong secular Arab state along with its political structure, armed forces,
and security services.
Create total chaos and horror in Syria justifying the creation of a "security zone" by
Israel not only in the Golan but further north.
Trigger a civil war in Lebanon by unleashing the Takfiri crazies against Hezbollah.
Let the Takfiris and Hezbollah bleed each other to death, then create a "security zone,"
but this time in Lebanon.
Prevent the creation of a Shia axis Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
Break up Syria along ethnic and religious lines.
Create a Kurdistan which could then be used against Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Make it possible for Israel to become the uncontested power broker in the Middle-East
and force the KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and all others to have to go to Israel for any gas
or oil pipeline project.
Gradually isolate, threaten, subvert, and eventually attack Iran with a broad regional
coalition of forces.
Eliminate all centers of Shia power in the Middle-East.
The Outcomes:
The Syrian state has survived, and its armed and security forces are now far more
capable than they were before the war started (remember how they almost lost the war
initially? The Syrians bounced back while learning some very hard lessons. By all reports,
they improved tremendously, while at critical moments Iran and Hezbollah were literally
"plugging holes" in the Syrian frontlines and "extinguishing fires" on local flashpoints.
Now the Syrians are doing a very good job of liberating large chunks of their country,
including every single city in Syria).
Not only is Syria stronger, but the Iranians and Hezbollah are all over the country now,
which is driving the Israelis into a state of panic and rage.
Lebanon is rock solid; even the latest Saudi attempt to kidnap Hariri is backfiring.
(2021 update: in spite of the explosion in Beirut, Hezbollah is still in charge)
Syria will remain unitary, and Kurdistan is not happening. Millions of displaced
refugees are returning home.
Israel and the US look like total idiots and, even worse, as losers with no credibility
left.
The net result is everyone in the region who were aggressors are now suing for peace. This
is why I expect some kind of deal that returns Iran to the global economy. There's no way for
Germany's shiny new trade deal with China to work without this.
Trump's hard line against Iran was always a mistake, even if Iran's nuclear ambitions are
real. But with the Open Skies treaty now a dead letter the U.S. has real logistical problems in
the region and they only multiply if Erdogan in Turkey finally chooses a side and gives up his
Neo-Ottoman ambitions, now very likely.
But when it comes to economics, as always, Davos has this all backwards vis a vis oil. They
still think they can use the JCPOA to drive a wedge between Iran and Russia over oil. They
still think Putin only cares about oil and gas sales abroad. It's clear they don't listen to
him because the policy never seems to change.
So, to Davos, if they bring 2.5 to 3 million barrels per day from Iran back online and oil
prices drop, this forces Russia to back down militarily and diplomatically in Eastern Europe.
With a free-floated ruble the Russians don't care now that they are mostly self-sufficient in
food and raw material production.
None of that will come to pass. Putin is shifting the Russian economy away from oil and gas
with an announced ambitious domestic spending plan ahead of this fall's State Duma elections.
Lower or even stable prices will accelerate those plans as capital no longer finds its best
return in that sector.
This carrot to Iran and stick to Russia approach of Brussels/Davos is childish and it will
only get worse when the Greens come to power in Germany at the end of the year. Unless the
German elections end in a stalemate which is unforeseen, the CDU will grand coalition as the
junior partner to the Greens, just as Davos wants it.
Don't miss the significance of the policy bifurcation either when it comes to oil. The Biden
administration is trying to make energy as expensive as possible in the U.S. -- no Keystone
Pipeline, Whitmer trying to close down Enbridges's Line 5 from Canada into Michigan, etc. --
while Europe gets Nordstream 2 from Russia and new, cheap supplies from Iran.
This is what had Trump so hopping mad when he was President. This is part of why he hated
the JCPOA. Israel and the EastMed pipeline was what should have been the U.S. policy in his
mind.
Now, those dreams are dead and the sell out of the U.S. to Davos is in full swing.
Seriously, Biden/Obama are going to continue on this path of undermining U.S. energy production
until they are thrown out of office, either by the overwhelming shame of the election fraud
lawsuits which recall Senators from Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, the mid-term elections which
brings a more pro-Trump GOP to power or by military force. That last bit I put a very low
probability on.
Bottom line, for now global oil prices have likely peaked no matter what drivel comes out of
John Kerry's mouth.
The Brent/WTI spread will likely collapse and go negative for the first time in years as
Iran's full oil production comes online over the next two years while U.S. production falls.
We'll see rising oil prices in the U.S. while global supply rises, some of which China is
getting at a steep discount from who? Iran.
Meanwhile Russia continues to hold the EU to account on everything while unmasking the not
just the latest Bellingcat/MI6/State Dept. nonsense in Belarus surrounding the arrest of Roman
Petrosovich, but also filling the void diplomatically left by a confused and incompetent U.S.
policy in the Middle East.
If I'm the Bennett in Israel, the first phone call I make after taking office is to no one
other than Putin, who now holds the reins over Iran, Hezbollah and a very battle-hardened and
angry Syria who just re-elected Assad because he navigated the assault on the country with no
lack of geopolitical skill.
Because it is clear that Biden/Obama, on behalf of Davos , have left Israel out to twist in
the wind surrounded by those who wish it gone. We'll see if they get their wish. I think the
win here is clear and the days of U.S. adventurism in the Middle East are numbered.
The oil wars aren't over, by any stretch of the imagination, but the outcome of the main
battles have decisively shifted who determines what battles are fought next.
About time that fcking Project for the New American Century(aka Greater Israel from the
Nile to the Euphates) got derailed .
Fcking useless neocon sh its gutted and bankrupted the U.S. for their fcked up ziosh it
garbage.
Sheldon Adelson belongs in the Aus witz Mengele suite in hell. He was the biggest
cheerleader for the last 20 years of this hell on earth that was created in the middle
east.
Woodenman 2 hours ago remove link
Trump got it *** backwards , he should have defunded Israel and fast tracked Iran to be
a nuclear power, Iran is an oil producer, what does Israel do for us?
Would I care that Israel cannot sleep at night knowing Iran has the bomb, not at
all.
AGuy 37 minutes ago
" what does Israel do for us? "
Keeps the ME unstable so the US has the excuse to keep a lot of military resources in
the ME, in the name of being the worlds policemen. Plus the US needs to protect the Petro
dollar, but at this point I don't think that will matter soon considering the amount of
money printing & spending the US is doing at the momement.
wellwaddyaknow 2 hours ago (Edited)
Soleimani was very good at destroying ISIS trash.
And which countries backed ISIS?
JR Wirth 2 hours ago
NeoCon tears as the world attempts to move on from deranged foreign policy. Will the US
throw a fit and drag the world into war? Let's call Tel Aviv and find out.
Der Steppenwolf 2 hours ago remove link
Iran already sells huge amounts of oil to China and likely many others, there just isn't
going to be a significant increase in Iranian oil hitting the market as a result of any
deal. Moreover, this relatively small increase will occur over time. Even if Iran
eventually increases production the 2.5-3 million bpd the author cites, world consumption
in 2021 is forecast to increase about 6 million bpd over 2020. Considering these facts any
changes in Iranian oil production should do little to affect the overall
price.
lay_arrow
AGuy 42 minutes ago
" Iran has huge potential to increase production "
I doubt that very much. Iran has very old oil fields which have been producing since the
1920s. Global Oil production peaked in 2018 & is now in permanent decline. Iran could
increase NatGas production, but Oil production is in permanent decline.
Apollo 32 minutes ago
God, I hope half of the above comes true. Bibi needs to be court martialed and Israel
needs to go back into smaller and more peaceful version of itself (if that is even
possible) . USA can just bugger off home, and try to deal with transgendered army,
president's dementia and critical race theory nonsense first.
What the world needs is less wars, less central bankers screwing the game and less
stealing of other people's natural resources. Instead it just more plain old hard work,
honest trading and no bs diplomacy.
dead hobo 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
Amazingly perfect analysis.
Israel will survive. I wish them well.
So many US wars are oil based. Lies abound to cover this up. Neocon Economics turns
every war opportunity into a profit center. No Profit = No War potential. Whenever you see
a Neocon pumping a war somewhere, you need to look for who will make scads of money from
it.
Trump isn't an angel. He's the guy who destroyed Establishment Republicanism. That begat
populism. I detested him working his book when he pumped QE and ZIRP. I considered it a
temporary price to pay to remove Establishment Republicans from the world. Yes, the US also
needed a good Front Door with a lock. He also did good there. Trump playing the Imperialism
Game clumsily worked in the favor of Peaceful Coexistence. Probably by mistake. Ok by me if
everyone else declares peace anyway.
The US economy can still outpower anyone even if it is forced to play fair.
This brings us to the Deep State. Who exactly are they?
Are they Neocons who want war profits by making it look like others are the war mongers?
Are they anti-peace as long as it doesn't start a full blown war - providing a profit can
be made from it by their oligarch bosses?
Or is the Deep State the Davos oriented oligarchs who wants the 99% to whistle while
they work to support uncountable billions of dollars flowing into the asset piles of the
1%?
Why did the Deep State allow the BLM / Antifa / Democrat cabal take over? Are they
stupid? Or did they think Covid-19 along with these freaks would work in their favor
somehow?
Is the Deep State only common ordinary Imperialism? Is it only oil, and natural gas and
who gets to control the markets? Ukraine has a lot of natural resources. Is that a
coincidence?
What is it about Peaceful Coexistence that makes them go crazy?
What does The Deep State really want?
AGuy 49 minutes ago
" The only difference will be the wars will be fought for lithium and other rare metals.
"
Unlikely Oil will remain the King for causing wars. electricification of transportation
is doomed to fail. First average Americans cannot afford EV. heck they are struggling with
cheaper ICE vehicles. Auto loan duration have ballooned & most Americans are rolling
over debt from their older vehicle when they buy a new one. Second the grid is struggling.
Most of the older power plants are getting replaced by NatGas fired plants & at some
point we are going to see NatGas prices shoot up. Much of the US grid was built in the
1930s & 1940s and will need trillions just to maintain it and replace equipment &
power lines operating beyond their expected operating lifetime.
The US economy is slowly collapsing: Mountains of debt, demographics, dumbed down
education, and worthless degrees for Millennials, failing infrastructure (ie I-40 bridge).
We are on borrowed time.
AJAX-2 1 hour ago remove link
The fly in the ointment is that the banksters desperately need higher oil prices to prop
up their derivative portfolios. As a result, they are at odds with the Davos Crowd and
their desire for cheap/plentiful oil for Europe. We shall see who prevails.
AGuy 1 hour ago
" The fly in the ointment is that the banksters desperately need higher oil prices to
prop up their derivative portfolios. "
Nope:
Higher oil prices leads to higher defaults, which is likely to trigger derivative
losses. Banker shady deals come under congressional\agency scrutiny usually ending with
billion dollar fines, and bad press. A lot of banks probably will get nationalized when the
next banking crisis happens & all those bankers will lose out on the financial scams
they play.
European Monarchist 46 minutes ago remove link
Currently:
The Syrian state has survived, and its armed and security forces are now far more
capable than they were before the war started (remember how they almost lost the war
initially? The Syrians bounced back while learning some very hard lessons. By all
reports, they improved tremendously, while at critical moments Iran and Hezbollah
were literally "plugging holes" in the Syrian frontlines and "extinguishing fires" on
local flashpoints. Now the Syrians are doing a very good job of liberating large
chunks of their country, including every single city in Syria).
Not only is Syria stronger, but the Iranians and Hezbollah are all over the
country now, which is driving the Israelis into a state of panic and rage.
Lebanon is rock solid; even the latest Saudi attempt to kidnap Hariri is
backfiring. (2021 update: in spite of the explosion in Beirut, Hezbollah is still in
charge)
Syria will remain unitary, and Kurdistan is not happening. Millions of displaced
refugees are returning home.
Israel and the US look like total idiots and, even worse, as losers with no
credibility left.
The net result is everyone in the region who were aggressors are now suing for peace.
This is why I expect some kind of deal that returns Iran to the global economy. There's
no way for Germany's shiny new trade deal with China to work without this.
ut218 2 hours ago remove link
Solarcycle 25 had a bad start. By 2028 people will realize we are in a period of global
cooling. oil prices will soar
Itinerant 18 minutes ago
There won't be major investments of European majors in Iran's oil industry.
For Iran, Western partners have proved too fickle
For Western corporations, the risk is too great for long term investment.
China will be reaping most of the investement opportunities.
2 play_arrow
Marrubio 1 hour ago
.... the NWO & Davos idiotards ,they have been trying since March for oil not to
exceed the $ 70 barrier and they are not succeeding. Week after week they try to lower the
price, frightening with the covid, the production of Iran or whatever, and the following
week the oil rises again. The only thing left for them is mass slaughter ... but now people
know that what is going to kill them is in the "vaccine". Of course they will be stupid
enough to do it; if they have shown anything it is that they are profoundly idiots. They
will not be successful in getting cheap oil, simply because PeakOil is running since 2018
and since then oil production decreases at 5% per year: -5% per year, I am telling to the
NWO deep idiotards.
European Monarchist 55 minutes ago (Edited)
Interesting, but it remains to be seen where this is going, short term and long.
Now
that Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer going to be leading Israel, the probability of
breakthrough is much much higher than last week. The Likudniks in Congress and the Senate
just lost their raison d'etre. The loss of face for Israel in Bibi's latest attempt to
bludgeon Gaza to retain power backfired completely.
U.S. policy towards Israel is shifting rapidly as the younger generations, Gen-X and
Millennials, simply don't have the same allegiance to Israel that the Baby Boomers and
Silent generations did. It is part of a geopolitical ethos which is outdated.
So, with some deal over Iran's nuclear capability in the near future, Europe will then
get gas pipelines from Iran through Turkey as well as gain better access to the North
South Transport Corridor which is now unofficially part of China's Belt and Road
Initiative.
Russia, now that Nordstream 2 is nearly done, will not balk at this. In fact, they'll
welcome it. It forms the basis for a broader, sustainable peace arrangement in the Middle
East. What's lost is the Zionist program for Greater Israel and continued sowing dissent
between exhausted participants.
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Einstein101 55 minutes ago remove link
Now the Syrians are doing a very good job of liberating large chunks of their
country, including every single city in Syria).
Really? Hell no! The Syrians and the mighty Russians and the Hezbollah for many months
now are not able to overcome lowly terrorists militia in northern Syria's Idlib. Plus,
the Israelis has been launching hundreds of airstrikes over Syria while the Russian made
Syrian anti air defense can do nothing about it.
The author is a very fuzzy way comes to the idea that neoliberalism is in essence a Trotskyism for the rich and that
neoliberals want to use strong state to enforce the type of markets they want from above. That included free movement of
capital goods and people across national borders. All this talk about "small government" is just a smoke screen for naive fools.
"... The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state. ..."
"... Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to the global forces of the market. ..."
"... Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology, contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy. ..."
"... One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among many rather than the big Other of regulation as such. ..."
"... I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople. ..."
"... They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw in the aspirations of the decolonizing world. ..."
"... The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people, whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place. ..."
"... The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. ..."
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 16, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674979524
ISBN-13: 978-0674979529
From introduction
...The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of
those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying
congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after
the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state.
There is truth to both of these explanations. Both presuppose a kind of materialist explanation of history with which I have no
problem. In my book, though, I take another approach. What I found is that we could not understand the inner logic of something like
the WTO without considering the whole history of the twentieth century. What I also discovered is that some of the members of the
neoliberal movement from the 1930s onward, including Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, did not use either of the explanations
I just mentioned. They actually didn't say that economic growth excuses everything. One of the peculiar things about Hayek, in particular,
is that he didn't believe in using aggregates like GDP -- the very measurements that we need to even say what growth is.
What I found is that neoliberalism as a philosophy is less a doctrine of economics than a doctrine of ordering -- of creating
the institutions that provide for the reproduction of the totality [of financial elite control of the state]. At the core of the strain I describe is not the idea that we
can quantify, count, price, buy and sell every last aspect of human existence. Actually, here it gets quite mystical. The Austrian
and German School of neoliberals in particular believe in a kind of invisible world economy that cannot be captured in numbers
and figures but always escapes human comprehension.
After all, if you can see something, you can plan it. Because of the very limits to our knowledge, we have to default to ironclad
rules and not try to pursue something as radical as social justice, redistribution, or collective transformation. In a globalized
world, we must give ourselves over to the forces of the market, or the whole thing will stop working.
So this is quite a different version of neoliberal thought than the one we usually have, premised on the abstract of individual
liberty or the freedom to choose. Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to
the global forces of the market.
One of the core arguments of my book is that we can only understand the internal coherence of neoliberalism if we see it as a
doctrine as concerned with the whole as the individual. Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology,
contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft
institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy.
To me, the metaphor of encasement makes much more sense than the usual idea of markets set free, liberated or unfettered. How
can it be that in an era of proliferating third party arbitration courts, international investment law, trade treaties and regulation
that we talk about "unfettered markets"? One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among
many rather than the big Other of regulation as such.
What I explore in Globalists is how we can think of the WTO as the latest in a long series of institutional fixes proposed
for the problem of emergent nationalism and what neoliberals see as the confusion between sovereignty -- ruling a country -- and
ownership -- owning the property within it.
I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations
by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to
nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople.
They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic
actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I
show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw
in the aspirations of the decolonizing world.
Perhaps the lasting image of globalization that the book leaves is that world capitalism has produced a doubled world -- a world
of imperium (the world of states) and a world of dominium (the world of property). The best way to understand neoliberal globalism
as a project is that it sees its task as the never-ending maintenance of this division. The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that
the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people,
whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place.
The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like
a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. The book acts
as a kind of field guide to these institutions and, in the process, hopefully recasts the 20th century that produced them.
This is a rather
interesting look at the political and economic ideas of a circle of important economists, including Hayek and von Mises, over
the course of the last century. He shows rather convincingly that conventional narratives concerning their idea are wrong. That
they didn't believe in a weak state, didn't believe in the laissez-faire capitalism or believe in the power of the market. That
they saw mass democracy as a threat to vested economic interests.
The core beliefs of these people was in a world where money, labor and products could flow across borders without any limit.
Their vision was to remove these subjects (tariffs, immigration and controls on the movement of money) from the control of the
democracy-based nation-state and instead vesting them in international organizations. International organizations which were by
their nature undemocratic and beyond the influence of democracy. That rather than rejecting government power, what they rejected
was national government power. They wanted weak national governments but at the same time strong undemocratic international organizations
which would gain the powers taken from the state.
The other thing that characterized many of these people was a rather general rejection of economics. While some of them are
(at least in theory) economists, they rejected the basic ideas of economic analysis and economic policy. The economy, to them,
was a mystical thing beyond any human understanding or ability to influence in a positive way. Their only real belief was in "bigness".
The larger the market for labor and goods, the more economically prosperous everyone would become. A unregulated "global" market
with specialization across borders and free migration of labor being the ultimate system.
The author shows how, over a period extending from the 1920s to the 1990s, these ideas evolved from marginal academic ideas
to being dominant ideas internationally. Ideas that are reflected today in the structure of the European Union, the WTO (World
Trade Organization) and the policies of most national governments. These ideas, which the author calls "neoliberalism", have today
become almost assumptions beyond challenge. And even more strangely, the dominating ideas of the political left in most of the
west.
The author makes the point, though in a weak way, that the "fathers" of neoliberalism saw themselves as "restoring" a lost
golden age. That golden age being (roughly) the age of the original industrial revolution (the second half of the 1800s). And
to the extent that they have been successful they have done that. But at the same time, they have brought back all the political
and economic questions of that era as well.
In reading it, I started to wonder about the differences between modern neoliberalism and the liberal political movement during
the industrial revolution. I really began to wonder about the actual motives of "reform" liberals in that era. Were they genuinely
interested in reforms during that era or were all the reforms just cynical politics designed to enhance business power at the
expense of other vested interests. Was, in particular, the liberal interest in political reform and franchise expansion a genuine
move toward political democracy or simply a temporary ploy to increase their political power. If one assumes that the true principles
of classic liberalism were always free trade, free migration of labor and removing the power to governments to impact business,
perhaps its collapse around the time of the first world war is easier to understand.
He also makes a good point about the EEC and the organizations that came before the EU. Those organizations were as much about
protecting trade between Europe and former European colonial possessions as they were anything to do with trade within Europe.
To me at least, the analysis of the author was rather original. In particular, he did an excellent job of showing how the ideas
of Hayek and von Mises have been distorted and misunderstood in the mainstream. He was able to show what their ideas were and
how they relate to contemporary problems of government and democracy.
But there are some strong negatives in the book. The author offers up a complete virtue signaling chapter to prove how the
neoliberals are racists. He brings up things, like the John Birch Society, that have nothing to do with the book. He unleashes
a whole lot of venom directed at American conservatives and republicans mostly set against a 1960s backdrop. He does all this
in a bad purpose: to claim that the Kennedy Administration was somehow a continuation of the new deal rather than a step toward
neoliberalism. His blindness and modern political partisanship extended backward into history does substantial damage to his argument
in the book. He also spends an inordinate amount of time on the political issues of South Africa which also adds nothing to the
argument of the book. His whole chapter on racism is an elaborate strawman all held together by Ropke. He also spends a large
amount of time grinding some sort of Ax with regard to the National Review and William F. Buckley.
He keeps resorting to the simple formula of finding something racist said or written by Ropke....and then inferring that anyone
who quoted or had anything to do with Ropke shared his ideas and was also a racist. The whole point of the exercise seems to be
to avoid any analysis of how the democratic party (and the political left) drifted over the decades from the politics of the New
Deal to neoliberal Clintonism.
Then after that, he diverts further off the path by spending many pages on the greatness of the "global south", the G77 and
the New International Economic Order (NIEO) promoted by the UN in the 1970s. And whatever many faults of neoliberalism, Quinn
Slobodian ends up standing for a worse set of ideas: International Price controls, economic "reparations", nationalization, international
trade subsidies and a five-year plan for the world (socialist style economic planning at a global level). In attaching himself
to these particular ideas, he kills his own book. The premise of the book and his argument was very strong at first. But by around
p. 220, its become a throwback political tract in favor of the garbage economic and political ideas of the so-called third world
circa 1974 complete with 70's style extensive quotations from "Senegalese jurists"
Once the political agenda comes out, he just can't help himself. He opens the conclusion to the book taking another cheap shot
for no clear reason at William F. Buckley. He spends alot of time on the Seattle anti-WTO protests from the 1990s. But he has
NOTHING to say about BIll Clinton or Tony Blair or EU expansion or Obama or even the 2008 economic crisis for that matter. Inexplicably
for a book written in 2018, the content of the book seems to end in the year 2000.
I'm giving it three stars for the first 150 pages which was decent work. The second half rates zero stars. Though it could
have been far better if he had written his history of neoliberalism in the context of the counter-narrative of Keynesian economics
and its decline. It would have been better yet if the author had the courage to talk about the transformation of the parties of
the left and their complicity in the rise of neoliberalism. The author also tends to waste lots of pages repeating himself or
worse telling you what he is going to say next. One would have expected a better standard of editing by the Harvard Press.
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Anybody interested in global trade, business, human rights or democracy today
should read this book.
The book follow the Austrians from the beginning in the Habsburgischer empire to the beginning rebellion against the WTO. However,
most importantly it follows the thinking and the thoughts behind the building of a global empire of capitalism with free trade,
capital and rights. All the way to the new "human right" to trade. It narrows down what neoliberal thought really consist of and
indirectly make a differentiation to the neoclassical economic tradition.
What I found most interesting is the turn from economics to law - and the conceptual distinctions between the genes, tradition,
reason, which are translated into a quest for a rational and reason based protection of dominium (the rule of property) against
the overreach of imperium (the rule of states/people). This distinction speaks directly to the issues that EU is currently facing.
"... From the 1980s to 2008, neoliberal politics and policies succeeded in expanding inequality around the world. The political climate Ayn Rand celebrated-the reign of brutal capitalism-intensified. Though Ayn Rand's popularity took off in the 1940s, her reputation took a dive during the 1960s and '70s. Then after her death in 1982, during the neoliberal administrations of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, her star rose once more. (See chapter 4 for a full discussion of the rise of neoliberalism.) ..."
"... During the global economic crisis of 2008 it seemed that the neoliberal order might collapse. It lived on, however, in zombie form as discredited political policies and financial practices were restored. ..."
"... We are in the midst of a major global, political, economic, social, and cultural transition - but we don't yet know which way we're headed. The incoherence of the Trump administration is symptomatic of the confusion as politicians and business elites jockey with the Breitbart alt-right forces while conservative evangelical Christians pull strings. The unifying threads are meanness and greed, and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand. ..."
"... The current Trump administration is stuffed to the gills with Rand acolytes. Trump himself identifies with Fountainhead character Howard Roark; former secretary of state Rex Tillerson listed Adas Shrugged as his favorite book in a Scouting magazine feature; his replacement Mike Pompeo has been inspired by Rand since his youth. Ayn Rand's influence is ascendant across broad swaths of our dominant political culture - including among public figures who see her as a key to the Zeitgeist, without having read a worth of her writing.'' ..."
"... Rand biographer Jennifer Burns asserts simply that Ayn Rand's fiction is "the gateway drug" to right-wing politics in the United States - although her influence extends well beyond the right wing ..."
"... The resulting Randian sense of life might be called "optimistic cruelty." Optimistic cruelty is the sense of life for the age of greed. ..."
"... The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged fabricate history and romanticize violence and domination in ways that reflect, reshape, and reproduce narratives of European superiority' and American virtue. ..."
"... It is not an accident that the novels' fans, though gender mixed, are overwhelmingly white Americans of the professional, managerial, creative, and business classes." ..."
"... Does the pervasive cruelty of today's ruling classes shock you? Or, at least give you pause from time to time? Are you surprised by the fact that our elected leaders seem to despise people who struggle, people whose lives are not cushioned and shaped by inherited wealth, people who must work hard at many jobs in order to scrape by? If these or any of a number of other questions about the social proclivities of our contemporary ruling class detain you for just two seconds, this is the book for you. ..."
"... As Duggan makes clear, Rand's influence is not just that she offered a programmatic for unregulated capitalism, but that she offered an emotional template for "optimistic cruelty" that has extended far beyond its libertarian confines. Mean Girl is a fun, worthwhile read! ..."
"... Her work circulated endlessly in those circles of the Goldwater-ite right. I have changed over many years, and my own life experiences have led me to reject the casual cruelty and vicious supremacist bent of Rand's beliefs. ..."
"... In fact, though her views are deeply-seated, Rand is, at heart, a confidence artist, appealing only to narrow self-interest at the expense of the well-being of whole societies. ..."
Mean Girls, which was based on interviews with high school girls conducted by Rosalind Wiseman for her 2002 book Queen Bees and
War/tubes, reflects the emotional atmosphere of the age of the Plastics (as the most popular girls at Actional North Shore High are
called), as well as the era of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, whose motto is "Greed is Good."1 The culture of greed is the hallmark
of the neoliberal era, the period beginning in the 1970s when the protections of the U.S. and European welfare states, and the autonomy
of postcolonial states around the world, came under attack. Advocates of neoliberalism worked to reshape global capitalism by freeing
transnational corporations from restrictive forms of state regulation, stripping away government efforts to redistribute wealth and
provide public services, and emphasizing individual responsibility over social concern.
From the 1980s to 2008, neoliberal politics and policies succeeded in expanding inequality around the world. The political
climate Ayn Rand celebrated-the reign of brutal capitalism-intensified. Though Ayn Rand's popularity took off in the 1940s, her reputation
took a dive during the 1960s and '70s. Then after her death in 1982, during the neoliberal administrations of Ronald Reagan in the
United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, her star rose once more. (See chapter 4 for a full discussion of the rise
of neoliberalism.)
During the global economic crisis of 2008 it seemed that the neoliberal order might collapse. It lived on, however, in zombie
form as discredited political policies and financial practices were restored. But neoliberal capitalism has always been contested,
and competing and conflicting political ideas and organizations proliferated and intensified after 2008 as well.
Protest politics blossomed on the left with Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and opposition to the Dakota Access oil pipeline
at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in the United States, and with the Arab Spring, and other mobilizations around the world.
Anti-neoliberal electoral efforts, like the Bernie Sanders campaign for the U.S. presidency, generated excitement as well.
But protest and organizing also expanded on the political right, with reactionary populist, racial nationalist, and protofascist
gains in such countries as India, the Philippines, Russia, Hungary, and the United States rapidly proliferating. Between these far-right
formations on the one side and persistent zombie neoliberalism on the other, operating sometimes at odds and sometimes in cahoots,
the Season of Mean is truly upon us.
We are in the midst of a major global, political, economic, social, and cultural transition - but we don't yet know which
way we're headed. The incoherence of the Trump administration is symptomatic of the confusion as politicians and business elites
jockey with the Breitbart alt-right forces while conservative evangelical Christians pull strings. The unifying threads are meanness
and greed, and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand.
Rand's ideas are not the key to her influence. Her writing does support the corrosive capitalism at the heart of neoliberalism,
though few movers and shakers actually read any of her nonfiction. Her two blockbuster novels, 'The Fountainpen and Atlas Shrugged,
are at the heart of her incalculable impact. Many politicians and government officials going back decades have cited Rand as a formative
influence-particularly finance guru and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who was a member of Rand's inner circle,
and Ronald Reagan, the U.S. president most identified with the national embrace of neoliberal policies.
Major figures in business and finance are or have been Rand fans: Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Peter Thiel (Paypal), Steve Jobs (Apple),
John Mackey (Whole Foods), Mark Cuban (NBA), John Allison (BB&T Banking Corporation), Travis Kalanik (Uber), Jelf Bezos (Amazon),
ad infinitum.
There are also large clusters of enthusiasts for Rand's novels in the entertainment industry, from the 1940s to the present-from
Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Raquel Welch to Jerry Lewis, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Rob Lowe, Jim Carrey, Sandra Bullock,
Sharon Stone, Ashley Judd, Eva Mendes, and many more.
The current Trump administration is stuffed to the gills with Rand acolytes. Trump himself identifies with Fountainhead character
Howard Roark; former secretary of state Rex Tillerson listed Adas Shrugged as his favorite book in a Scouting magazine feature; his
replacement Mike Pompeo has been inspired by Rand since his youth. Ayn Rand's influence is ascendant across broad swaths of our dominant
political culture - including among public figures who see her as a key to the Zeitgeist, without having read a worth of her writing.''
But beyond the famous or powerful fans, the novels have had a wide popular impact as bestsellers since publication. Along
with Rand's nonfiction, they form the core texts for a political/ philosophical movement: Objectivism. There are several U.S.- based
Objectivist organizations and innumerable clubs, reading groups, and social circles. A 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and
the Book of the Month Club found that only the Bible had influenced readers more than Atlas Shrugged, while a 1998 Modern Library
poll listed The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as the two most revered novels in English.
Atlas Shrugged in particular skyrocketed in popularity in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. The U.S. Tea Party movement, founded
in 2009, featured numerous Ayn Rand-based signs and slogans, especially the opening line of Atlas Shrugged: "Who is John Galt?" Republican
pundit David Frum claimed that the Tea Party was reinventing the GOP as "the party of Ayn Rand." During 2009 as well, sales of Atlas
Shrugged tripled, and GQ_magazine called Rand the year's most influential author. A 2010 Zogby poll found that 29 percent of respondents
had read Atlas Shrugged, and half of those readers said it had affected their political and ethical thinking.
In 2018, a business school teacher writing in Forbes magazine recommended repeat readings: "Recent events - the bizarro circus
that is the 2016 election, the disintegration of Venezuela, and so on make me wonder if a lot of this could have been avoided bad
we taken Atlas Shrugged's message to heart. It is a book that is worth re-reading every few years."3
Rand biographer Jennifer Burns asserts simply that Ayn Rand's fiction is "the gateway drug" to right-wing politics in the
United States - although her influence extends well beyond the right wing.4
But how can the work of this one novelist (also an essayist, playwright, and philosopher), however influential, be a significant
source of insight into the rise of a culture of greed? In a word: sex. Ayn Rand made acquisitive capitalists sexy. She launched thousands
of teenage libidos into the world of reactionary politics on a wave of quivering excitement. This sexiness extends beyond romance
to infuse the creative aspirations, inventiveness, and determination of her heroes with erotic energy, embedded in what Rand called
her "sense of life." Analogous to what Raymond Williams has called a "structure of feeling," Rand's sense of life combines the libido-infused
desire for heroic individual achievement with contempt for social inferiors and indifference to their plight.5
Lauren Berlant has called the structure of feeling, or emotional situation, of those who struggle for a good life under neoliberal
conditions "cruel optimism"-the complex of feelings necessary to keep plugging away hopefully despite setbacks and losses.'' Rand's
contrasting sense of life applies to those whose fantasies of success and domination include no doubt or guilt. The feelings of aspiration
and glee that enliven Rand's novels combine with contempt for and indifference to others. The resulting Randian sense of life
might be called "optimistic cruelty." Optimistic cruelty is the sense of life for the age of greed.
Ayn Rand's optimistic cruelty appeals broadly and deeply through its circulation of familiar narratives: the story of "civilizational"
progress, die belief in American exceptionalism, and a commitment to capitalist freedom.
Her novels engage fantasies of European imperial domination conceived as technological and cultural advancement, rather than as
violent conquest. America is imagined as a clean slate for pure capitalist freedom, with no indigenous people, no slaves, no exploited
immigrants or workers in sight. The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged fabricate history and romanticize violence and
domination in ways that reflect, reshape, and reproduce narratives of European superiority' and American virtue.
Their logic also depends on a hierarchy of value based on radicalized beauty and physical capacity - perceived ugliness or disability'
are equated with pronounced worthlessness and incompetence.
Through the forms of romance and melodrama, Rand novels extrapolate the story of racial capitalism as a story of righteous passion
and noble virtue. They retell The Birth of a Ntation through the lens of industrial capitalism (see chapter 2). They solicit positive
identification with winners, with dominant historical forces. It is not an accident that the novels' fans, though gender mixed,
are overwhelmingly white Americans of the professional, managerial, creative, and business classes."
Ayn Rand is a singular influence on American political thought, and this book brilliantly unfolds how Rand gave voice to the
ethos that shapes contemporary conservatism. Duggan -- whose equally insightful earlier book Twilight of Equality offered an analysis
of neoliberalism and showed how it is both a distortion and continuation of classical liberalism -- here extends the analysis
of American market mania by showing how an anti-welfare state ethos took root as a "structure of feeling" in American culture,
elevating the individual over the collective and promoting a culture of inequality as itself a moral virtue.
Although reviled by the right-wing press (she should wear this as a badge of honor), Duggan is the most astute guide one could
hope for through this devastating history of our recent past, and the book helps explain how we ended up where we are, where far-right,
racist nationalism colludes (paradoxically) with libertarianism, an ideology of extreme individualism and (unlikely bed fellows,
one might have thought) Silicon Valley entrepreneurship.
This short, accessible book is essential reading for everyone who wants to understand the contemporary United States.
Does the pervasive cruelty of today's ruling classes shock you? Or, at least give you pause from time to time? Are you
surprised by the fact that our elected leaders seem to despise people who struggle, people whose lives are not cushioned and shaped
by inherited wealth, people who must work hard at many jobs in order to scrape by? If these or any of a number of other questions
about the social proclivities of our contemporary ruling class detain you for just two seconds, this is the book for you.
Writing with wit, rigor, and vigor, Lisa Duggan explains how Ayn Rand, the "mean girl," has captured the minds and snatched
the bodies of so very many, and has rendered them immune to feelings of shared humanity with those whose fortunes are not as rosy
as their own. An indispensable work, a short read that leaves a long memory.
Mean Girl offers not only a biographical account of Rand (including the fact that she modeled one of her key heroes on a serial
killer), but describes Rand's influence on neoliberal thinking more generally.
As Duggan makes clear, Rand's influence is not just that she offered a programmatic for unregulated capitalism, but that
she offered an emotional template for "optimistic cruelty" that has extended far beyond its libertarian confines. Mean Girl is
a fun, worthwhile read!
Sister, June 3, 2019
Superb poitical and cultural exploration of Rand's influence
Lisa Duggan's concise but substantive look at the political and cultural influence of Ayn Rand is stunning. I feel like I've
been waiting most of a lifetime for a book that is as wonderfully readable as it is insightful. Many who write about Rand reduce
her to a caricature hero or demon without taking her, and the history and choices that produced her seriously as a subject of
cultural inquiry. I am one of those people who first encountered Rand's books - novels, but also some nonfiction and her play,
"The Night of January 16th," in which audience members were selected as jurors – as a teenager.
Under the thrall of some right-wing locals, I was so drawn to Rand's larger-than-life themes, the crude polarization of "individualism"
and "conformity," the admonition to selfishness as a moral virtue, her reductive dismissal of the public good as "collectivism."
Her work circulated endlessly in those circles of the Goldwater-ite right. I have changed over many years, and my own life
experiences have led me to reject the casual cruelty and vicious supremacist bent of Rand's beliefs.
But over those many years, the coterie of Rand true believers has kept the faith and expanded. One of the things I value about
Duggan's compelling account is her willingness to take seriously the far reach of Rand's indifference to human suffering even
as she strips away the veneer that suggests Rand's beliefs were deep.
In fact, though her views are deeply-seated, Rand is, at heart, a confidence artist, appealing only to narrow self-interest
at the expense of the well-being of whole societies.
I learned that the hard way, but I learned it. Now I am recommending Duggan's wise book to others who seek to understand today's
cultural and political moment in the United States and the rise of an ethic of indifference to anybody but the already affluent.
Duggan is comfortable with complexity; most Randian champions or detractors are not.
"... No other book out there has the level of breadth on the history of US imperialism that this work provides. Even though it packs 400 pages of text (which might seem like a turnoff for non-academic readers), "How to Hide an Empire" is highly readable given Immerwhar's skills as a writer. Also, its length is part of what makes it awesome because it gives it the right amount of detail and scope. ..."
"... Alleging that US imperialism in its long evolution (which this book deciphers with poignancy) has had no bearing on the destinies of its once conquered populations is as fallacious as saying that the US is to blame for every single thing that happens in Native American communities, or in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, etc. Not everything that happens in these locations and among these populations is directly connected to US expansionism, but a great deal is. ..."
"... This is exactly the kind of book that drives the "My country, right or wrong" crowd crazy. Yes, slavery and genocide and ghastly scientific experiments existed before Europeans colonized the Americas, but it's also fair and accurate to say that Europeans made those forms of destruction into a bloody artform. Nobody did mass slaughter better. ..."
I'm a professor at the University of California San Diego and I'm assigning
this for a graduate class.
No other book out there has the level of breadth on the history of US imperialism that this work provides.
Even though it packs 400 pages of text (which might seem like a turnoff for non-academic readers), "How to Hide an Empire" is
highly readable given Immerwhar's skills as a writer. Also, its length is part of what makes it awesome because it gives it the
right amount of detail and scope.
I could not disagree more with the person who gave this book one star. Take it from me: I've taught hundreds of college students
who graduate among the best in their high school classes and they know close to nothing about the history of US settler colonialism,
overseas imperialism, or US interventionism around the world. If you give University of California college students a quiz on
where the US' overseas territories are, most who take it will fail (trust me, I've done it). And this is not their fault. Instead,
it's a product of the US education system that fails to give students a nuanced and geographically comprehensive understanding
of the oversized effect that their country has around our planet.
Alleging that US imperialism in its long evolution (which this book deciphers with poignancy) has had no bearing on the destinies
of its once conquered populations is as fallacious as saying that the US is to blame for every single thing that happens in Native
American communities, or in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, etc. Not everything that happens in these locations
and among these populations is directly connected to US expansionism, but a great deal is.
A case in point is Puerto Rico's current fiscal and economic crisis. The island's political class share part of the blame for
Puerto Rico's present rut. A lot of it is also due to unnatural (i.e. "natural" but human-exacerbated) disasters such as Hurricane
María. However, there is no denying that the evolution of Puerto Rico's territorial status has generated a host of adverse economic
conditions that US states (including an island state such as Hawaii) do not have to contend with. An association with the US has
undoubtedly raised the floor of material conditions in these places, but it has also imposed an unjust glass ceiling that most
people around the US either do not know about or continue to ignore.
To add to those unfair economic limitations, there are political injustices regarding the lack of representation in Congress,
and in the case of Am. Samoa, their lack of US citizenship. The fact that the populations in the overseas territories can't make
up their mind about what status they prefer is: a) understandable given the way they have been mistreated by the US government,
and b) irrelevant because what really matters is what Congress decides to do with the US' far-flung colonies, and there is no
indication that Congress wants to either fully annex them or let them go because neither would be convenient to the 50 states
and the political parties that run them. Instead, the status quo of modern colonial indeterminacy is what works best for the most
potent political and economic groups in the US mainland. Would
This book is about much more than that though. It's also a history of how and why the United States got to control so much
of what happens around the world without creating additional formal colonies like the "territories" that exist in this legal limbo.
Part of its goal is to show how precisely how US imperialism has been made to be more cost-effective and also more invisible.
Read Immerwhar's book, and don't listen to the apologists of US imperialism which is still an active force that contradicts
the US' professed values and that needs to be actively dismantled. Their attempts at discrediting this important reflect a denialism
of the US' imperial realities that has endured throughout the history that this book summarizes.
"How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States" is a great starting point for making the US public aware of
the US' contradictions as an "empire of liberty" (a phrase once used by Thomas Jefferson to describe the US as it expanded westward
beyond the original 13 colonies). It is also a necessary update to other books on this topic that are already out there, and it
is likely to hold the reader's attention more given its crafty narrative prose and structure
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This is exactly the
kind of book that drives the "My country, right or wrong" crowd crazy. Yes, slavery and genocide and ghastly scientific experiments
existed before Europeans colonized the Americas, but it's also fair and accurate to say that Europeans made those forms of destruction
into a bloody artform. Nobody did mass slaughter better.
The author of this compelling book reveals a history unknown to many
readers, and does so with first-hand accounts and deep historical analyses. You might ask why we can't put such things behind
us. The simple answer: we've never fully grappled with these events before in an honest and open way. This book does the nation
a service by peering behind the curtain and facing the sobering truth of how we came to be what we are.
This is a stunning book, not to be missed. If you finished Sapiens with the feeling your world view had
greatly enlarged, you're likely to have the same experience of your view of the US from reading this engaging work. And like Sapiens,
it's an entirely enjoyable read, full of delightful surprises, future dinner party gems.
The further you get into the book the more interesting and unexpected it becomes. You'll look at the US in ways you likely
never considered before. This is not a 'political' book with an ax to grind or a single-party agenda. It's refreshingly insightful,
beautifully written, fun to read.
This is a gift I'll give to many a good friend, I've just started with my wife. I rarely write
reviews and have never met the author (now my only regret). 3 people found this helpful
This book is an absolutely powerhouse, a must-read, and should be a part of every student's curriculum in
this God forsaken country.
Strictly speaking, this brilliant read is focused on America's relationship with Empire. But like with nearly everything America,
one cannot discuss it without discussing race and injustice.
If you read this book, you will learn a lot of new things about subjects that you thought you knew everything about. You will
have your eyes opened. You will be exposed to the dark underbelly of racism, corruption, greed and exploitation that undergird
American ambition.
I don't know exactly what else to say other than to say you MUST READ THIS BOOK. This isn't a partisan statement -- it's not
like Democrats are any better than Republicans in this book.
This is one of the best books I've ever read, and I am a voracious reader. The content is A+. It never gets boring. It never
gets tedious. It never lingers on narratives. It's extremely well written. It is, in short, perfect. And as such, 10/10.
I heard an interview of Daniel Immerwahr on NPR news / WDET radio regarding this book.
I'm am quite conservative
and only listen to NPR news when it doesn't lean too far to the left.
However, the interview piqued my interest. I am so glad I
purchased this ebook. What a phenomenal and informative read!!! WOW!! It's a "I never knew that" kind of read. Certainly not anything
I was taught in school. This is thoughtful, well written and an easy read. Highly recommend!!
This is a very short book, almost an essay -- 136 pages. It was published in October 2004, four years before financial crisis of
2008, which put the first nail in the coffin of neoliberalism. It addresses the cultural politics of neo-liberalism ("the
Great Deception")
Notable quotes:
"... By now, we've all heard about the shocking redistribution of wealth that's occurred during the last thirty years, and particularly during the last decade. But economic changes like this don't occur in a vacuum; they're always linked to politics. ..."
"... Ultimately, The Twilight of Equality? not only reveals how the highly successful rhetorical maneuvers of neoliberalism have functioned ..."
"... The titles of her four chapters--Downsizing Democracy, The Incredible Shrinking Public, Equality, Inc., Love AND Money--summarize her argument. ..."
"... Her target is neoliberalism, which she sees as a broadly controlling corporate agenda which seeks world domination, privatization of governmental decision-making, and marginalization of unions, low-income people, racial and sexual minorities while presenting to the public a benign and inclusive facade. ..."
"... Neo-liberalism seeks to upwardly distribute money, power, and status, she writes, while progressive movements seek to downwardly distribute money, power, and status. The unity of the downwardly distribution advocates should match the unity of the upwardly distribution advocates in order to be effective, she writes. ..."
"... "There is nothing stable or inevitable in the alliances supporting neoliberal agendas in the U.S. and globally," she writes. "The alliances linking neoliberal global economics, and conservative and right-wing domestic politics, and the culture wars are provisional--and fading...." ..."
"... For example, she discusses neoliberal attempts to be "multicultural," but points out that economic resources are constantly redistributed upward. Neoliberal politics, she argues, has only reinforced and increased the divide between economic and social political issues. ..."
"... Because neoliberal politicians wish to save neoliberalism by reforming it, she argues that proposing alternate visions and ideas have been blocked. ..."
By now, we've all heard about the shocking redistribution of wealth that's occurred during the last thirty years, and
particularly during the last decade. But economic changes like this don't occur in a vacuum; they're always linked to politics.
The Twilight of Equality? searches out these links through an analysis of the politics of the 1990s, the decade when
neoliberalism-free market economics-became gospel.
After a brilliant historical examination of how racial and gender inequities were woven into the very theoretical underpinnings
of the neoliberal model of the state, Duggan shows how these inequities play out today. In a series of political case studies,
Duggan reveals how neoliberal goals have been pursued, demonstrating that progressive arguments that separate identity politics and
economic policy, cultural politics and affairs of state, can only fail.
Ultimately, The Twilight of Equality? not only reveals how the highly successful rhetorical maneuvers of neoliberalism have
functioned but, more importantly, it shows a way to revitalize and unify progressive politics in the U.S. today.
Mona Cohen 5.0 out of 5 stars A Critique of Neoliberalism and the Divided Resistance to It July 3, 2006
Lisa Duggan is intensely interested in American politics, and has found political life in the United States to have been "such
a wild ride, offering moments of of dizzying hope along with long stretches of political depression." She is grateful for "many
ideas about political depression, and how to survive it," and she has written a excellent short book that helps make sense of
many widely divergent political trends.
Her book is well-summarized by its concluding paragraph, which I am breaking up into additional paragraphs for greater
clarity:
"Now at this moment of danger and opportunity, the progressive left is mobilizing against neoliberalism and possible new or
continuing wars.
"These mobilizations might become sites for factional struggles over the disciplining of troops, in the name of unity at a
time of crisis and necessity. But such efforts will fail; the troops will not be disciplined, and the disciplinarians will be
left to their bitterness.
"Or, we might find ways of think, speaking, writing and acting that are engaged and curious about "other people's" struggles
for social justice, that are respectfully affiliative and dialogic rather than pedagogical, that that look for the hopeful spots
to expand upon, and that revel in the pleasure of political life.
"For it is pleasure AND collective caretaking, love AND the egalitarian circulation of money--allied to clear and hard-headed
political analysis offered generously--that will create the space for a progressive politics that might both imagine and
create...something worth living for."
The titles of her four chapters--Downsizing Democracy, The Incredible Shrinking Public, Equality, Inc., Love AND
Money--summarize her argument.
She expected upon her high school graduation in 1972, she writes, that "active and expanding social movements seemed capable
of ameliorating conditions of injustice and inequality, poverty, war and imperialism....I had no idea I was not perched at a
great beginning, but rather at a denouement, as the possibilities for progressive social change encountered daunting historical
setbacks beginning in 1972...."
Her target is neoliberalism, which she sees as a broadly controlling corporate agenda which seeks world domination,
privatization of governmental decision-making, and marginalization of unions, low-income people, racial and sexual minorities
while presenting to the public a benign and inclusive facade.
Neo-liberalism seeks to upwardly distribute money, power, and status, she writes, while progressive movements seek to
downwardly distribute money, power, and status. The unity of the downwardly distribution advocates should match the unity of the
upwardly distribution advocates in order to be effective, she writes.
Her belief is that all groups threatened by the neoliberal paradigm should unite against it, but such unity is threatened by
endless differences of perspectives. By minutely analyzing many of the differences, and expanding understanding of diverse
perspectives, she tries to remove them as obstacles towards people and organizations working together to achieve both unique and
common aims.
This is good book for those interested in the history and current significance of numerous progressive ideological arguments.
It is a good book for organizers of umbrella organizations and elected officials who work with diverse social movements. By
articulating points of difference, the author depersonalizes them and aids in overcoming them.
Those who are interested in electoral strategies, however, will be disappointed. The interrelationship between neoliberalism
as a governing ideology and neoliberalism as a political strategy is not discussed here. It is my view that greater and more
focused and inclusive political organizing has the potential to win over a good number of the those who see support of
neoliberalism's policy initiatives as a base-broadening tactic more than as a sacred cause.
"There is nothing stable or inevitable in the alliances supporting neoliberal agendas in the U.S. and globally," she
writes. "The alliances linking neoliberal global economics, and conservative and right-wing domestic politics, and the culture
wars are provisional--and fading...."
Reading this book adds to one's understanding of labels, and political and intellectual distinctions. It has too much jargon
for my taste, but not so much as to be impenetrable. It is an excellent summarization and synthesis of the goals, ideologies, and
histories of numerous social movements, both famous and obscure.
Duggan
articulately connects social and economic issues to each other, arguing that neoliberal
politics have divided the two when in actuality, they cannot be separated from one another.
In the introduction, Duggan argues that politics have become neoliberal - while politics
operate under the guise of promoting social change or social stability, in reality, she argues,
politicians have failed to make the connection between economic and social/cultural issues. She
uses historical background to prove the claim that economic and social issues can be separated
from each other is false.
For example, she discusses neoliberal attempts to be "multicultural," but points out that
economic resources are constantly redistributed upward. Neoliberal politics, she argues, has
only reinforced and increased the divide between economic and social political issues.
After the introduction, Duggan focuses on a specific topic in each chapter: downsizing
democracy, the incredible shrinking public, equality, and love and money. In the first chapter
(downsizing democracy), she argues that through violent imperial assertion in the Middle East,
budget cuts in social services, and disillusionments in political divides, "capitalists could
actually bring down capitalism" (p. 2).
Because neoliberal politicians wish to save neoliberalism by reforming it, she argues that
proposing alternate visions and ideas have been blocked. Duggan provides historical background
that help the reader connect early nineteenth century U.S. legislation (regarding voting rights
and slavery) to perpetuated institutional prejudices.
So yes the bull market in news is over, finito, kaput. Not forever of course but for now.
Cable TV news ratings were mixed in
Q1, but down significantly in March as the election faded into the rearview mirror.
michael 3 hours ago What kind of business model succeeds when it basically dismisses half of
it's potential customers as villains, and only markets to the other half? The simple answer is
that the business only stands half a chance at surviving. The media was healthier when it was
much less partisan or at least appeared to be. Reply 18 1 1 reply Donald 8 hours ago People now
understand that the large majority of our media is just a propaganda machine for the Democratic
party. Now that the Dems control virtually every level of power at the national level
(Congress, presidency, 90% media, large corporations, and most unions) it's hard for the media
to whip up that frenzy of hate they achieved when Trump was in office. The outsider and rebel
(Trump) is gone and the ultimate lifetime politician (Biden) is securely in office. The iron
grip of lifetime politicians on the throat of America has been achieved. Reply 27 7 2 replies
Donald 7 hours ago The drop is because most of the media was obsessed with bringing down the
outsider (Trump). Now that an establishment man and a lifetime Democrat politician is in
control, order has been restored. People were interested in the Trump bashing articles and
reports the media generated. Now, the media cannot be outraged because their guys (Dems)
control every lever of National power. Now everything is sunshine and roses (not true of
course) which doesn't generate as much interest.
Lester 10 hours ago I laughed out loud when I read "less non-partisan". Thanks for that. Reply
23 4 2 replies Pop 10 hours ago The "Media" business model is easy, and ancient. From the days
of the Roman criers, to todays digital print. Same model for 2500 years. You twist and distort
reality to attract a targeted audience, then you blast them with advertisements from your
sponsors. The problem is there is just too much. So you have to distort and fabricate reality
more and more and more. Until you have the insane Pravda stuff we have today.
My ultra-Liberal boss announced this AM, almost with a sense of glee, that COVID cases in
our county allegedly went back up so we'd be forced to submit to once-a-week testing
again....except for those who are vaccinated. They don't have to be tested. Immediately, I
piped up that that seemed odd the vaccinated didn't require testing seeing as the CDC says
that they can still Harbor & pass on the virus. She got pissed & screamed at me, "I
don't make the rules!". To which I responded, "If you'll notice, I never said you did. I
simply stated that the CDC says the vaccinated can still pass the virus so the rule they
don't need testing is contradictory to the "science". Either the vaccine you all are pushing
works...or it doesn't. Time for "the science" to be consistent or it's all a bunch of
crap."
I think it's pretty safe to say I won't be getting a glowing performance review this year.
Too bad... they're so flipping short-staffed she can't possibly afford to fire me.
Looks like the USA neoliberal elite has serious credibility problems. Neoliberal MSM are no longer trusted by significant strata
of the US population. This looks like "Back int he USSR" situation to me.
Notable quotes:
"... There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful presentation can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary by powerful outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding certain elements from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience. ..."
"... Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000 words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded biowarfare program. ..."
"... The same strain of the virus was found in GringoLandia as well as in Europe at earlier dates in 2019. CDC should come clean why they SHUT DOWN Fort Detrick lab in August 2019 and why they was called there in the first place. In 2019 people in the are had "mysterious vaping lung disease" which matches Covid-19. They had that exact virus there. ..."
"... WHO team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 virus is 'Not Allowed' in secret Pentagon biolabs around the world ..."
"... More likely - Developed at Fort Detrick, samples tested in Falklands and Spain in Feb, modified then sent to Wuhan using a patsy. Close Fort Detrick, blame the Chinese - Ultimate trade war weapon. ..."
"... They lied about bats, pangolins, Wuhan, masks, distancing, surface spread, asymptomatic spread, lock downs, and finally vaccines. Trust none of them. ..."
Looks like everything at Fort Detrick was up to standards.
.
'Army germ lab shut down by CDC in 2019 had several 'serious' protocol violations that year
Select agents are defined by the CDC as "biological agents and toxins that have been determined to have the potential to pose
a severe threat to public health and safety, to animal and plant health, or to animal or plant products.'
That was their own SAR's variant which caused the 'vaping crisis' absent the s1 cleavege spike protein. Still killed people,
nothing like as infectious.
As every fan of the old Perry Mason show remembers, courtroom witnesses swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth."
There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful
presentation can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary
by powerful outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding
certain elements from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience.
Two months ago I [Ron Unz] published a lengthy article summarizing much of the information from the first year of the outbreak
and focusing upon the heated debate regarding the origins of the virus. This compendium of crucial research has now received a
major addition, a 11,000 word analysis of the likely origins of Covid-19 by Nicholas Wade, a distinguished former science reporter
and editor, who had spent more than four decades at the New York Times, Science, and Nature , and the author of several excellent
books dealing with anthropology and evolutionary biology.
In the case of Covid-19, Wade demonstrates that once the political barriers have been removed and we are allowed to consider
the evidence objectively, our conclusions are transformed. The scientific case for the natural origins of the virus becomes pitifully
weak, thereby automatically elevating the competing lab-leak hypothesis, which had previously been denounced and stigmatized as
a so-called "conspiracy theory."
Having now twice read Wade's long article, I can say that I find nearly all of his scientific arguments quite compelling, and
I have almost no points of significant disagreement. Yet my overall conclusions are entirely different from his.
... ... ...
Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have
produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000
words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded
biowarfare program.
sarz 10 hours ago remove link
Ann Coulter says:
Wade claims to have no preference for one theory over another" he's just laying out the facts! But it's pretty clear that
he is coming down on the side of the lab theory.
He doesn't mention that 27 of the original 41 Chinese people who contracted COVID-19 had been to the Wuhan wet market, known
the world over for its delectable porcupine anus and snake innards. Several other carriers were family members of those infected
there. By contrast, no one from the Wuhan lab appears to have been infected.
She implies this is a weakness of Wade's laboratory hypothesis. But it's actually only so for the WUHAN laboratory hypothesis.
SoDamnMad 11 hours ago
Nothing more at Ft. Detrick than not have containment plans in place with a person assigned the responsibility. This goes on
all the time in the chemical industry where spill plans must be in place for every piece of equipment and an inspection by OSHA
or CDC catches these deficiencies. A higher level of concern at a facility like Ft. Detrick.
vova_3.2018 10 hours ago remove link
Looks like everything at Fort Detrick was up to standards.
The same strain of the virus was found in GringoLandia as well as in Europe at earlier dates in 2019. CDC should come clean
why they SHUT DOWN Fort Detrick lab in August 2019 and why they was called there in the first place. In 2019 people in the are
had "mysterious vaping lung disease" which matches Covid-19. They had that exact virus there.
More likely - Developed at Fort Detrick, samples tested in Falklands and Spain in Feb, modified then sent to Wuhan using
a patsy. Close Fort Detrick, blame the Chinese - Ultimate trade war weapon.
vril PRO 11 hours ago
Faucism
boyplunger7777 12 hours ago
They lied about bats, pangolins, Wuhan, masks, distancing, surface spread, asymptomatic spread, lock downs, and finally
vaccines. Trust none of them.
Suzy Q 12 hours ago
They lied about JFK
Uri Finberg 12 hours ago
No. They KILLED JFK. The Democrats rigged the election. The Globalists wanted JFK to beat Nixon. So they rigged the election
just like Trump vs. Biden.
JFK was going to be the rock star President like Obama. He was going to be the hip Hollywood President that would lead the
youth to destruction.
Then JFK wised up. When he found out they rigged the election and he didn't actually win he started thinking about it. He was
ready to take down the Deep State, Globalists, Secret Societies whatever you want to call it. He was ready to drain the swamp
so they killed him. They killed him, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. They didn't take out Trump because
they manipulated him to push the "vaccine" depopulation agenda instead. They used Trump until they could rig the next election.
Suzy Q 12 hours ago
Yes, they killed JFK, but they also lied about JFK
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
And they're still lying . . . and many are still buying.
Suzy Q 11 hours ago (Edited)
They lied about Russia, Russia, Russia, weapons of mass destruction, throwing babies from incubators onto the cold, hard floor
in Kuwait, Bengazi, Epstein killing himself.
They lied about vaccines not causing autism, about HIV/AIDS, about the rainbow belonging to the gays.They lie about lying.
They cannot help themselves, it is their nature to lie.
EcoJoker PREMIUM 12 hours ago
I would bet it had more to do with JFK about to take the reigns on money printing. A week before he was to sign that EO, he
was shot.
keeper20 10 hours ago (Edited)
DOOD, research this:
Nixon was hired after answering a classified ad in the LA Times for auditions for the part of a politician to run for political
office. the man who bought the ad, held the interviews, and hired him was prescott walker bush. nixon was a lackey of the nazi
vril paperclip bunch.
Nimby 12 hours ago
People keep wondering when the next civil war/revolution/world war/whatever is going to start. It already has. First rule of
war: Know when you're in one.
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
All warfare is based on deception. ~ Sun Tzu
The first casualty of war is truth. ~ Aeschylus
. . . the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in
any country. ~ Herman Goering
Looks like the USA neoliberal elite has serious credibility problems. Neoliberal MSM are no longer trusted by significant strata
of the US population. This looks like "Back int he USSR" situation to me.
Notable quotes:
"... There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful presentation can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary by powerful outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding certain elements from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience. ..."
"... Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000 words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded biowarfare program. ..."
"... The same strain of the virus was found in GringoLandia as well as in Europe at earlier dates in 2019. CDC should come clean why they SHUT DOWN Fort Detrick lab in August 2019 and why they was called there in the first place. In 2019 people in the are had "mysterious vaping lung disease" which matches Covid-19. They had that exact virus there. ..."
"... WHO team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 virus is 'Not Allowed' in secret Pentagon biolabs around the world ..."
"... More likely - Developed at Fort Detrick, samples tested in Falklands and Spain in Feb, modified then sent to Wuhan using a patsy. Close Fort Detrick, blame the Chinese - Ultimate trade war weapon. ..."
"... They lied about bats, pangolins, Wuhan, masks, distancing, surface spread, asymptomatic spread, lock downs, and finally vaccines. Trust none of them. ..."
Looks like everything at Fort Detrick was up to standards.
.
'Army germ lab shut down by CDC in 2019 had several 'serious' protocol violations that year
Select agents are defined by the CDC as "biological agents and toxins that have been determined to have the potential to pose
a severe threat to public health and safety, to animal and plant health, or to animal or plant products.'
That was their own SAR's variant which caused the 'vaping crisis' absent the s1 cleavege spike protein. Still killed people,
nothing like as infectious.
As every fan of the old Perry Mason show remembers, courtroom witnesses swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth."
There's a reason for that particular choice of words. A pattern of selective omissions in an otherwise entirely truthful
presentation can easily mislead us as much as any outright lie. And under certain circumstances, such omissions may be made necessary
by powerful outside forces, so that even the most well-intentioned writer is faced with the difficult choice of either excluding
certain elements from his analysis or having his important work denied a proper audience.
Two months ago I [Ron Unz] published a lengthy article summarizing much of the information from the first year of the outbreak
and focusing upon the heated debate regarding the origins of the virus. This compendium of crucial research has now received a
major addition, a 11,000 word analysis of the likely origins of Covid-19 by Nicholas Wade, a distinguished former science reporter
and editor, who had spent more than four decades at the New York Times, Science, and Nature , and the author of several excellent
books dealing with anthropology and evolutionary biology.
In the case of Covid-19, Wade demonstrates that once the political barriers have been removed and we are allowed to consider
the evidence objectively, our conclusions are transformed. The scientific case for the natural origins of the virus becomes pitifully
weak, thereby automatically elevating the competing lab-leak hypothesis, which had previously been denounced and stigmatized as
a so-called "conspiracy theory."
Having now twice read Wade's long article, I can say that I find nearly all of his scientific arguments quite compelling, and
I have almost no points of significant disagreement. Yet my overall conclusions are entirely different from his.
... ... ...
Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade's 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have
produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000
words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America's well-documented and lavishly funded
biowarfare program.
sarz 10 hours ago remove link
Ann Coulter says:
Wade claims to have no preference for one theory over another" he's just laying out the facts! But it's pretty clear that
he is coming down on the side of the lab theory.
He doesn't mention that 27 of the original 41 Chinese people who contracted COVID-19 had been to the Wuhan wet market, known
the world over for its delectable porcupine anus and snake innards. Several other carriers were family members of those infected
there. By contrast, no one from the Wuhan lab appears to have been infected.
She implies this is a weakness of Wade's laboratory hypothesis. But it's actually only so for the WUHAN laboratory hypothesis.
SoDamnMad 11 hours ago
Nothing more at Ft. Detrick than not have containment plans in place with a person assigned the responsibility. This goes on
all the time in the chemical industry where spill plans must be in place for every piece of equipment and an inspection by OSHA
or CDC catches these deficiencies. A higher level of concern at a facility like Ft. Detrick.
vova_3.2018 10 hours ago remove link
Looks like everything at Fort Detrick was up to standards.
The same strain of the virus was found in GringoLandia as well as in Europe at earlier dates in 2019. CDC should come clean
why they SHUT DOWN Fort Detrick lab in August 2019 and why they was called there in the first place. In 2019 people in the are
had "mysterious vaping lung disease" which matches Covid-19. They had that exact virus there.
More likely - Developed at Fort Detrick, samples tested in Falklands and Spain in Feb, modified then sent to Wuhan using
a patsy. Close Fort Detrick, blame the Chinese - Ultimate trade war weapon.
vril PRO 11 hours ago
Faucism
boyplunger7777 12 hours ago
They lied about bats, pangolins, Wuhan, masks, distancing, surface spread, asymptomatic spread, lock downs, and finally
vaccines. Trust none of them.
Suzy Q 12 hours ago
They lied about JFK
Uri Finberg 12 hours ago
No. They KILLED JFK. The Democrats rigged the election. The Globalists wanted JFK to beat Nixon. So they rigged the election
just like Trump vs. Biden.
JFK was going to be the rock star President like Obama. He was going to be the hip Hollywood President that would lead the
youth to destruction.
Then JFK wised up. When he found out they rigged the election and he didn't actually win he started thinking about it. He was
ready to take down the Deep State, Globalists, Secret Societies whatever you want to call it. He was ready to drain the swamp
so they killed him. They killed him, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. They didn't take out Trump because
they manipulated him to push the "vaccine" depopulation agenda instead. They used Trump until they could rig the next election.
Suzy Q 12 hours ago
Yes, they killed JFK, but they also lied about JFK
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
And they're still lying . . . and many are still buying.
Suzy Q 11 hours ago (Edited)
They lied about Russia, Russia, Russia, weapons of mass destruction, throwing babies from incubators onto the cold, hard floor
in Kuwait, Bengazi, Epstein killing himself.
They lied about vaccines not causing autism, about HIV/AIDS, about the rainbow belonging to the gays.They lie about lying.
They cannot help themselves, it is their nature to lie.
EcoJoker PREMIUM 12 hours ago
I would bet it had more to do with JFK about to take the reigns on money printing. A week before he was to sign that EO, he
was shot.
keeper20 10 hours ago (Edited)
DOOD, research this:
Nixon was hired after answering a classified ad in the LA Times for auditions for the part of a politician to run for political
office. the man who bought the ad, held the interviews, and hired him was prescott walker bush. nixon was a lackey of the nazi
vril paperclip bunch.
Nimby 12 hours ago
People keep wondering when the next civil war/revolution/world war/whatever is going to start. It already has. First rule of
war: Know when you're in one.
Not Your Father's ZH 12 hours ago
All warfare is based on deception. ~ Sun Tzu
The first casualty of war is truth. ~ Aeschylus
. . . the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in
any country. ~ Herman Goering
There are reasons to be skeptical. After decades of stonewalling on the issue, suddenly
American military chiefs appear to be giving credence to claims of UFOs invading Earth.
Several viral video clips purporting to show
extraordinary flying technology have been "confirmed" by the Pentagon as authentic. The
Pentagon move is unprecedented.
The videos of the Unidentified Flying Objects were taken by U.S. air force flight crews or
by naval surveillance and subsequently "leaked" to the public. The question is: were the
"leaks" authorized by Pentagon spooks to stoke the public imagination of visitors from space?
The Pentagon doesn't actually say what it believes the UFOs are, only that the videos are
"authentic".
A Senate intelligence committee is to receive a report
from the Department of Defense's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force next month.
That has also raised public interest in the possibility of alien life breaching our skies
equipped with physics-defying technology far superior to existing supersonic jets and
surveillance systems.
Several other questions come to mind that beg skepticism. Why does the phenomenon of UFOs or
UAP only seem to be associated with the American military? This goes back decades to the
speculation during the 1950s about aliens crashing at Roswell in New Mexico. Why is it that
only the American military seems privy to such strange encounters? Why not the Russian or
Chinese military which would have comparable detection technology to the Americans but they
don't seem to have made any public disclosures on alien encounters? Such a discrepancy is
implausible unless we believe that life-forms from lightyears away have a fixation solely on
the United States. That's intergalactic American "exceptionalism" for you!
Also, the alleged sightings of UFOs invariably are associated with U.S. military training
grounds or high-security areas.
Moreover, the released videos that have spurred renewed public interest in UFOs are always
suspiciously of poor quality, grainy and low resolution. Several researchers, such as Mick
West, have cogently debunked
the videos as optical illusions. That's not to say that the U.S. air force or naval personnel
were fabricating the images. They may genuinely believe that they were witnessing something
extraordinary. But as rational optics experts have pointed out there are mundane explanations
for seeming unusual aerial observations, such as drones or balloons drifting at high speed in
differential wind conditions, or by the crew mistaking a far-off aircraft dipping over the
horizon for an object they believe to be much closer.
The military people who take the videos in good – albeit misplaced – faith about
what they are witnessing are not the same as the military or intelligence people who see an
opportunity with the videos to exploit the public in a psychological operation.
Fomenting public anxieties, or even just curiosity, about aliens and super-technology is an
expedient way to exert control over the population. At a time when governing authorities are
being questioned by a distrustful public and when military-intelligence establishments are
viewed as having lost a sense of purpose, what better way to realign public respect by getting
them to fret over alien marauders from whom they need protection?
There is here a close analogy to the way foreign nations are portrayed as adversaries and
enemies in order to marshal public support or least deference to the governing establishment
and its military. We see this ploy played over and over again with regard to the U.S. and
Western demonization of Russia and China as somehow conveying a malign intent towards Western
societies. In other words, it's a case of Cold War and UFOs from the same ideological
launchpad, so to speak, in order to distract public attention from internal problems.
However, more worrying still is that there is a dangerous reinforcing crossover of the two
propaganda realms. The fueling of UFO speculation is feeding directly into
speculation that U.S. airspace is being invaded by high-tech weapons developed by Russia or
China.
U.S. lawmakers are demanding answers from the Pentagon about whether the aerial "encounters"
are advanced weaponry from foreign enemies who are surveilling the American homeland at will.
Some U.S. air force aviators have recently expressed to the
media a feeling of helplessness in the face of seeming superior technology.
At a time of heightened animosity towards Russia and China and febrile talk among Pentagon
chiefs about the
possibility of all-out war, it is not difficult to imagine, indeed it is disturbingly easy
to imagine, how optical illusions about alien phenomena could trigger false alarms attributed
to Russian or Chinese military incursions.
The stoking of UFO controversy appears to be a classic psyops perpetrated by U.S. military
intelligence for the objective of population control. Its aim is to corral the citizenry under
the authority of the state and for them to accept the protector function of "our" military. The
big trouble is that the psyops with aliens are, in turn, risking the exacerbation of fears and
tensions with Russia and China.
With all the Pentagon-assisted chatter, it is more likely that an F-18 squadron could
mistake an errant weather balloon on the horizon for an alien spacecraft. And amid our new Cold
War tensions, it is but a small conceptual step to further imagine that the UFO is not from
outer space but rather is a Russian or Chinese hypersonic cruise missile heading towards the
U.S. mainland.
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
"Welcome to an Orwellian Brave New World!
Orwell's (1984) words were prescient. Huxley (Brave New World) was a school teacher of
Orwell's at Eton College. They both attended elite symposiums in the 1920s and 30s where all
of this was discussed in complete seriousness sort of like early versions of Bilderberger
meetings. So the accuracy of their books was no accident they actually KNEW what was being
planned. Huxley just emphasized the more SOCIALIST elements while Orwell emphasized the more
FASCIST elements they were both right, because both aspects were always part of the plan.
It's obvious that the Rulers always intended to use both approaches as part of their CONTROL
structure.
Looking at their personal lives and backgrounds, it appears that Orwell was trying to warn
us. Huxley was much more of a British upper crust blue blood. He seemed to be in agreement
with what the Rulers were planning, and along with his brother Julian he was actually helping
them. They both knew what was coming.
Were they used as textbooks by the Rulers? It's just that the general public aren't as
worried about controlling the masses as the Rulers' are."
"Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence -- those are the three pillars of
Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse."
– Aldous Huxley
Ouch, Huxley chops at the roots. This quote is profound. If you were to connect dots what
do you see?
One can't blame everything on Israel. Yes, it is part of five eyes, more like SIX
eyes.
Biden (JB) is building a coalition to challenge China. JB's administration wants to
neutralize Russia. Nord Stream 2 is an element of contention and by making a concession JB is
making Germany and Russia happy. Agree, that its completion will be a "huge geopolitical win
for Putin". Let's see when Nord Stream 2 becomes fully operational. Time will tell.
Russia's main focus is De-Dollarization, stability in Russia and in its neighborhood.
China's announcement about Bitcoin led to it dropping by 30%. What will China, Russia,
Turkey and Iran announcement about the U$A dollar do to its value and the market? When will
China become the #1 ECONOMY?
The US is now the largest provider of LNG, so there is relatively little more financial
advantage to be gained from a direct confrontation with Germany or Russia. Political maybe,
but the dedollarisation is starting to take hold. (Aside; even Israel depends on the strength
of the dollar to continue, like musical chairs, when the music stops there will be
precious few chairs left ). The Gas/Oil lobbies in the US who are behind the sanctions
may have some other trick up their sleeve, but the deflation of Zelensky in Ukraine, and the
opening up of a steal-fest of Ukrainian assets might compensate.
***
Note that the West has closed Syrian Embassies so as to stop Syrians voting for Assad. They
steal it's oil, and Syria is still next to Israel and doing relatively well in spite of
tanker bombings, and missiles. It is also possible that, as you say, there is a price for
non-interference in Israel itself.
Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that he opposes teaching critical race theory
in the state's public schools, calling the ideas pushed by its advocates as "based on false
history" and "teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other."
DeSantis made the remarks at a Friday press
conference in Pensacola, where he announced the
signing of a bill temporarily establishing several statewide tax-free periods on items like
storm supplies and back-to-school products.
"It's offensive to the taxpayer that they would be asked to fund critical race theory,
that they would be asked to fund teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other,"
DeSantis said.
Floridа Gov. Ron DeSantis is seen during a meeting at the governor's office in
Tallahassee, Fla., on April 1, 2021. (The Epoch Times)
In a
recent interview on NTD's "Focus Talk," Yiatin Chu, an Asian mother of two and co-chair of
the New York chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), described
critical race theory as pushing the idea that disparate outcomes, such as academic competency
scores, can be reduced to a single variable""race.
Advocates of the theory, which she said is increasingly being taught at pre-college levels,
push the socialist notion of equality of outcome, and blame differences in outcomes on
entrenched privilege while dividing people into "oppressors" and their victims, the
"oppressed."
Republicans across the nation are trying to prevent the teaching of critical race theory in
classrooms.
Recently, South Dakota's Republican Gov. Kristi Noem took aim at both the "1619 Project" and
critical race theory and, like DeSantis, voiced opposition to their incorporation in school
curriculums.
"The 1619 Project relies upon the concept of Critical Race Theory to further divide
students based on the color of their skin," Noem wrote in a series of tweets
Friday.
"This is inappropriate and un-American. It has no place in South Dakota, and it certainly
has no place in South Dakota classrooms."
In this screenshot from the RNC's livestream of the 2020 Republican National Convention,
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem addresses the virtual convention on Aug. 26, 2020. (Courtesy of
the Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images)
The "1619 Project," inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine,
attempts to cast the Atlantic slave trade as the dominant factor in the founding of America
instead of ideals such as individual liberty and natural rights. The initiative has been widely
panned by historians and political scientists, with some critics calling it a bid to rewrite
U.S. history through a left-wing lens.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project, responded to the GOP criticism
of the project during an interview with MSNBC on May 3, saying the 1619 curriculum being
allowed in schools is a matter of free speech.
"This isn't a project about trying to teach children that our country is evil, but it is a
project trying to teach children the truth about what our country was based upon, and it's
only in really confronting that truth""slavery was foundational to the United States, we,
after the slavery, experienced 100 years of legalized discrimination against black
Americans," said Hannah-Jones.
"Mitch McConnell and others like him want for our children to get a propagandistic,
nationalistic understanding of history that is not about facts, but it is about how they
would want to pretend that our country is."
Proponents of critical race theory
have argued that it's needed to demonstrate what they say is "pervasive systemic racism"
and facilitate rooting it out.
Critics draw parallels between critical race theory and Marxism, arguing that the concept
advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market
economy, and orthodox religions, while demanding that they be replaced with institutions
compliant with the critical race theory ideology.
Sky News host Rowan Dean says proof of how the Biden administration "is being run behind the
scenes by hardcore neo-Marxists" is the administration's embrace of the Durban Declaration.
"She's done as a member of leadership. I don't understand what she's doing," one former
House GOP lawmaker told The Hill of Cheney's ongoing attacks on former President Trump. " It's
like political self-immolation. You can't cancel Trump from the Republican Party; all she's
done is cancel herself. "
Cheney has repeatedly attacked Trump for 'inciting' the Jan. 6 'insurrection' despite
telling supporters to protest peacefully and then go home following the breach of the
Capitol.
GOP leaders hope that purging Cheney from the leadership ranks will move Republicans
beyond their civil war over Trump" one that's raged publicly since the Jan. 6 attack on the
Capitol" and allow the party to unite behind a midterm campaign message that President Biden
and the Democrats are too liberal for the country. - The
Hill
"There are still a few members that are talking about things that happened in the past, not
really focused on what we need to do to move forward and win the majority back next year,"
according to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), the minority whip. "We're going to have to be unified
if we defeat the socialist agenda you're seeing in Washington."
A victory by Stefanik would mark a symbolic shift back towards Trump by leading Republicans
- as the former president remains highly engaged this election cycle and has threatened to
politically obliterate any remaining GOP opposition.
"By ousting her, what we're saying is: We are repudiating your repudiation of the Trump
policies and the Trump agenda and her attacks on the president," according to Rep. Andy Biggs
(R-AZ), adding " President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. And when she's out
there attacking him, she's attacking the leader of the Republican Party ."
Cheney has already survived one challenge to her leadership post, in February, after she
infuriated conservatives by voting to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol rampage on Jan.
6. With the backing of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), she easily kept
her seat as conference chair, 145 to 61 by secret ballot.
With McCarthy and Scalise fed up with Cheney and now backing Stefanik, the 36-year-old New
Yorker is expected to prevail in Wednesday's contest" a would-be victory for leaders who have
failed to unite the conference behind a post-Trump strategy in the early months of the Biden
administration. - The
Hill
... ... ...
Cheney isn't the only House Republican facing backlash for taking on Trump. Earlier in the
week, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of seven Republican senators who voted this year to
convict Trump, was booed and called a traitor at the Utah GOP state convention, where he
narrowly beat back an effort to censure him.
On Friday, the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee voted to censure Rep. Anthony
Gonzalez (R-Ohio), Cheney and the eight other House Republicans who backed Trump's
impeachment in January. The Ohio GOP also formally called for Gonzalez's resignation.
... ... ...
Catullus 51 minutes ago
I don't care if Trump runs again just as long as these gross establishment Republicans
are thrown out on their asses
JoeyChernenko PREMIUM 39 minutes ago (Edited)
Romney is a real traitorous worm. Did you hear him say Biden is a good man with good
intentions when the Utah crowd was booing his worthless hide? And we need to make sure the
Bush dynasty remains out of power.
Anath 51 minutes ago remove link
the cheney family is pure evil. that is all.
chinese.sniffles 52 minutes ago
Why Would Wyoming choose Chenney, after all that evil that **** brought upon America. If
there was no ****, Obama would never get elected.
chunga 47 minutes ago remove link
Cynics suspect primaries are also rigged.
Basecamp3 PREMIUM 50 minutes ago
Comstock is a traitor that never read the Navarro Report which goes into detail of
how the election was stolen. Also, ousting Cheney has zero risk. She is stupid, weak, and
her own constituents hate her.
overbet 50 minutes ago
which has caused some GOP leaders to fear alienating female Republican voters,
particularly educated suburbanites who will be key votes in the 2022 elections.
The female republicans I know are smarter than that. All of them
Grave Dancer 22 38 minutes ago remove link
Liz's sociopath dad **** got hundreds of thousands killed based on a total fraud lie of
a war. And Liz has a problem with Trump because he tweets some unfiltered stuff once in a
while? Freaking kidding me? ay_arrow
GhostOLaz 37 minutes ago
Don't blame Liz, she has a legacy of treason to protect, Daddy removed the only secular
anti Communist govt in the middle East which protected Christains and religious
minorities...
gaaasp 20 minutes ago (Edited)
Women could wear pants and not be burkahed up in Syria and Libya and Iraq before
Bush/Clinton/Obama/Trump sent troops.
chunga 49 minutes ago
I don't want to give up on the process but the GOP has a lot of work to do.
nmewn 39 minutes ago
The thing about "us" is, when we find them we jettison them. Cantor was another one. She
voted to impeach an outgoing President who's trial she knew would be held AFTER he was out
of office and again just an average American citizen holding no federal office at all.
She is either incompetent, stupid (or both) or a cancer the GOP can live with excised
from the body.
Make_Mine_A_Double 40 minutes ago
Peggy Noonan really came out the closet in this weekend's WSJ with editorial of Liz
Chaney against the House of Cowards.
They are 2 of the same. We've had these demsheviks in the ranks for decades. Noonan
takes it in the anoose at dem cocktail parties and is Team Mascot for the RINOs.
Tucker finally exposed that filth Luntz. McCathry is actually living with him in one of
his apartments - I assume it's not platonic in nature.
This is why Trump could never even the bottom of the swamp....g.d. RINOs need to purged
with the extreme prejudice.
the Mysterians 40 minutes ago
War pig.
in deditionem acceptos 48 minutes ago
Liz will survive the vote. Too much graff from the MIC to get her out. McCarthey could
of got her out in Feb if he wanted. Wonder what honey pot he's dipping into?
A Girl In Flyover Country 43 minutes ago
She won't survive the Wyoming voters, though.
Cogito_ergosum 52 minutes ago (Edited)
She is protecting her dad who was part of the inside gang that carried out the...
demolition of the twin towers on 911...
Flying Monkees 37 minutes ago (Edited)
BS. The tribe's fingerprints were all over 9/11 as documented in extensive detail by
Christopher Bollyn.
JoeyChernenko PREMIUM 53 minutes ago
Don't any of these evil families ever just fade into oblivion? Bush, Cheney, Clinton,
Obama, etc.
beavertails 50 minutes ago
Extending and pretending there are choices when there aren't any. The MIC got this. The
"Prez" is just show to sell ads and steal, I mean raise fiat from the gullible.
"... I can't wait to see the 1000 foot long cargo ships, the 80,000 pound carrying semi trailers, the 42 million pound trains and above all (sorry) the 400 passenger jet airliners run off of solar panels or wind generators. Especially the airliners using a windmill! (We used to have much of this. It was called "the Age of Sail"). ..."
I can't wait to see the 1000 foot long cargo ships, the 80,000 pound carrying semi
trailers, the 42 million pound trains and above all (sorry) the 400 passenger jet airliners
run off of solar panels or wind generators. Especially the airliners using a windmill! (We
used to have much of this. It was called "the Age of Sail").
In other words, we can have globalism with its demands for unlimited movement of goods and
people or we can have local economies, autarky and nativism. The globalists who claim to care
about carbon footprints are being disingenuous.
It should serve as a warning. 14 years ago, obscure corners of banking businesses became
hotbeds of regulatory arbitrage, speculation and leverage. The contagion of US subprime brought
the financial system to its knees. Now, after years of low or negative interest rates, equity
finance may have become a similar hotbed.
Money quite from comments: " more importantly it is devastating information about the dishonesty of our government. What have we
come to? What recourse is available?"
The man cast as a linchpin of debunked Trump-Russia collusion theories is breaking his silence to vigorously dispute the U.S.
government's effort to brand him a Russian spy and put him behind bars.
In an exclusive interview with RealClearInvestigations, Konstantin Kilimnik stated, "I have no relationship whatsoever to any
intelligence services, be they Russian or Ukrainian or American, or anyone else."
Konstantin Kilimnik: Decries the U.S. government's "senseless and false accusations." AP Photo
Kilimnik, a longtime employee of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, spoke out in response to an explosive
Treasury Department statement declaring that he
had "provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" during the 2016 election.
That press release, which announced an array of sanctions on Russian nationals last month, also alleged that Kilimnik is a "known
Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf."
Treasury 's
claim came shortly after two other accusatory U.S. government statements about the dual Ukrainian-Russian national. In March,
a U.S. Intelligence Community
Assessment accused Kilimnik of being a "Russian influence agent" who meddled in the 2020 campaign to assist Trump's reelection.
A month earlier, an FBI
alert offered $250,000 for information leading to his arrest over a 2018 witness tampering charge in Manafort's shuttered Ukraine
lobbying case, which was unrelated to Russia, collusion, or any elections.
Treasury provided no evidence for its claims, which go beyond the findings of the two most extensive Russiagate investigations:
the 448-page report issued in 2019 by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the 966-page report issued in August 2020 by the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence.
Treasury has declined all media requests for elaboration on how it reached conclusions that those probes did not. Two unidentified
officials
told NBC News that U.S. intelligence "has developed new information" about Kilimnik "that leads them to believe " (emphasis
added) that he passed on the polling data to Russia. But these sources "did not identify the source or type of intelligence that
had been developed," nor "when or how" it was received.
"Nobody has seen any evidence to support these claims about Kilimnik," a congressional source familiar with the House and Senate's
multiple Russia-related investigations told RCI.
Adam Schiff: Treated the Treasury claim about Kilimnik as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. "That's what most people would call collusion,"
he said. (Al Drago/Pool via AP)
Despite the absence of evidence, the Treasury press release's one-sentence claim about Kilimnik has been widely greeted as the
Trump-Russia smoking gun. Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC that Treasury's
assertion about Kilimnik proved that Russian intelligence was "involved in trying to help Trump win in that [2016] election. That's
what most people would call collusion."
Speaking to RCI in fluent English from his home in Moscow, Kilimnik, 51, described these U.S. government assertions as "senseless
and false accusations."
His comments are backed up by documents, some previously unreported, as well as by Rick Gates, a longtime Manafort associate and
key Mueller probe cooperating witness. (Gates pleaded guilty to making a false statement and to failing to register as a foreign
agent in connection to his lobbying work in Ukraine.) The evidence raises doubts about new efforts to revive the Trump-Kremlin collusion
narrative by casting Kilimnik as a central Russian figure.
"They needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," Kilimnik said.
Highlights from the interview and RCI's related reporting:
Kilimnik denies passing 2016 polling data to Russian intelligence, or any Russian for that matter. Instead, Kilimnik says
he shared publicly available, general information about the 2016 American presidential race to Ukrainian clients of Manafort's
in a bid to recover old debts and drum up new business. Gates told RCI that the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about
Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable narrative. The U.S. government has never publicly produced the polling data
at issue, nor any evidence that it was shared with Russia.
Despite his centrality to the Trump-Russia saga, Kilimnik says no U.S. government official has ever tried get in touch with
him. "I never had a single contact with [the] FBI or any government official," Kilimnik says.
Kilimnik shared documents that contradict the Special Counsel's effort to prove that he has Russian intelligence "ties." Photos
and video of his Russian passport and a U.S. visa in his name, shared with RCI , undermine the Mueller report's claim that Kilimnik
visited the United States on a Russian "diplomatic passport" in 1997. To judge from the images, he travelled on a civilian
passport and obtained a regular U.S. visa. The Mueller team has never produced the "diplomatic passport."
Kilimnik denies traveling to Spain to meet Manafort in 2017. If true, this would undercut the Mueller team's claim that Manafort
lied in denying such a meeting. That denial was used to help secure a 2019 court ruling that Manafort breached a cooperation agreement.
The Special Counsel never furnished evidence for the alleged Madrid encounter.
While the Treasury Department and Senate Intelligence Committee claim that Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer, no
U.S. security or intelligence agency has adopted this characterization.
Kilimnik has never been charged with anything related to espionage, Russia, collusion, or the 2016 election. Instead, the
Mueller team indicted Kilimnik on witness-tampering charges in a case pertaining to Manafort's lobbying work in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, t he FBI's $250,000 bounty for Kilimnik is larger than most rewards it offers for the capture of violent fugitives,
including those accused of child murder .
Reviving the Polling Data Conspiracy Theory
Kilminik has provided an inviting target for proponents of Trump-Russia conspiracy theories. He was born in 1970 in Ukraine when
it was part of the Soviet Union, and later worked for Paul Manafort as a translator and aide there. This background makes him one
of the few people in the broad Trump 2016 campaign orbit to possess a Russian passport.
To this Mueller and others have added a series of ambiguous and disputed allegations to say that the FBI "assesses" him to "have
ties to Russian intelligence." This characterization, first made in a 2017 court filing, quickly transmogrified into a presumed fact
of the collusion narrative.
Rather than prosecute Manafort for any crime related to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the Mueller team instead pursued
him on financial and lobbying charges involving his pre-Trump stint as a political consultant in Ukraine. In 2018, it accused Kilimnik
of seeking to pressure two "potential witnesses" by sending them text messages about Manafort's Ukraine lobbying work.
As the Russia probe came to a close without a single indictment related to a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy, the Mueller team used Kilimnik
to suggest collusion without formally alleging it.
In January 2019, the Mueller team accused Manafort of breaching their cooperation agreement by lying about his interactions with
his Russian employee. Topping the list were alleged false statements about
sharing election
polling data with Kilimnik in 2016.
Andrew Weissmann: Despite this lead Mueller prosecutor's suggestion otherwise, the Mueller report "did not identify evidence of a
connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," as the report itself stated. NYU Law
"This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think is the motive here," lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann
told Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the
special counsel's office is investigating."
Weissmann's musings became collusion fodder. Media pundits and influential Democrats, namely Congressional intelligence leaders
Schiff and Mark Warner, speculated that Kilimnik shared Trump campaign polling data with Russian intelligence officers as they allegedly
worked to turn the election in Trump's favor. "This appears as the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion," Warner
told CNN . "Clearly, Manafort was trying to collude
with Russian agents."
But soon after, the Mueller team quietly undercut Weissmann's "larger view" and the conspiratorial innuendo that it had fueled.
One month after igniting the frenzy about the polling data, Weissmann submitted a
heavily
redacted court filing that
walked back some of his
claims. The following month, the Special Counsel's final report acknowledged that its musings and speculations about Kilimnik could
not be corroborated. The Mueller team not only "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data
and Russia's interference in the election," as the report stated, but also "could not assess what Kilimnik (or others he may have
given it to) did with it."
Rick Gates: Ex-Manafort aide says the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable
narrative. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
"I have no idea who made up the lies about 'detailed' or 'sensitive' polling data, or why they did it," Kilimnik says. "They were
mostly quotes of the polls from the media, such as LA Times and others. They would be 'Clinton "" 43, Trump "" 42.' Never anything
more detailed. I never got even a page printed out with either polling data or any other info."
This public data was shared, Kilimnik says, with Ukrainian clients of Manafort's as part of both regular political chatter and
an effort to encourage future business. "I shared this info with a lot of our clients in Ukraine, who were closely following the
race and who were excited about Paul working for [Trump]," Kilimnik says.
If any government official did receive his polling data, Kilimnik adds, they were not Russian but rather from Ukraine or even
the United States. "I would share it with our political contacts in Ukraine, basically to keep their interest to Paul and our Ukrainian
business alive. Also I shared it with the U.S. and other embassies, basically offering the opinion that the election is not over."
Kilimnik's account is corroborated by Gates, the ex-Manafort associate and Trump campaign official whose testimony was used by
the Mueller team "" deceptively, he says "" to suggest a connection between the polling data and possible Trump-Russia collusion.
The Special Counsel's office "relied heavily on Mr. Gates for evidence" about the polling data, the
New York Times noted in
February 2019.
According to Gates, that reliance entailed significant creative license by Mueller's prosecutors, particularly Weissmann. Gates
says he told the Special Counsel's Office that the polling data was not sensitive information, but rather publicly available figures
taken from media outlets.
"I explained to them, over the course of many interviews, what the polling data was about, and why it was being shared," Gates
told RCI. "All that was exchanged was old, topline data from public polls and from some internal polls, but all dated, nothing in
real time. So for example, Trump 48, Clinton 46. It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. No documents were
ever shared or disclosed. And this is part of what Mueller left out of the report. They cherry-picked and built a narrative that
really was not true, because they had pre-determined the conclusion."
Happier times: Manafort and colleagues, with Kilimnik far left and the boss seated in white shirt, red tie. AP Photo
Asked why Manafort shared any polling data with clients in Ukraine, Kilimnik and Gates stressed the same reason: money. "The were
some outstanding debts, which we were working to get repaid, which never happened," Kilimnik says. "And there was also Paul's reputation.
He was very well known to a lot of people in Kiev, and he hoped [he] could generate some new business" by showcasing his work for
Trump's campaign.
"This was a way that Paul was using to let people in Ukraine know that he was doing very well in the United States running the
election of Donald Trump, and that he was trying to collect the remaining fees that he was owed," for prior work in Ukraine, Gates
says. "He was trying to position himself. This is not unlike any other political operative, Republican or Democrat, in politics.
They all do it."
The Mueller report itself quietly bolsters Gates' and Kilimnik's converging recollections. "Gates' account about polling data
is consistent [redacted]," it states, ""¦ with multiple emails that Kilimnik sent to U.S. associates and press contacts" in the summer
of 2016. "Those emails referenced 'internal polling,' described the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's role in it, and assessed
Trump' s prospects for victory." The corresponding footnote cites eight emails from Kilimnik to these "U.S. associates and press
contacts." This indicates that the Mueller team obtained direct evidence of the polling data that was shared; how it was discussed;
and with whom it was shared.
Rather than highlight the Kilimnik emails that it obtained, and Gates' account that the polling data was shared for financial
reasons, the Mueller report mentioned this information only in passing and ultimately concluded that it "could not reliably determine
Manafort's purpose in sharing" the information.
Weissmann did not respond to a request for comment.
The Kilimnik Passport Kilimnik's passport from the time in question "" to judge from photos and a video he shared with RCI
"" was issued in the standard red ... Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations ... not in the green of the diplomatic corps.
Mueller cited a Kilimnik "diplomatic passport" as evidence of "ties to Russian intelligence." Government of Russia/Wikimedia
Although the Mueller report walked back Weissman's innuendo regarding polling data, its assertion that Kilimnik has "ties to Russian
intelligence" remains a foundation of the Russia collusion narrative.
Putting aside the fact that the government has never produced any evidence that Kilimnik communicated with Russian intelligence
or the Kremlin, RCI has obtained documents that undercut the government's basis for assuming those unspecified "ties."
In Mueller's own telling, Kilimnik's only direct link to the Russian government was his enrollment in a Soviet military academy
from 1987 to 1992, where he trained as a linguist. "It's a language school, similar to what you guys have in Fort Monterey," Kilimnik
said, referring to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, in Monterey, California. "It's a university that trains
military translators, mostly for the army, not for the intelligence services. Basically it was a military training, for five years,
focusing on English and Swedish. In normal circumstances, I would actually go and serve in the army, but because Soviet Union was
falling apart, I was able to get a job as the instructor of Swedish at the university. I never served in the real army. If teaching
Swedish counts as spying "" that will be very surprising."
To substantiate Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence "ties," the Mueller team wrote that Kilimnik "obtained a visa to travel
to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport in 1997." (Intelligence operatives often travel to foreign countries under
diplomatic cover.)
Kilimnik's U.S. visa shows an "R" for "regular." (The typo in his last name was corrected on a later visa.) Konstantin Kilimnik via
RealClearInvestigations
But Kilimnik's passport from that period "" to judge from the images he shared with RCI via a messaging app "" was issued in the
standard red color, not in the green color of the diplomatic corps. The document also contains a regular U.S. visa issued on October
28, 1997 "" the same date the Mueller report claims he traveled to the U.S. "with a Russian diplomatic passport." The U.S. visa to
Kilimnik is issued under the category of "R" "" which stands for Regular "" and "B1/B2," the designation for a temporary visa for
business and tourism.
The Mueller team's claim that he possessed and travelled on a diplomatic passport is "a blatant lie," Kilimnik told RCI. "I never
had a diplomatic passport in my life. It's one of many very sloppy things in the Muller report, which don't make sense."
The Mueller report cites Kilimnik's "travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport."
Mueller report, Page 133
Told of the Mueller report's apparent error concerning Kilimnik's passport, a Justice Department spokesperson declined comment.
Former Special Counsel Mueller and former lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond to emailed queries.
Ironically, at the time when Mueller team claims that he visited the U.S. on behalf of the Russian government, Kilimnik was in
fact working for the U.S. government at the U.S. Congress-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) in Moscow. As RealClearInvestigations
has
previously reported , Kilimnik's 10-year IRI tenure is among several substantial Western government connections that have
been ignored in amid efforts to accuse him of ties to the Russian government. "I gave IRI my CV which clearly said which school I
graduated from, and gave my detailed background," Kilimnik recalls. "I never concealed anything."
Kilimnik: No Madrid Meeting With Manafort
When it comes to his travel history, Kilimnik says that the Special Counsel's Office made another significant error: falsely claiming
that he and Manafort held a meeting in Spain .
"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. Wikimedia
When Manafort denied that he and Kilimnik met in Madrid in 2017, the Mueller team accused him of lying and cited this as one of
several alleged breaches of their cooperation agreement. The Mueller report claims that the two met in the Spanish capital on Feb.
26, 2017, "where Kilimnik had flown from Moscow."
It also states that Manafort initially denied the Madrid meeting in his first two interviews with the Special Counsel's office,
but then relented "after being confronted with documentary evidence that Kilimnik was in Madrid at the same time as him."
But Kilimnik tells RCI that no such meeting occurred, and that he believes that Manafort was coerced into changing his story.
"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. The "documentary evidence" referenced in the Mueller report was, he speculates,
a flight booking that was ultimately cancelled. "I was thinking about going to Madrid, and I discussed it with Paul," he says. "But
it made no sense. And ultimately, it was too expensive. So I didn't go."
Had he actually visited Madrid, Kilimnik says, the Mueller team would have "easily found proof "" tickets, boarding passes, border
crossings "" all that stuff. It's not rocket science to get it. The European Union is a pretty disciplined place. There would be
at least be a record of me crossing the border somewhere in the EU."
Kilimnik told RCI that the last time he saw Manafort was one month before the alleged Madrid trip, around the time of Trump's
inauguration in Janaury 2017. "I did not attend any of the inauguration events myself," he recalls. "But I spent some time to meet
with Paul, and to catch up. That was our last meeting in-person, in Alexandria [Virginia]."
Asked why Manafort would have admitted to a Madrid meeting that did not in fact take place, Kilimnik said that his former boss
faced heavy pressure while locked up by the Mueller team, which included a long stint in solitary confinement. "I don't know why
he said that. I have difficulties to imagine Paul's psychological state when he was jailed. A guy who [had] a very high-level life.
Jail is a tough place. I still get the shudders to think what he had to go through."
The allegation that Manafort lied to the Mueller team proved consequential. In February 2019, U.S. District Judge Jackson
sided
with the Special Counsel and voided
Manafort's plea deal. No longer bound to give him a reduced sentence for cooperating, Jackson
nearly doubled Manafort's
prison term on top of his earlier conviction and excoriated him for telling "lies." President Trump pardoned in Manafort in December
2020.
Told that Kilimnik denies ever visiting Madrid, and asked whether the Special Counsel's office collected concrete evidence to
the contrary, both former Special Counsel Mueller and lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond. A Justice Department spokesperson
declined comment.
FBI Alert Contradicts Senate-Treasury Spy Claim
Over one year after Mueller closed up shop, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) unilaterally upgraded Kilimnik's
alleged Russian intelligence status. The panel's
August 2020 report
declared that Kilimnik, far from merely having "ties" to the GRU as Mueller had claimed, is in fact a full-fledged "Russian intelligence
officer."
The Senate made the leap despite offering no new public evidence to support its explosive "assessment", and even acknowledging
that its "power to investigate" "" as well as "its staffing, resources, and technical capabilities" -- ultimately "falls short of
the FBI's."
Richard Burr and Mark Warner, Republican chair and Democratic co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The FBI and Justice
Department do not endorse their panel's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer." AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The Senate also labelled Kilimnik a Russian spy despite simultaneously presenting new evidence that he was, in the Committee's
own words, a "valuable resource" for officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, with whom he was "in regular contact."
In September 2020,
RCI asked the FBI and Justice Department whether it shares the SSCI's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer."
A DOJ spokesperson replied that "the Mueller report speaks for itself," and advised that the public "defer" to how Kilimnik was characterized
in the Mueller report and the Special Counsel Office's indictments. This strongly suggested, RCI reported, that the FBI has not adopted
the SSCI's view that Kilimnik is a Russian spy.
The FBI's February "alert"
offering $250,000 for information leading to Kilimnik's arrest bolsters this reporting. It once again states that Kilimnik is "assessed
by the FBI to have ties to Russian intelligence" "" shunning the SSCI's spy language and reverting to Mueller's original, ambiguous
characterization.
The wording of the FBI alert underscores that while the Senate Intelligence Committee and Treasury Department have declared that
Kilimnik is a Russian spy, the nation's top law enforcement agency has never adopted that assessment. When Manafort's legal team
asked the Special Counsel's Office for any communication between Manafort and "Russian intelligence officials,"
they
were told that "there are no materials responsive to [those] requests." In unsealed notes from early 2017, Peter Strzok "" the
top FBI counterintelligence agent who opened the Trump-Russia investigation ""
wrote :
"We are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials."
Asked whether the FBI has altered its characterization of Kilimnik in light of Treasury's claim that he is a "known Russian Intelligence
Services agent", an FBI spokesperson declined comment.
The FBI's alert was also remarkable for the size of the Kilimnik bounty, which is more than double the amount of most members
of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. While the bureau is offering $100,000 each for information regarding six alleged murderers,
and $200,000 for another, the FBI is offering $250,000 for help nabbing Kilimnik on a lone witness tampering charge in Manafort's
Ukraine lobbying case.
The Mueller team
accused Kilimnik of sending text messages to two individuals with whom Manafort had worked during his Ukraine lobbying days.
Kilimnik's aim, the Special Counsel's Office alleged, was to pressure the pair to attest that their prior work was focused on lobbying
officials in Europe, not in the United States. These individuals "" identified in court documents as "Person D1" and "Person D2"
"" were not active witnesses for the Mueller probe, but instead, according to the Special Counsel's Office, "potential witnesses."
The 13 Kilimnik messages to these "potential witnesses"
cited by Mueller include the following:
[Person D2], hi! How are you? Hope you are doing fine. ;))
My friend P [Manafort] is trying to reach [Person D1] to brief him on what's going on.
If you have a chance to mention this to [Person D1] - would be great.
Basically P wants to give him a quick summary that he says to everybody (which is true) that our friends never lobbied in the
U.S., and the purpose of the program was EU.
Hi. This is [Kilimnik]. My friend P is looking for ways to connect to you to pass you several messages. Can we arrange that.
Kilimnik says that he was not trying to tamper with anyone. "I do not understand how two messages to our old partners who helped
us get out the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted
as 'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice,'" he says.
Whether or not Kilimnik sought to tamper with "potential witnesses" in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case, the alleged 2018 infraction
has nothing to do with 2016 Trump-Russia collusion.
The FBI alert from February raises questions about the bombshell Treasury Department claims released two months later. If the
U.S. government stands by Treasury's claims about Kilimnik, why is he wanted only on a minor, non-Russia related witness-tampering
charge, and not for taking part in alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election? If Kilimnik indeed passed on "sensitive information
on polling and campaign strategy" to Russian intelligence while working as a spy, why has he not been indicted alongside the Russian
social media company charged by Mueller in February 2018, or the Russian intelligence officers charged by Mueller in July 2018?
To Kilimnik, the answer is found on that same Russian passport that Mueller mischaracterized. "It is clear to me that the indictment
of 2018 was pulled out of the thin air, simply to have a Russian face in the mix," he says. "I understand that they needed a Russian
to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," he says.
"The funny thing is that I'm not hiding. And I would have explained the same thing to the FBI or anyone who never reached out
to me. They don't because they don't want the truth."
From Russian Spy to "Influence Agent"
In Kilimnik's eyes, his utility as a Russian national for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative also explains his prominent inclusion
in the recent U.S. Intelligence
Community Assessment , released in March one month after the FBI alert for his arrest.
In yet another new iteration of how Kilimnik is described by the U.S. government, the ICA does not call him a Russian intelligence
officer, but instead a "Russian influence agent."
The ICA does not define the term "Russian influence agent," or explain how it reached that new assessment about Kilimnik. Nor
does it put forth any evidence for the alleged Russian influence activities ascribed to him .
The report alleges that Kilimnik was part of a "network of Ukraine-linked individuals "¦ connected to the Russian Federal Security
Service (FSB)" who "took steps throughout the [2020] election cycle to damage U.S. ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and
his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump's prospects for reelection."
Andriy Derkach: "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says of this Ukrainian lawmaker with reputed Kremlin ties. Petro Zhuravel/Wikimedia
As part of this alleged meddling network, the ICA asserts that Kilimnik tried to influence U.S. officials; helped produce a documentary
that aired on U.S. television in January 2020; and worked with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker alleged to have Kremlin ties.
"Derkach, Kilimnik, and their associates sought to use prominent U.S. persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to U.S.
officials and audiences," the ICA states.
Kilimnik says the U.S. intelligence officials who wrote those words are using their anonymity and power to launder their false
narratives about him.
"I have no idea what they're talking about," he says. "I would really love to see at least one confirmation of the things they
allege. Pulling me into this report with zero evidence really shows that [U.S. intelligence] people high up do not give a damn about
the truth, facts, or anything."
As for Derkach, "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says. "I don't know why, or on what basis, they're making claims that
he has any relationship to me."
"I had zero meetings with anybody related to the Trump campaign. In fact, I have tried to do my best "" understanding how I've
gotten into this mess "" to stay as far as possible from any U.S. politics." If he had held such meetings, Kilimnik adds, "this should
be easy to prove."
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.
No Effort to Contact Russiagate's Top Russian
Even though Kilimnik's name fills dozens of pages of the Mueller and Senate Intelligence reports after years of federal scrutiny
and he is the target of a $250,000 FBI reward, this seemingly critical Russiagate figure has never been contacted by a single U.S.
government official, to judge from the public record as well as Kilimnik's account.
The lack of contact is similar to the way FBI, Mueller, and Senate investigators treated other supposedly central Russiagate figures.
When Joseph Mifsud, whose conversations with George Papadopoulos triggered the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, visited the U.S. in early
2017, the FBI subjected him to
a light round of questioning and then let him leave the country. The Mueller team later claimed in its final report that Mifsud
had lied to FBI agents, yet inexplicably did not indict him. Despite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's central role in publishing
the stolen Democratic Party emails supposedly hacked and supplied by Russia, the
Mueller team never contacted him and the Senate Intelligence Committee
shunned an offer to interview him .
Kilimnik believes that this avoidance is deliberate. "The FBI and others could have had the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv or Moscow, or
have any of my numerous contacts in the U.S., reach out and start a conversation, if they wanted info," he says. "But they do not
really need it. All they is need is a scarecrow. And as one of the few people within reach of the Trump campaign who has a Russian
passport, they picked me."
"They never reached out to me," he adds. "I never had a single contact with FBI or any government official, basically since charges
were brought [on] Paul. Nobody ever tried to talk to me because they know the truth. They understood damn well that I will tell them
what I'm telling you."
Kilimnik says that he has had only minimal contact with Manafort since the former Trump campaign chairman was released to home
confinement in March 2020 and subsequently pardoned by Trump in late December. "We had one short contact after he got out of jail,
basically catching up about family and kids and everything," Kilimnik recalls. "I want to give him time to just basically get his
life back to normal. We have not spoken on the telephone."
After years in Ukraine working with Manafort, Kilimnik now lives full-time in Moscow with his wife and two children. "I have been
pretty open all my life, and have not been hiding from anyone," Kilimnik says. "I would have been happy to answer any questions from
the FBI, or whoever. But I refuse to be a toy in bizarre political games and have my life ruined more than it has been because of
the senseless and false accusations."
Despite being labeled a Russian spy who meddled in the 2016 election, Kilimnik has no plans to return to the U.S. and try to clear
his name. "I am not going to the U.S. on my own dime, with no visa in COVID times only to be crucified by the media, having zero
chance of justice," he says. "This is a sad continuation of a deeply wrong story. I thought it would be over with Trump gone and
the need to create lies about his 'ties to Russia.' But obviously, I was wrong."
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roc993 19 May, 2021 Did the Democrats and the media ever apologize for spending 2 years claiming the election was stolen by
Trump? The drumbeat was continuous - ratcheting up day by day - "Walls closing in" - right up to the point Mueller threw cold
water on the entire thing. Then they slinked away without another word. And no censorship of those entities and individuals by
FaceBook and Twitter? Fascinating. Reply 40 11 2 reply
N notenough 19 May, 2021 What are the odds that the FBI/Treasury Dept, CIA, etc are lying to the public about this whole mess
THEY created....100%. These are all political organizations, tasked with protecting the status quo, the status quo being the protection
of Empire. Reply 30 7 1 reply
A AJMG 19 May, 2021 "In his speech before a joint session of Congress last week, President Biden complained about "Russia's
interference in our elections," even though his intelligence czar had released a report the previous month formally dismissing
the idea Moscow had interfered in the 2020 election or the 2016 election." Reply 23 7 1 reply
D daniel155 19 May, 2021 No one, even those on the other side, believes there was Russian collusion though they will never
admit it. Hillary still says the Russia stole the election from her. I guess she uses that to cope with the fact that she blew
a very winnable election. Reply 28 7
A AJMG 19 May, 2021 Trump opposed Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, & today we learn that Biden has accepted it. If Putin favored
Trump, it was a bad miscalculation since Trump was way more tough on Russia than any Democrat. Reply 36 6 1 reply
DH Derrick Hand 19 May, 2021 Hate to tell you guys but the Russia collusion discussion is over, no matter who is right. The
Media has succeeded in mudding the water and destroying any trust in finding the truth with respect to anything political, including
any election and that includes the coming one in 2022. This is like an argument at a table for four in a raucous high school cafeteria.
You should be more concerned where this total loss of trust is going to lead us and that is not a good place. Reply 16 6 3 reply
W Wisewerds 19 May, 2021 A wholly partisan, politically biased prosecutor lied and cherry-picked information to support a
pre-determined conclusion in an effort to savage an opponent and jail his supporters? I would put on my shocked face, but its
currently at the cleaners. Instead, I will just suggest that this is now standard operating procedure for our left-fascist oppressors.
Reply 21 4 1 reply
C Crutch 19 May, 2021 I can't wait for 2022 House win by Republicans. The first thing they should do is haul Adam Schiff in
under oath to discuss his every utterance, then expel him from the House. Reply 40 9 5 reply
A archon27 19 May, 2021 It not sedition if the democrats try to oust a legally elected president on a falsified premise...
because THEIR "evidence" was believable... This is literally the mantra of the left. Reply 27 6 3 reply
Mark H 19 May, 2021 If the wider media do not pick this up then the matter of Trump campaign's collusion with Russia can never
be cleared up, and will continue to serve the intention of the establishment. VAPOR 19 May, 2021 The media portrayed both Obama
and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation. According to former acting attorney general
Sally Yates, she was surprised that Obama knew about the investigation and knew more than she did at the time. Obama called upon
former FBI director James Comey to stay after a meeting to discuss the investigation. Comey had mentioned using the Logan Act
to charge Flynn, even though the unconstitutional law has never been used successfully in a prosecution since the country was
founded. Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of the investigation. Just a day before the latest disclosure, George Stephanopoulos
asked Biden in an interview what he knew of the Flynn investigation. Biden was adamant that he knew nothing about "those moves"
and he called it a diversion. But that is not true if he took the relatively uncommon action for a vice president of demanding
the unmasking of Flynn information.
Justis 20 May, 2021 Thank you for your continued work. This is all hidden from Americans in this age of media coverage. But more
importantly it is devastating information about the dishonesty of our government. What have we come to? What recourse is available?
VAPOR 19 May, 2021 Carter Page Sues FBI, Comey, McCabe for Millions Nov 28, 2020" Former Trump campaign aide Carter Page filed
a $75 million lawsuit against the FBI and several former high-ranking bureau officials ... Reply 6 1 1 reply
V VAPOR 19 May, 2021 Just a reminder that Obama and his minions committed the greatest political crime in US history when
they weaponized government agencies to influence and discredit a presidential election and frame Trump. Reply 7 3 1 reply
V VAPOR 19 May, 2021 Obama needs to answer questions about his involvement with the Fake Russian Dossier and the weaponization
of government agencies to get Trump. He basically planted evidence and then said prosecute Trump by the book.
futbolfan 19 May, 2021 I respect all the dogged investigators who root out the truth of the crimes and corruption of our "justice
department", and FBI. I hope they keep up the good work. Personally I have no more faith in anything which was soaked in the hate
and insanity of the Obama thug regime...
Jerubbesheth xx 19 May, 2021 Give it up already. The Russia Trump Collusion was already disapproved by Mueller. Americans
are tired of the disinformation and propaganda. Bolshevik Schiff is a pathological liar. If anyone colluded with Russia it was
certainly Liberal Commie Democrat Clinton. The reason Bolshevik Schiff doesn't investigate Clinton? Schiff and Clinton are part
of the swamp. Clinton bought and paid for colluded with an ex-British Spy on a false dossier on Trump. Clinton was already in
Putin's pocket. Clinton approved the sale of Uranium one to the Russians, and then Clinton receives $145 Million from Russian
Oligarchs for her Corrupt Clinton Foundation. Mueller was FBI director at the time. So now who is colluding with the Russians.
I guess Clinton's colluding with the Russians is the good kind for the liberal commie Democrats, while the Liberal commie Democrats
deflect the bad colluding onto to Trump. Colluding is colluding anyway you cut it. Hillary's colluding wasn't disapproved. Reply
10 3 3 reply
C chuckstephens06 19 May, 2021 While the Special prosecutor office was capable of any transgression or corruption, one needs
to realize that it wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of corrupt lefty operative Judge, Amy Berman Jackson...
Jackson's non legal, political approach to decision making, has been the example that all corrupt lefty judges follow... Plus
her questionable relationship with Weissman outside of the Courtroom... Reply 6 2
K kochcomics 20 May, 2021 Lets see what we have here: 1)Kilimnik says he has no ties to the Russian government. OK. Do you
really believe that no one in the Putin's government has directly or indirectly debriefed him. Really? Do you think he would have
a choice in the matter? Do you know anything about Putin at all? Does he believe in democracy,. You clearly know little about
Trump. We've had Trump here for 40 years - from the NY Post page six to Howard Stern. Its a joke. Hey, he was proposing running
with Oprah as his VP in 2002. Then he tricked into the birther stuff. Lets check out the apologies from the Donald and the push
back from Republicans (apart from McCain) 2) There were enough sympathetic Russians around (Putin included) to raise concerns.
As the Donald himself made clear, he would have no problem with outside foreign help. The investigation took place. It was damning,
but not pretty clear that no . The collusion was possible but speculative, but as Jared himself said, the campaign was too chaotic
for any collusion to really get off the ground (though you are still stuck with Manafort as a conflicted party). But in Donald
world, everything is a bout big pronouncements... See more Reply 2 2
F futbolfan 19 May, 2021 For years, we on the right knew who had done what, and who should be arrested, Comey, Rosenstein,
Strzok, Mueller, etc. But I am not a lawyer, and I am not sure what crimes, exactly, these evil and sick creeps would be charged
with, if they ever were arrested. For me, the key question now is, if they WERE charged with whatever the appropriate offence
would be, what is the statute of limitations on those types of crimes? There is NO statue on treason, as far as I know. But what
about conspiracy? Obstruction of justice? Betrayal of oath of office? Sedition? The reason these questions are still alive is,
obviously there are people still patiently digging into the twisting trails of the conspirators, and eventually they may reel
in some live prospects for prosecution. Maybe even including "the big guy with black skin" Obama himself. Nothing would make me
happier than to see that African nightmare in handcuffs. Reply 4 4 2 reply
DC dana crow 20 May, 2021 Can't blame them for running with lies, innuendo and conspiracy theories when all Trump and Republicans
could ever muster in response was nuh-uh or let-mueller-finish-his-work. "Ties to [insert boogeyman]" is always a tell. It literally
means NOT the boogeyman. And since the "ties" are conveniently redacted, he probably ordered borscht from someone whose second
cousin gave a talk at a charity event hosted by a retired russian intel gofer. The election interference/russia collusion business
was always a cynical ploy to isolate Trump from his friends and bog down his administration. And it was wildly successful.
will.ganness 20 May, 2021 Who is calling the January 6th Protests the biggest threat the the country since the Civil war? The Democratic
Party, the MSM, The FBI.... Who produced and directed Russiagate? The same three!! If progressives think they should get on board
with Insurrectiongate, they should have more sense! VAPOR 19 May, 2021 The Fake Russian Dossier do it by the book Crossfire Hurricane
insurance policy to overturn a presidential election and frame Trump. Where is Professor Misfud and why won't Steele talk to Durham?
Call in Mary Jacoby and ask her what she discussed with Obama at the white house.
spinbag48 1 day ago Adam Schiff is a fool who told us he had the goods on Trump, but it turns out he is a liar. I do have
a question... The FBI spent 2 years and $35 million dollars investigating Trump only to find out they didn't have a case. But
when the pipeline got hacked Biden said the FBI told him that the Kremlin wasn't involved within a day of two. How is it they
got that good so quick? Same with the election within a couple of days they knew that the election was fair and square. Even though
I saw many people of TV say they saw corruption right in front of them. But the shooting of Andrew Brown took a month when they
had numerous videos that they couldn't release until the investigation was complete. I have lost all faith in the FBI, and the
press. They don't even pretend they are fair or truthful. Reply 1 1
CA Clear 4 All 19 May, 2021 The USIC and media has destroyed their own name. Nothing that the Russia collusion purveyors say
now has value on any topic. Russia didn't do that.
Justis 20 May, 2021 Why did Horowitz not discover this in his investigation? Was that investigation another coverup, finding just
enough to look authentic? Is he too, untrustworthy?
What wokeness does mandate for my son (who is studying biology) to be told in his class
that he is the carrier of "white guilt" even though his ancestors never interacted with
blacks, let alone blacks in the USA.
Obama's follow-up to "Dreams from My Father" will be "Sins of My Mother"
" [C]orporate "America" which is now flooding all its advertisements with the "correct"
races in total disregard to that race's real percentage of the population "
Yes, for corporate America, the U.S. demographic is composed mainly of young, beautiful,
smart looking "black folks" with a few flabby, pasty white dullards to heighten the
contrast.
"... If you find it useful that some counties are leaving Oregon and joining Idaho, or the conflict between the left and the right, democrats vs republicans, or whites vs blacks, or whites vs muslims, or vs lations is meaningful, you are simply doing the bidding of the masters, who thrive on pitting communites against each other, and are responsible for destroying the whole country. The easiest and the most fruitful way to bring about a real, benficial change to America would require bringing the American people, regardless of their color or creed together, to easily get rid of their overbearing masters. Regardless of what you claim to be, the fact that you embrace and advance the destructive strategy of pitting the American people agianst one another, and also spew so much hatred of Muslims, exposes your real agenda! ..."
"... The United States doesn't have "rulers" in as much as it has "owners". Consider ..."
One of the most promising movements, " Greater Idaho ," just won a huge
victory. Five counties
voted to leave Oregon and join Idaho. More counties in eastern Oregon may
join . Idaho Governor Brad Little admits creating a new state may be difficult but
says , "They're
looking at Idaho fondly because of our regulatory atmosphere, our values. That doesn't surprise
me one bit."
This should be just the beginning. Frederick County in western Virginia could join West
Virginia. West Virginia State Senator Charles Trump
supports the idea. It could also be a compromise to the DC statehood question. Northern
Virginia is a cancerous outgrowth of federal employees. Booting it
out of real Virginia and tying it to a DC state would mean greater self-government for both
regions.
... ... ...
Existing institutions can be the basis for reform and revolution. From the Parliament that
challenged the king in the English Civil War, the Continental Congress that made the American
Revolution, and the state legislatures that voted for secession, we see a clear pattern in the
way we Anglos operate. We are legalistic, even when it comes to revolution. We don't have the
French tradition of mass protests to topple governments. Our revolutions are according to
Robert's Rules of Order. Even the January 6 protesters who marched into the Capitol did so
because they thought they were saving democracy.
I can understand the frustrations and rage of certain folks.
If you're a worker on an oil rig, a truck driver, a policeman, or some such jobs, there's
bound to be moments when you're angry as hell. So, even though such people say crazy things
once a while, I can understand where they're coming from. They need to blow off steam.
But the professor class? These lowlife parasites sit on their asses and talk shi*. They
produce nothing and make a living by spreading nonsense. And yet, they act like they are
soooooooooo angry with the way of the world. If they really care about the world, why hide in
their academic enclaves?
Academia needs a cultural revolution, a real kind, not the bogus "˜woke' kind made up
of teachers' pets.
Hopefully we can reform into a nice looking North American Federation once this mess hits
a bloody climax of some sort or another. Greater Idaho sounds wildly fun. I still wish we
formed the States Cascadia and Arcadia, personally.
The empire WILL become weaker if it promotes incompetents to positions of high
responsibility and authority and enlists women into the armed forces. An empire cannot
sustain itself with sub standard soldiers, administrators, leaders and law makers. This woke
crap will destroy itself. Historians in the future will look back and say "what the hell were
they thinking?".
If the IQ of officer candidates drops below 110 (it's 120 on average currently for the
Marine Corps and has been declining for 40 years) then the positions will be left vacant.
Dumb people can't do the job.
Since Cromwell and even more so the overthrow of James 2 by the invader Dutch William 3
the Amsterdam Jew banker puppet Britain has been nothing more than a Jewish banking
headquarters.
If you find it useful that some counties are leaving Oregon and joining Idaho, or the
conflict between the left and the right, democrats vs republicans, or whites vs blacks, or
whites vs muslims, or vs lations is meaningful, you are simply doing the bidding of the
masters, who thrive on pitting communites against each other, and are responsible for
destroying the whole country. The easiest and the most fruitful way to bring about a real,
benficial change to America would require bringing the American people, regardless of their
color or creed together, to easily get rid of their overbearing masters. Regardless of what
you claim to be, the fact that you embrace and advance the destructive strategy of pitting
the American people agianst one another, and also spew so much hatred of Muslims, exposes
your real agenda!
Dear Mr. Hood, anything undertaken to change a nation's political organization will always
lead to violence. If there is one thing history shows, it is precisely that. If you are
trying to change Idaho's state borders, that qualifies as a drastic change in the US
political organization, if only because if successful, it would set an example that would
find many, many followers, as you are implying yourself.
What the US promotes and condones abroad (secession of Panama from Colombia in 1903,
occupation of Cyprus by Turkey in 1980, occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco in 1976,
secession of Kosovo, creation of Southern Sudan, etc., etc.) it does not want to see at home.
Of course you are also aware that in the 1860s, Secession has been met with brutal
violence.
In this respect, it comes as a relief lo learn that the Deep State is busy trying to turn
the US Army and the CIA into open psychiatry wards.
Very interesting that video ad on the girl "raised by two moms." Poor thing: knowing only
two dykes (her father must certainly be Hans Brinker), all her life she has been yearning to
meet real men. Apparently, she did not find them in college, where the boys are being
terrorized by feminists and forced to become faggots. Thus only the army remains as a place
where one might still find a few real men, the kind that one sees so finely portrayed in the
Russian army ad.
(Come to think of it, that US army ad may also be an attempt at subversion of prevailing
policy!)
America is in danger, not because of some external threat, but because our rulers
are the Republic's greatest enemies.
The United States doesn't have "rulers" in as much as it has "owners". Consider
it private property to put things in proper perspective "" then! Stake your claim. Forget the
law(they own that too) and the idea of a republic "" owners don't like to share. The banking,
tax code, and debt have got you by the balls, and they'll always keep you thumbed under.
Clearly there is no coherence or logic to US foreign policy even from its own warped
viewpoint. If they really regard China as the number one adversary then they should be
courting Russia, that is, doing what the Nixon administration did with China to help contain
the USSR.
One can only surmise that it's the Zionist faction that is pushing for hostility towards
Russia because of Russia interfering with Israel's Mid-East plans, so the Zionist faction
with its regional interests is undermining the efforts of the deep state elements more
interested in world hegemony.
"Then, we basically gave permission for Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait as a ploy to send
in our advanced army to knock him out and demonstrate our superiority to the world in
weaponry, which very much demoralized the Russians and put the fear of God into Islamic oil.
Then we created the Star Wars fiction. Russia to our surprise lost their nerve and
collapsed."
Can't really buy this silly Deep State propaganda from Mr S. The Berlin Wall collapsed in
November 1989. After this the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Cold War was surely
inevitable. USMIC needed a new theatre of war in a hurry to keep itself in the style to which
it is accustomed. Gulf War I, beginning with the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990,
was clearly planned in advance in order to install US bases in the Middle East as the
"˜pivot' to use the currently popular term to this new theatre. This long term planning
all bore juicy malevolent fruit not long after with 911, Gulf War 2 and the War on Terror.
It's only now, with the Middle East petering out as the preferred theatre of operations that
the new pivot is under way with the beatup for a new cold war with China.
"our values" is continually repeated by US politicians and the MSM like a mantra.
when the US has no values left but anarchy, looting, and burning down hundreds of
cities.
And also war, bombing, killing, assassination of the indocent leaders, impoverishment of
the others, overthrow of the insubordinate governments ("Color revolutions").
Every picture tells a story = USA & China (lol)
Could have added Old Masked Joe and the Camel for further effect "¦
Anyway"
I had trouble believing this account by the mysterious Mr S, though it does make good
copy, perhaps more as entertainment. So skimmed after the first few mentions of the Deep
State, Mr S's professed Christianity and his concern for Afghans.
The "Deep State" is a more or less meaningless buzzword on a par with Alex "Medicine Man"
Jones and his "Illuminati" and it's getting as dated as that imho.
WHO are these people, Mr S ? Names, please.
We are to believe that a long-serving high echelon member in USG professes Christianity in
a Gangster Cartel, which is what USG is and the source of the gross immorality, murder,
looting, permanent war, occupations which is poisoning the world and has been such for a long
time, well over a century "¦
Russia, by contrast, is a Christian country.
And you are fighting it, Mr S, as well as continuing to serve gangsters "¦
Basically this article is just bullshit, sorry to be blunt.
Worse, it doesn't say anything new except that the zio's have sacrificed their old man
Kissinger as this USG "christian" indicates.
Kissinger sprinkles his talk with preemptive catch words such as "free markets",
"democracy", and as noted here "principles"...
His greatest coup was was the petrodollar which reigned for decades; free markets huh? His
petrodollar scheme is crumbling and the age of missiles is neutering the US's imperial
ambitions. He is wallowing about in outdated imperial nostalgia.
Conspiracy theory drivel. So called "Deep State" are American elites, who are not
unanimous about most points; it was R.M. Nixon- not Kissinger, not some imaginary Deep State
segment which even does not exist- who decided to completely change policy towards Communist
China. And there, Nixon showed that he was, despite his failings, a remarkable statesman.
@alwayswrite ion. Just in the last few months the SpaceX Crew Dragon has finally come
online and that is an excellent achievement""although Nasa is still buying seats on Soyuz,
just in case.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is flying with the Russian engines, although not yet with
live crew. Good thing there's a Russian "˜superstore' for space tech where you can do
one-stop shopping, eh?
I'm not going to get into the Chinese program, which also bought its entire manned space
program lock, stock and barrel from Russia. They also bought advanced Russian engines, but
unlike the US, they have been able to knock off their own versions [YF100], which now power
their big Long March 5 rocket.
Oh, and the Russians landed their first rover on Mars back in 1971, the first spacecraft
to land successfully on another planet.
There's an inherent contradiction I've never been able to understand.
On the one hand the Deep State wants the United States to be and continue to be the world
hegemon. Ergo the playing off of China against Russia, as well as other ploys undercutting
potential challengers.
On the other hand the Deep State was all in on the deindustrialization of America, the
great offshoring of whole industries and the jobs they provided. Offshoring has clearly
weakened America's position as world hegemon.
@GMC xt generation gets better yet and so on. It is not an instant process, but China is
very systematic and determined and they will get there sooner than people may think.
And finally a word about why it is important to have numbers in terms of hard science
intellectuals. It is like society in general""the bottom slice is going to be barely
competent; the majority in the middle are going to be average"¦and the top ten percent
are going to be the ones that actually do all of the work, in terms of advancing of the state
of the art. And from that top group, only a few INDIVIDUALS are really going to be
visionaries that have a chance at transforming the technology and solving the really big
problems.
Obviously if you have a larger pool to start with, you will have more of those key
achievers at the top.
It may have been in the self-interest of people in the MIC to continue Cold War
conditions, but a patriot would put the good of the Republic over his own self-interest. The
late Lt. Gen. William Odom, former Director of the National Security Agency, was such a man.
He was as close to the center of the American Deep State as anyone could be.
I know from Odom's writings that he shared at least many of the views of Mr. S. Odom
himself may be gone, but his opinions may survive in his aides, friends, and associates.
The tragedy of the ZUS deep state department is , that is controlled and populated with
zionists, as is the entire ZUS government and the deep state chain dogs aka the CIA, the FBI,
the NSA, all of the 17 chain dog departments are under zionist control,
@alwayswrite tinued to circle Mars and transmit images back to Earth for another eight
months.
Mars 3 Spacecraft
The cause of the failure may have been related to the extremely powerful martian dust
storm taking place at the time which may have induced a coronal discharge, damaging the
communications system. The dust storm would also explain the poor image lighting.
@SafeNow
eing expressed now about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Although it has churned out
hundreds of papers, nothing groundbreaking has ever come of it.
Quantum computing is also turning out to be a nothingburger, as some of us had predicted
long ago. But if the point is to sell the sizzle and not the steak, then all of these
"˜great' projects have been a wonderful "˜marketing' success, with untold millions
of trees having given their life for the glossy magazines that breathlessly trumpeted all of
this hullabaloo. Only to end up in the landfill.
So to get back to your question about US pharma "˜scientists', I would place them just
slightly above the municipal sanitation worker that will be emptying my bin tomorrow, in the
overall scheme of things. Maybe a better person to ask would be Bill Gates?
"... A draft report published online by the assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs caused consternation in Russian media on Monday, after statements came to light that argued the bloc "should establish with the US a transatlantic alliance to defend democracy globally" and "deter Russia" from supposed aggression in Eastern Europe. ..."
A draft report published
online by the assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs caused consternation in Russian media on Monday, after statements came
to light that argued the bloc "should establish with the US a transatlantic alliance to defend democracy globally" and "deter
Russia" from supposed aggression in Eastern Europe.
As part of its "vision" for future ties with Moscow, the paper concludes that the EU should put forward a number of incentives
designed to persuade Russians that a turn to the West would be beneficial, including visa liberalization and "free trade investment."
[...]
At the same time, the committee puts forward a number of extreme steps that it says the bloc should take. It insists that
Brussels "must be prepared not to recognize the parliament of Russia and to ask for Russia's suspension from international
organizations with parliamentary assemblies if the 2021 parliamentary elections in Russia are recognized as fraudulent."
The success or failure of this operation will depend entirely on the Russian people. Will it fall for the Western European
honey trap once again?
After Putin is gone, bets are off. Also, the EU continues to suffer from refugee waves from Syria and Libya, and its economy
continues to deteriorate (recession confirmed for Q1 2021). The whole system is so exhausted that they don't talk about even of
the absorption of Moldova anymore (the Moldovan president had to bring that up to the Kremlin; good they remembered them).
This looks like Biden had some surge of sanity, but it's not: I read an article on Izvestia some days ago and it seems Russia
won the war for the Arctic and has expelled the USA from that sea. That, combined with the fact that Russia has been ramping up
investment on the sector, results in the fact that, soon enough, Russia will also have the infrastructure to deliver cheaper LNG
by ship to Europe, too.
That means the USA has given up on the NordStream II in order to hurt the Russian LNG investments. Yes, people, that's the
insanity of the situation: the USG is completely lost. It still has its ace in the hole, though: the Green Party is set to win
the next German general elections, and they're rabid Atlanticists. Like, this would cost Germany dearly and they wouldn't last
two years in government, but at least Russian gas to Europe through a non-Ukrainian route would be stopped.
Speaking of the Ukraine, this whole situation makes us reflect: it is patent at this point in time that the EU is a subsidiary
of NATO - it expands eastwards after those countries become NATO members. They're the "socioeconomic" version of NATO. This has
created a huge problem for the EU, though, because the Ukraine is a massive financial black hole to the American economy (through
the IMF) and the USA is pressuring the EU to make it a member quick, so that this black hole goes to European (i.e. German) hands.
The thing is Germany obviously doesn't want that, because it needs the Euro to keep at where it is or stronger (you can only enter
the EU by entering the EZ nowadays). The Ukraine is salivating to become an EZ member - that's the whole point of the Maidan coup
in the first place - so Ukraine entering the EU without entering the EZ is out of the table. The EU must've told the USA that
no, the Ukraine must first become a NATO member, then they'll make it an EZ-EU member. The Ukraine is the proverbial hot potato.
All of that coupled with the hard economic fact that, without the Russian gas transit exclusivity, you can't leverage Ukraine's
debt, because, after Maidan, all of the public goods and infrastructure were privatized to American capitalists. That means we
have the absurd situation where Germany has to give up cheaper gas for itself (which would be essential for its economic recovery)
in order to make the Ukraine happy so that it enters the EU, so that it becomes a financial black hole... to the German economy!
Germany has to pay the Ukraine for the privilege of having to pay it even more, for eternity.
The price of nation-building has become more and more expensive to the capitalist world. Turns out those Third World shitholes
have learned something after all those decades.
Taiwan is also suffering from a significant brain drain to the Mainland. They're trying to solve the problem by demonizing
those people by calling them "traitors".
More Hacks, More Baseless Accusations Against Russia
In January police in various countries took down the Emotet bot-network that was at that
time the basic platform for some 25% of all cybercrimes.
Based on hearsay Wikipedia and other had falsely attributed Emotet to Russian actors.
The real people behind it were actually
Ukrainians :
The operating center of Emotet was found in the Ukraine. Today the Ukrainian national police
took control of it during a raid (video). The police found dozens of
computers, some hundred hard drives, about 50 kilogram of gold bars (current price
~$60,000/kg) and large amounts of money in multiple currencies.
Now the U.S. is accusing Russia of somehow having part in another cybercrime :
President Joe Biden said Monday that a Russia-based group was behind the ransomware attack
that forced the shutdown of the largest oil pipeline in the eastern United States.
The FBI identified the group behind the hack of Colonial Pipeline as DarkSide, a shadowy
operation that surfaced last year and attempts to lock up corporate computer systems and
force companies to pay to unfreeze them.
"So far there is no evidence ... from our intelligence people that Russia is involved,
although there is evidence that actors, ransomware is in Russia," Biden told reporters.
"They have some responsibility to deal with this," he said.
Three days after being forced to halt operations, Colonial said Monday it was moving
toward a partial reopening of its 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) of pipeline" the largest
fuel network between Texas and New York.
Biden however is badly informed. There is no evidence that DarkSide has anything to do with
Russia. It is, like Emotet, a commercial
'ransomware-as-a-service' criminal entity that wants to make money and does not care about
geopolitics.
Yes, a version of the DarkNet software does exclude itself from running on system with
specific
language settings :
The DarkSide malware is even built to conduct language checks on targets and to shut down if
it detects Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Georgian, Kazakh, Turkmen, Romanian, and
other languages ...
That is a quite long list of east European languages and Russian is only one of it. Why the
authors of DarkNet do not want their software to run on machines with those language settings
is unknown. But why would a Russian actor protect machines with Ukrainian or Romanian language
settings? Both countries are hostile towards Russia. To claim that this somehow points to
Russian actors is therefore baseless.
The Kremlin has once again pointed out the importance of cooperation between Moscow and
Washington in tackling cyberthreats amid a cyber-attack on Colonial Pipeline, a US company.
"Russia has nothing to do with these hacker attacks, nor with the previous hacker attacks,"
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Preskov assured reporters on Tuesday.
"We categorically reject any accusation against us, and we can only regret that the US is
refusing to cooperate with us in any way to counter cyber-threats. We believe that such
cooperation - both international and bilateral - could indeed contribute to the common
struggle against this scourge [known as] cyber-crime," Peskov said.
The U.S. seems notoriously bad at attributing computer hacks. It claims that the recent
SolarWinds attack which intruded several government branches was also done by Russia. But that
attack
required deep insider knowledge and access to SolarWinds' computers
and processes :
The recently discovered deep intrusion into U.S. companies and government networks used a
manipulated version of the SolarWinds Orion network management software. The Washington borg
immediately attributed the hack to Russia. Then President Trump attributed it to China. But
none of those claims were backed up by facts or known evidence.
The hack was extremely complex, well managed and resourced, and likely required insider
knowledge. To this IT professional it 'felt' neither Russian nor Chinese. It is far more
likely, as Whitney Webb finds, that
Israel was behind it .
Indeed - the programmers of an Israeli company, recently bought up by SolarWinds, had all
the necessary access for such a hack. However the U.S. sanctioned Russia over the SolarWinds
hack without providing any evidence of its involvement.
If the U.S. continues to blame Russia without any evidence for each and every hack there may
come a time when Russia stops caring and really starts to hack into or destroy important U.S.
systems. The U.S. should fear that day.
Posted by b on May 11, 2021 at 17:31 UTC |
Permalink
Thanks b. I don't think Russia is going to escalate destructive attacks any time soon.
There's no upside.
They might even be reluctant to reveal their capabilities in the Ukraine.
For the moment, mockery is the best remedy while they up their game.
@ b who ended with
"
If the U.S. continues to blame Russia without any evidence for each and every hack there may
come a time when Russia stops caring and really starts to hack into or destroy important U.S.
systems.
"
How can you write such assertions that vary from the approach that both Russia and China
are taking?....strong defense but no offense.
Now if empire tried to hack into a Russian or Chinese system/network then appropriate
takedowns of malicious systems/networks would seem logical....and I expect they know
how...but will not do it on the basis of another avenue of empire lies and deceit.
You should have titled the post "Killing Two Birds With One Stone".
This pipeline is huge, running from Texas through the Southeast and all the way up to New
England. It's condition is beyond awful with multiple leaks along the route some of which
lose more than a million gallons per month and much more than can be determined since some of
the gasoline / jet fuel went into the aquifers. These faults have been well known for decades
and although some of the areas are heavily populated no remediation was done. The local
outcry recently caught the attention of the press when kids reported a gasoline smell along
the pipeline route to the police. The locals demanded the pipeline be closed for repairs and
sought answers from state officials and Federal authorities as to why this situation was
allowed. To blame the Russians for the closure of the pipeline which results in a surge in
prices and limited availability of gas for the summer is an absolute stroke of genius.
https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/ncdeq-colonial-pipeline-spill-huntersville/275-70e16fb6-c945-4634-b933-3975d0573f2e
It is odd that certain elements of the us intelligence community, along with negative
factions within the us political establishment, continue to absolutely refuse to enter into
verifiable and mutually binding international agreements on cyber security with exactly the
nation states that they accuse (without evidence) of malicious activity in the same sphere,
while at the same time operating in this field in an openly declared hostile manner under the
secrecy deemed necessary for 'national security'.
> In a recent book, Luke Harding, an investigative reporter at The Guardian, described how Mr. Steele had dispatched his "collector"
to surreptitiously approach a real estate broker, Sergei Millian, who was a peripheral figure in the Trump/Russia saga. "Millian
spoke at length and privately to this person, believing him or her to be trustworthy "" a kindred soul," Mr. Harding wrote.
But the trouble for Mr. Harding, who is close to both Mr. Steele and Mr. Simpson, was that he wrote those lines before the
release of the F.B.I. interview of Mr. Danchenko.
In the interview, the collector said that he and Mr. Millian might have spoken briefly over the phone, but that the two
had never met.
Mr. Harding did not respond to requests for comment. <
Here are Ten Things We Have Learned During the Covid Coup.
1. Our political system is hopelessly corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party
can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought.
2. Democracy is a sham. It has been a sham for a very long time. There will never be any real democracy when money and
power amount to the same thing.
3. The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, increase its levels of control and exploitation.
It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great.
4. So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort. From whatever direction they claim to attack the system,
they are just pretending to do so, and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even
useful to its agendas.
5. Any "dissident" voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake. The system does not hand
out free publicity to its actual enemies.
6. Most people in our society are cowards. They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been
loudly boasting about all their lives merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial
loss.
7. The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system... ...and those journalists who work for
it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power.
8. Police are not servants of the public... ...but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks
to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.
9. Scientists cannot be trusted. They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for
the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
10. Progress is a misleading illusion. The "progress" of increasing automation and industrialisation does not go hand
in hand with a progress in the quality of human life, but in fact will "progressively" reduce it to the point of complete extinction.
Irrelevant how much the Western peoples hate China. China is not Iran, Afghanistan, Russia or some other random Third World
country, it is above the pay grade of Western public opinion.
However, it is true China is not up to the level achieved by the Soviet Union. It still has a military disproportionately weak
compared to its economic might. That problem will still take some three or more decades to solve, but it is being worked on.
This headline by the NYT (in the upper right corner of the Home Page) reflects the West's frustration with Israel. In the first
part, they try to tell the reader that the Israeli are waging a war of equals, and not genociding, the Palestinians (and that
the USA has nothing to do with it). In the second part, it laments the bad timing by the Israelis, who interrupted their propaganda
warfare operation against China on the "Uighur genocide" campaign.
It urges Israel to clean the mess as quick as possible in order for the anti-China propaganda campaign to resume.
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, the above statement is literal, as the USA has, so far, exported zero - I repeat, zero
(not rounding down) - vaccines so far.
Meanwhile, China has already exported 250 million doses and counting (last time I checked, a week ago) - more than the entire
Indian production (India had just exported some 60 million doses).
The inner contradictions of capitalism in plain sight.
On the one side, you have to give people money so they can keep themselves quarantined. On the other side, capitalism requires
people to keep working or to keep searching for work in order to pull down wages, thus increasing the rate of surplus value. That's
why conservatives are usually in favor of the Christian charity, that gives only food and shelter, but not cash, to the unemployed,
but not of wage raises and unemployment benefits - the fact that you're paid in cash and not in kind makes all the difference
in the world in the capitalist system.
Unemployment benefits only help capitalism is it is low enough just to keep one physically alive and in constant search for
jobs. That way, he/she incorporates the industrial reserve army, which brings wages down. The problem with the USA is that wages
were already so low before the pandemic that those USD 600.00 checks made 35% (!!) of its recently unemployed recipients richer
than when they were employed. Logically, those 35% don't want to go back to work, as their lives are objectively better now than
they were before the pandemic, and that's why the Republican congressmen and senators are pressuring Biden (as they pressured
Trump) to outright extinguish those checks.
P.S.: the top rated commentary in the article ("Great generations of Americans came here 100 years ago...") by the time I typed
this is hilarious, shows the delusion of the average American towards their own system almost perfectly. The other comments are
also very funny. The narrative that "there are a lot of jobs available, but no one is skilled enough/wants it" is used by the
capitalists every time there's an economic crisis, just search your favorite newspaper for the years of 1980-1982, 1975 etc. etc.
and you'll see the same bullshit being preached over and over again.
Talks about apartheid as the only possible synthesis between a Jewish theocratic state and a liberal bourgeois state, which
I mentioned in the past two threads about the subject.
As I said before, the system is unstable and is doomed to fail. Either Israel abandons its Zionist project and gives up the
idea of being an 100% Jewish state and thus becomes a liberal bourgeois state or it will continue to wither and degenerate until
it falls to a civil war.
It would've been the first if not for a providential last grasp effort by NASA, who used the resources it had and didn't have
to pull that off, by a few months.
The tendency, however is clear. NASA will soon cease to exist as we know it and essentially become the State façade of SpaceX.
The USA's space program will then be entirely dependent on the genius of Elon Musk.
--//--
Cuban vaccines (Abdala and Soberana 02) continue advancing on their trials:
If you had read and understood the Mars 3 link I provided you would have learned that it wasn't a rover either. Which the first
rover was has already been told. End of story.
Posted by: Norwegian | May 16 2021 18:37 utc | 37
Yes, but no. Mars 3 actually had a rover on board, PROP-M. To quote Wikipedia:
"The Mars 3 lander, a so called Passability Estimating Vehicle for Mars, was designed and manufactured in Mobile Vehicle Engineering
Institute by a team of approximately 150 engineers, led by Alexander Kemurdzhian. The vehicle had a small 'Mars rover' on board,
which was planned to move across the surface on skis while connected to the lander with a 15-meter umbilical cable. Two small
metal rods were used for autonomous obstacle avoidance, as radio signals from Earth would take too long to drive the rovers using
remote control. The rover carried a dynamic penetrometer and a gamma ray densitometer."
... although it seems it never was deployed because of the communication failure, so it cannot count as the first rover to
function on Mars.
Rep. Maxine Waters of California, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, joined
demonstrations this weekend in Minnesota. She told supporters that if the Chauvin trial
verdict goes the wrong way, "we've got to not only stay in the street but we've got to fight
for justice."
You may recall a president got pilloried a while ago for urging his supporters to "fight"
for their desired outcome. It was noted then that the term is a well-worn rhetorical phrase
that doesn't necessarily amount to a literal incitement to violence. But there can't be much
doubt about the import of what Ms. Waters said. She made her remarks in Brooklyn Center, a few
miles from the barricaded Minneapolis courthouse where the Chauvin trial is taking place and
the site of the killing last weekend of a black man by a police officer. The place has been
aflame for the past week in an orgy of rioting.
The Handler standard, or the Maxine maxim "the idea that we don't really need a trial to
know whether someone is guilty of a heinous crime" has always had its adherents. There have
surely been miscarriages of justice "acquittals of guilty people and convictions of innocent
ones" throughout history. The jury system is never perfect.
But what's frighteningly new about our current climate is that the rejection of apparently
unwelcome trial outcomes is now part of the dominant progressive critique of our longstanding
political and civic order. If U.S. institutions are the product of white-supremacist
exploitation "as is essentially the consensus of the people who run the government, most
corporations, and leading cultural institutions" then the judicial system itself is inherently
and systemically unjust. If the principle of equality before the law is to be supplanted by the
objective of "equity" in outcome, then only outcomes that serve the higher objective of
collective racial justice can be considered legitimate.
So trials that produce the "wrong" verdict are not just miscarriages of justice. They are an
indictment of the entire system.
The ascendancy of this new progressive radicalism adds a frightening element to the unease
the nation feels this week as the jury deliberates in Minneapolis. By all accounts the trial of
Mr. Chauvin has been rigorous, methodical and fair. The prosecution seemed to make a strong
case that Mr. Floyd died at least in part as a result of the officer's actions. The defense may
have sowed some doubts about whether Mr. Chavin's intent rose to the level of culpability
required of the most serious charges.
But under our new rules, the jury's verdict will be tolerated only if it goes the "right"
way.
This rejection of the legitimacy of the judicial process is rooted in the same neo-Marxist
ideology""a race- and identity-based interpretation of structuralism""that holds sway over the
minds of much of our ruling class.
To the old Marxists, the capitalists were the exploiters. In "The ABC of Communism,"
published in 1920, Bolshevik leaders Nikolai Bukharin and Yevgeni Preobrazhensky used language
that sounds strikingly familiar today. They denounced the courts as instruments of "bourgeois
justice," which was "carried on under the guidance of laws passed in the interests of the
exploiting class," and recommended instead the establishment of "proletarian courts."
In one of the more savage ironies of history, some two decades later the authors themselves
were tried by such courts under Josef Stalin and sentenced to death.
Yet even Stalin thought some kind of judicial proceeding was necessary. Our modern
revolutionaries would dispense even with show trials.
E
Eli Hauser SUBSCRIBER 2 weeks ago (Edited)
Red Queen Rules. Sentence. Verdict. Accusation. Admission of Guilt.
Mark Robbins SUBSCRIBER 2 weeks ago
Liberals have no need for trials with an assumption of innocence. At all times, they KNOW
what is right.
Chris Madison SUBSCRIBER 2 weeks ago
We are living through a "throw the baby out with the bath" moment. Extremists are labeling
anything which doesn't go their way as "systemically racist." If there is no jurisprudence
and due process, no system of laws addressing a variety of crimes, but only the cry for
"justice now" without defining what justice looks like according to law, then anarchy has
taken the place of justice. Ms. Handler is entitled to her opinion. I am glad she is not in a
position of leadership. Congresswoman Maxine Waters likes to make statements which "stir the
pot," potentially raising the "rage level" across our nation. She should know better, but
doesn't. Our nation is on the cusp of a moment when we must intentionally decide who we are
legally, morally, and Constitutionally. Emotions are insufficient for this moment.
Christopher Jones SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
This essay would have tremendous weight if there was not a video of the murder. Absent that
it is stupefyingly ignorant. "The prosecution seemed to make a strong case that Mr. Floyd
died at least in part as a result of the officer's actions." Really, sir? A video literally
showing the officer kneeling on Mr. Floyd's neck until he passed out and later died. Are you
suggesting that he would have died on his own had the officer not done this?
You are attempting to seem reasonable with your pleas for due process, but you just come
across as obtuse. A video of a man murdering another man and your like, no I don't believe
it. There has to be another explanation.
Tad Story SUBSCRIBER 2 weeks ago
So your saying Mr. Floyd's use of a Highly addictive and equally deadly narcotic on top of
already severe heart condition to which your camera did not display played no role as to the
outcome? Considering the use of Fentanyl is 900 times more deadly than crack-cocaine I feel
it needed to be discussed and weighed, to which it was but the mob had their torches ready
and that carried as much or even more weight, Maxine made sure of that..
beryl silver SUBSCRIBER 2 weeks ago (Edited)
The article failed to mention the words protesters need "to get more confrontational" Maxine
Waters used.
Michael Lapolla SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
It has been obvious to us that the state of Minnesota offered Derek Chauvin as a sacrifice on
the altar of expediency. Witness the immediate and joyous victory laps by the state AG. It
just took a while and a show trial. It is obvious that the jury had no stomach for another
outcome. This is what you vote for - this is what you get.
And we have a Capitol police person murdering an unarmed trespasser, but our DOJ sees and
hears no evil and utters not a word.
What a national embarrassment. Go back to sleep Minnesota.
FRANK HERMAN SUBSCRIBER 2 weeks ago
He wasn't on his neck. Even the prosecution witness admitted, that when looked at from other
angles, that the cop was on his shoulder blade.
Tim Taylor SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
Something to think about in the current culture of policing:
Most dangerous jobs in U.S. 1. Logging 2. Aircraft pilots/flight engineers 3. Derrick
operators 4. Roofers 5. Garbage collectors 6. Iron workers. 7. Delivery drivers 8. Farmers.
9. Firefighting supervisors 10. Power linemen 11. Agricultural workers 12. Crossing guards
13. Crane operators 14. Construction helpers. 15. Landscaping supervisors 16. Highway
maintenance workers. 17. Cement masons 18. Small engine mechanics. 19. Supervisors of
mechanics 20. Heavy equipment mechanics. 21. Grounds maintenance workers 22. Police
Officers.
What Maxine does not seem to understand is that demonizing the police works against gun
control efforts.
The more that the citizenry believes the police cannot be trusted to protect them, the
more citizens will seek to protect themselves, including purchasing and carrying
firearms.
Kenneth Gimbel SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
Whew. I guess Minneapolis won't be torched tonight. Or, maybe, just a little bit to satisfy
the mob.
Verne Thibodeaux SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago (Edited)
There are a lot of "undocumented shoppers" who are very disappointed today.
Michael Havey SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
As I've been saying since the first day of the trial, only the dumbest, most gullible, least
informed Americans believed that Derek Chauvin was innocent.
DK Brand SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago (Edited)
All that without due process being applied? See, you are the problem when the vast majority
of people who saw the video were horrified and felt the officer was guilty of his death. But
we have a system of laws and due process protects everyone, even the seemingly obviously
guilty. There are people who are caught red handed every day who receive the same due
process. So stop crowing about your imaginary opponents and accept that our system has worked
as designed.
William Coburn SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago (Edited)
innocent
He did not need to be found innocent, just not guilty.
Nidge M SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago (Edited)
Talk about dark comedy ........
IF Chauvin is convicted the seemingly not very legally au fait Maxine Waters just handed
his team perfect grounds to appeal against any conviction.
The whole situation is peturbing at a frightening number of levels 'though.
What will US cities do if 10%, 20% even 70% their Cops quit?
What will they do even if they don't quit but 'work to the letter of the rules' and slow all
action to a crawl?
Its not too unthinkable given the record of violence the very large man Chauvin was
kneeling on in the course of the arrest.
And add to that the somewhat inept but from the video plausible Police woman now
incacerated for shooting instead of tasering another career criminal .......... Which from
this distance appears to be a based on political rather than legal considerations.
Would you be a cop?
Meanwhile politicians from both main US parties appear to be giving their blessing to
those who wish to userp the rule of law .......... That's viable is it?
Nidge M SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago (Edited)
No, Floyd was not resisting arrest actively & constantly for 9 minutes.
But
Floyd was a very large male with a record of extream violence, drug abuse and
unpredictability.
Its hardly novel for an aprehended person to fake placidity, then when their restrainers
relax to explode into extream violence.
I am not asserting what Chauvin did was right or wrong ........ But I do think its a
reaction which anyone who has had to deal with violent offenders would regard as a pretty
understandable reaction.
I also wonder might those who are so ready to jump on the bandwagon, grandstanding &
howling in condemnation precipitate something far beyond their expectations.
I wonder too what would happen if the majority of those so quick to condemn were handed
responsibility for doing the policing job people like Chauvin have to do.
How would you do it?
Lori Crossley SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
I don't think anyone wants policing like Chauvin did it. It led to the death of a man. There
were a lot of potential outcomes to this arrest. I would not blame any officer for being
overly cautious based on Floyd's arrest record - and yes, it does count.
But Chauvin was not alone in making this arrest. He had assistance which was not utilized.
Do people fake injury to get away from police officers? I am sure they do.
But there were 9 long minutes when that was not happening. There are thousands of police
officers who leave their homes each day to walk into potentially violent situations. And they
do their job and go home at night (with little thanks) and did not make the same choice
Chauvin did. His trial was fair and the verdict is in. The process worked for Chauvin - not
so much for Floyd.
Mark Allen SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
I grew up on the block where the police station is located, in an apartment often captured in
the footage of the rioting. And while it did make the local papers, the national news has
failed to report that the folks living in those apartments cannot sleep (due to the rioters)
and have to put wet towels over their windows to keep out the teargas (due to the police).
And the irony in this is that the overwhelming majority of those apartment dwellers are
working-poor, persons of color.
Let that sink in.
Scott Mote SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
For the regressives and BLMers, those apartment dwellers are just collateral damage. Maybe
BLM will move them into a BLM mansion.
John Smith SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
Great insights Mr. Baker.
Strange how video evidence clearly convicts the subject in the minds of leftists. They
appear to be able to assign motive and punishment based on their emotional appraisal. We have
a sitting California Congresswoman stating this on video tape.
Well, we are not to believe every video tape. Remember Jussie Smollett? They did the same
to the unnamed racists, who assaulted Mr. Smollett - according to his version of events. All
muscular non black males were guilty, until individually cleared. The usual leftists in
politics, media, and entertainment joined Jussie.
Unfortunately, Jussie's version of events was false. He hired two black men to "assault"
him, then put together his soap opera version of the script. Since both stories could not be
true, no one went to jail. This is what politicians with law degrees have contributed to our
Republic.
Yes, he still faces felony charges. But it is more than two years hence. Speedy trial?
Paul Stroud SUBSCRIBER 3 weeks ago
For all of most of our lives we've been able to rely on a civil society that recognized its'
faults, if even after a period of time, and took hard steps to correct them. This is now at
risk as acceptable "civil disobedience" becomes "violent disobedience". We can no longer look
at other parts of the world that are continually wrenched apart by violent, factional
conflict and destruction and think, "oh, at least it can't happen here". It is happening
here, and it is escalating. I hope I am wrong, but I fear for our children and grandchildren.
(nytimes.com)
371 Posted by msmash on Monday May 24, 2021 @04:00PM from the how-about-that dept. Florida
on Monday became the first state to regulate how companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter
moderate
speech online , by imposing fines on social media companies that permanently bar political
candidates in the state. From a report:
The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is a direct response to Facebook's and Twitter's
bans of former President Donald J. Trump in January. In addition to the fines for barring
candidates, it makes it illegal to prevent some news outlets from posting to their platforms
in response to the contents of their stories. Mr. DeSantis said signing the bill meant that
Floridians would be "guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites."
"If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the
dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable," he said in a statement.
The bill is part of a broader push among conservative state legislatures to crack down on the
ability of tech companies to manage posts on their platforms. The political efforts took off
after Mr. Trump was barred after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Lawmakers around the
country have echoed Mr. Trump's accusations that the companies are biased against
conservative personalities and publications, even though those accounts often thrive online.
More than a hundred bills targeting the companies' moderation practices have been filed
nationwide this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many of the
bills have died, but a proposal is still being debated in Texas.
Probably it was not a false flag. First of all the state of IT security at Colonial Pipeline
was so dismal that it was strange that this did not happened before. And there might be
some truth that they try to exploit this hack to thier advantage as maintenance of the
pipeline is also is dismal shape.
Notable quotes:
"... "As for the money-nobody really knows where it really went." If you are right about the perpetrators, my guess would be that it went into the black-ops fund, two birds one stone. ..."
"... I have become so used to false flags, I am going to be shocked when a real intrusion happens! ..."
"... an in depth article researching solarwinds hack - looks like it was Israel, not a great leap to see that colonial was a false flag https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/01/investigative-reports/another-mega-group-spy-scandal-samanage-sabotage-and-the-solarwinds-hack/ ..."
"... Regarding the ownership of Colonial Pipeline: 'IFM Investors, which is owned by 27 Australian union- and employer-backed industry superannuation funds, owns a 16 per cent stake in Colonial Pipeline, which the infrastructure manager bought in 2007 for $US651 million.' ..."
"... 'The privately held Colonial Pipeline is valued at about $US8 billion, based upon the most recent sale of a 10 per cent stake to a unit of Royal Dutch Shell in 2019.' ..."
The Colonial Pipeline Co.,ransomware attack was a false flag. They wanted to blame Russian
hackers so they could derail Nordstream II
It is common knowledge that the only real hackers that are able of such sabotage is CIA
and Israeli. It's the same attack types they do to Iranian infrastructure on a regular
basis.
The Russians are not that stupid to do something they know will be blamed on them and is
of no political use to them. And could derail Nordstream2.
As for the money-nobody really knows where it really went. CEO is ultra corrupt. They
never ever invested in their infrastructure so when it went down they came up with a
profitable excuse. Just look at their financials/balance sheet over the years. No real
investment in updating and maintaining infrastructure. Great false flag. Corruption and
profiteering.
"As for the money-nobody really knows where it really went." If you are right
about the perpetrators, my guess would be that it went into the black-ops fund, two birds one
stone.
I'm not familiar with your handle - hello. IMO, it would be counterproductive for Russia
to initiate such a hack. What really affects and debilitates US oil and gas interests is low
prices, both at the pump and on the stock exchange. The hack helped jack up prices (which
were already being jacked-up despite demand still lagging behind supply) which only HELPS
those energy interests. It has long been known, the math isn't complicated, what level crude
must trade at for US domestic oil & gas operations to be profitable. Remember that just
as the pandemic was emerging Russia and Saudi Arabia once again sent the global crude market
into the depths of despair.
I do agree the hack can be interpreted in light of the desperation of US energy interests
to try to kill NS2. I have not yet read the recent articles discussing Biden's recent moves
in that regard. If these moves are a recognition that US LNG to Europe (and elsewhere) are
diametrically opposed to climate responsibility, I'd welcome those moves. As is usually the
case though, environmental responsibility is probably the least likely reason.
Regarding the ownership of Colonial Pipeline: 'IFM Investors, which is owned by 27
Australian union- and employer-backed industry superannuation funds, owns a 16 per cent stake
in Colonial Pipeline, which the infrastructure manager bought in 2007 for $US651
million.'
also
'The privately held Colonial Pipeline is valued at about $US8 billion, based upon the
most recent sale of a 10 per cent stake to a unit of Royal Dutch Shell in 2019.'
"... The Global Financial Syndicate will use all kind of distractions to mask the MONETARY power and divide the populace to continue its control & dominance through monetary imperialism. The world is a playground for "evil spirits." ..."
One need to understand the STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT correctly, clearly, and comprehensively
to live & light our world. What is your strategic construct of the national and
international control system?
The Global Financial Syndicate will use all kind of distractions to mask the MONETARY
power and divide the populace to continue its control & dominance through monetary
imperialism. The world is a playground for "evil spirits."
How does the Financial Empire increase its control & POWER over a region? It likes
turning each region into its suzerainty and an Animal Farm (Top-Down Control Structure -
Democracy/Republic/...) internally by controlling its money supply through the
central-private banking system.
Global Financial Empire's strategy:
– Capture LANDS
– Constitutionalize to control the suzerainty & LIVES
– Create LOANS through private creation of money by the private banking system
(Credit/Debt) & give preferential access-terms to kleptocrats (Kleptocrats/Finance --
> Business/Media -- > Politicians/Bureaucrats -- > people)
– Conserve control & power through Consumerism - lifestyles (Labor &
Leisure)
Monetary Power = Lands x Lives x Loans. The key CONTROL elements of the Financial Empire
within a suzerainty are:
– credit/debt - LOANS
– consumerism/desires - LIFESTYLE
– circuses/distractions. - LOST & trivial
When it comes to the international realm it seeks following freedoms:
– freedom of capital movement,
– freedom of trade,
– freedom to provide services, particularly financial
– freedom for warfare
The Global Financial Syndicate controls, finances and corrupts policies such as those in
the U$A administration by its financing the substitution of national leaders with employees
of the Financial Syndicate, such as Biden, Draghi, Yellen, Juncker, Macron,... Globalization
is meant to establish the global financial syndicate's rule everywhere, hierarchically from
top to bottom, in contrast to the democratic right of citizens to self-determination and the
responsibility of governments towards their citizens.
Who wants to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt?
"... My life story is very similar to yours -- blue collar upbringing, worked graveyard shift in factories during college, made it all the way to Wall Street --- and I completely agree with you. The Democratic Party might have been the party of the working-class families many years ago, but it's absolutely not that now. ..."
"... The most interesting aspect of party realignment in almost every country is the movement of the Anglo-Saxon elites to the parties of leftist authoritarianism, whether in the UK, US, or Canada. Since elites have always had “fluid” political values, one can only assume that they see tyranny as our destiny. ..."
I am a retired attorney but was reared in a blue collar home. I have not lost the values I
learned where my father returned home from work six days a week as a railroad brakeman.
Thanks to my pre-law curriculum I am well read in history and literature. My undergrad major
was history and my minor literature.
Having acquired a love for reading in college I have read both all my life but it has not
changed me from the son my father reared. I worked construction and general labor jobs to
help pay for college and law school and am very aware of how hard those jobs are and I have a
healthy respect for the men and women who provide us with the essential goods and services we
all need.
I therefore have no use for attitude of most on the left and some on the right who have no
respect for average working people and small business.
It seems many in Britain have the same outlook. My Dad was very proud I became a lawyer
but I am just as proud of the job he performed to give me that chance.
SUBSCRIBER 5 hours ago
I therefore have no use for attitude of most on the left and some on the right who have no
respect for average working people and small business. It seems many in Britain have the same
outlook.
My life story is very similar to yours -- blue collar upbringing, worked graveyard
shift in factories during college, made it all the way to Wall Street --- and I completely
agree with you. The Democratic Party might have been the party of the working-class families
many years ago, but it's absolutely not that now.
SUBSCRIBER 4 hours ago
Most democrat leaders are career politicians like Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Schumer. They
never had a real job and paid any taxes. They love raising taxes for big government and dole
out. Can’t wait for midterm election and take back the congress. R
SUBSCRIBER 14 hours ago
The most interesting aspect of party realignment in almost every country is the
movement of the Anglo-Saxon elites to the parties of leftist authoritarianism, whether in the
UK, US, or Canada. Since elites have always had “fluid” political values,
one can only assume that they see tyranny as our destiny.
How can one ignore all the noise in the media to focus on the crux of the situation,
implications, and the future outcomes?
One can only understand the impact of events better and envision the future by exploring
plausible scenarios and identifying signals which over time will enable one to size up the
probabilities of outcomes.
INTERNATIONAL -- MONETARY IMPERIALISM
Geopolitical relationships are frosty & flammable. All the narratives can be summed up
into a few SCENARIOS:
DECOUPLING. Two spheres of influence & supply chains. China & Russia led and
the Five Eyes led. Germany/EU?
WAR. The dollar empire launching a war against China &/or Russia. Iran?
The probabilities of these scenarios will be defined by the following SIGNALS:
NS2. Is Nord Stream 2 completed by September? If yes, a major geopolitical
victory for Russia. If the U$A can thwart this project then it still has the power and will
to shape Europe. If, on the other hand, Germany & Russia resists U$A's pressure and
complete the pipeline to operate, that would be an act of defiance unprecedented in postwar
history. This is the biggest clash between Russia and the United States since the end of
World War II. Let's see if European countries are less subservient to Washington.
De-DOLLARIZATION. China, Russia and other nations moving away from the US$ and trading
in their respective national currencies.
SANCTIONS. More sanctions from the dollar empire against China, Russia, Iran,
Germany... Counter sanctions, retaliations... impact on the global economy...
Any new scenarios & signals? What probabilities would one assign to various scenarios?
What will be the construct of scenarios and signals at the national level?
The Dollar Empire likes to initiate a conflict during Olympics when they are held in its
adversaries:
"... On one occasion, she said Sheldon Adelson , a Jewish American billionaire who supports Republicans and right-wing Israeli politicians, looked like "a naked mole rat." For this, the right branded Wilder an anti-Semite, even though she is Jewish. Now she's out of a job. ..."
"... But it would be a mistake to reduce either Wilder's firing or the persistence of Cuomo to a story about cancel culture. The phenomenon is obviously one-sided; the outrage, bogus. This is really a story about journalism and an industry that has abdicated its most basic responsibilities. ..."
"... The rules matter. They exist to protect the integrity of a news outlet and to protect the public from corruption. Instead, news outlets are failing consumers and journalists alike. They serve power rather than challenge it. The result is a weak press in a nation desperate for the truth. That's no way to serve the public. ..."
"... AP prohibits employees from openly expressing their opinions on political matters and other public issues. ..."
"... I think Don Lemon is just an actor that plays a journalist on TV. Also, where is the diversity they preach on this network? Where are the Latinx, the Asian hosts, the women? So much for following what you preach. ..."
Emily Wilder is a promising young journalist. After finishing a stint at the Arizona
Republic , the recent Stanford graduate began a job with the Associated Press on May 3
as a news associate. Wilder could have built a career at the storied wire service or, with the
experience she'd gained, leap to a major paper. Instead, the AP fired her two weeks in, days
after the Stanford College Republicans pointed a right-wing mob in Wilder's direction. Wilder,
it turns out, has political opinions: In college, she belonged to Students for Justice in
Palestine and to Jewish Voice for Peace, two groups that oppose the occupation of Palestinian
territory by Israeli forces. On one occasion, she said Sheldon
Adelson , a Jewish American billionaire who supports Republicans and right-wing Israeli
politicians, looked like "a naked mole rat." For this, the right branded Wilder an anti-Semite,
even though she is Jewish. Now she's out of a job.
Contrast Wilder's circumstances with those of
Chris Cuomo . The star CNN anchor will keep his job even though he has flouted basic
ethical standards that typically apply to other, less prominent journalists. Though CNN once
banned Cuomo from interviewing his governor brother, Andrew, it relaxed that when the pandemic
hit "and the Cuomo Brothers show soared to popularity," Margaret Sullivan
wrote at the Washington Post . That looked bad, CNN eventually conceded, and it
reinstated the ban. Behind the scenes, though, Cuomo's ethical violations continued. On
Thursday, the Post
reported that he had advised his brother on how to handle sexual harassment allegations
that threatened the elder Cuomo's popularity and career. Cuomo won't be punished, CNN said.
Nothing can stop the Cuomo Brothers show.
The Cuomos possess something Emily Wilder lacks: power. Outrage derailed Wilder's career
nearly as soon as it had begun. But real ethical violations can't kick Cuomo off the air. The
Wilder and Cuomo stories both impart something vital about cancel culture. "There's no question
I was just canceled," Wilder
told SFGate. Cuomo, meanwhile, reportedly used the phrase to discuss his brother's sexual
harassment problem. In practice, cancel culture cuts one way, against journalists like Wilder
or
Nikole Hannah-Jones , who was recently
denied tenure under pressure from conservatives
with links to the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, NC Policy Watch has
reported. Against a white, male network star or his brother the governor, cancel culture can
apparently do little.
But it would be a mistake to reduce either Wilder's firing or the persistence of Cuomo
to a story about cancel culture. The phenomenon is obviously one-sided; the outrage, bogus.
This is really a story about journalism and an industry that has abdicated its most basic
responsibilities. The Associated Press has claimed that Wilder violated its social-media
policies, though she says her bosses were unable to tell her how. In the absence of a
substantive reason to fire Wilder, another explanation presents itself: The AP capitulated to a
bad-faith political campaign. In doing so, it betrayed its very reason to exist. Wilder's
political opinions have no bearing on her ability to gather news. The AP showed it is not
impartial after all; it can be persuaded, if only from the right.
There is no evidence that Wilder is anything but what she appears to be, a talented and
committed young journalist. People don't always enter college knowing they want to be
journalists. Indeed, perhaps they shouldn't. Any definition of objectivity that requires a
journalist to pretend neutrality asks that person to lie. Journalists are not automatons. They
have opinions, and if they are not male or white or rich or straight, those opinions make them
vulnerable to the right-wing outrages that just cost Wilder her new job. The press has one
purpose, and that is to report news in the public's interest. It is not entertainment. It is
not propaganda. It is not public relations.
And that's why Chris Cuomo ought to be out of a job. CNN, too, has forgotten why it exists.
Cuomo's infractions impede his ability to cover the news. By keeping him employed, CNN says the
news does not matter and neither do the rules. CNN made a similar calculation in the past with
plagiarism, which typically ends careers "" unless a journalist happens to be Fareed Zakaria.
The current host of CNN's GPS , he is generally tasked with explaining various
foreign-policy matters to a popular audience and once lifted sections of a Jill Lepore column
for a column in Time . Though CNN briefly suspended
Zakaria in 2012 for the offense, the site Our Bad Media
uncovered further incidents in 2014. Yet Zakaria persists, with CNN's help. He still hosts
his show and will likely continue to do so unless another, bigger scandal somehow takes him
down. The network's motivations are not mysterious. It wants to keep its moneymakers and elite
influencers. To do this, it'll ignore the ethical standards that apply to everyone else. At the
same time, journalism's Emily Wilders will scrape for every bit of job security they can
find.
The rules matter. They exist to protect the integrity of a news outlet and to protect
the public from corruption. Instead, news outlets are failing consumers and journalists alike.
They serve power rather than challenge it. The result is a weak press in a nation desperate for
the truth. That's no way to serve the public.
JosephQua 11 HOURS AGO
"On one occasion, she said Sheldon Adelson, a Jewish American billionaire who supports
Republicans and right-wing Israeli politicians, looked like "a naked mole rat." For this, the
right branded Wilder an anti-Semite, even though she is Jewish. Now she's out of a job."
This is a lie.
Wilder wasn't fired for remarks she tweeted while a college student, she was fired for
tweets made in the 17 days she was employed by AP openly expressing her personal opinions on
the Israel-Palestinian conflict, in one of which she openly attacked the idea of objectivity
in journalism.
AP prohibits employees from openly expressing their opinions on political matters and
other public issues.
Wilder knows exactly what tweets git her in trouble and when she made them.
In my opinion, both Chris Cuomo and Wilder should be terminated.
hivequeen+ 17 HOURS AGO
The problem isn't that Chris Cuomo talked to his brother. The problem is that Chris Cuomo
talked to his brother AND his brother's advisors while they planned and developed a political
strategy to defend his brother against claims of sexual harassment. And you know that.
tanquerochicago 1 DAY AGO
CNN has lost all credibility as a "news organization". I can't watch any of it with a
straight face. They claim to believe in liberal views, preach the importance of diversity
(rightfully so), and claim to be a serious network but they've allowed the Cuomo clown hour
to continue.
I think Don Lemon is just an actor that plays a journalist on TV. Also, where is the
diversity they preach on this network? Where are the Latinx, the Asian hosts, the women? So
much for following what you preach.
And the Cuomos simply give Italians a bad name. They play into all of the awful
stereotypes that everyone should be fighting...the machismo, sexism, bravado....gross! Just
gross.
nibblybits 1 DAY AGO (Edited)
It's examples like Chris Cuomo not being even slapped on the wrist that gives oxygen to
accusations of the right that CNN is fake news and no better than Fox. They lose the moral
high ground against propaganda arms like Newsmax and OANN if Chris Cuomo is allowed to
perpetuate defenses of his own brother from his perch as anchor. (And let's not peddle in the
fiction that Chris is not reporting on his brother, when we know he has power in that
organization to direct coverage.)
His colleagues are furious. Jim Acosta has been wading out into pro-Trump mobs for years
trying to defend his job and his network, and Chris Cuomo just blew that up.
Embarrassing.
Worse are the partisan hypocrites on here defending Cuomo.
. . . which has caused some GOP leaders to fear alienating female Republican voters, particularly educated suburbanites
who will be key votes in the 2022 elections.
When I first met my wife, she told me women shouldn't have the right to vote. It was instant love.
A Girl In Flyover Country 59 minutes ago
[in case of Cheney] The war monger doesn't fall far from the tree.
Rise21 42 minutes ago remove link
Amazing how the liberal news outlets are now supporting a Cheney. But they know more war equals more rating
yochananmichael 51 seconds ago
its time for the republicans to rid itself of chicken hawk warmongers like Cheney.
He father disbanded there Iraqi Army which was supposed to provide security, causing an insurgency and 5000 dead American boys
and countless maimed.
vic and blood PREMIUM 4 minutes ago
Cheney's benefactors have erected massive billboards all over the state, 'thanking her for defending the Constitution.'
She has an incredible war chest, and sadly, money and advertising decides a lot of elections.
Looks like the chance to win a million bucks can give vaccination rates a real shot in the
arm.
Ohio saw its COVID-19 vaccination rate jump 45% between May 14-19 as compared to the
previous week, thanks in part to the state's Vax-A-Million lottery,
Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters on Wednesday . Last week, the state said it recorded a 28%
spike in vaccinations in the days following the lottery announcement.
Each week, adult Ohioans who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose will enter a
random drawing to win a million dollars. And younger vaccinated Ohio residents between the ages
of 12 and 17 will be part of a weekly random drawing to get a four-year scholarship to an Ohio
public university, which will include tuition, room, board and books. There will be five
winners for each prize selected over the next five weeks.Wednesday night, the Ohio lottery
announced the first two winners: Abbigail Bugenske of Silverton, near Cincinnati, won $1
million, while Joseph Costello of Englewood, near Dayton, won the college scholarship. Each
Wednesday moving forward, another adult and another teen winner will be revealed at 7:29 p.m.
through June 23.
More than 2.7 million adults registered for the cash prizes, and more than 100,000 teens are
vying for the scholarships.
After Russiagate the credibility of CIA is below zero. So this looks like a part of
propaganda compaign against China.
"Yet somehow Tony Fauci didn't know this Can we really believe that? No, of course, we
can't," Carlson continued, adding "right around the time those Chinese researchers became the
world's first COVID patients, the government of Thailand contacted the CDC and Tony Fauci's
office to say its intelligence service had picked up 'biological anomalies' around the lab in
Wuhan. In other words, there had been a leak."
ay_arrow
AUS-AUD 8 hours ago (Edited)
If fauci funded the wuhan lab then the US funded the wuhan lab.
popeye 6 hours ago
There has been no new credible information released in the past two months pertaining to
the origin of SARS-Cov-2. US Intelligence is not a credible source (lying & deception
are the tradecraft of espionage). All I see is media narrative spin based on conjecture
that you can guarantee has political origins.
Yet Americans, who complain incessantly about the dishonesty of their media, credulously
swallow the narrative fed to them without analysis or critique. Stupid. You think you are
independent rebels, when you are in reality manipulated sheep, and oh so easily
manipulated.
Lets be clear - ZH is now a part of the narrative machine.
SurfingUSA 4 hours ago (Edited)
Can't make inferences????
The Wuhan lab is just the fall guy here.
The virus,
the lab (or Army games) release,
the election impact ...
ALL either Made in the (((USA))) or close to it.
Justin Timberbieber 8 hours ago
Yep, just the CCP. No western involvement whatsoever.
E5 8 hours ago
Until you trace the scientists back to UNC. Then you see that the actual virus they
accelerated came from the US.
Heimdall - Torwart von Assguard 6 hours ago
AND Canada
Ted K. 6 hours ago
The Winnipeg lab of the fully infiltrated Canada is indeed a piece of the puzzle.
Herdee 5 hours ago
And Ft. Detrick
RedNemesis 6 hours ago (Edited)
Okay. They accelerated and released a virus obtained from the US. So is the US
responsible for a country turning yellow cake uranium mined in Nevada into a nuclear
weapon?
truth or go home 5 hours ago
Yes, if the US gives them the recipe and then pays them to develop it.
And if the US did that to get around a law that makes it illegal to do makes it even
worse - which is exactly what happened.
SteveNYC 7 hours ago
I'm going with the "populism" route. Stopping populist governments in their tracks has
always proven reason enough for panic and overkill from TPTB:
- USA
- Brazil
- India
<< Primary targets.
Heimdall - Torwart von Assguard 6 hours ago
Poland
Hungary
Venezuela
Brazil
popeye 6 hours ago
Most Americans have never left their country, many have never left their state, and few
seem to have an education. You can't expect them to know much about anything outside the
US. Basically a flat earth mentality - "the world consists only of what I can see".
junction 8 hours ago
The only certainty is that all the major facts are lies.
Jolt 5 hours ago
You're on the right track, "junction", but be aware that the virus is just an ordinary
flu/corona virus that isn't deadly for the vast majority of humans. The real culprit, the
biggest tool for creating the worldwide "emergency" is the PCR test, which is 100%
fraudulent. This is by design, thanks to the pharmaceuticals.
williambanzai7 PREMIUM 8 hours ago remove link
No Tucker, if you just want to blame the whole thing on China you are missing the
punchline: Fauci
tion PREMIUM 8 hours ago (Edited) remove link
It's all an assortment of narratives and partial truths. Tucker points the finger at
China without mentioning how Fauci was funding Gain of Function work at the Wuhan lab. Here
is just one example of people from that lab using an HIV splice to increase
transmissibility of a pathogen to humans.
In this study, we investigated the receptor usage of the SL-CoV S by combining a human
immunodeficiency virus-based pseudovirus system with cell lines expressing the ACE2
molecules of human, civet, or horseshoe bat. In addition to full-length S of SL-CoV and
SARS-CoV, a series of S chimeras was constructed by inserting different sequences of the
SARS-CoV S into the SL-CoV S backbone. Several important observations were made from this
study. First, the SL-CoV S was unable to use any of the three ACE2 molecules as its
receptor. Second, the SARS-CoV S failed to enter cells expressing the bat ACE2. Third,
the chimeric S covering the previously defined receptor-binding domain gained its ability
to enter cells via human ACE2, albeit with different efficiencies for different
constructs. Fourth, a minimal insert region (amino acids 310 to 518) was found to be
sufficient to convert the SL-CoV S from non-ACE2 binding to human ACE2 binding ,
indicating that the SL-CoV S is largely compatible with SARS-CoV S protein both in
structure and in function.
Journal of Virology, February 2008
And by the way let's not pretend that dear Donald aka President Kushner's FIL didn't
also know about Fauci's questionable involvement with unethical gain of function research
at this lab before appointing him and the PEPFAR mafia to head the Covid taskforce, putting
the foxes in charge of guarding the hen house so to speak.
TheAlmightyCorndawg 8 hours ago
Which is precisely why Tucker is Operation Mockingbird.
Billy the Poet 7 hours ago (Edited)
Then show me solid evidence that what you say is true. You do have film of Tucker
working with the CIA, right?
2+2 ≠ 5 8 hours ago remove link
Huh?
Tucker has NEVER "supported the election hoax".
In fact, Tucker is one of the very few on MSM to continually call for proper voting
audits of the 2020 election, and he repeatedly highlights the obvious fraud that took
place.
ay_arrow
GoodyGumdrops 8 hours ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Election fraud has been happening in the US
for decades.
The only thing new this time around is they decided to mock the American people openly,
so that they can never claim ignorance again about the corruption.
The plandemic is the real worldwide atrocity being played out right now before our
eyes.
asteroids 8 hours ago
The heads of the NIH and the CDC have been caught lying. Therefore both agencies have NO
credibility and have lost the trust of the people. ...
Flying Monkees 8 hours ago
Imagine being a total POS like Fauci who would destroy the freedom and liberties of his
fellow Americans just so he can line his own pockets...
Robert would have become president, and then reopen the investigation into his brother's
murder.
A generation later, JFK's son, John F. Kennedy, Jr, who was also undoubtedly heading
toward the presidency or at least high politics, died when his small plane suddenly
nose-dived into the ocean. The chain of potential justice has been successively cut off.
The Mossad fingerprints are all over Robert's death and also Oswald's. And the Israeli
connection is conspicuously absent from the decades of conspiracy investigations that seem to
have been deliberately led to the CIA - Michael Collins Piper being the notable exception who
linked to Israel.
Dimona was the principal reason, says Guyénot, and shows that Lyndon Johnson put
paid to all opposition to Dimona coming from the US.
~~
I am not a student of this affair, but I've never seen much made of the fact that JFK was
already embarked upon issuing US currency directly - the USA Note rather than the Federal
Reserve Note that we call dollars today. This was canceled under Johnson, of course.
Presidents don't get to issue greenbacks. We had already seen how that worked out for
Lincoln.
Not a student of this, as I say. But I tend to see the world's power pyramid with
debt-issuers at the top, and all the other factions on lower steps. So, Dimona, yes, the main
incentive for Israel, and all the lesser motivations that caused rejoicing in many other
groups - but the money control at the top, in my view, is the force that gives the nod to
these various factions and approves the hit.
No one has asked but the most fascinating suspect in Dealey Plaza that fateful day was
Lamar Hunt.
Yes, that Lamar Hunt. The Lamar Hunt Trophy is in honor of that very guy.
He was the son of H.L. Hunt the billionaire oilman who had his main offices in Dealey
Plaza. Lamar Hunt was in his thirties at the time (31) and flew to Mexico minutes after the
shooting (this is a matter of record).
Lamar was escorting two men around Dealey Plaza that day. One was arrested coming out of a
building, arrested because he was reported/fingered as suspicious, someone that didn't belong
there.
The guy said he was looking for a phone booth to call his mother. This was James Braden a
known mafia hit man (who, by the way, was in the vicinity of the hotel where RFK was
assassinated). Braden was detained and then released. The other person, that had arrived with
Braden, checked out of his hotel minutes after the assassination and was gone.
Skiming through the JFK chapter of Guyenot's book, 'From Yahweh to Zion' it is obviously a
number of compelling 'reasons' JFK and his brother were despised by the Zionists.
First was their father Joe Kennedy. Out with the Swiss Army Knife of words, again.
Dimona also figured large. This was also covered by Seymour Hirsh in, 'The Sampson
Option., Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.' Note, Hersh writes in the
introduction, he refused to travel to the Bandit State because of the wall to wall censorship
imposed on ALL journalists.
Importantly, JFK visited a Palestinian refugee camp in 1956 and 'expressed sympathy' for
the Palestinians. The Zionists worst fears were his proposals to have them registered a
Foreign Agents.
KFK also advocated UN resolution 194, The Right of Return.
Posted by: Paul | May 24 2021 6:01 utc | 118 - and others on the JFK thing
I think it was the detente he intended to enter into with the USSR in addition to a few
other things.
For one, he wasn't murdered in Dallas, TX for no reason. That was the city where big oil
co-joined with the newly powerful "intelligence" community of the Dulles and Bush families.
The depletion allowance was a big deal and JFK was one of, if not the, first to suggest he
might end it.
Then there was the Cuba situation.
Finally there was the infamous quote about rendering the CIA into a thousand shards and it
blowing into the wind or something of that nature.
He managed to piss off and threaten all the main powers that be, including those with very
high level mafia connections.
If anyone gets the chance to visit it, the museum in Dallas in the former book repository
on the fifth (?) floor of that building is quite worth a visit. I thought I'd be bored as
hell when my wife and her younger sister dragged me and the family there one Saturday
afternoon, but it ended up being fascinating. That said, if I were a left-leaning or
anti-corporate/oil president to this day I'd stay TF away from Dallas or Houston, TX save for
an airfield-only visit. Well, until Iran can create the capability to murder our
politicians/diplomats from the air with no repercussions (still, anyone heard from Ayatollah
Mike in the last 6 months? Asking for a friend).
Starter's reading list (a must list IMO for every American) for you in order to understand
the Kennedy assassination (no, Israel had nothing to do with it):
James W. Douglass - JFK and the Unspeakable
David Talbot - Devil's Chessboard
James DiEugenio - Destiny Betrayed/ The JFK Assassination
Mark Lane - Rush to Judgement
Peter Dale Scott - Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
For more literature go to Our
Hidden History which is a treasure trove of all things US Deep State politics from Heroin
Trade in the Golden Triangle to Vietnam to JFK, to Watergate, Iran-Contra etc...
Auditors for a 2020 election investigation being carried out in Windham, New Hampshire, are
saying that some of their latest findings are "large enough to account for discrepancies" in
the election results.
Auditors said they found "experimental confirmation that if the contest is undervoted, a
fold through a vote target can create a vote."
"Something we strongly suspect at this juncture, based on various evidence, is that in
some cases, fold lines are being interpreted by the scanners as valid votes," Mark Lindeman,
part of the audit team,
told WMUR .
Harri Hursti, another auditor, said on Twitter that testing proved folded ballots were
misinterpreted by machines.
"Test decks proved that foldings across a vote targets is misinterpreted as additional
phantom votes or subtracts votes due to false overvotes," he wrote in a post.
Auditors finished the hand recount on May 21. The audit began
on May 11.
AccuVote didn't respond to a request for comment about the audit authorization by the Epoch
Times. The AccuVote machines' intellectual property are owned by Dominion Voting Systems.
Windham's four state representative seats were all won by Republicans on Election Night. The
presidential election was not an item for this audit.
Democrat candidate Kristi St. Laurent, who lost by a narrow margin of 24 votes, requested an
audit ( pdf ) claiming
that the machines were improperly programmed, and that double voting was involved.
As a result, New Hampshire's Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, signed a bill last month that gave authorization
for forensic analysis and a comprehensive recount of the 2020 election votes in Windham related
to optical scanning AccuVote machines.
An automatic recount was done, resulting in St. Laurent losing 99 more votes after a hand
recount. Meanwhile, four Republicans gained about 300 votes each.
The other three Democrats gained between 18 and 28 votes.
The audit team said that more issues could be involved besides folded ballots being
misinterpreted.
"The fold effect is large enough to account for discrepancies, but might not be all that's
going on," the team said on Twitter on May 22.
"75 folded ballots voted straight Republican. Only 48 votes recorded for them. Folds
generated overvotes. This is machine used on Election Day [for] most absentee ballots."
Another machine was found to have "an even more dramatic problem" by the auditors, who said
that only 28 percent of the votes for Republican candidates were counted.
"The work is not completed yet. While the folding seems to be a strong contributor it
clearly is not the only factor," Hursti said on Sunday.
"For example: We have observed vastly different error rates on two machines processing the
same ballots. Work continues."
One of the things that makes Wi-Fi work is its ability to break big chunks of
data into smaller chunks and combine smaller chunks into bigger chunks, depending on the needs of the network at any given
moment. These mundane network plumbing features, it turns out, have been harboring vulnerabilities that can be exploited to send
users to malicious websites or exploit or tamper with network-connected devices, newly published research shows.
In all, researcher Mathy Vanhoef found a dozen vulnerabilities, either in the
Wi-Fi specification or in the way the specification has been implemented in huge numbers of devices. Vanhoef has dubbed the
vulnerabilities
FragAttacks
,
short for fragmentation and aggregation attacks, because they all involve frame fragmentation or frame aggregation. Broadly
speaking, they allow people within radio range to inject frames of their choice into networks protected by WPA-based encryption.
Bad news
FURTHER READING
Serious flaw in WPA2 protocol lets attackers intercept passwords and much more
Assessing the impact of the vulnerabilities isn't straightforward. FragAttacks allow data to be injected into Wi-Fi traffic, but
they don't make it possible to exfiltrate anything out. That means FragAttacks can't be used to read passwords or other sensitive
information the way a previous Wi-Fi attack of Vanhoef, called
Krack
,
did. But it turns out that the vulnerabilities -- some that have been part of Wi-Fi since its release in 1997 -- can be exploited to
inflict other kinds of damage, particularly if paired with other types of hacks.
"It's never good to have someone able to drop packets into your network or target your devices on the network," Mike Kershaw, a
Wi-Fi security expert and developer of the open source Kismet wireless sniffer and IDS, wrote in an email. "In some regards,
these are no worse than using an unencrypted access point at a coffee shop -- someone can do the same to you there, trivially -- but
because they can happen on networks you'd otherwise think are secure and might have configured as a trusted network, it's
certainly bad news."
He added: "Overall, I think they give someone who was already targeting an
attack against an individual or company a foothold they wouldn't have had before, which is definitely impactful, but probably
don't pose as huge a risk as drive-by attacks to the average person."
While the flaws were disclosed last week in an industry-wide effort nine months
in the making, it remains unclear in many cases which devices were vulnerable to which vulnerabilities and which vulnerabilities,
if any, have received security updates. It's almost a certainty that many Wi-Fi-enabled devices will never be fixed.
Rogue DNS injection
One of the most severe vulnerabilities in the FragAttacks suite resides in the
Wi-Fi specification itself. Tracked as CVE-2020-24588, the flaw can be exploited in a way that forces Wi-Fi devices to use a
rogue DNS server, which in turn can deliver users to malicious websites rather than the ones they intended. From there, hackers
can read and modify any unencrypted traffic. Rogue DNS servers also allow hackers to perform
DNS
rebinding attacks
, in which malicious websites manipulate a browser to attack other devices connected to the same network.
The rogue DNS server is introduced when an attacker injects an
ICMPv6
Router Advertisement
into Wi-Fi traffic. Routers typically issue these announcements so other devices on the network can
locate them. The injected advertisement instructs all devices to use a DNS specified by the attacker for lookups of both IPv6 and
IPv4 addresses.
In an email, Vanhoef explained, saying, "The IPv6 router advertisement is put
in the payload (i.e. data portion) of the TCP packet. This data is by default passed on to the application that created the TCP
connection. In the demo, that would be the browser, which is expecting an image. This means that by default, the client won't
process the IPv6 router advertisement but instead process the TCP payload as application data."
Vanhoef said that it's possible to perform the attack without user interaction
when the target's access point is vulnerable to
CVE-2021-26139
,
one of the 12 vulnerabilities that make up the FragAttacks package. The security flaw stems from a kernel flaw in NetBSD 7.1 that
causes Wi-Fi access points to forward
Extensible
Authentication Protocol (AP) over LAN
frames to other devices even when the sender has not yet authenticated to the AP.
It's safe to skip ahead, but for those curious about the specific software bug
and the reason the video demo uses a malicious image, Vanhoef explained:
To make the victim process the TCP payload (i.e. data portion) as a separate
packet, the aggregation design flaw in Wi-Fi is abused. That is, the attacker intercepts the malicious TCP packet at the Wi-Fi
layer and sets the "is aggregated" flag in the Wi-Fi header. As a result, the receiver will split the Wi-Fi frame into two
network packets. The first network packet contains part of the original TCP header and is discarded. The second packet
corresponds with the TCP payload, which we made sure will now correspond to the ICMPv6 packet, and as a result, the ICMPv6
router advertisement is now processed by the victim as a separate packet. So proximity to the victim is required to set the
"is aggregated" Wi-Fi flag so that the malicious TCP packet will be split into two by the receiver.
The design flaw is that an adversary can change/set the "is aggregated" flag
without the receiver noticing this. This flag should have been authenticated so that a receiver can detect if it has been
modified.
It's possible to perform the attack without user interaction when the
access point is vulnerable to CVE-2020-26139. Out of four tested home routers, two of them had this vulnerability. It seems
that most Linux-based routers are affected by this vulnerability. The research paper discusses in more detail how this
works -- essentially, instead of including the ICMPV6 router advertisement in a malicious TCP packet, it can then be included in
an unencrypted handshake message (which the AP will then forward to the client after which the adversary can again set the "is
aggregated" flag etc).
Punching a hole in
the firewall
Four of the 12 vulnerabilities that make up the FragAttacks are implementation
flaws, meaning they stem from bugs that software developers introduced when writing code based on the Wi-Fi specification. An
attacker can exploit them against access points to bypass a key security benefit they provide.
Besides allowing multiple devices to share a single Internet connection,
routers prevent incoming traffic from reaching connected devices unless the devices have requested it. This firewall works by
using network address translation, or NAT, which maps private IP addresses that the AP assigns each device on the local network
to a single IP address that the AP uses to send data over the Internet.
The result is that routers forward data to connected devices only when they
have previously requested it from a website, email server, or other machine on the Internet. When one of those machines tries to
send unsolicited data to a device behind the router, the router automatically discards it. This arrangement
isn't
perfect
, but it does provide a vital defense that protects billions of devices.
Vanhoef figured out how to exploit the four vulnerabilities in a way that
allows an attacker to, as he put it, "punch a hole through a router's firewall." With the ability to connect directly to devices
behind a firewall, an Internet attacker can then send them malicious code or commands.
In one demo in the video, Vanhoef exploits the vulnerabilities to control an
Internet-of-things device, specifically to remotely turn on and off a smart power socket. Normally, NAT would prevent a device
outside the network from interacting with the socket unless the socket had first initiated a connection. The implementation
exploits remove this barrier.
FURTHER READING
Microsoft practically begs Windows users to fix wormable BlueKeep flaw
In a separate demo, Vanhoef shows how the vulnerabilities allow a device on the Internet to initiate a connection with a computer
running Windows 7, an operating system that stopped receiving security updates years ago. The researcher used that ability to
gain complete control over the PC by sending it malicious code that exploited a
critical
vulnerability called BlueKeep
.
"That means that when an access point is
vulnerable, it becomes easy to attack clients!" Vanhoef wrote. "So we're abusing the Wi-Fi implementation flaws in an
access
point
as a first step in order to subsequently attack (outdated)
clients
."
Getting your fix
Despite Vanhoef spending nine months coordinating patches with more than a
dozen hardware and software makers, it's not easy to figure out which devices or software are vulnerable to which
vulnerabilities, and of those vulnerable products, which ones have received fixes.
This page
provides the status for products from several companies. A more comprehensive list of known advisories is
here
.
Other advisories are available individually from their respective vendors. The vulnerabilities to look for are:
Design flaws:
CVE-2020-24588
: aggregation attack (accepting non-SPP A-MSDU frames)
CVE-2020-24587
: mixed key attack (reassembling fragments encrypted under different keys)
CVE-2020-24586
: fragment cache attack (not clearing fragments from memory when (re)connecting to a network)
Implementation
vulnerabilities allowing the injection of plaintext frames:
CVE-2020-26145
: Accepting plaintext broadcast fragments as full frames (in an encrypted network)
CVE-2020-26144
: Accepting plaintext A-MSDU frames that start with an RFC1042 header with EtherType EAPOL (in an encrypted
network)
CVE-2020-26140
: Accepting plaintext data frames in a protected network
CVE-2020-26143
: Accepting fragmented plaintext data frames in a protected network
Other implementation
flaws:
CVE-2020-26139
: Forwarding EAPOL frames even though the sender is not yet authenticated (should only affect APs)
CVE-2020-26146
: Reassembling encrypted fragments with non-consecutive packet numbers
CVE-2020-26147
: Reassembling mixed encrypted/plaintext fragments
CVE-2020-26142
: Processing fragmented frames as full frames
CVE-2020-26141
: Not verifying the TKIP MIC of fragmented frames
The most effective way to mitigate the threat posed by FragAttacks is to
install all available updates that fix the vulnerabilities. Users will have to do this on each vulnerable computer, router, or
other Internet-of-things device. It's likely that a huge number of affected devices will never receive a patch.
The next-best mitigation is to ensure that websites are always using HTTPS
connections. That's because the encryption HTTPS provides greatly reduces the damage that can be done when a malicious DNS server
directs a victim to a fake website.
Sites that use HTTP Strict Transport Security will always use this protection,
but Vanhoef said that only about 20 percent of the web does this. Browser extensions like
HTTPS
everywhere
were already a good idea, and the mitigation they provide against FragAttacks makes them even more worthwhile.
As noted earlier, FragAttacks aren't likely to be exploited against the vast
majority of Wi-Fi users, since the exploits require a high degree of skill as well as proximity -- meaning within 100 feet to a
half-mile, depending on the equipment used -- to the target. The vulnerabilities pose a higher threat to networks used by high-value
targets such as retail chains, embassies, or corporate networks where security is key, and then most likely only in concert with
other exploits.
When updates become available, by all means install them, but unless you're in
this latter group, remember that drive-by downloads and other more mundane types of attacks will probably pose a bigger threat.
Promoted Comments
When I'm networking I always assume the network I'm connected to is completely compromised, so all my devices use these things
and are properly firewalled in which case these attacks are pretty much worthless.
While only new versions of Android support DoT out of the box on the system level, Google has recently added the support for
DoH to Chrome, so in case your device is running an older version of Android you might want to enable DoH in Chrome to feel
safe.
And as for Firefox it's had the support for DoH for years. I've gone as far as to set network.trr.mode to 2 in about:config to
be extra safe. 3 is even better:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Trusted_Recursive_Resolver
178 posts | register
Pretty soon we are going to hear a variation of the Casablanca "gambling at Rick's"
line.
I'm shocked, shocked that there's gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan lab.
Pretty soon we are going to hear a variation of the Casablanca "gambling at Rick's"
line.
I'm shocked, shocked that there's gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan
lab.
Pretty soon we are going to hear a variation of the Casablanca "gambling at
Rick's" line.
I'm shocked, shocked that there's gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan
lab.
France is was denying any discomfort with Zionism for 52 years. but since yesterday
effect of
Plate tectonics are perceptible.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned on Sunday of the risk of
"long-lasting apartheid" in Israel. The veteran politician [and high rank French official
for 40 years with solid connection to French weapons trade] made the remarks in an interview
with LCI TV NewsChannel, RTL radio and Le Figaro newspaper [ three major MSM]
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned on Sunday of the risk of "long-lasting
apartheid" in Israel in the event the Palestinians fail to obtain their own state. Le Drian is one of the first senior French officials to use the term "apartheid" in
reference to Israel , which has angrily denied any policy of racial discrimination.
The veteran politician made the remarks in an interview with RTL radio and Le Figaro
newspaper in reference to the clashes between Jews and Arabs that erupted in several
Israeli cities during the latest conflict.
The violence, which revealed simmering anger among Israeli Arabs over the crackdown on
Palestinians in Jerusalem, shattered years of peaceful coexistence within Israel. "It's the first time and it clearly shows that if in the future we had a solution other
than the two-state solution, we would have the ingredients of long-lasting apartheid,"
Le Drian said, using the word for the white supremacist oppression of blacks in South
Africa from 1948 to 1991.
Le Drian said the "risk of apartheid is high" if Israel continued to act "according to a
single-state logic" but also if it maintained the status quo.
"Even the status quo produces that," he said.
He added that the 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel had shown the need to revive the
moribund Middle East peace process. https://guardian.ng/news/france-sees-risk-of-apartheid-in-israel-paris-france/
"We have take one step at a time," he said, expressing satisfaction that US President Joe
Biden had reiterated support for creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Israel's latest offensive against Hamas killed 248 people in the Gaza Strip, including 66
children, and wounded over 1,900, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
Meanwhile, rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups into Israel killed 12 and wounded
around 357 others, Israeli police said.
@120 m - "Iron Dome system according to Israeli sources..."
The point is not the numbers taken from the sales brochure of the system. The point is,
what does the penetration of the fantasy shield do to the Israeli psyche?
Israel initiated the ceasefire, without conditions. After 11 days, it could take no
more.
Israel has failed to protect itself from the indigenous population that it was oppressing.
Palestine has won a victory that changes the game and changes the world.
The entire regional Resistance now knows that Palestine alone can hold the enemy in check.
And all the Palestinians everywhere are completely united with only the Resistance as their
leader.
Over at the Saker just now, a speech from Hezbollah acknowledges proudly that Palestine
itself is now the leading edge of the struggle to remove Israel from the Middle East, and
that Hezbollah yearns for the day when it joins side by side with the Palestinians to drive
the oppressor from the land.
Palestine as it says could keep up this barrage against Israel for six months - just
Palestine alone. And the damage from such a thing would not be measured in how few or how
many individual persons were killed by those rockets. The damage would be measured by the
scream of madness and defeat from the Zionist oppressor, thrown down by the indigenous
populace and cast out of the land in abject fear.
As barflies can see, There may be an undefined 'ceasefire' but the 100 year old ethnic
cleansing project in the rest of Palestine continues:
Israel's Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Land
(Compiled by Leslie Bravery, Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Auckland, New Zealand)
18 May 2021 {Main source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group (PMG): http://www.nad.ps/ NB:The period covered by this
newsletter is taken from the PMG's 24-hour sitrep ending 8am the day after the above
date.}
We shall always do our best to verify the accuracy of all items in these IOP
newsletters/reports wherever possible [e.g. we often suspect that names of people and places
that we see in the PMG sitreps could be typos; also frequently the translation into English
seems rather odd ~ but as we do not speak Arabic, we have no alternative but to copy and
paste these names from the PMG sitreps!] – please forgive us for any errors or
omissions – Leslie and Marian.
206 projectiles
launched from Gaza
82 air strikes (157)
Very many
Israeli attacks
158 Israeli
ceasefire violations
21 raids including
home invasions
11 killed – 261 injured
Economic sabotage
43 taken prisoner
Night peace disruption
and/or home invasions
in 6 towns and villages
Home invasions: 09:20, Nazlet al-Sheikh Zaid - 09:20, al-Arqa - 04:00, Anabta - 03:30, Madama
- 03:30, Tel.
Peace disruption raids: 14:40, Beitunya - 16:05, Um Safa village - 03:20, Bir Zeit - dawn,
Bil'in - 17:40, Tura village - 18:55, Ya'bad - 19:45, Zububa - 06:30, Tubas - 18:05, Quffin -
04:00, Tulkarem - 20:00, Aqraba - 13:45, al-Azza UN refugee camp - 13:45, Aida UN refugee
camp - 18:10, al-Khadr - 18:10, Janata - 20:15, Tuqu - 03:00, al-Ubeidiya - dawn, Husan -
dawn, al-Ubeidiya.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Gaza enclave: From 07:00 until
07:00 the following day 206 projectiles were launched towards the Green Line from Northern
Gaza, Gaza City, Central Gaza and Khan Yunis.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Gaza enclave: From 07:00 until
07:00 the following day, 206 projectiles were launched towards the Green Line from Northern
Gaza, Gaza City, Central Gaza and Khan Yunis.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Northern Gaza – 53
projectiles launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Gaza – 81 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Central Gaza – 17 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Khan Yunis – 38 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Khan Yunis – 17 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Gaza enclave – from 07:00 until 07:00 the
following day, Israeli warplanes carried out 82 air strikes, launching 157 missiles onto
Gaza. There were 7 killed, 50 injured, 35 homes destroyed and much damage caused.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Northern Gaza – Israeli warplanes launched 21
air strikes – 35 missiles: 16 injured and 10 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Gaza – Israeli warplanes launched 17 air
strikes – 27 missiles: 6 killed (including a child), 15 injured (including women and
children) and 7 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Central Gaza – Israeli warplanes launched 14
air strikes – 20 missiles: 11injured and 6 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Khan Yunis – Israeli warplanes launched 13
air strikes – 46 missiles: 1 killed, 14 injured and 10 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Rafah – Israeli warplanes launched 17 air
strikes – 29 missiles. 3 injured and 2 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – Israeli attacks: Gaza enclave: From 07:00 until 07:00 the
following day, the Israeli Army and Navy pounded Central Gaza, Khan Yunis and Rafah.
Israeli Army attacks – 18 wounded: Jerusalem – Israeli Occupation forces opened
fire, with live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters on
protesters in Shuafat, al-Zaim, al-Jib, Beit Ijza, Qalandiya, near the villages of Qatanna
and al-Issawiya, as well as in Abu Dis, al-Eizariya and at the entrances to Hizma,
al-Sawahrah al-Sharqiya, Anata, the al-Ram road junction, Bab al-Amoud area and al-Wad Street
in Jerusalem Old City. 18 protesters were wounded.
Israeli Army attack: Jerusalem – 18:00, Israeli Occupation forces opened fire on
Palestinian motor vehicles in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.
Israeli Army attacks – 3 killed – 72 wounded: Ramallah – Israeli forces in
or near al-Bireh, Sinjil, Aboud, Ni'lin, al-Mughayer, Deir Jarir, Kafr Malik, Nabi Salih, Ein
Qiniya, Ras Karkar, Kharbatha Bani Harith, Beit Sira, al-Jalazoun refugee camp, fired live
ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters,
killing 3 people, Muhammad Mahmoud Hamid (24), Adham Fayez Al-Kashef (20) and Islam Wael
Fahmy Barnat, and wounding 72. There were many tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 4 wounded: Jenin – Israeli troops, manning the Jalamah and
Dotan checkpoints and at the southern entrance to Silat al-Dahr, fired live ammunition,
rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 4
people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 7 wounded: Tulkarem – Israeli forces, manning the Einav
checkpoint and troops in Tulkarem, Quffin, Zit and at the entrance to Beit Lid, fired live
ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters,
wounding 7 and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 8 wounded: Qalqiliya – Israeli Occupation forces, at the
entrances to Azun, Hajjah, and Kafr Qaddum as well as near Jayus, Hablat and at the Eyal
crossing, fired live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters
towards protesters, wounding 8 people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 33 wounded: Nablus – Israeli Army positions, near the
Huwara checkpoint, the intersection of Osirin and Sarra villages and near the entrances to
Qusra, Beta, Jama'in, Naqoura, Deir Sharaf, Burin, Madama, Asirah al-Qibliya, Yutma,
al-Labban al-Sharqiya, Odla, al-Sawiyah and the village of Tal, fired live ammunition,
rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 33
people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks: Salfit – Israeli troops, near the entrances to Deir Istiya,
Qarawat Bani Hassan, al-Zawiya and the northern entrance to Salfit, fired live ammunition,
rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters. There were
several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 18 wounded: Bethlehem – Israeli forces, present at Bilal
Bin Rabah Mosque, the Aida refugee camp, northern entrance to Tuqu', western entrance to Beit
Fajar, Um Rakba area of al-Khadr and entrance to Husan, fired live ammunition, rubber-coated
bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 18 people and
causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 1 killed: Hebron – morning, Israeli Occupation forces,
positioned in the Old City, opened fire on and killed a resident: Islam Fayyad Zahida
(32).
Israeli Army attacks – 30 wounded: Hebron – the Israeli Army, positioned in the
Bab al-Zawiya area of Hebron and in the Old City, as well as near the entrances to Beit
Ummar, Bani Naim, Tarqumiya, Khurasa village, the al-Aroub refugee camp and on Halhul Bridge,
fired live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards
protesters, wounding 30 people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Economic sabotage: Gaza -- the Israeli Navy continues to enforce an arbitrary fishing
limit.
Home invasion: Jenin – 09:20, Israeli Occupation forces raided the villages of Nazlet
al-Sheikh Zaid and al-Arqa, and invaded a house.
Home invasion – boy (aged 15) abducted : Tulkarem – 04:00, Israeli troops raided
Anabta and abducted 15-year-old Muhammad Salam Wajih Rasheed.
Home invasions: Nablus – 03:30, Israeli forces raided Madama and Tel villages and
invaded a number of homes.
Israeli police and settlers' mosque violation: 23:00, Israeli Occupation police invaded the
courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, filming the Mosque and its facilities.
Israeli Army – 7 wounded – rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas
canisters: Tubas – Israeli Occupation forces, manning the Tayasir checkpoint and in the
village of Atouf, fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards
protesters, wounding 7 people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army – 5 wounded – rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas
canisters: Jericho – Israeli forces, at the northern and southern entrances to Jericho,
as well as outside the Aqbat Jaber refugee camp, fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades
and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 5 people and causing several tear gas
casualties.
Occupation settler violence: Jerusalem – 18:00, Israeli settlers stoned a family home,
on the outskirts of the village of Beit Ijza.
Occupation road casualties: Bethlehem – 16:40, an Israeli settler drove his motor
vehicle over and hospitalised a 19-year-old Abdullah Saqr Saad, near Khalet Iskarya.
Raid: Ramallah – 14:40, Israeli Occupation forces raided and patrolled Beitunya.
Raid: Ramallah – 16:05, Israeli forces raided and patrolled Um Safa village.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Ramallah – 03:20, Israeli troops raided Bir Zeit, taking
prisoner one person.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Ramallah – dawn, the Israeli Army raided Bil'in village,
taking prisoner one person.
Raid: Jenin – 17:40, Israeli troops raided and patrolled Tura village.
Raid: Jenin – 18:55, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled Ya'bad.
Raid: Jenin – 19:45, Israeli Occupation forces raided and patrolled Zububa village.
Raid: Tubas – 06:30, Israeli forces raided and patrolled Tubas.
Raid: Tulkarem – 18:05, the Israeli Army raided and patrolled Quffin.
Raid: Tulkarem – 04:0 Israeli troops raided Tulkarem.
Raid: Nablus – 20:00, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled Aqraba.
Raid – UN refugee camps: Bethlehem – 13:45, Israeli Occupation forces raided and
patrolled the al-Azza and Aida UN refugee camps in Bethlehem.
Raid: Bethlehem – 18:10, Israeli forces raided and patrolled al-Khadr and Janata.
Raid – 2 abductions: Bethlehem – 20:15, Israeli troops raided Tuqu and abducted
two 16-year-old youths: Muhammad Khaled Nasrallah and Sind Talal Al-Amor.
Raid: Bethlehem – 03:00, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled al-Ubeidiya.
Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Bethlehem – dawn, the Israeli Army raided Husan village,
taking prisoner two people.
Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Bethlehem – dawn, Israeli Occupation forces raided
al-Ubeidiya, taking prisoner twopeople.
Restrictions of movement (14): 11:30, entrance to Turmusaya- 11:20, tightened procedures at
Huwara - 12:00, tightened procedures at Kifl Haris - 12:50, entrance to al-Zawiya -
11:25-12:30, al-Nashash road junction - 14:10, entrance to al-Walaja village - midnight,
entrance to Marah Mualla - 09:15, entrance to the Fahs area, south of Hebron - 18:45,
entrance to Sa'ir - Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing closed - al-Mantar-Karni crossing closed -
al-Shujaiyeh crossing (Nahal Oz) closed - Sufa crossing closed - al-Awda Port closed.
[NB: Times indicated in Bold Type contribute to the sleep deprivation suffered by Palestinian
children]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If any of our subscribers should like to reproduce complete, in full and unedited, these In
Occupied Palestine daily newsletters that would be very welcome!
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please let us know and if you have friends or
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...
@ Paul, "100 year old ethnic cleansing project in the rest of Palestine continues",
but Tectonic plates still moving, collapse of an edifice of complacency
David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel. He previously edited The
Jerusalem Post (2004-2011) and The Jerusalem Report (1998-2004).
"It doesn't matter that Hamas is a repressive, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamist terrorist
organization that fires thousands of rockets indiscriminately at innocent civilians all
over the State of Israel...
[...]
It doesn't matter...
[...]
Again, it doesn't matter, because we are no longer avowedly seeking, even in principle, a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- the currently and foreseeably
insoluble Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And since we no longer avowedly aspire to be part
of the solution, we are increasingly perceived as part of the problem, as
rejectionists.
[...]
Israel still has plenty of friends, and plenty of support, including crucially in the US.
Three EU foreign ministers chose to make a solidarity visit to bombed Israeli homes at the
height of the conflict. But the ground is shifting dangerously.
Many of us, this writer emphatically included, regard a two-state solution as essential
if we are not to lose either our Jewish majority, or our democracy, or both, forever
entangled among millions of hostile Palestinians. Many of us, this writer emphatically
included, cannot currently see a safe route to such an accommodation.
For the last time, it doesn't matter. So long as Israel does not place itself firmly and
distinctly on the side of those seeking a viable framework for long-term peace and security
for ourselves and for the Palestinians, we will be regarded as blocking that framework. And
even when facing an enemy so patently cynical, amoral and intransigent as Hamas, militarily
strong Israel will be held responsible for the loss of life on both sides of the
conflict. We may keep on winning the battles, though they will get harder if fighting spreads to
and deepens on other fronts. But we will be gradually losing the war.
With the old rules a motorcycle fatality and a shooting victim were counted as covid
deaths.
With the new rules if a vaxxinated person has had a previous motor vehicle accident 20
years ago, but dies of covid now they will be counted as a car accident death or an unsolved
murder.
"... What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies. ..."
"... And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends. ..."
The Biden administration is vigorously pursuing key figures from the phony Trump/Russia collusion scandal that roiled the nation
for four years. But instead of trying to punish the liars who perpetrated that fraud, it is targeting the truth-tellers who challenged
and exposed the conspiracy to negate the 2016 election.
Working from the same playbook used to smear dozens of Trump associates, the administration and its allies are planting stories
based on blind quotes in friendly media outlets to seek revenge.
On April 16,
Washington
Post columnist David Ignatius reported that the Justice Department is investigating Kash Patel – who had worked with Rep. Devin
Nunes and later the Trump administration to reveal the Russiagate hoax – for the "possible improper disclosure of classified information."
Ignatius said he received the tip from "two knowledgeable sources" who "wouldn't provide additional details."
Violating the bedrock principles of American justice and journalism, this article is an exercise in thuggery as the government
uses a powerful media outlet to intimidate and besmirch a citizen without evidence. With nothing to respond to, how can Patel defend
himself? If Patel is lucky, the federal government has only placed a sharp sword over his head that may not fall. If not, he might
be dragged into a lengthy court battle that could drain his finances and also cost him his freedom.
We don't know if Patel broke the law, but note that the administration has shown no interest in pursuing former FBI leaders such
as
James Comey and
Andrew McCabe , who improperly disclosed information regarding Russiagate.
Trump's former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani is also in the "cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation," according to
an April 29
article in New York Times that relied on "people with knowledge of the matter."
At issue, those anonymous sources say, is whether Giuliani was serving two masters when he counseled Trump to remove Marie L.
Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. "Did Mr. Giuliani go after Ms. Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Mr. Trump,
who was his client at the time?" the Times reports. "Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her
removed for their own reasons?"
I'll leave it to the lawyers to determine the wisdom of bringing a case based on the parsing of tangled motives. What is clear
is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign
Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion.
As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century
before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies.
And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who,
Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in
Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice:
one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends.
The targeting of Giuliani looks especially suspect and politically motivated after three main news outlets that have driven much
of the false Russiagate coverage – the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News –
were forced to correct a recent story , once again based on anonymous sources, claiming the FBI had warned Giuliani in 2019 "that
he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe
Biden in 2019." Giuliani was never given such a briefing.
Considering the numerous instances in which the press published bogus information from "informed sources" during Russiagate, one
has to ask why they continue to serve as vehicles for falsehoods. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me
a dozen times and you're not fooling me – we're acting in concert. As RCI editor
Tom Kuntz has argued, journalistic integrity demands, at the very least, that these organizations tell their audience who exactly
had misled them. Confidentiality agreements should not protect liars.
A third example of the Biden administration's effort to punish Russiagate figures is its renewed effort to put former Manafort
associate Konstantin V. Kilimnik behind bars. In an extensive new article for RCI,
Aaron Maté reports that the Treasury Department provided no evidence to support its recent claim that Kilimnik is a "known Russian
Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf." It also refuses to explain how it was able to discover
the truth of Kilimnik's identity, which the two most extensive Russiagate investigations – the 448-page Muller report and the 966-page
Senate Intelligence report – failed to uncover.
This absence of evidence has not stopped the peddlers of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory from claiming vindication. Democrat
Rep. Adam Schiff casts Treasury's unsubstantiated claim as smoking-gun evidence of collusion. The New York Times reports that the
claim demonstrates that "there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year
before the [2016] election."
Who needs proof when the government says it's so?
The FBI is also putting the screws to Kilimnik, offering $250,000 for information leading to his arrest on witness-tampering charges
involving text messages he sent in 2018 to two people who have only been identified as "potential witnesses" involving Manafort's
lobbying work for Ukraine, not Russiagate.
In an exclusive interview, Kilimnik told Maté, "I don't understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out
the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in [the] EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as
'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice.'"
Maté also reports that the $250,000 bounty on Kilimnik is more than double the amount the FBI is offering for information leading
to the arrest of murder suspects.
The Biden administration's campaigns against Patel, Giuliani and Kilimnik suggest how the winners of the 2020 election are attempting
to rewrite the history of Russiagate. Having been debunked and rebuked by their own investigators, the conspiracists are taking a
second bite at the poisoned apple. Using anonymous sources to make unsubstantiated charges in the nation's most influential news
outlets, they are seeking to punish people for the crime of exposing their malfeasance.
"... What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies. ..."
"... And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends. ..."
The Biden administration is vigorously pursuing key figures from the phony Trump/Russia collusion scandal that roiled the nation
for four years. But instead of trying to punish the liars who perpetrated that fraud, it is targeting the truth-tellers who challenged
and exposed the conspiracy to negate the 2016 election.
Working from the same playbook used to smear dozens of Trump associates, the administration and its allies are planting stories
based on blind quotes in friendly media outlets to seek revenge.
On April 16,
Washington
Post columnist David Ignatius reported that the Justice Department is investigating Kash Patel – who had worked with Rep. Devin
Nunes and later the Trump administration to reveal the Russiagate hoax – for the "possible improper disclosure of classified information."
Ignatius said he received the tip from "two knowledgeable sources" who "wouldn't provide additional details."
Violating the bedrock principles of American justice and journalism, this article is an exercise in thuggery as the government
uses a powerful media outlet to intimidate and besmirch a citizen without evidence. With nothing to respond to, how can Patel defend
himself? If Patel is lucky, the federal government has only placed a sharp sword over his head that may not fall. If not, he might
be dragged into a lengthy court battle that could drain his finances and also cost him his freedom.
We don't know if Patel broke the law, but note that the administration has shown no interest in pursuing former FBI leaders such
as
James Comey and
Andrew McCabe , who improperly disclosed information regarding Russiagate.
Trump's former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani is also in the "cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation," according to
an April 29
article in New York Times that relied on "people with knowledge of the matter."
At issue, those anonymous sources say, is whether Giuliani was serving two masters when he counseled Trump to remove Marie L.
Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. "Did Mr. Giuliani go after Ms. Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Mr. Trump,
who was his client at the time?" the Times reports. "Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her
removed for their own reasons?"
I'll leave it to the lawyers to determine the wisdom of bringing a case based on the parsing of tangled motives. What is clear
is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign
Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion.
As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century
before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies.
And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who,
Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in
Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice:
one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends.
The targeting of Giuliani looks especially suspect and politically motivated after three main news outlets that have driven much
of the false Russiagate coverage – the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News –
were forced to correct a recent story , once again based on anonymous sources, claiming the FBI had warned Giuliani in 2019 "that
he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe
Biden in 2019." Giuliani was never given such a briefing.
Considering the numerous instances in which the press published bogus information from "informed sources" during Russiagate, one
has to ask why they continue to serve as vehicles for falsehoods. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me
a dozen times and you're not fooling me – we're acting in concert. As RCI editor
Tom Kuntz has argued, journalistic integrity demands, at the very least, that these organizations tell their audience who exactly
had misled them. Confidentiality agreements should not protect liars.
A third example of the Biden administration's effort to punish Russiagate figures is its renewed effort to put former Manafort
associate Konstantin V. Kilimnik behind bars. In an extensive new article for RCI,
Aaron Maté reports that the Treasury Department provided no evidence to support its recent claim that Kilimnik is a "known Russian
Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf." It also refuses to explain how it was able to discover
the truth of Kilimnik's identity, which the two most extensive Russiagate investigations – the 448-page Muller report and the 966-page
Senate Intelligence report – failed to uncover.
This absence of evidence has not stopped the peddlers of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory from claiming vindication. Democrat
Rep. Adam Schiff casts Treasury's unsubstantiated claim as smoking-gun evidence of collusion. The New York Times reports that the
claim demonstrates that "there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year
before the [2016] election."
Who needs proof when the government says it's so?
The FBI is also putting the screws to Kilimnik, offering $250,000 for information leading to his arrest on witness-tampering charges
involving text messages he sent in 2018 to two people who have only been identified as "potential witnesses" involving Manafort's
lobbying work for Ukraine, not Russiagate.
In an exclusive interview, Kilimnik told Maté, "I don't understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out
the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in [the] EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as
'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice.'"
Maté also reports that the $250,000 bounty on Kilimnik is more than double the amount the FBI is offering for information leading
to the arrest of murder suspects.
The Biden administration's campaigns against Patel, Giuliani and Kilimnik suggest how the winners of the 2020 election are attempting
to rewrite the history of Russiagate. Having been debunked and rebuked by their own investigators, the conspiracists are taking a
second bite at the poisoned apple. Using anonymous sources to make unsubstantiated charges in the nation's most influential news
outlets, they are seeking to punish people for the crime of exposing their malfeasance.
Vk @30
..why the necessity of populist POTUSes arose in the USA in the first place?
Perhaps it might be useful to examine the case of the first Western populist of the modern
era: Louis Napoleon. It's been a while since I read Marx's 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Napoleon' but the short (hopefully not too vulgar) version is that the French ruling class
was too divided (between different flavours of Royalist and Republicans, finance capitalists
and industrialists etc) for any faction to provide a coherent class project to move France
forward and either co-opt or repress the working people of France.
The workers were also divided and not yet ready to articulate a revolutionary project of
their own. With France caught between its imperialist rival Great Britain and an awakening
Germany, and the threat of revolution working to focus their minds, the French Ruling class
came up with a way out of the impass: a populist leader who could stand above the social
divisions and 'Make France Great Again'.
Bonaparte's nephew Louis Napoleon was by most accounts a mere grifter and stuffed-shirt,
but he had name recognition and the ambition to play the part. The gambit was wildly
successful in rolling back the gains the workers had made in 1848 and resulted in the 'second
empire' that reinvigorated French imperialism. Well, wildly successful until Louis went up
against against a rising power (Prussia/Germany) and the second empire folded like a house of
cards.
When Trump was first elected it seemed probable that we were dealing with another
'Bonapartist'. With the ruling class floundering after the 'GFC' of 2008-11 and the crisis of
US imperialism after the rise of China and defeat in Ukraine and Syria, some faction of the
ruling class was seeking to put the pieces back together under a new strongman. But in this
case the attempt was a resounding failure in unifing the ruling class.
The weakness of the US working class may be the key to understanding the failure of
Trumpism. While French workers of 1850 may have struggled to create a unified revolutionary
project of their own, they were organised and poliicised enough to provide the muscle in
removing the Monarchy in 1848 and were a constant threat to French ruling class power. The US
working class of 2016 was none of these things. Without the threat of revolution there was no
incentive for the dominant ruling class factions to devolve some of their power to a
strongman.
The ruling class attack on Trumpism seems to have consolidated the power of the dominant
factions of the ruling class under the Democratic party, while hopelessly dividing the
working class between those who support the strongman and those that tail after the ruling
class attacks on him. So while Trumpism has failed to create a reborn and unified US empire,
it has accomplished the next best thing: disorienting and demoralising the greatest threat to
that empire. Perhaps it will take a diastrous collision with a rising power to change that.
For France's second empire it was Germany and resulted in the Paris Commune. For the US,
China and ?
@ S.P. Korolev | May 18 2021 5:26 utc | 69 with the nice description of Trump's Populist
failing
Thanks for that...nicely done and, yes, the China/Russia axis is the challenge to the US
faced axis....I keep calling it a civilization war because that it the only result I see
meaning we have evolved from barbarism and haven't gone extinct trying...
Commenter vk is the MoA ideologue troll that should go create her own web site and stop
polluting this one, IMO, and that of others on an ongoing basis....see the latest Week in
Review Open Thread about Ivermectin for example.
vk is the main reason I scroll to the bottom of each comment to find the author before
reading
I think Trump is a man for the moment. He is not particularly intelligent. He is not
particulary honest. He is not a natural leader. He loves to play to the gallery.He can be
dominated.He is weak. He is disingenuous.He is rich. I don't think he can ever be called a
self made man. He was chosen to do the job by those more connected and powerful than him.
Remember you always get the leader that you deserve.
..Francisco José Contreras was banned from his account for 12 hours,
according to Fox News , for making the argument and backing it up by stating men have "no
uterus or eggs."
He was making the comments in response to an article about a transgender male who announced
that they had "given birth" to a baby girl and were now a father.
Trump represented a FACTION
of the establishment. Which one? He did their bidding and in the process alienated other
factions. The other factions worked together to get him replaced. There are factions within
neocons, neoliberals and establishment. It is a nuanced and complex structure, not
monolithic. It is misleading to state, "he publicly broke away from the American oligarchy's
class interests".
Trump's biggest MISTAKE was that he didn't build a good sounding board of advisors. He
surrounded himself with his family members and believed his orders will be implemented like a
corporate president. Jared Kushner is a Bilderberg. So Trump was connected to the global
syndicate and part of the swamp.
The unipolar order ended in 2014/15 and the multipolar order is establishing. The U$A or
NATO can't launch a foreign war like they did in Libya. Russia and China have warned the
Financial Empire and defined the redlines. This is the reason behind Trump not launching a
new major foreign war. Will Biden launch a new war? However, Trump did launch hybrid wars in
Venezuela, Bolivia, Belarus,... Trump didn't break from FOREIGN adventures.
During Trump's term:
– How many bombs were dropped?
– How much new DEBT was created?
– How much did the money supply increase by?
– What happened to the trade deficit?
"... "My bureaucracy in no way funded gain of function research at the Wuhan lab on a bat virus that came to be known as Covid19." ..."
"... You've been at the top of the public health heap for at least four decades. So what have YOU done to address this situation? If your answer is "Nothing." you should consider jumping off a tall building because YOU are a racist. ..."
"... When you've got nothing intelligent to say, declare something is racist! ..."
Bold statements like that require the proper attire!
SharkBit 2 hours ago
Oh please! Dr Fraudci virtue signalling. Total embarrasment.
nmewn 2 hours ago
Dr.StrangeElf: "My bureaucracy in no way funded gain of function research at the Wuhan lab
on a bat virus that came to be known as Covid19."
That infected millions of people of color. Oh. And America is raaayzist.
NotaSheep 2 hours ago
Racism? Really? Because of inadequate access to "public health"? Really?
Well gosh, Dr. F. You've been at the top of the public health heap for at least four
decades. So what have YOU done to address this situation? If your answer is "Nothing." you
should consider jumping off a tall building because YOU are a racist. The rest of us, not so
much.
FreeSpeech1A PREMIUM 2 hours ago
When you've got nothing intelligent to say, declare something is racist!
"... Asked about the issue, Biden began, "I believe we should go back to what existed when I came to the Senate 120 years ago" – a statement that supporters defended as a joke. He then noted that there were only 58 filibuster motions in 54 years, through 1971, but five times that many in 2020. He may have forgotten that all of last year's motions came from his party, which was then the Senate minority. ..."
WATCH: Biden adds fodder to dementia speculation as spirited response on filibuster reform degenerates into word salad
Leah Millis 170
President Joe Biden apparently had some crucial things to say about reforming
the Senate filibuster, the legislative speed bump against ruling-party dominance, but his descent into unintelligibility left his
plans a mystery.
Speaking on Thursday at his first formal press conference since taking office – having taken almost twice as long as any president
in 100 years to invite reporters to ask questions – 78-year-old Biden at times struggled to express his thoughts, particularly on
the filibuster. At issue was the longstanding Senate rule that makes it more difficult for the ruling party to force through partisan
legislation, which Democrats have called for eliminating now that they control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Asked about the issue, Biden began, "I believe we should go back to what existed when I came to the Senate 120 years ago"
– a statement that supporters defended as a joke. He then noted that there were only 58 filibuster motions in 54 years, through 1971,
but five times that many in 2020. He may have forgotten that all of last year's motions came from his party, which was then the Senate
minority.
BIDEN: "I believe we should go back to a position of a filibuster that existed just when I came to the United States Senate
120 years ago." pic.twitter.com/7X7VKDkLcn
"Do you think he knows?" former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker asked on Twitter. "He's either cynical or incompetent."
Biden said he supports reform, such as requiring opposition senators to actually deliver marathon filibuster speeches to block
action on a bill, and spoke of his desire and ability to "get things done" in the Senate. But then the mental wheels appeared
to come off.
"The best way to get something done, if you hold near and dear to you that you uh, um like to be able to uh anyway," Biden
said. "I, we're going to get a lot done. And if we have to, if there's complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster,
then we'll have to go beyond what I'm talking about."
Biden drifted off similarly as other reporters came back to the topic. "Our preoccupation with the filibuster is totally legitimate,
but in the meantime, there's a lot we can do while we're talking about what we can do with the filibuster," he said.
After agreeing with a previous statement by former president Barack Obama that the filibuster is "a relic of the Jim Crow era,"
meaning it's racist, Biden was pressed on why he wouldn't therefore abolish it. After a long pause, Biden said, "Successful electoral
politics is the art of the possible. Let's figure out how we can get this done and move in the direction of significantly changing
the abuse of even the filibuster rule, first. It's been abused from the time it came into being by an extreme way in the last 20
years. Let's deal with the abuse first."
Apparently mystified by Biden's comments, the reporter asked if that meant he was moving closer to eliminating the filibuster.
"I answered your question," he replied.
The performance likely did little to inspire confidence at a time when Biden was perceived by many to be avoiding being put in
a position of having to speak off script. A Rasmussen Reports poll earlier this month found that 50% of Americans aren't confident
that Biden is physically and mentally fit to be president, and 52% were troubled that he hadn't held a press conference. It took
until day 65 of his administration to hold such an event.
It's finally dawning on people that we have been subjected to a UNIPARTY for the past
several decades. They are all in the same club, they only pretend to be for different
policies. Bush (either one) never closed the border or took significant, meaningful steps to
stop illegal immigration, to note just one uniparty position.
That's why most GOP members hate Trump. He's ruining their graft operation. They are ALL
getting rich off of throwing American under the bus with China. They don't want it to stop,
but Trump threw a wrench into the gears of their operation. That is why they are desperate to
keep him out of office. They even conspired on the Jan 6th operation along with the Covid
response measures to torpedo the economy.
There is a lot of house cleaning to be done on the GOP side of the aisle in 2022.
They have a lot of work to do. There is a suspicion among cynics like myself that GOP
bossmen conspired with DNC to rig 2020 for the opposition.
Moribund Mitch was congratulating Catatonic Joe while the election was still contested and
GA runoff polls were still open. Mike Pence folded up like a ten dollar suitcase.
SurfingUSA 7 hours ago remove link
"Suspicion" ????
Those facts are locked down. See the following GOP champions of Domino Ion Voting with
documented roles in getting the equipment and obstructing investigations:
Note Domino Ion election management is to an extent a front for the CCP.
chunga 7 hours ago
The recount thing in AZ is a stunt as far as I'm concerned. Nobody ever bothered to
question suitcase girl. It is inexplicable.
YuriTheClown 7 hours ago
Don't do the China thing. That is the Republican version of Russia! Russia! Russia!
While I am sure China spreads the cheese around we all know it's the Giewash Mob banking
cartel that is firmly in control. The Cartel can shut off Chinese Cheese in a heart beat when
desired. They just like using other people's money.
19331510 3 hours ago
Main street does not want perpetual wars, why do you think Trump was elected for a second
time?
Miniminer1 8 hours ago
CNN and the msm will keep putting her on TV like she's important and telling their few
viewers she might be president and will go after evil trump and thereby keeping the
brainwashing alive . Keep fighting for justice president trump!!!
No_Pretzel_Logic 7 hours ago
CIA News Network is 100% Deep State operated.
I can flip to that channel anytime of day and within 120 seconds I am pointing at the TV
and saying, "Liars!"
It is almost completely Pravda-programming and remains a real threat to this country. Same
with MSDNC.
YuriTheClown 7 hours ago
You watch TV????
aegis551 8 hours ago
Cheneys is a neocons and a globalist. Hopefully the good people of Wyoming can see that
and kick this POS to the curb.
Paul Bunyan 8 hours ago
Darth Cheney is not pleased the GOP has discredited his daughter. I am sure he and the
Bushes will be doing everything they can to keep Trump from running in '24.
SPACE-CADET 8 hours ago
Little Bush killed 10,000 americans and over 1 million Iraq.
He retired to Texas with a cushy pension.
Paul Bunyan 8 hours ago (Edited)
Never mind the pension. The Bushes are American royalty and British royals before it. His
mother Barbara is a Pierce, as in the former POTUS and NYC banking dynasty. Everyone knows
CIA asset George Sr. Then there is patriarch Prescott who was a Senator, a banker with the
Harrimans ( THE bank that funneled Nazi money through Wall Street) and a Scull and bonesman
(as was GHWB and GWB). Then there is Uncle Bert Walker, where both names Herbert and Walker
come from. This man traces both names back to British royalty, where both the Herberts and
Walkers ruled on the British courts for hundreds of years. So for pensions, these families
have power and wealth that can not be imagined.
YuriTheClown 7 hours ago
Nah. As per Eustace Mullins ( a national treasure his recordings )
Bushes served Harrimans
Harrimans served Rothschilds
Bushes are high functionaries
arby63 7 hours ago
They all hated Trump because he wasn't in the club. This scum Cheney is a name I've had to
endure for 40 years.
Thats why they hated Trump. He wasn't one of them.
In an interview with Fox News ' Bret Baier this week, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) denied that she
spread the
discredited CIA "Russian bounty" story. That CIA tale, claiming Russia was paying Taliban
fighters to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, was cooked up by the CIA and then published by The
New York Times on June 27 of last year, right as former President Trump announced
his plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. The Times story, citing anonymous
intelligence officials, was then continually invoked by pro-war Republicans and Democrats --
led by Cheney -- to justify their blocking of that troop withdrawal. The story was discredited
when the U.S. intelligence community admitted last month
that it had only "low to moderate confidence" that any of this even happened.
When Baier asked Cheney about her role in spreading this debunked CIA story, Cheney
blatantly lied to him, claiming "if you go back and look at what I said -- every single thing I
said : I said if those stories are true , we need to know why the President and Vice President
were not briefed on them." After Baier pressed her on the fact that she vested this story with
credibility, Cheney insisted a second time that she never endorsed the claim but merely spoke
conditionally, always using the "if these reports are true" formulation. Watch Cheney deny her
role in spreading that story.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fd6u_p0K9aE
Liz Cheney, as she so often does, blatantly lied. That she merely spoke of the Russian
bounty story in the conditional -- " every single thing I said: I said if those stories are
true" -- is completely and demonstrably false. Indeed, other than Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) , there are few if
any members of Congress who did more to spread this Russian bounty story as proven truth, all
in order to block troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. In so doing, she borrowed from a pro-war
playbook pioneered by her dad, to whom she owes her career: the former Vice President
would leak CIA claims to The New York Times to justify war, then go on Meet the Press with
Tim Russert, as he did on September
8, 2002 , and cite those New York Times reports as though they were independent
confirmation of his views coming from that paper rather than from him:
MR. RUSSERT: What, specifically, has [Saddam] obtained that you believe would enhance his
nuclear development program? ..
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Now, in the case of a nuclear weapon, that means either plutonium or
highly enriched uranium. And what we've seen recently that has raised our level of concern to
the current state of unrest, if you will, if I can put it in those terms, is that he now is
trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able
to enrich uranium to make the bombs.
MR. RUSSERT: Aluminum tubes.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Specifically aluminum tubes. There's a story in The New York Times this
morning this is -- I don't -- and I want to attribute The Times . I don't want to talk about,
obviously, specific intelligence sources, but it's now public that, in fact, [Saddam] has
been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring
through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge.
And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched
uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb.
So having CIA stories leak to the press that fuel the pro-war case, then having pro-war
politicians cite those to justify their pro-war position, is a Cheney Family speciality.
On July 1, the House Armed Services Committee, of which Rep. Cheney is a member, debated
amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, the bill that authorized $740.5 billion
in military spending. One of Cheney's top priorities was to align with the Committee's pro-war
Democrats, funded by weapons manufacturers, to block Trump's plan to withdraw all U.S. troops
from Afghanistan by the end of 2020 and to withdraw roughly 1/3 of the 34,000 U.S. troops in
Germany.
To justify her opposition, Cheney -- contrary to what she repeatedly insisted to Baier --
cited the CIA's Russian bounty story without skepticism . In a joint statement with Rep. Mac
Thornberry (R-TX), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, that Cheney published
on her website on June 27 -- the same day that The New York Times published its first story
about the CIA tale -- Cheney pronounced herself "concerned about Russian activity in
Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces." There was nothing
conditional about the statement: they were preparing to block troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
and cited this story as proof that "Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan."
After today's briefing with senior White House officials, we remain concerned about
Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces. It
has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan. We believe it
is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country
targeting our forces. Congress has no more important obligation than providing for the
security of our nation and ensuring our forces have the resources they need.
An even more definitive use of this Russia bounty story came when Cheney held a press
conference to explain her opposition to Trump's plans to withdraw troops. In this statement,
she proclaimed that she "remains concerned about Russian activities in Afghanistan." She then
explicitly threatened Russia over the CIA's "bounty" story, warning them that "any targeting of
U.S. forces by Russians, by anyone else, will face a very swift and deadly response." She then
gloated about the U.S. bombing of Russia-linked troops in Syria in 2018 using what she called
"overwhelming and lethal force," and warned that this would happen again if they target U.S.
forces in Afghanistan:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_NUXZog_Vf0
Does this sound even remotely like what Cheney claimed to Baier? She denied having played a
key role in spreading the Russia bounty story because, as she put it, " every single thing I
said, I said: if those stories are true." She also told him that she never referred to that CIA
claim except by saying: "if these reports are true." That is false.
The issue is not merely that Cheney lied: that would hardly be news. It is that the entire
media narrative about Cheney's removal from her House leadership role is a fraud. Her attacks
on Trump and her party leadership were not confined to criticisms of the role played by the
former president in contesting the validity of the 2020 election outcome or inciting the
January 6 Capitol riot -- because Liz Cheney is such a stalwart defender of the need for truth
and adherence to the rule of law in politics.
Cheney played the key role in
forming an alliance with pro-war Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee to
repeatedly defeat the bipartisan anti-war minority [led by Ro Khanna (D-CA), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
(D-HI) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)] to prevent any meaningful changes promised by Trump during
the 2016 campaign to put an end to the U.S. posture of Endless War. As I
reported about the House Armed Services Committee hearing last July, the CIA tale was
repeatedly cited by Cheney and her allies to justify ongoing U.S. troop presence in
Afghanistan.
Cheney is motivated by power, not ethics. In 2016, Trump ran -- and won -- by explicitly
inveighing against the Bush/Cheney foreign policy of endless war, militarism and imperialism
that Liz Cheney, above all else, still vehemently supports. What she is attempting to do is
reclaim the Republican Party and deliver it back to the neocons and warmongers who dominated it
under her father's reign. She is waging an ideological battle, not an ethical one, for control
of the Republican Party.
That will be a debate for Republican voters to resolve. In the meantime, Liz Cheney cannot
be allowed to distance herself from the CIA's fairy tale about Russians in Afghanistan. Along
with pro-war Democrats, she used this conveniently leaked CIA story repeatedly to block troop
withdrawal from Afghanistan. And just as her father taught her to do -- by example if not
expressly -- she is now lying to distance herself from a pro-war CIA script that she, in fact,
explicitly promoted.
For those who have not seen it, I produced a one-hour video report last July on how and why
the House Armed Services Committee succeeded in enacting virtually every pro-war amendment they
considered and how this was accomplished through
an alliance between Liz Cheney and her neocon GOP allies on the one hand, and pro-war,
Raytheon-funded Democrats on the other:
Circular politics, who knew? Happens all the time. 'Leak' a story to a paper that for sure
will publish it, and quote that very same story to push whatever it is you, or more
precisely, your backers, want. Nobody wants war, why is the US spending almost $1T on
defense? Nobody else is spending that kind of money, the MIC is able to force down whatever
it wants on the compliant press, and gullible public
Demologos 7 hours ago
Liz Cheney is carrying daddy's water. This is why there should have been war crimes trials
for the fake wars promoted by the neocons for the benefit of the Wall Street/London/MIC
complex. If Daddy Darth had swung from a rope we wouldn't be dealing with the current
mess.
You can blame the fake news media for the lack of consequences. When they want to, they
can take a thimble full of bad behavior and turn it into an Olympic size pool of condemnation
and character assassination. They were given an Olympic size pool of outright lies and
corruption related to the illegal wars and didn't see anything that offended their sense of
human decency and justice. But a thug dies in the street and the fake news machine turns him
into the national martyr for systemic racism.
vic and blood PREMIUM 7 hours ago remove link
Look at how many RINOs are swamp creatures who establish residency in lower population
states, where campaign cash goes further.
**** Cheney was a swamp creature and fake Wyoming person, just like Liz Cheney.
Pernicious Gold Phallusy 7 hours ago
McCain did that in the 1970s. Abandoned his wheelchair-bound wife and his kids, then
married a rich drug addict in a new State.
pndr4495 7 hours ago
As I have repeated many times here on ZH, a politician is not seriously concerned about
representing the constituents. The politician is busy with reprenting his/her own interests,
especially the financial interest.
vic and blood PREMIUM 7 hours ago remove link
Liz Cheney is a perfect example of how little the neocons differ from the neolibs. They
are the same thing with different cynical marketing strategies.
HAL9000rev1 7 hours ago (Edited)
The roots of neocon philosophy is Trotskyism. Neocons are left/right agnostic, they latch
on to which ever political party in power.
perpetual war/perpetual revolution is thier stratagy
freedommusic 8 hours ago (Edited)
Language was invented so people can lie.
Politics was invented so people can make a career out of lying.
Paul Bunyan 8 hours ago remove link
Language was invented to communicate, but yes, people take advantage.
Pretty Like an Ugly Girl 7 hours ago
I confess that in 2001, and until about 2008, I was part of the crowd that bought the
whole ******* line. Then with Obama I fell for the ******** that it's better to vote for the
lesser of two evils.
Then I started watching the countless documentaries on 911 that show the official 911
report is a bigger concoction of horse**** than the Warren Report. Here's the definitive
documentary, for any searchers out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DOnAn_PX6M
The thing about Cheney back in the day is that he seemed like the most credible/reasonable
man in government. I remember after he debated Joe Lieberman how everybody wished they were
both at the tops of their tickets.
Bottom line is we believe what aligns with what we want to believe, and they know it, and
they took down the towers knowing the majority of the US would be willing to go to war with
the entire world if need be.
Folks who think the covid scam or the stolen election was the beginning of the breakdown
haven't been paying attention. The people haven't been in control of their country for a
long, long time, if ever.
Ms No PREMIUM 7 hours ago
There are anti-human mimicks born, psychopaths, that literally have to study human
emotion, learn it and parrot it. That's why when one watches you, especially at first
encounter, it's so intense.
They are analyzing your every facial crease and body language trying to decode the human
and what it all means. When they lie they will sometimes pause to do this to see if it's
fully taking. They often can't tell if what they are saying is too absurd, they wait for you
to show them. They develop this skill over time.
What's even creepier, is that since they don't use empathy capacity and other human
tendencies, that brain capacity becomes devoted to their predatory nature, analyzing,
imitating and being phony. So they are damn near preternatural at it. They know your
weaknesses and needs immediately.
In addition to their dead, intense analyzing stare, they don't recognize that their stare
is too intense and that they often get too close. Like if this fatty had halitosis for
example, she would always just be at least a little too close to you. They don't understand
what it is about people that wants space They don't have that feeling either. When you squirm
and try to get away, they won't notice or care, unless they are doing it on purpose to
intimidate. They can also lie with ease, because they don't have any of those things that
makes people moral. They are simply annoyances to them. It pisses them off that they have to
pretend to care.
wellwaddyaknow 7 hours ago
So in other words, the CIA makes sht up, floats it out there in the direction of dumb
gullible compromised power hungry members of congress, and then wait to see who picks it up
and smells it.
In an Instagram post over the weekend, Cullors praised a National Public Radio report that "highlighted" the history of
racism in the US housing market.
"Thank you @npr for highlighting the history of racism inside of the housing market and why Black homeownership has always
been a way to disrupt white supremacy," she wrote, adding a link to the report, titled 'We Hold These Truths.'
4.0 out of 5 stars
The
roots of National Socialism in cultural criticism
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
Written originally in 1961 as part of venerable scholar Fritz Stern's doctoral thesis
The Politics of Cultural Despair is a classic study of the cultural criticism and irrational ideologies of three 19th and
early 20th century German writers that helped pave the way for the rise of the Third Reich and the triumph of national
socialism. The book traces the lives and works of the obscure German writers and scholars Lagarde, Langbehn, and Moeller to
illuminate how ideas conducive to national socialism, including antisemitism, extreme German nationalism (volk movement),
anti-liberalism, anti-intellectualism, the desire for an authoritarian Caesar or "Fuhrer", and the primacy of "the will",
became pervasive in 19th and early 20th century Germany.
All three authors relentlessly attacked liberal democracy, the enlightenment tradition, and the modern industrial society
that had separated the German people from their "spiritual" and "pure" connection with the Germany's ancestral forests and
countryside. They were, as Stern puts it, "Conservatives with nothing left to conserve". They viewed Germany's unification
and the advancement of liberal democracy and modernity as a disastrous development that divided Germany's people and
drained them of their spiritual essence. Their criticism also took on extreme antisemitism that egregiously blamed the
Jewish people and portrayed them as conspiratorial outsiders who promoted capitalism and diluted Germany's ethnic purity.
They also felt that traditional sources of authority, such as religion and the Bismarck nation state, were entirely
inadequate and stale in the age of Nietzsche. Seeing Germany in crisis, and with no traditional political or cultural
forces to turn to, all three authors became their own prophets of change. They expounded vague and irrational theories that
found salvation in nationalists myths and desired a return to a illusory past where the German people lived in unified
harmony and prosperity in their ancestral lands. The authors took on the delusional path from cultural critics to
Nihilistic prophets. Starting from somewhat credible attacks on Germany's political and cultural shortcomings and
transforming them into irrational and delusional political programs with little grasp on reality and dangerous support for
authoritarian policies. Tragically, their works enjoyed a consistent level of support among Germany's population and
influenced many philosophers and political theorists, such as Alfred Rosenberg, that would formulate the National Socialist
ideology. While none of the three were Nazis, all of them clearly proliferated ideas central to the National Socialist
program and advocated for a dangerous and authoritarian cultural regeneration.
Stern's work is classic in the sense that it represents the mid 20th century political and historical scholarly work that
focuses on the impact of political ideologies and political ideas. While this focus on "ideas" is far less emphasized today
in modern political science scholarship, the book reminds us that the rise of National Socialism and Fascism was far more
than a reaction to Germany's disastrous defeat in World War I and the impact of the Versailles Treaty. Instead, the ideas
of national socialism were deeply embedded in German society and represented a dangerous undercurrent acting against the
forces of democratic liberalism, industrialization, and the enlightenment. In advocating a "politics of cultural despair"
all three turned towards delusional, dangerous, and authoritarian solutions that could have only supported a political
program as appalling and devastating as national socialism. As Stern reminds us, "the politics of cultural despair" can
come from any region of the political spectrum where the most unwavering cultural critics can become "nihilistic" prophets
who desire not just cultural change, but cultural and political regeneration based on a mythic and nonexistent past or
promise a millenarian utopia . A statement that applies not only to Germany's lost 19th and 20th century conservatives, but
to idealistic leftist terrorist groups in the 60s and 70s, and Islamic and right wing terrorist groups today. In summary,
Stern reminds us not only that Fascism and National Socialism had deep roots in 19th and 20th century Germany, but also of
the dangers of irrational and delusional political programs that depart from reality.
However, like any good skeptic, one has to wonder how important the cultural and political critiques and ideas of Stern's
three authors really were. Modern political science has mostly moved beyond the focus on political ideas found in Stern's
work and without concrete quantitative data, it is close to impossible to determine the impact of their work. The book also
suffers from a narrow focus that makes it less approachable for the casual reader. Unlike other introductory works on
Fascism and National Socialism, Stern writes for an expert audience that is expected to be well versed in 19th and 20th
century German political, philosophical, and intellectual history. Readers less versed in these subjects may find the book
less enjoyable and insightful. Although this work has probably been superseded by more modern works, it remains a classic
in the field of intellectual and political history and represents classic political and cultural history at its best. I
also recommend George Mosse's 1964 work "The Crisis of the German Ideology" that covers very similar ground, as well as
Zeev Sternhell's "The Birth of Fascist Ideology" on the intellectual origins of Italian Fascism.
>
Paul de Lagarde was a biblical scholar and a master of oriental languages like Aramaic and Persian. He was also a rabid Jew
hater who openly called for extermination. He loathed classical Western liberalism, science, and capitalism. For him, these
were all spiritless abstractions. For Lagarde, Western liberalism, capitalism, science, and the Jews where the monstrous
embodiment of all he hated. He had a romantic notion of a mythical Germanic past, and he believed the Jews and the modern
society of the West were conspiring to pollute and corrupt this pure German spirit. He advocated a Great Leader, a "purge
the Jew" program, and a divinely inspired expansionist foreign policy to rekindle an authentic and noble Germanic way of
life.
Lagarde despised bourgeois 19th century German Christianity, and he called for a "new" German religion that would purge all
the Jewish elements of Christianity and become the unifying spiritual basis and justification for the new German state.
This new religion would fuse the squabbling German factions and sects into a unified people and nation with one single will
.... embodied in the form a "Great Leader."
Lagarde rejected the premise of general education, and instead, he proposed a totally new education system based on social
status and intellectual promise. This new, state-run authoritarian education system would mold the leaders of the new
German nation.
Julius Langbehn wrote a book that extolled the Dutch artist Rembrandt as an authentic "German man". If this sounds
confusing, well ... it is ..., but recall that many years later the Nazis attempted to use Rembrandt as a cultural symbol
to force a Dutch-German alliance after they occupied Holland during the war.
Like Lagarde, Langbehn hated the modern liberal society because of its mechanization, realism, bourgeois lifestyle, and
commercialism. Like Hitler, Langbehn was an "artist"; he was anti-scientific, anti-Western, and anti-rational. He
postulated a "cult of the young" (think Hitler Youth) and a "Hidden Emperor" (think Führer) who would emerge to unite the
German people. Again like Lagarde, Langbehn hated the U.S.A because it was the embodiment of all he despised. He warned
that Jews were destroying the German "Volk" by "worming" their way into German life. For Langbehn, modernity itself was the
ultimate cause of German decay, and the Jews were to blame for bringing this modernity to German society. For Langbehn, the
Jews were "democratically inclined; they have an affinity for the mob," and like Lagarde, Langbehn called for extermination
of the Jews.
I won't go on about Moeller van den Bruck, because it is similar to Lagarde and Langbehn. One important footnote: The
Nazi's got the term "The Third Reich" from one of Moeller's books.
In summary, we find a set of three German intellectual romantics who were alienated by modernism and who abhorred all that
was new. They suffered from "cultural despair." For these three, the "Jews" were the immediate agents of corrupting change,
and it was America that was the colossal embodiment of all they detested. For them, a pure and authentic German way of life
was lost due to the conspiracy and confluence of these horrible forces of modernism. All of the ills and fractiousness and
faithlessness of German society were attributable to Jews and liberal modernism (as exemplified by America).
These three sought to annihilate the bourgeois modern society they found themselves in and they sought to replace it with a
utopian dream. Their utopia was a unified and harmonious German people -- purged of Jews -- who would be orderly,
hierarchical, and authentic. This unified German nation would be led by a strong emperor who would perfectly embody the
unified will of the people. They sought a "New German religion", free of Jewish influence, that would provide a unifying
framework for this new society. They proposed state-controlled education and propaganda, leadership by a small elite,
annexation and conquest of middle Europe, and they called for the extermination of Jews.
In short - these three "culturally despairing" egg heads predicted much of the horror of the Nazis. All three were widely
read in German society at various points in time leading up to the rise of National Socialism.
We know that Hitler emphatically read Lagarde. For more on this, see "Hitler's Forgotten Library" in the May 2003 issue of
The Atlantic Monthly, by Timothy W. Ryback. On p.295, Stern shows how Lagarde, Langbehn, and van den Bruck influenced other
key Nazi ideologists like Alfred Rosenberg.
The book contains extensive footnotes and end notes, a large bibliography, and a good index. I have one gripe with the
book. There are several book titles, quotes, and passages that are in German without English translation. I could not work
them out with my meager German. I wish translations were provided. I also wish pictures or portraits of Lagarde, Langbehn,
and van den Bruck were provided.
Finally, I'd like to add that many of the themes we see having emerged from Lagarde, Langbehn, and van den Bruck are
similar to what is found the more recent work of the influential Islamic radical Sayyid Qutb. I strongly recommend the Paul
Berman book "Terror and Liberalism" for a very readable and enlightening treatment of Qutb.
There is a viral pneumonia. I doubt bacterial and viral are separated in the numbers.
Giant Meteor 3 hours ago remove link
On a bright note .. not a single person died from the flu! Its a miracle !
aztrader 1 hour ago
They made everything look like a COVID death. What are the real numbers with only COVID
involved and not diabetes, heart conditions, cancer and motorcycle accidents?
Pretty explosive set of interview arguing from artificial origin of COVID-19...
Includes C-span footage of confrontation of Ron Paul and Fauci as well very interesting
interview of Dr. Richard M. Fleming as well as pretty reveling interview of Dr. Peter Daszak - EcoHealth
Alliance who was financed mainly by the Department of Defense and serve as intermediary for
Wuhan labs financing from Fauci.
Dominion said in a statement to news outlets on Thursday that it would comply with the
audit, but Cyber Ninjas, the firm hired by the Arizona Senate to conduct it along with three
other companies, is not accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
" Releasing Dominion's intellectual property to an unaccredited, biased, and plainly
unreliable actor such as Cyber Ninjas would be reckless, causing irreparable damage to the
commercial interests of the company and the election security interests of the country ,"
Dominion said. "No company should be compelled to participate in such an irresponsible
act."
Cyber Ninjas did not respond to a request for comment.
Maricopa County officials previously said that they did not have passwords to access
administrative functions on Dominion Voting Systems machines that were used to scan ballots
during the election, according to the Senate's audit liaison, former Republican Secretary of
State Ken Bennett.
"They've told us that they don't have that second password, or that they've given us all the
passwords they have," Bennett told One America News at the site of the audit in Phoenix last
week.
Both routers or router images and access to election machines were part of the materials the
state Senate subpoenaed late last year. A judge in February ruled that the subpoenas were valid
and should be obeyed.
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican,
recently threatened to subpoena county officials if they didn't stop their noncompliance
with the subpoenas, but
backed off the threat in a letter on May 12.
Instead, she asked Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers, also a
Republican, to cooperate voluntarily by attending an upcoming meeting at the state Capitol to
go over the audit issues.
Fann said auditors have found discrepancies in the ballot count, including one batch that
was supposed to be 200 but only numbered 165. She also said the audit teams found an entire
database directory from an election machine had been deleted, and that the main database for
the election management system software was not located anywhere on the machine, suggesting
that the main database for all data related to the 2020 election had been removed.
Sellers on Thursday indicated he would not attend the meeting and disputed the
allegations.
Deleting files off the server "would be a crime -- and it is not true," he said.
"After reviewing the letter with County election and IT experts, I can say that the
allegations are false and ill-informed. Moreover, the claim that our employees deleted election
files and destroyed evidence is outrageous, completely baseless, and beneath the dignity of the
Arizona Senate," he added, calling for an immediate retraction of statements senators and their
liaison team made on social media and to the press.
The Board of Supervisors, which held a closed-door emergency meeting on Friday, plans on
holding a public meeting on Monday to address the matter.
Fann, an Arizona Senate Republican Caucus spokeswoman, and the liaison team did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
Auditors, meanwhile, began packing up on Thursday evening because the audit will take a
break due to scheduling conflicts.
The audit has been taking place at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on the state fairgrounds
in Phoenix. High school graduations are scheduled to take place at the building beginning May
15.
Hand counting stopped at 7 p.m. on Thursday and workers began collapsing tables and
preparing to move ballots to another location.
About 500,000 of the nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County in the 2020 election
have been counted in the audit, according to Bennett.
The Arizona Senate signed an extension to their original agreement that allows auditors to
store materials in the Wesley Bolin Building, which is also on the state fairgrounds, from May
12 to May 23.
The approximately 19,000-square foot building has a large open floor plan and two large
roll-up doors, according to the Arizona State Fair website.
"Due to temperatures during the summer months, this building is not recommended for use
between May through September," the site states.
Bennett told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that the materials will be secure and
that the site at which they'll be stored can be tracked online via 24-hour streaming, just like
the audit itself.
" There's no deadline for the audit ," Bennett said. " The goal is not speed; the goal is
accuracy and completeness. "
The audit teams can resume occupancy of the coliseum on May 23 and use it until June 30,
according to a copy of the extended agreement obtained
by The Epoch Times .
The original scope of work document from Cyber Ninjas said reviewing voter registration and
votes case would take approximately 20 days and that work would be conducted remotely. The vote
counting phase would take about 20 more days, it said, while the electronic voting system phase
would take some 35 days.
But all three of those phases could be carried out simultaneously, according to the firm. An
additional week was said to be required after completing everything else to finalize
reporting.
Wuhan
Where I keep a bio lab
Next to wet markets
That's how we do
But this time
Something just escaped
And I just wanted to
Just I thought you'd wanna know
Oops my bad
I swear I never meant for this
I never meant
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
An honest mistake
Sometimes
When I'm in the lab
I F up
And pathogens get away
Chinese flu
I swear I never meant for this
I never meant
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
An honest mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
She would need to rewire her brain to have a thought that was not programmed into her... After her Russiagate adventures there are
some doubts that this is possible. But money do not smell.
Perhaps Maddow is just sad that there's no longer official justification to intimidate and harass those who choose not to wear
masks, something that leftists have enjoyed doing for the best part of a year.
The notion that people who don't wear masks are a "threat" is of course completely ludicrous since the COVID-19 virus particle
is 1,000 times smaller than the holes in the mask anyway.
After Texas ended its mask mandate, COVID cases dropped to a
record low and a similar pattern was observed in Florida and South Dakota.
Lordflin 46 minutes ago (Edited)
She would need to rewire her brain to have a thought that was not programmed into her...
What a mindless shill... first that singer... what's her name... and now this creature...
What is the effect ZH is going for here exactly...?
takeaction 36 minutes ago (Edited)
Rachel...Pelosi...Schumer...Swalwell.....Cuomo (Both of them) Lemon, Anderson, Fauci, AOC, Maxine, etc.
With or without a mask...
takeaction 18 minutes ago (Edited) remove link
All calm....Gorgeous weather.....78 today.
Hamilcar 28 minutes ago remove link
Branch Covidians like Madcow "Love F$#%ing Science".
And by "science" they mean believing whatever braindead politicians or left-wing corporate media make up as they go along without
any critical analysis and hysterically denouncing any evidence that contradicts the narrative as heresy.
It's going to be fun when all these people become the object of universal mockery they deserve. In a JUST world they would
be severely punished though.
Lordflin 24 minutes ago
I have always been impressed by the willingness of those who know virtually nothing of the sciences to believe almost anything
if it is told to them in the name of science...
signer1 9 minutes ago
To quote Mark Twain, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled".
Citxmech 18 seconds ago
Apparently, it's also easier to get people to believe illogical arguments by telling them it's "science" than it is to get
them to actually think critically about the stupid shlt they're being asked to believe.
toiler4fiat 26 minutes ago
Madcow, like [neo]liberalism, is a disease. You can't repair a damaged brain like you can't turn a pickle into a cucumber.
"Inside BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors' million-dollar real-estate buying binge.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors has gone on a real-estate buying binge in
recent years, snagging four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to
property records.":
How would Liz Cheney, Kristina Peterson (writer of this column) or anyone else ( including
William Barr) know whether Trump is correct or not.? The obfuscation created by governors,
legislatures and judges made the process inscrutable. I personally believe it more likely
than not that Trump is correct.
The repetitive use of the term of "baseless" does not make it so. No one can possibly ever
know. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to examine it. Justices Thomas and Alito were
correct, the court should have taken the Texas case. Cheney obviously hates Trump. That's
what motivates her -- not some higher cause.
How would Liz Cheney, Kristina Peterson (writer of this column) or anyone else ( including
William Barr) know whether Trump is correct or not.? The obfuscation created by governors,
legislatures and judges made the process inscrutable. I personally believe it more likely
than not that Trump is correct.
The repetitive use of the term of "baseless" does not make it so. No one can possibly
ever know. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to examine it. Justices Thomas and Alito
were correct, the court should have taken the Texas case. Cheney obviously hates Trump.
That's what motivates her -- not some higher cause.
How would Liz Cheney, Kristina Peterson (writer of this column) or anyone else (
including William Barr) know whether Trump is correct or not.? The obfuscation created
by governors, legislatures and judges made the process inscrutable. I personally
believe it more likely than not that Trump is correct.
The repetitive use of the term of "baseless" does not make it so. No one can
possibly ever know. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to examine it. Justices
Thomas and Alito were correct, the court should have taken the Texas case. Cheney
obviously hates Trump. That's what motivates her -- not some higher cause.
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
Please name a democracy that isn't a SUZERAINTY.
"Democracy" is a temporary phase of history which allows the Global Financial Syndicate to
take control from the earlier generation of dominant power players: the monarchies. Most
democracies are a suzerainty externally and an Animal Farm internally.
World Financiers' ENSLAVEMENT plan using democracy:
– Create a REVOLUTION & steal a region
– Create a Private CENTRAL BANK (First Bank of the USA, BOE-1694)
– Fund & control new rich individuals (Kleptocrats)
– Fund & control political PARTIES & MEDIA
– Nationalize the central bank (the Fed, BOE-1946)
Enslave & control people by dominance over economic & political powers & call
it a democracy. An interesting FRACTAL emerges when one analysis the formation of
democracies.
This pattern of creating a private central bank and then nationalizing it, has been
repeated in the UK, U$A, New Zealand, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Estonia, Romania,
India, Argentina, El Salvador, Indonesia, Angola, Haiti...
Which countries Central Banks are still private?
"Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in
the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people."
– Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of Exchequer, England
For any fairly recent US posters on this site, here is a hint to the wise.
There is a significant Russian presence on the WSJ comments. Basically our Russian
visitors dominate these comments - at a ratio perhaps of 8-1 - or even worse.
The best way to get your footing on this site is to understand that these Russians are
educated, fluent in English, knowledgeable about us, oftentimes quite funny ( sometimes not.
) And the Russians are seeking to pass as Americans.
In this capacity, the Russians will often be earnest & insightful. As well as say
horrible things about Republicans and about Democrats.
They are here to stoke division and conflict. They seek to amplify partisanship and
misinformation.
As soon as you understand these essential facts, you will find it quite easy to work the
thread.
For any fairly recent US posters on this site, here is a hint to the wise.
There is a significant Russian presence on the WSJ comments. Basically our Russian
visitors dominate these comments - at a ratio perhaps of 8-1 - or even worse.
The best way to get your footing on this site is to understand that these Russians are
educated, fluent in English, knowledgeable about us, oftentimes quite funny ( sometimes
not. ) And the Russians are seeking to pass as Americans.
In this capacity, the Russians will often be earnest & insightful. As well as say
horrible things about Republicans and about Democrats.
They are here to stoke division and conflict. They seek to amplify partisanship and
misinformation.
As soon as you understand these essential facts, you will find it quite easy to work the
thread.
Just over ten years ago, on July 25, 2010, Wikileaks released 75,000 secret
U.S. military reports involving the war in Afghanistan . The New York Times, The Guardian ,
and Der Spiegel helped release the documents, which were devastating to America's intelligence
community and military, revealing systemic abuses that included civilian massacres and an
assassination squad, TF 373, whose existence the United States
kept "protected " even from its allies.
The Afghan War logs came out at the beginning of a historic stretch of true oppositional
journalism, when outlets like Le Monde, El Pais, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, The New York Times,
and others partnered with sites like Wikileaks. Official secrets were exposed on a scale not
seen since the Church Committee hearings of the seventies, as reporters pored through 250,000
American diplomatic cables, secret files about every detainee at Guantanamo Bay, and hundreds
of thousands of additional documents about everything from the Iraq war to coverups of
environmental catastrophes, among other things helping trigger the "Arab Spring."
There was an attempt at a response -- companies like Amazon, Master Card, Visa, and Paypal
shut Wikileaks off, and the Pentagon flooded the site with a "denial of service" attack -- but
leaks continued. One person inspired by the revelations was former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden, who came forward to unveil an illegal domestic surveillance program, a story that won
an Oscar and a Pulitzer Prize for documentarian Laura Poitras and reporters Glenn Greenwald and
Jeremy Scahill. By 2014, members of Congress in both parties were calling for the resignations
of CIA chief John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, both of whom had
been caught lying to congress.
The culmination of this period came when billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched
The Intercept in February 2014. The outlet was devoted to sifting through Snowden's archive of
leaked secrets, and its first story described how the
NSA and CIA frequently made errors using geolocation to identify and assassinate drone targets.
A few months later, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden admitted, "We kill people based
on metadata."
Fast forward seven years. Julian Assange is behind bars, and may die there. Snowden is in
exile in Russia. Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden have been rehabilitated and are all paid
contributors to either MSNBC or CNN, part of a
wave of intelligence officers who've flooded the airwaves and op-ed pages in recent years,
including the FBI's Asha Rangappa, Clint Watts, Josh Campbell, former counterintelligence chief
Frank Figliuzzi and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, the CIA's John Sipher, Phil Mudd, Ned
Price, and many others.
Once again, Internet platforms, credit card companies
like Visa and MasterCard , and payment processors like PayPal are working to help track
down and/or block the activities of "extremists." This time, they're on the same side as the
onetime press allies of Wikileaks and Snowden, who began a course reversal after the election
of Donald Trump.
Those outlets first began steering attention away from intelligence abuses and toward
bugbears like Trumpism, misinformation, and Russian meddling, then entered into partnerships
with Langley-approved facsimiles of leak sites like Hamilton 68 ,
New Knowledge , and especially
Bellingcat , a kind of reverse Wikileaks devoted to exposing the misdeeds of regimes in
Russia, Syria, and Iran -- less so the United States and its allies. The CIA's former deputy
chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia, Marc Polymeropolous, said of the group's work, "
I don't
want to be too dramatic, but we love this ."
After the Capitol riots of January 6th, the War on Terror came home, and "domestic
extremists" stepped into the role enemy combatants played before. George Bush once launched an
all-out campaign to pacify any safe haven for trrrsts, promising to "smoke 'em out of their
holes." The new campaign is aimed at stamping out areas for surveillance-proof communication,
which CNN security analyst and former DHS official Juliette Kayyem described as any online
network "that lets [domestic extremists] talk amongst themselves."
Reporters pledged assistance, snooping for evidence of wrongness in digital rather than
geographical "hidey holes." We've seen The Guardian warning about the
perils of podcasts , ProPublica arguing that Apple's lax speech
environment contributed to the January 6th riot, and reporters
from The Verge and
Vice and
The New York Times listening in to Clubhouse chats in search of evidence of dangerous
thought. In an inspired homage to the lunacy of the War on Terror years, a GQ writer even went
on Twitter last week to chat with the author of George
Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech about imploring the "authorities" to use the "Fire in a
Crowded Theater" argument to shut down Fox News.
Multiple outlets announced plans to track "extremists" in either open or implied cooperation
with authorities. Frontline, ProPublica , and Berkley Journalism's Investigative Reporting
Program used " high-precision digital forensics "
to uncover "evidence" about the Boogaloo Bois, and the Huffington Post worked with the
"sedition hunters " at the Twitter activist group "Deep State Dogs" to help identify a
suspect later arrested for tasering a Capitol police officer. One of the Huffington Post
stories, from February, not only spoke to a willingness of the press to work with law
enforcement, but impatience
with the slowness of official procedure compared to "sleuthing communities":
The FBI wants
photos of Capitol insurrections to go viral , and has published images of more than 200 suspects.
But what happens when online sleuthing communities identify suspects and then see weeks go by
without any signs of action ? There are hundreds of suspects, thousands of hours of video,
hundreds of thousands of tips, and millions of pieces of evidence the FBI's bureaucracy isn't
necessarily designed to keep organized.
The Intercept already saw founding members Poitras and Greenwald depart, and shut down the
aforementioned Snowden archive to, in their words, "focus on other editorial priorities" --
parent company First Look Media soon after launched a partnership with "PassionFlix," whose
motto is, " Turning your favorite romance
novels into movies and series ." Last week, they announced a new project in tune with
current media trends:
Are there legitimate stories about people with racist or conspiratorial views who for
instance shouldn't be working in positions of authority, as cops or elected officials or
military officers? Sure, and there's a job for reporters in proving that out, especially if
there's a record of complaints or corruption to match. It gets a little weird if the
newsworthiness standard is "person with a job has abhorrent private opinions," but it's not
like it's impossible that a legit story could be found in something like the Gab archive,
especially if it involves a public figure.
But that depends on the media people involved having a coherent standard for outing
subjects, which hasn't always (or even often) been the case.
Here The Intercept is announcing it considers QAnon devotee Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alex
Jones "violent white supremacists" -- they're a lot of things, but "violent white
supremacists"? In the first piece about "extremists" on Gab, reporter Micah Lee claimed to have
found an account belonging to a little-known conservative youth figure; the man's attorney
later reached out to deny the account was his, leading to a correction .
When asked about his process, Lee responded, sarcastically, that he "certainly wouldn't want to
accidentally do investigative journalism about white supremacist domestic terrorists." When
asked how he defined a terrorist, and if he'd be naming public figures only, the sarcastic
answer this time was, "Of course I won't be naming anyone. Racist white people must be defended
at all costs."
Greenwald left the organization among other things after an editor asked that he address the
"disinformation issue" in a piece about Hunter Biden's laptop, a reference to a claim made by
50 intelligence officers that the story had "the classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation
campaign." He found it inappropriate then for a publication with The Intercept's history to be
pushing an intelligence narrative, and the Gab project struck him in a similar way.
"The leap from disseminating CIA propaganda to doing the police work of security state
agencies is a short one," says Greenwald, "and with its statements about what they are doing
with this Gab archive, The Intercept and its trite liberal managers in New York have now taken
it."
we need to find a way to keep stories like this from being reported.
lovingly,
rachel maddow's wife
ted41776 1 hour ago remove link
they hate us for our freedumb
was anyone punished for that WMD lie that cause the death of hundreds of thousands of
Iraqi civilians and a few thousand US troops?
i mean it is a widely accepted fact now, isn't it? that it was a lie that caused a
genocide and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people?
where are the nuremberg trials? UN? anyone?
crickets
Lt. Shicekopf 1 hour ago
Operation Mockingbird has paid immense dividends, one of the most successful programs
ever.
Maltheus 1 hour ago remove link
I dunno. What's the name of the program to infiltrate the schools? Gives Mockingbird a run
for its money.
fishpoem 32 minutes ago
Use the titles of any of the books written by members of the Frankfurt School. Start with
Marcuse. How such circular reasoning, boring prose, and patently bogus arguments became
mandatory reading material in every college in America is a puzzle future historians will
have to unravel.
Well, if the ruling Marxist Democrats allow historians to exist in the future...which they
probably won't. Truth, in that era, will be what "art" became in Hitler's Germany and
Stalin's Russia: cliched state-worship.
Most of the "reporters" for the big media cartel were always enemies of the American
people.
tedstr 57 minutes ago
News organizations have always been agents of the IC. Just as they are agents of Hollywood
and the biz news are agents of corporations. They no longer have the staffs to truely "do
news" so they rely on being spoon fed from their sources. they will never bite the hand.
Steve in Greensboro 1 hour ago remove link
Lee Smith on Bannon's Warroom 53 in December 2019.
Lee Smith: " Here's something that boggles me still that there are still people after what
we have seen and after I've documented in the book what the press has become what the WaPo
what the prestige brands of American journalism have become and nonetheless there are
Republicans only blocks from here who are more than happy to treat whether it's the WaPo,
NYT, CNN, MSNBC as though these are regular news networks still. Even after three years of
seeing them operate exactly like media operatives "
Steve Bannon: "You believe they are the opposition party media. Right?
Lee Smith: "It's not a media, it's a platform for intelligence operations. It's not media
at all. This is like the Arab press."
Joe Davola 1 hour ago
Maybe a curious investigative reporter might look into why "financial services" companies
jump right in whenever the deep state needs them.
NewMouldy 1 hour ago
Kabuki theatre..
College deans, professors, teachers were all bought and paid for decades ago by the deep
state. The very people that educate upcoming politicians, reporters and scientists.
This is how we got to where we are now.
US Banana Republic 6 minutes ago
When media "personalities" like Cuomo, Madcow, and Cooper make more than $10 million
dollars a year from corporate sponsors towing the corporate/government line then NOBODY want
to be a hard hitting investigative reporter. Everybody wants to be a corporate/government
boot licker.
As always, follow the money.
Isn't Life Gland 15 minutes ago
Ali Watkins is my favorite. "Worked" her way all the way up to the pinnacle gig at the New
York Crimes..on her back.
...Biden has demonstrated an ability to do only two things; give taxpayer money away and wear a mask. Perhaps the mask is appropriate
( See Jesse James.)
I thought the "crumbling infrastructure" was just an internet joke or a lobby thing
(American Society of Civil Engineers sounds like a the name of a DC lobby firm). Never
thought it was de facto happening in USA.
No doubt the US/UK deep state, now more than ever, are busy trying to sow conflict and
division in Eurasia, to divide-and-rule Mackinder's "World Island" and hence the world.
I'm not sure that it is global private finance that is the key. Although I used to.
Either we consider the Oligarchs (Bezos Zuckerberg) as the newest form of low life, or the
Banking cartels and billionares are even lower.
BUT - There is a third class of Global financiers. That is "Corporations" (as a class).
Corporations are immortal, and like a hydra, with many heads, have more arms than an "image
of a covid-virus" ( Octopussii are simply too limited, although they are a good example of
multi-brained resourceful animals ). They are also "persons" in front of the law, with
all the protections and privilges that offers. On other occasions they are simply above the
law (Twit-Facebook and free speech). The people running them are only occasionally
reprimanded, but the "corporation" itself is never touched. *1*
They pay, sometimes, a bit of taxes, have different laws and have lobbies working in their
favour. Can corrupt Politicians with the offer of directorships or whatever. They can even be
"foundations" and pay no tax at all. They deal across many different National laws, obey what
they will, and are extra terrritorial in scope. They can have a nominal "center", while
decisions are made elsewhere. They are in fact a new type of alien supra-being .
Of course, the "leaders" of Corporations are rich, but they can be replaced by others at the
wishes of "shareholders". Untouchable and unknown.
Very useful for storing wealth and speculating at the same time.
In spite of Musk and others taking all the limelight, it is the corporations that work in
the background that seem to be the real seat of power.
--- *1* One of the last real actions taken against Corporate power was the breaking up of
Rockefellers Standard Oil .
*****
*2* In the case of the "breakup" of either the US or the EU - would the corporations be
touched (eliminated), or hailed as saving civilisation?
Paul alleged that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had used a middle-man to funnel
money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology via EcoHealth Alliance - which worked with the lab on
bat coronavirus projects.
Paul specifically referenced so-called "gain-of-function" research which in this case has
been focused on how to make animal viruses more transmissible to humans - specifically bat
coronaviruses .
"Government scientists like yourself who favor gain of function research," Paul
began...
...only to have Fauci interject "I don't favor gain of function research in China," adding
"You are saying things that are not correct."
Paul pushed back - continuing:
"[Those who favor gain of function] say that COVID-19 mutations were random and not
designed by man."
"I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done," Fauci shot back, adding
that he's in favor of further investigation, but that the NIH had nothing to do with the
origins of COVID-19.
"We have not funded gain of function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of
Virology," he added.
"No matter how many times you say it, it didn't happen."
More from Sen. Paul via Twitter:
Senator Rand Paul @RandPaul ·
May 11, 2021 Dr Fauci dissembled or tried to hide his long time support for
'gain-of-function' research which creates super-viruses that jump from animals to humans.
ohm 4 hours ago (Edited) remove link
You can't sit on your thumbs and run year long investigations and background checks
while thousands are dying .
But that's just the point, thousands were not dying . Instead of seeking out opposing
viewpoints, he relied on the bogus Ferguson model that predicted 2 million deaths presented
by Fauci and Birx. Plenty of qualified opposing voices were out there - John Ionnides of
Stanford for instance. Trump needs to own up to his mistakes and vow not to repeat them.
nodhannum 3 hours ago
How many renminbi do they pay you comrade...as in be "han" or be gone. I've been to a
number of seminars given by Fauci back in his HIV days but he is a lying sob now. It's
getting hard for the fellow to cover hisw *** now even with the Maserati marxists in power
here.
"We are not prepared for a pandemic," Biden tweeted on Oct. 25, 2019, saying the country
needs leadership that "mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our
shores."
this_circus_is_no_fun 4 hours ago
At first Fauxi denied the allegation. Then, after Paul cornered him with facts, Fauxi said
something like "this is why we did that". So, he admitted that he did what he was denying
just a few seconds before . He is literally incapable of telling the truth. I guess he's not
called Fauxi for nothing.
adonisdemilo 5 hours ago
Fauci has known from day one what's going on and going wrong. He's up to his neck in it
and taking a good look at his body language under questions from Rand Paul, HE'S CONTINUING
TO LIE.
chinese.sniffles 5 hours ago
Dr. Fauci:
Have you or your team send or granted permission for work projects to Wuhan or China?
What were those projects?
Why did you send them?
Why did you not do these projects in the USA?
Were any of these projects illegal in the USA?
etc. simple line of questioning, let him perjure himself.
thezone 5 hours ago
Fauci (the politician) knew to not write a check out to the lab directly. It was great to
hear Dr Paul bring up EcoHealth. A shell company to facilitate.
surfer4444 5 hours ago
Exactly, blame it on the sub contractor....an old game and the elite are using it well
radical-extremist 5 hours ago remove link
Fauci knows full well the story in the Democrat State News media will be about how he was
ATTACKED by Rand Paul, and not about him lying under oath about funding the Wuhan Lab.
chiquita 5 hours ago
This information has been out for a while if you follow War Room, Steve Hilton, and some
other sources. Peter Navarro has been hammering at Fauci relentlessly for the last few months
and now the MSM is going after Navarro, trying to discredit him. Gee, I wonder why when it
looks like the truth about Fauci is falling apart.
What a mess_man 4 hours ago (Edited)
Tucker blew this wide open last night. Of course lots of us here knew all this many months
ago. Fauci is lying through his teeth here, and both he and Daszak are deep in the Chicom's
pockets. As Tucker said, in a functioning world there would be a criminal investigation.
Instead Biden and Co. kiss his *ss and make him our foremost authority on Covid and vaccines.
Clown world for sure.
Meatballs 3 hours ago (Edited)
Actually, Saagar beat Tucker to the punch. Either way, the unraveling has begun.
Don't let the bioweapon profiteer, Daszak, off the hook.
Both greedy psychopaths should hang for their crimes against humanity.
Furthermore, we have no business sharing infectious disease technology with China, even if
they could run a lab properly.
Itinerant 4 hours ago
This story is about 14 months old, though not for the MSM.
Actual documentation of the grants from the NIH via the Eco Alliance have been circulating
in the public domain for all that time. In it they exactly describe the gain-of-function
research that is being outsourced to China, the viruses involved, the methods, the type of
experiments, and the aims of the research ... exactly and technically.
There is no room for caveats, or 'allege' or interpretation or anything like that.
The evidence is rock hard and crystal clear.
toady 4 hours ago
Yet there are no prosecutions.
dogbert8 5 hours ago remove link
Finally, the unmasking (pun intended) of Fauci has started.
bsdetector 5 hours ago
Just listened to the questions and answers. Fauci qualifies his answers with information
that was not sought in the questions. His answers change the character of his denials... "we
did not fund GOF research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
OK Dr. Fauci, please identify the viruses that you did fund for GOF research at the
Institute.
Jack Mayorhaufer 5 hours ago
master gaslighters once they reach certain status and paygrade on the Hill
novictim 2 hours ago remove link
"I don't know how many times I can say it? We did not fund gain of function research to be
done in the Wuhan Institute of Virology ...(under his breath) because we funded Eco Health
Alliance/Peter Daszak which granted the research funding to do gain of function research in
the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
CleeTorres 2 hours ago
A simple internet search shows Fauci is lying about funding for this research. But he
knows the media won't do their jobs.
Onthebeach6 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Let me assist Dr Fauci with the truth.
Why US outsourced bat virus research to Wuhan
Dr Christina Lin
April 2020
"A U.S. NIH-funded $3.7 million project was approved by Trump's Covid-19 advisor Dr.
Anthony Fauci in 2015, after the Obama White House imposed a ban on 'monster-germ' research.
In October 2014, the federal government declared a moratorium on gain-of-function research to
weaponize viruses related to influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe
acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). As a result, the research was outsourced to China's Wuhan
Institute of Virology, which is currently at the center of scrutiny for the Covid-19
pandemic."
Fauci looks very nervous . Perhaps why he has been so adamant about constantly moving the
goalposts? If you were guilty of something wouldn't you keep changing the focus and appear to
be very helpful and concerned?
Max21c 3 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Which people in & around the National Security Council, CIA, and Pentagon are involved
in this attempt to gain access, penetrate and spy on the PLA Biological Weapons/Warfare
programs via funding mechanisms route? Which people had contact with this institute and
programs and what if anything did the spy games produce?
When are they in Washington going to establish civilian rule over the US military and CIA
and National Security Council?
When are they going to knock off these silly spy games and spy world operations off and
stop this nonsense which produces zero positive results?
What did the gangsters on the Intelligence/Spy Committees in Congress know? What did the
gangsters atop the Pentagon, CIA, National Security Council know?
Which Washingtonian assholes are going to go to prison for this boomerang disaster?
How many other groups similar to "EcoHealth Alliance" operate as part of the US/UK
intelligence "community" and what other stupid stuff are the idiots mixed up in?
TheRapture 3 hours ago remove link
There is a great deal of evidence (NIH, State Dept grants to offshore USA bioweapons
research, Bat Lady was the protege of Dr. Ralph Baric at UNC who has been doing coronavirus
bioweapon research for more then twenty years, initial and simultaneous infections in Wuhan
at different locations suggesting an intentional release, etc., etc., etc.) And of course,
Trump had motive, opportunity and means to stage a false flag to destroy China's economy and
damage China's political relations with other countries.
It is likely the USA, no doubt using a CIA proxy, released SARS-CoV-2 in simultaneously in
multiple locations in Wuhan. The evidence is substantial. But most Americans can't bring
themselves to stare down that particular rabbit hole.
WorkingClassMan 3 hours ago
I'd rather an honest CCP commie ruling the roost than those traitors anyway.
"If I had but one bullet and were faced by both an enemy and a traitor, I would let the
traitor have it."
― Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, For My Legionaries
sarret PREMIUM 3 hours ago
Fauci is such a liar, pulling school kid mentality out of a hat to answer serious
questions. Likely in his mind he knows it all to be true but since the correct name is
中国科学院武汉病毒研究所
then unless you say that name, or the exact name of the exact subsidiary that was funding or
was being funded, then it is not correct and therefore he can answer the question incorrectly
without calling himself a liar internally and without saying what the error was in the
question that led him to be able to this.
In all respects he just disregards the spirit of the question when he knows full well that
he is in the wrong, but denies it every single time based on some concocted fabrication in
his mind that the question is not precise enough to nail him to the cross.
Completely disingenuous, can't trust a word he says.
Fish Gone Bad 4 hours ago
Lawyer speak:
We have not funded gain of function research on this virus
They funded all kinds of gain of function on all kinds of permutations of the virus, just
not THIS virus.
radical-extremist 5 hours ago remove link
Fauci is also responsible for the deaths of hundreds of men in San Francisco by covering
up Bath Houses as the origin of the spread of AIDS...for Mayor Diane Feinstein's political
career. No one dares talk about this today.
the Mysterians 5 hours ago
"I did not have sex with that woman!"
Flying Monkees 5 hours ago (Edited)
What could possibly be the reason for gain-of-function research if not bio-warfare?
These evil, irresponsible, arrogant a-holes need to pay.
Posa 5 hours ago
The Eco-Alliance grant from Fauci's NIAID states
We will use S [ie the Spike Protein that makes the SC-2 virus highly infectious] protein
sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and
analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S
protein sequences predict spillover potential.
That has been interpreted as a commitment to Gain of Function research on the Spike
Protein which is the key to turning SARS into a virulently transmissible pathogen.
surfer4444 5 hours ago remove link
Exactly...im just baffled how this PoS can blatantly lie to a Senate committee and get
away with it...there is zero accountability in our government...end times
Posa 5 hours ago
Fauci can lie because his audience is a convention of lazy, cowardly , illiterate dunces.
If Rand Paul were serious he would have had the damn grant in front of him and read the same
quotes as I provided in this post. PAul would have held these hearings last year when his
Party controlled the Senate.
Posa 4 hours ago
NOTE: This post was censored by The Hill. Typical free speech in America.
George Bayou 5 hours ago
"11 labs in the US create these super-viruses in the US and one of them collaborated with
Wuhan Virology Inst -- Fauci has supported NIH funds for all these labs!"
Why is this a-hole still working?
notfeelinthebern 4 hours ago (Edited)
Yap, yap,. yap. Another dog and pony show and the show is painfully old. They parade
personage after personage before congress and ask lots of questions. The swamp rats in the
hot seat lie by omission and with sleight of hand answers and when done with the act walk
away with smug faces....The show must go on.
George Bayou 5 hours ago
Here's an interesting article on Dr. Baric and what he was doing, mutating virus using
serial passaging so that the virus are able to infect a completely different species:
Take, for instance, this paper from 1995:
"High Recombination and Mutation Rates in Mouse Hepatitis Viruses Suggest That
Coronaviruses May Be Potentially Important Emerging Viruses." It was written by Dr. Ralph
Baric and his bench scientist, Boyd Yount, at the University of North Carolina. Baric, a
gravelly voiced former swim champion, described in this early paper how his lab was able to
train a coronavirus, MHV, which causes hepatitis in mice, to jump species, so that it could
reliably infect BHK (baby-hamster kidney) cell cultures. They did it using serial
passaging: repeatedly dosing a mixed solution of mouse cells and hamster cells with
mouse-hepatitis virus, while each time decreasing the number of mouse cells and upping the
concentration of hamster cells. At first, predictably, the mouse-hepatitis virus couldn't
do much with the hamster cells, which were left almost free of infection, floating in their
world of fetal-calf serum. But by the end of the experiment, after dozens of passages
through cell cultures, the virus had mutated: It had mastered the trick of parasitizing an
unfamiliar rodent. A scourge of mice was transformed into a scourge of hamsters. And there
was more: "It is clear that MHV can rapidly alter its species specificity and infect rats
and primates," Baric said. "The resulting virus variants are associated with demyelinating
diseases in these alternative species." (A demyelinating disease is a disease that damages
nerve sheaths.) With steady prodding from laboratory science, along with some rhetorical
exaggeration, a lowly mouse ailment was morphed into an emergent threat that might
potentially cause nerve damage in primates.
GeneKelly 5 hours ago remove link
"We have not funded gain of function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of
Virology,"
Sociopaths can lie without registering on a detector by simply defining terms differently
in their cerebral cortex and then answering -- from their perspective truthfully -- "no"
because the question doesn't match their internal definition.
So Fauci wasn't funding "gain of function". He was actually funding "increasing the
virulence of pathogens" or "enhancing the pathogens' ability to infect different
species".
Rand and others will have to ask the question a hundred ways to force Fauci to spill the
beans.
DeeDeeTwo 1 hour ago remove link
Tucker finally called Fauci a "criminal" at least twice and said, "In any functioning
society Fauci would be investigated."
Txjac 5 hours ago
Fauci also owns the patents on the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines
Everybody All American 5 hours ago remove link
How is it that only one Congressman dare questions Dr. Fauci? One tough questioner. These
cowards all need to hang for the crimes they are allowing. If they think we are just going to
sit back and watch this man for much longer lead us they are sadly mistaken.
Downhill from here 5 hours ago
Being an MD, Paul has some credibility on the topic. At least educationally and by
training, Fauci and Paul are peers.. More than likely other R's are letting him take
point.
replaceme 5 hours ago (Edited)
I forgot, that's the same dr daszak that sent the letter to the lancet saying that covid
didn't come from Wuhan, and that he had no reason to falsely say this. THAT Dr daszak. Got
it.
"We [NIH/Fauci] did not fund gain of function research to be done in Wuhan." What the
weasel didn't say is that the NIH did in deed fund Dr Baric who was working in collaboration
with Wuhan with gain of function experiments on the SARS virus. Baric worked with Ft Dettrick
and Univ NC researchers who in turn were collaborating with Canada and Wuhan.
Fauci can parse words but he's a traitor and ought to be held responsible along with all
others involved with this.
scraping_by 5 hours ago (Edited) remove link
One amendment to the story --
Carlson was quoting a story by Nicholas Wade, former science editor to the NYT. Published
in Medium. So it's not just a talking head repeating newsroom copy, as in CNN.
zorrosgato 14 minutes ago remove link
Fauci is part of a flawed system and don't be fooled in believing he is part of any
solution. His endorsing of impractical mask mandates along with mandatory vaccinations of the
population, using unproven genetically engineered drugs is proof enough.
The phenomenon of "cancel culture" is a toxic one metastasizing into a woke revolution war
empowered by Big Tech and Big Business. Those unfamiliar with being canceled involve publicly
shaming others and boycotting celebrities and companies. However, the art of canceling has
progressed well beyond canceling public figures and is now used to garget average folks. The
result can be devastating for ordinary people who may face the consequences of losing their
jobs, losing friends and family, or having their social media accounts terminated.
Comedian Dave Chappelle partook in a video interview with Joe Rogan on "The Joe Rogan
Experience" podcast about cancel culture. He told Rogan that he recognizes the change people
are attempting to bring through activism and accountability for prominent folks but denounced
cancel culture:
"I'm very lucky to be able to see people who are great at things up close," Chappelle said.
"Even on this podcast ... it's one of the joys of my life getting to know these people and
knowing and seeing them be human."
Chappelle said, "I hope we all survive it," while referring to the cancel culture storm
gripping society. "That's why that cancel culture shit bothers me. I'm not even opposed to the
ideas behind some of these cancelations. I get it."
Rogan said, "the inclination, all of it, is to make the world a better place." He said
social media and public shaming have "gotten abused and misused by the wrong people and bad
actors, but at the end of the day, the thing they think they're trying to do is eliminate bad
aspects of our culture."
Last year, Chappelle criticized cancel culture, saying audiences have become "too brittle,"
adding that "everything you say upsets somebody."
Chappelle hasn't been the only well-known person to speak out against cancel culture, Curtis
Jackson, known as "50 Cent," recently said cancel culture is "
unfair " and "targeting straight men" who "don't have any organizations to back them
up."
Jackson said he wouldn't get canceled because "hip-hop culture loves things that are
damaged. It loves people who are already broken from experience."
A study by a top education think tank, Civitas,
found that free speech at the world's leading universities is being eroded at a rapid rate
due to "cancel culture."
Cancel culture may have had good intentions to hold people accountable for things they did
or say. Instead, it has backfired and produced a toxic environment that limits freedom of
speech and alienates anyone with opposing views. Society can't move forward if liberals cancel
anyone they don't like - there needs to be an open forum where all voices are heard.
History repeats and the repetition is coming with some minor variations.
Notable quotes:
"... "Corporate bond rates have been rising steadily since May. Yellen is not doing what Greenspan did in 2004." ..."
"... There isn't much of a difference between signaling tighter money to a market that is skeptical of Fed forecasts and actually tightening. ..."
"... While at 5.0 percent, the unemployment rate is not extraordinarily high, most other measures of the labor market are near recession levels. The percentage of the workforce that is involuntarily working part-time is near the highs reached following the 2001 recession. The average and median duration of unemployment spells are also near recession highs. And the percentage of workers who feel confident enough to quit their jobs without another job lined up remains near the low points reached in 2002. ..."
"... While wage growth has edged up somewhat in recent months by some measures, it is still well below a rate that is consistent with the Fed's inflation target. Hourly wages have risen at a 2.7 percent rate over the last year. If there is just 1.5 percent productivity growth, this would be consistent with a rate of inflation of 1.2 percent. ..."
"... One positive point in today's action is the Fed's commitment in its statement to allow future rate hikes to be guided by the data, rather than locking in a path towards "normalization" as was effectively done in 2004. ..."
Washington, D.C.- Dean Baker, economist and a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) issued the
following statement in response to the Federal Reserve's decision regarding interest rates:
"The Fed's decision to raise interest rates today is an unfortunate move in the wrong direction. In setting interest rate policy
the Fed must decide whether the economy is at risk of having too few or too many jobs, with the latter being determined by the
extent to which its current rate of job creation may lead to inflation. It is difficult to see how the evidence would lead the
Fed to conclude that the greater risk at the moment is too many jobs.
"While at 5.0 percent, the unemployment rate is not extraordinarily high, most other measures of the labor market are near
recession levels. The percentage of the workforce that is involuntarily working part-time is near the highs reached following
the 2001 recession. The average and median duration of unemployment spells are also near recession highs. And the percentage of
workers who feel confident enough to quit their jobs without another job lined up remains near the low points reached in 2002.
"If we look at employment rates rather than unemployment, the percentage of prime-age workers (ages 25-54) with jobs is still
down by almost three full percentage points from the pre-recession peak and by more than four full percentage points from the
peak hit in 2000. This does not look like a strong labor market.
"On the other side, there is virtually no basis for concerns about the risk of inflation in the current data. The most recent
data show that the core personal consumption expenditure deflator targeted by the Fed increased at just a 1.2 percent annual rate
over the last three months, down slightly from the 1.3 percent rate over the last year. This means that the Fed should be concerned
about being below its inflation target, not above it.
"While wage growth has edged up somewhat in recent months by some measures, it is still well below a rate that is consistent
with the Fed's inflation target. Hourly wages have risen at a 2.7 percent rate over the last year. If there is just 1.5 percent
productivity growth, this would be consistent with a rate of inflation of 1.2 percent.
"Furthermore, it is important to recognize that workers took a large hit to their wages in the downturn, with a shift of more
than four percentage points of national income from wages to profits. In principle, workers can restore their share of national
income (the equivalent of an 8 percent wage gain), but the Fed would have to be prepared to allow wage growth to substantially
outpace prices for a period of time. If the Fed acts to prevent workers from getting this bargaining power, it will effectively
lock in place this upward redistribution. Needless to say, workers at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution can expect
to see the biggest hit in this scenario.
"One positive point in today's action is the Fed's commitment in its statement to allow future rate hikes to be guided
by the data, rather than locking in a path towards "normalization" as was effectively done in 2004. If it is the case that
the economy is not strong enough to justify rate hikes, then the hike today may be the last one for some period of time. It will
be important for the Fed to carefully assess the data as it makes its decision on interest rates at future meetings.
"Recent economic data suggest that today's move was a mistake. Hopefully the Fed will not compound this mistake with more unwarranted
rate hikes in the future."
RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Peter K....
I like Dean Baker. Unlike the Fed, Dean Baker is a class warrior on the side of the wage class. He makes the point about the
path to normalization being critical that I have been discussing for quite a while. Let's hope this Fed knows better than Greenspan/Bernanke
in 2004-2006. THANKS!
likbez said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
Very true !
pgl said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
"Longer-term bond rates barely moved, showing that there was very little news." This interest rate rose from 4.45% to 5.46%
already. So the damage was already done:
"... This interest rate rose from 4.45% to 5.46% already..."
Exactly! Corporate bond rates have been rising steadily since May. Yellen is not doing what Greenspan did in 2004. Yellen's
Fed waited until the bond rate lifted off on its own (and maybe with some help from policy communications) before they raised
the FFR.
So far, there is no sign of their making a fatal error. They are not fighting class warfare for wage class either, but they
seem intent on not screwing the pooch in the way that Greenspan and Bernanke did. No double dip thank you and hold the nuts.
"... Why is healthy 24-year-old Jennifer Gates jumping the line to get the vaccination when older at-risk Americans can't get an appointment? You may not have inherited your father's genius as you claim, but you certainly have his sense of entitlement. ..."
Why is healthy 24-year-old Jennifer Gates jumping the line to get the vaccination when older at-risk Americans can't
get an appointment? You may not have inherited your father's genius as you claim, but you certainly have his sense of
entitlement.
Why do so many people who are fully
vaccinated care whether I have been vaccinated or not? They seem to think that vaccines only "work" if everyone is vaccinated.
I am getting vax shamed by my family
for not getting the vaccine yet, especially from my brother who is a surgeon. What's wrong with waiting until there is more data
if you're young and healthy with no underlying conditions?
A cyberattack that crippled the US fuel supply wasn't the work of Russia, President Joe
Biden said. Confusingly, Biden then said that Russia bears "some responsibility" for the
attack.
A ransomware attack on Friday shut down a gasoline and diesel pipeline running 5,500 miles
along the entire US East Coast. Operated by the Colonial Pipeline Company, the vital fuel
artery normally transits 100 million gallons per day from Texas all the way to New York. The
Biden administration responded by invoking emergency powers to enable truckers to transport
more fuel, as traders scrambled to import fuel by sea from Europe.
A ransomware attack on Friday shut down a gasoline and diesel pipeline running 5,500 miles
along the entire US East Coast. Operated by the Colonial Pipeline Company, the vital fuel
artery normally transits 100 million gallons per day from Texas all the way to New York. The
Biden administration responded by invoking emergency powers to enable truckers to transport
more fuel, as traders scrambled to import fuel by sea from Europe.
Addressing the attack on Monday, Biden initially threw cold water on the claims of Russian
involvement, instead blaming "transnational criminals."
"So far there's no evidence from our intelligence people that Russia is involved,"
Biden told reporters. However, he followed that statement by saying that the ransomware used
"is in Russia," and Russia therefore has "some responsibility to deal with
this."
Rumors of Russian involvement were stoked by several mainstream media outlets over the
weekend, after it emerged that 'DarkSide,' a criminal hacking organization believed by CNN's
anonymous sources to be based in "a Russian-speaking country," was responsible for the
attack. In a short statement on Monday, the FBI confirmed "that the DarkSide ransomware is
responsible for the compromise of the Colonial Pipeline networks."
Other media outlets took the opportunity to link the hackers to the Russian government,
"whether they work for the state or not," in the words of one cybersecurity consultant
to NBC.
Quantity never equal to quality " The agency defended itself, remarking that the ad campaign had been effective. "2020 was a
standout recruitment year for the CIA, despite the pandemic... Our 2021 incoming class is the third-largest in a decade," a spokesperson
told Fox News."
Journalist Kyle Becker tweeted that the CIA needed to "stay out" of domestic politics. "You're there to serve the U.S.
flag, not the rainbow flag," he wrote.
Kyle Becker @kylenabecker ·
May 8 You're there to serve the U.S.
flag, not the rainbow flag. I wonder how much of this is about inclusivity and how much is about redefining the CIA and leading
it away from its core mission of defending the U.S. from enemies abroad. The CIA needs to stay out of domestic politics.
Other users paraphrased the lanyard rainbow anecdote to note how "much better" they now felt about CIA airstrikes and other
unpalatable dealings around the world.
St. Antonios @LoneStarTexian "I love that, as a gay man, I too
can do my part in destabilizing black & brown countries, droning their women & children & spying on my fellow Americans..."
St. Antonios
■ @LoneStarTexian
Replying to @ING2Firebrand
"I noticed a rainbow on CIA Director Brennan's lanyard & felt so much better green lighting airstrikes on starving Yemeni citizens
&
Since its launch in 2019 as part of a broader recruitment strategy, the 'Humans of CIA' social media series has depicted real
agency officers sharing their "first-hand experiences" in the intelligence organization, a CIA spokesperson told the Guardian.
While the majority of the series has attracted little pushback, part of the backlash to the Latina officer video was directed
at the agency's perceived willingness
"to weaponize their power to target their political opponents: conservatives."
The agency defended itself, remarking that the ad campaign had been effective. "2020 was a standout recruitment year for the
CIA, despite the pandemic... Our 2021 incoming class is the third-largest in a decade," a spokesperson told Fox News.
"... As the world has become more complex, people have relied more and more on stereotypes and simplifications to help them interpret and filter events around them. Propaganda manipulates this desire for simplicity – handing people easy answers rather than winning them over with rational arguments. Society then rallies around these stereotypes and squashes dissents with 'herd mentality', an irrational set of psychological behaviors where individuals are swept along with a group, overriding their own rational assessments ..."
Below is a repeat of a Glenn Diesen quote from karlof1 comment # 57
" "As the world has become more complex, people have relied more and more on stereotypes and
simplifications to help them interpret and filter events around them. Propaganda manipulates
this desire for simplicity – handing people easy answers rather than winning them over
with rational arguments. Society then rallies around these stereotypes and squashes dissents
with 'herd mentality', an irrational set of psychological behaviors where individuals are
swept along with a group, overriding their own rational assessments." "
Think about the vaccine situation and what just happened to the medical profession in the
West....they got railroaded into agreeing that there was not an off the shelf "ivermectin" to
the virus and guaranteed future income to Big Pharma is more important.
Hey docs!!! Do no harm! Your complicity in this war crime against humanity is noted. What
are the responsible and humanistic actions to take now and why does the public not see
evidence that you are organizing to do them?
Until the reality of the CIA--to undermine peaceful relations and promote wars required
for Military Keynesianism--is taught in grade school, it will always find recruits. As with
the FBI, government sponsored propaganda was and remains required to manufacture the reasons
for their existence. Nations that promote an equitable polity have no need for a secret
police force, but do need some force to counter attempts from the outside to foment
destabilization. For example, today's Russia is freer than at any previous time in its
history as only extremist ideologies are banned while Communism--still deemed extremist by
the West--is relegated to a normal ideology with status as a normative political party.
Indeed, I'd argue that Russia remains the only genuine Liberal Western nation, which is a
reality Russophobes are unable to accept or even contemplate. The same also applies to the
concept of Communism thanks to the unwillingness to even attempt to understand Marx. And as
Western thought gets subsumed by Wokeness, the ideological divide between Neoliberal nations
and all others will continue to grow.
“A Top Biden Cybersecurity Aide Donated Over $500,000 to AIPAC as an NSA
Official†[David Corn,
Mother Jones (via the War Nerd )].
“Several other national security expertsâ€"who asked not to be
namedâ€"say that the foundation’s donations to AIPAC create, at
the least, an appearance problem for Anne Neuberger.†•
Apparently Neuberger
was too much not only for Corn, but for his handlers in the intelligence community, to stomach.
The whole piece is well worth a read. It’s all horrible.
Actually I think neoliberalism is on its last legs, admin of it is currently under going a
near psychotic episode of various degrees depending on how factions roll and the desire to
come out on top when the dust settles.
Covid really presented a situation which has removed so much ideological PR fog, for so
many people, that the GFC was just a bad patch or some nefarious plot by outside forces which
would snatch their dreams away.
Space.com reports: Because no one was certain how weightlessness would affect a pilot,
the spherical capsule had little in the way of onboard
controls ; the work was done either automatically or from the ground. If an emergency
arose, Gagarin was supposed to receive an override code that would allow him to take manual
control, but Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the Soviet space program, disregarded protocol
and gave the code to the pilot prior to the flight.
Over the course of 108 minutes, Vostok 1 traveled around the Earth once, reaching a
maximum height of 203 miles (327 kilometers). The spacecraft carried 10 days' worth of
provisions in case the engines failed and Gagarin was required to wait for the orbit to
naturally decay. But the supplies were unnecessary. Gagarin re-entered Earth's atmosphere,
managing to maintain consciousness as he experienced forces up to eight times the pull of
gravity during his descent.
The BBC remembers how on his return to earth, Gagarin parachuted into some farmland several
hundred miles from Moscow â€" "much to the surprise of a five-year-old girl who was
out in the fields planting potatoes."
The BBC also published a look at
Gagarin's global fame in the years that followed â€" and Phys.org notes that
even today, there are few people more
universally admired in Russia than Yuri Gagarin : His smiling face adorns murals across
the country. He stands, arms at his sides as if zooming into space, on a pedestal 42.5 metres
(140 feet) above the traffic flowing on Moscow's Leninsky Avenue. He is even a favourite
subject of tattoos... The anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight on April 12, 1961
â€" celebrated every year in Russia as Cosmonautics Day â€" sees Russians
of all ages lay flowers at monuments to his accomplishment across the country...
Gagarin, says historian Alexander Zheleznyakov, was a figure who helped fuel the
imagination. "He transformed us from a simple biological species to one that could imagine an
entire universe beyond Earth."
"... They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives "and all with impunity." No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of "Wanted" images on social media. ..."
"... Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo . Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. ..."
"... Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain. ..."
"... Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency's conduct is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard": "One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden" and quite another for "Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump." ..."
For a long time, the FBI
has stood as the admirable symbol of a police agency of government, implacably going after the bad guys and neutrally enforcing
the laws. This is the FBI of the movie "The Untouchables," in which special agent Eliot Ness leads his devoted crew of armed
agents in a heroic battle against the forces of organized crime.
Well, forget about the Untouchables. Today's FBI has quite obviously been
corrupted from the top. This is a process that seems to have begun under President Barack
Obama, endured during the Donald Trump years, and has now reached its unfortunate nadir under
President Joe Biden. It's time for conservatives and Republicans to start
thinking about getting rid of the FBI.
I want to highlight two sets of contrasting episodes that give us a window into how biased
and partisan this once-respected agency has now become.
Contrast the treatment the FBI has given to Jan. 6 activists with that it has afforded to
Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters.
The FBI has unrelentingly hunted down Jan. 6 protesters, in many cases confronting Trump
supporters who were merely in Washington at the time, or at the mall rally but not involved in
entering the Capitol. Those who have been arrested have been treated like domestic terrorists,
captured in raids involving drawn weapons, even though the charges against most of them amount
to little more than trespassing or entering a government facility without proper permission.
Nonviolent offenders have been given the same brutal treatment as violent ones. And to this day
the FBI promulgates images "a grandma here, a teenager there" asking
the public to help them track down still-at-large individuals who had something, anything, to
do with the events of Jan. 6.
Contrast this concentrated effort with the lackadaisical, even disinterested, approach of
the FBI to the Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. Over a period of many months, those
activists have proven far more violent. They have killed a number of people, in contrast to the
Trump activists who killed nobody. (The only person killed on Jan. 6 was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump
supporter shot in the neck by a Capitol police officer.) They have looted businesses, burned
churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in
restaurants or going about their normal lives "and all with impunity." No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of
"Wanted" images on
social media.
Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's
home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo . Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence
Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Giuliani pointed out in a statement
released by his lawyer, however, that he offered to sit down with the FBI and the Biden
Department of Justice (DOJ) and show them to their satisfaction that there had been no
violation of law. Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear
evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to
register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography,
money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in
exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain.
Both the FBI and the DOJ showed no interest in any of that. Consequently, Giuliani seems
warranted in concluding that the agency's conduct is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard": "One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as
Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden" and quite another for "Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President
Trump."
Giuliani
further revealed that the FBI and DOJ had in late 2019 obtained access to his email
database without notifying him. This means that while Giuliani was advising his client Donald
Trump during the impeachment process""a relationship fully protected by attorney""client privilege""the FBI violated the law while supposedly
investigating Giuliani and Trump's possible violations of law.
Here, again, the FBI's extreme diligence in going after Giuliani can be
contrasted with the FBI's failure to act in the case of Gov. Cuomo. Cuomo is
currently involved in two separate scandals, one involving multiple women who have accused him
of sexual harassment, and another involving his direct involvement in a cover-up scheme to hide
the magnitude of nursing home deaths caused by his own policies.
According to the New York
Times , the Cuomo administration was far more culpable than previously known in
deliberately undercounting nursing home deaths over a period of five months.
Let's recall that these deaths need not have occurred. At the direction of
the Trump administration, the U.S. Navy dispatched a hospital ship Comfort to New York to
accept non-coronavirus patients and thus lessen the burden on New York hospitals.
Gov. Cuomo, however, turned the ship away to spite the Trump administration and instead
ordered New York nursing homes to accept the overflow of COVID-19 patients, helping the virus
to spread among vulnerable nursing home populations and thus causing thousands of unnecessary
deaths.
Then, when the Trump administration inquired about the nursing home data in New York, Cuomo
instructed his state health officials, including the health commissioner Howard Zucker, not to
release the true death toll to the federal government, state officials, or the general public.
Cuomo also suppressed a research paper that revealed the data and blocked two letters by
Zucker's department from being sent to state legislators.
While Giuliani's offense remains unclear, Cuomo is guilty of obvious
abuses of power ""actions that have not only put people in their graves but also
amounted, in a statistical sense, to "hiding the bodies." Again,
the FBI is nowhere to be found, and the reason for its absence appears to be that Cuomo is a
Democratic governor who seemingly enjoys immunity as far as today's FBI and
Biden's DOJ are concerned.
Enough is enough! When justice no longer involves the neutral or equal application of the
laws, it ceases to be justice. I realize, of course, that there will be no FBI reform under
Biden. Therefore, I strongly urge the Republican Party to make abolition of the
FBI""shutting down the agency and then reconstructing it from the ground
up""key provisions of its campaigns both in 2022 and 2024.
* * *
Dinesh D'Souza is an author, filmmaker, and daily host of the Dinesh
D'Souza podcast.
"... No, people get their belief systems (religious, political, economic, cultural) from their identity groups. **Then** (if called upon) they apply the intellect to rationalize the beliefs that they **already** hold. ..."
"... Rationalizing the Russiagate nonsense was seemingly inevitable with the 24/7 help of the MSM, and the continuous chirping of Democrat politicians. The intellect was not a lighthouse beacon that led intelligent Democrats through the fog of 24/7/52 issued propaganda, rather; the intellect was the tool that solidified vaporous forms into false-reality. ..."
My two cents. People are mimics. It is fascinating when you realize this.
People don't muse, contemplate and chew over the circumstances and issues in their environment and then resolve - "aha! I have
got it." That is not where people get their belief systems. For example, a million and more people didn't all independently study
the Bible and then realize that their interpretation was fully consistent with those of the Roman Catholics and therefore they
should go join the Catholic Church.
No, people get their belief systems (religious, political, economic, cultural) from their identity groups. **Then** (if
called upon) they apply the intellect to rationalize the beliefs that they **already** hold.
The epiphany came to me when I observed intelligent people falling for Russiagate. WTF !! I thought intelligent people
would get it. Russiagate would be a flash-in-the-pan that would disappear in a few days (or less!). Boy was I wrong. The intellect
does not rule, group identity does. Those that identified Democrat (generalizing here, of course) fell in step with the beliefs
common to Democrats, including Russiagate.
Rationalizing the Russiagate nonsense was seemingly inevitable with the 24/7 help of the MSM, and the continuous chirping
of Democrat politicians. The intellect was not a lighthouse beacon that led intelligent Democrats through the fog of 24/7/52 issued
propaganda, rather; the intellect was the tool that solidified vaporous forms into false-reality.
To find one's identity in groups is deeply human. People are dominated by their need to be group-accepted. It is unsurprising
that group acceptance and group identity produce what we call fashion - fashion in style, fashion in vocabulary, fashion in beliefs.
This applies to Wokism. People are mimics.
"... "If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction.." ― Joseph Goebbels ..."
"... 'We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under' ― General Moshe Dayan ..."
I went lateral in researching today's b-post and in so doing came across a Goebbels quote:
"If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam
the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction.."
― Joseph Goebbels
And I was sure that I had read something like that before:
'We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under'
― General Moshe Dayan
This one-to-one replay of Red Guards - Wikipedia but with quite
different sponsors ;-) "Hóng Wèibīng was a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao
Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Notable quotes:
"... there is an on-going effort to create fads/movements in which the public becomes caught-up and distracts the from reality. ..."
"... The more binary and controversial the better. Red/Blue. I used to be a big fan of sports but have the opinion it is a pointless waste of time and my life is better for that realization. ..."
"... Characteristics of the Woke: They always attack, especially with insults, like "paranoia nonsense". They never address the actual point made, instead they reinterpret the point to make it appear pure evil. Which allows them to attribute the worst possible motivations on the person they are attacking. Naturally they invent things the other person hadn't even mentioned, like climate change. ..."
"... Again the whole woke 'identity' culture that cancels dissent and promotes 'minorities' in positions of power is simply woke fascism. Just as military recruitment is about turning violent video games real for young men, so too is CIA recruitment about inviting the 'woke' for murder and mayhem in the name 'freedom' without which the woke could not wake. ..."
I think that there is an on-going effort to create fads/movements in which the public
becomes caught-up and distracts the from reality.
The more binary and controversial the
better. Red/Blue. I used to be a big fan of sports but have the opinion it is a pointless
waste of time and my life is better for that realization.
Additionally/tangentially, I feel there is a habit in the English language in particular
to create new words to describe things these words are not well define and generate a lot of
discussion and heat about things that nobody knows what they are actually talking about and
end up arguing the meaning of the words.
People who don't know the new words must try to catch
up or be left out of the discussion. I don't direct this at your discussion. I just wonder how
we might see things if we were constrained to a limited vocabulary - as I am as a programmer
of sorts.
Characteristics of the Woke: They always attack, especially with insults, like "paranoia
nonsense". They never address the actual point made, instead they reinterpret the point to
make it appear pure evil. Which allows them to attribute the worst possible motivations on
the person they are attacking. Naturally they invent things the other person hadn't even
mentioned, like climate change.
Again the whole woke 'identity' culture that cancels dissent and promotes 'minorities' in
positions of power is simply woke fascism. Just as military recruitment is about turning
violent video games real for young men, so too is CIA recruitment about inviting the 'woke'
for murder and mayhem in the name 'freedom' without which the woke could not wake.
I will believe that any of this is worth a shit when Snowden wades in with his
opinion...until then its just another distraction
The CIA is why we can't have "wokeism" about the right issue like global private/public
finance.....where is Occupy 2.0?
The current wokeism is like the pet rocks of old days.....would want folks to focus that
woke on the inherited class structure of the private property West, would we?
"... you make the best point: you have to have something seriously "wrong" with your mind to want a job with these spooks in the first place. you can't spell "sociopath" without "c-i-a". ..."
I asked Google (and thus Wikipedia) what cisgender means?
cisgender /sɪsˈdʒɛndə/ adjective
Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender
corresponds with their birth sex. "this new-found attention to the plight of black trans folks by primarily cisgender allies
is timely and necessary"
On the same page as the search result is a teaser headline:
"How An (the) Ad About Cisgender Backfired Spectacularly"
I've formed the opinion that the BIC (the Billionaires In Charge) want societies atomised
to reduce the likelihood of a revolution involving rope, and nooses. So guess how surprised
I'm not that the BIC's loyal servants/savants, the CIA, are attempting to popularise such
vacuous tosh as yet another addition to the LBGTQUERTY "landscape?"
you make the best point: you have to have something seriously "wrong" with your mind to
want a job with these spooks in the first place. you can't spell "sociopath" without
"c-i-a".
both the bold - and to a lesser extent the italics - are terms people use to sound
interesting when they're not. especially the tendency toward self-diagnosis that westerners
have; "i'm not dumb with no attention span ...i have " ADHD " or "i don't have
low self esteem or work-related anxiety based on the inner knowldge of how inept i am...i
have " imposter syndrome ".
the woke types tend to be this kind of malleable and empty vessel...which is what the
"company" wants.
Thanks for bringing this issue to the main page in a brief article, b. I linked to
this
article, "CIA & The Woke Totalitarian Generation" , on the Week in Review thread, but
it generated no additional comment despite its being one of several recent essays on the
issue of the contrived Wokeism "culture" that Alastair Crooke's written about on several
occasions over the past months and Pepe Escobar made the focus of his most recent essay.
Crooke argues that Wokeism is the peculiar and singular outcome of the American Malaise
prominently exposed by Christopher Lasch in his 1994 Revolt of the Elites , which
we've seen in the trenches as the war being waged against the State and citizenry by the
Neoliberal Rentier Class that was explained well in this Renegade Inc
interview from last year .
The Outlaw US Empire is clearly trying hard to get its
Neoliberal vassals to adopt the Woke insanity, which proves beyond doubt Putin's assertion
that the Liberalism of the West has died or worse evolved into something profane and
loathsome.
"... " 'Hate Inc.' is a book about the way the news media business has commoditized anger and division, eschewing traditional fact-based reporting and objectivity in favor of a new strategy based on telling audiences what they want to hear," Taibbi said. ..."
"Matt Taibbi's "˜Hate Inc.' Getting Turned Into Documentary by Vespucci (EXCLUSIVE)" [
Variety
].
"As a company that works closely with journalists
from around the world, we remain conscious of the evolution of media and audio-visual news,' said Vespucci co-founders Johnny Galvin and Daniel Turcan.
"Hate Inc." expertly dissects the current state of the media
landscape, and through the lens of Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent," Matt asks of us, viewers, to
hold accountable our news providers.
The timing of the book couldn't be more
critical and a documentary as an extension of Matt's commentary feels only fitting.
" 'Hate Inc.'
is a book about the way the news media business has commoditized anger and division, eschewing
traditional fact-based reporting and objectivity in favor of a new strategy based on telling
audiences what they want to hear," Taibbi said.
"˜Because
much of this transformation took place in visual and auditory media, the subject easily lends
itself to a documentary "" in fact, even as I was writing the book, I was aware it
may be a story more easily told on screen.'"
"... In 20 years, the movie Office Space will seem to young people like watching a Western. ..."
"... Possibly--but like a good western. The themes and characters in the movie are universal and timeless. Nearly everyone has worked for Lumberg at one time or another. It may seem far-fetched to future generations that there were ever programmers in this country. ..."
"... Office buildings could all readily be re-purposed to grow weed. ..."
In 20 years, the movie Office Space will seem to young people like watching a Western.
Midas 21 minutes ago
Possibly--but like a good western. The themes and characters in the movie are universal
and timeless. Nearly everyone has worked for Lumberg at one time or another. It may seem
far-fetched to future generations that there were ever programmers in this country.
Kickaha 1 hour ago
Office buildings could all readily be re-purposed to grow weed.
I think CIA counter-intelligence now is in very unenviable position. This woman is a poster girl for recruitment by
foreign agencies. This level of narcissism and lack of introspection means that she can be easily manipulated and support "the right
cause"
Katie Halper and Esha Krishnaswamy roast the "brilliance intoxicator":
The CIA Gets Woke (8 min "" Katie Halper's YouTube channel,
May 4, 2021)
Notable quotes:
"... In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and rhetorical construct: ..."
"... my existence is not a box-checking exercise ..."
"... She continues, "I used to struggle with imposter syndrome . But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I'm supposed to apologize for the space I occupy ." ..."
"... if the CIA wants to hire more such people I am all for it. Folks who can not leave their personal issues at the door typically muck up their workplace and create productivity problems. A less effective CIA will be a plus for the rest of the world. ..."
"... And for some levity, here's some much deserved satire on the CIA vid. https://twitter.com/blaireerskine/status/1389313897304399877?s=20 ..."
"... Like b suggests: never stop/prevent the enemy (which is what CIA is, for most people) from making a mistake. The sooner they replace their cadre with woke idiots the better for humanity and the chances of our survival. ..."
"... Over 50% of The Company's light lifting is subbed out to contractors, and most of the Langley smurfs are busy "analyzing" data, soooo desk jockey much? It would be fun to track where the diversity hires actually go ..."
"... Utter bullshit indeed. Listing all the boxes she checks and then adding "my existence is not a box-checking exercise" is comical in itself. Hopefully b is right and the CIA will be less effective for the inclusion of people like her. ..."
Michael Tracey writes
about a weird CIA video that is making the rounds (emphasis added):
In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the
CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and
rhetorical construct:
" I am a woman of color ," the video's
protagonist, an unnamed CIA officer, triumphantly proclaims. "I am a cisgender millennial who's been diagnosed with generalized anxiety
disorder. I am intersectional , but my existence is not a box-checking exercise ."
She continues, "I used to struggle with imposter syndrome . But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas
of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I'm supposed to apologize for the space I occupy ."
I have to admit that I do not know what the words in bold are supposed to mean. (Nor does my Firefox spellchecker. It flags
them.)
I also do not understand the italicized phrases. To me they sounds like utter bullshit. But if the CIA wants to hire more such people I am all for it. Folks who can not leave their personal issues at the door typically
muck up their workplace and create productivity problems. A less effective CIA will be a plus for the rest of the world.
It would be interesting if 'em spooks started cancelling each other for some 10 yo tweets, or for not being transsexual, or
for the white supremacist mindset demonstrated by remembering the multiplication table.
Oh! You definitely should learn that NewSpeak. Yes, it's ridicelous, knowing this babble hasn't any intrinsic value. It is
,however, the current ruling ideology of the USA and by extension the broader West. It's like understanding the babble of some
obscure theoretician or the basic terminology of some remote religion. You can safely ignore all of this as nonsense - as long
as such people don't run a country!
Posted by: m | May 5 2021 14:13 u
Like b suggests: never stop/prevent the enemy (which is what CIA is, for most people) from making a mistake. The sooner they
replace their cadre with woke idiots the better for humanity and the chances of our survival.
Yeah this video took a nice beating on The Hedge....frikkin hilarious!
Over 50% of The Company's light lifting is subbed out to
contractors, and most of the Langley smurfs are busy "analyzing" data, soooo desk jockey much? It would be fun to track where
the diversity hires actually go, but hey I've got a garden to build!
Utter bullshit indeed. Listing all the boxes she checks and then adding "my existence is not a box-checking exercise" is comical
in itself. Hopefully b is right and the CIA will be less effective for the inclusion of people like her.
@b In your last sentence 'the' before CIA is superfluous, it appears you cut down a larger sentence incorrectly.
The emergence of the internet was met with hope and enthusiasm by people who understood that
the
plutocrat-controlled mainstream media were manipulating public opinion to manufacture consent for the status quo. The
democratization of information-sharing was going to give rise to a public consciousness that is
emancipated from the domination of plutocratic narrative control, thereby opening up the
possibility of revolutionary change to our society’s corrupt systems.
But it never happened. Internet use has become commonplace around the world and humanity is
able to network and share information like never before, yet we remain firmly under the thumb
of the same power structures we’ve been ruled by for generations, both
politically and psychologically. Even the dominant media institutions are somehow still the
same.
So what went wrong? Nobody’s buying newspapers anymore, and the audiences
for television and radio are dwindling. How is it possible that those same imperialist
oligarchic institutions are still controlling the way most people think about their world?
Last month a very informative interview saw the
CEO of YouTube, which is owned by Google, candidly discussing the way the platform uses
algorithms to elevate mainstream news outlets and suppress independent content.
At the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Technology Governance Summit,
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told
Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson that while the platform still allows arts and entertainment
videos an equal shot at going viral and getting lots of views and subscribers, on important
areas like news media it artificially elevates “authoritative
sourcesâ€.
“What we’ve done is really fine-tune our algorithms
to be able to make sure that we are still giving the new creators the ability to be found
when it comes to music or humor or something funny,†Wojcicki said.
“But when we’re dealing with sensitive areas, we
really need to take a different approach.â€
Wojcicki said in addition to banning content deemed harmful, YouTube has also created a
category labeled “borderline content†which it algorithmically
de-boosts so that it won’t show up as a recommended video to viewers who are
interested in that topic:
“When we deal with information, we want to make sure that the sources
that we’re recommending are authoritative news, medical science, et cetera.
And we also have created a category of more borderline content where sometimes
we’ll see people looking at content that’s lower quality
and borderline. And so we want to be careful about not over-recommending that. So
that’s a content that stays on the platform but is not something that
we’re going to recommend. And so our algorithms have definitely evolved in
terms of handling all these different content types.â€
https://www.youtube.com/embed/r2ONsgx4Mxw
Progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski has a good video out reacting to
Wojcicki’s comments, saying he believes his (entirely harmless) channel has
been grouped in the “borderline†category because his views and
new subscribers suddenly took a dramatic and inexplicable plunge. Kulinski reports that
overnight he went from getting tens of thousands of new subscriptions per month to maybe a
thousand.
“People went to YouTube to escape the mainstream nonsense that they see
on cable news and on TV, and now YouTube just wants to become cable news and TV,â€
Kulinski says.
“People are coming here to escape that and you’re
gonna force-feed them the stuff they’re escaping like CNN and MSNBC and
Fox News.â€
It is not terribly surprising to hear Susan Wojcicki admit to elevating the media of the
oligarchic empire to the CEO of a
neoconservative publication at the World Economic Forum. She comes from the same elite
empire management background as all the empire managers who’ve been placed
in charge of mainstream media outlets by their plutocratic owners, having
gone to Harvard after being literally raised on the campus of Stanford University as a
child. Her sister Anne is the founder of the genetic-testing company
23andMe and was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Google itself also uses algorithms to artificially boost empire media in its searches. In
2017 World Socialist Website (WSWS) began documenting the fact that
it, along with other leftist and antiwar outlets, had suddenly experienced a dramatic drop in
traffic from Google searches. In 2019 the Wall Street Journal confirmed WSWS claims , reporting that
“Despite publicly denying doing so, Google keeps blacklists to remove
certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results.†In
2020 the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet admitted to censoring WSWS at a
Senate hearing in response to one senator’s suggestion that Google only
censors right wing content.
Then you’ve got Facebook, where
a third of Americans regularly get their news. Facebook is a bit less evasive about its
status quo-enforcing censorship practices, openly enlisting the government-and-plutocrat-funded
imperialist
narrative management firm The Atlantic Council to help it determine what content to censor
and what to boost. Facebook has stated that if
its “fact checkers†like The Atlantic Council deem a page or
domain guilty of spreading false information, it will “dramatically reduce
the distribution of all of their Page-level or domain-level content on
Facebook.â€
All the algorithm stacking by the dominant news distribution giants Google and Facebook also
ensures that mainstream platforms and reporters will have far more followers than indie media
on platforms like Twitter, since an article that has been artificially amplified will receive
far more views and therefore far more clicks on their social media information. Mass media
employees tend to clique up and amplify each other on Twitter, further exacerbating the divide.
Meanwhile left and antiwar voices,
including myself , have been complaining for years that Twitter
artificially throttles their follower count.
If not for these deliberate acts of sabotage and manipulation by Silicon Valley
megacorporations , the mainstream media which have deceived us into war after war and which
manufacture consent
for an oppressive status quo would have been replaced by independent media years ago. These
tech giants are the life support system of corporate media propaganda.
* * *
My work is
entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around,
liking me on Facebook
, following my antics on Twitter , or
throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi , Patreon or Paypal . If you want to read more you can buy
my books . Everyone, racist platforms excluded,
has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else
I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. The best way to get
around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the
mailing list for at my website or
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get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I
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click here .
Several previous studies have examined the risks across generations of radiation exposure
from events such as this, but have yielded inconclusive results. In this study, the
investigators analyzed the genomes
of 130 children and parents from families where one or both parents were exposed to
radiation due to the Chernobyl accident, and where children were conceived afterward and born
between 1987 and 2002.
There was no increase in gene changes in reproductive cells of study participants, and
rates of new germline mutations were similar to those in the general population, according to a
team led by Meredith Yeager of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, in Rockville,
Md.
In the early days of the virus pandemic, things didn't look so hot for the field of plastic survey. Hospitals were overrun with
COVID-19 infections and banned all elective procedures, limiting plastic surgeries. But sometime after, when the economy reopened,
and hospitals allowed elective surgeries, demand for butt implants soared.
Bloomberg , citing data from the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), says there were broad declines for minimally invasive and surgical cosmetic procedures
during 2020. Botox and soft-tissue fillers remained popular with consumers.
But it was buttock augmentation, or butt implants were
a massive hit among consumers.
Cosmetic procedures for the implants last year were up 22%, from 970 to 1,179.
"...they are terrorists. They hate me. They hate my uniform. They don't care if I die
..."
We have been
discussing the termination of public employees and others for their postings on social
media or public displays. The latest case is out of New Jersey where former Hopewell Township
police officer Sara Erwin was fired recent over a June 2020 posting on Facebook in which she
referred to Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters as "terrorists."
There remains an uncertain line of what political or social views are tolerated and what are
barred on social media. Indeed, Sgt.
Mandy Gray was suspended and demoted for simply liking the June 2020 post.
Gray was the first female officer hired in Hopewell Township and became the first female
sergeant in 2019, according to
NJ.com.
Erwin insists that she posted the statement after she and her colleagues were faced with
violent protests and family members who were traumatized by images on television of officers
being attacked. Erwin reportedly wrote i:
" Last night as I left for work I had my two kids crying for me not to go to work. I don't
think I've ever felt the way I did last night. And then I watched people I know and others I
care about going into harms way. I love my police family like my own. So when you share posts
and things on Facebook I'd really appreciate if you'd THINK before doing so. I've seen so
many black lives matter [sic] hashtags in these posts. Just to let you know -- they are
terrorists. They hate me. They hate my uniform. They don't care if I die. "
Hopewell
Township Mayor Julie Blake and the town's council made the decision to fire her in an
unanimous vote to accept the recommendations of a hearing officer.
As will come as little surprise to many on this blog, my default is in favor of free
speech.
My concern is the lack of a consistent rule. For example, would the town have fired Erwin if
she said the same thing about another group like the Proud Boys or the NRA?
I can understand the objection to the posting. BLM is a group committed to fighting police
abuse and regularly engages in protests. For an officer to express such bias against BLM can
exacerbate tensions in such protests. However, officers also have a right to be able to express
themselves . The balance of those interests should, at a minimum, have favored a reprimand
rather than a termination for Erwin. If not, the town should establish a clear standard as to
what public employees are allowed to express on political and social issues. This includes
whether certain groups can be criticized but not others.
The action taken by Hopewell Township raises more questions than answers on where this line
is drawn in terms of free speech.
ay_arrow
Billy the Poet 1 hour ago
I can understand the objection to the posting. BLM is a group committed to fighting police
abuse and regularly engages in protests. For an officer to express such bias against BLM can
exacerbate tensions in such protests. However, officers also have a right to be able to
express themselves. The balance of those interests should, at a minimum, have favored a
reprimand rather than a termination for Erwin. If not, the town should establish a clear
standard as to what public employees are allowed to express on political and social issues.
This includes whether certain groups can be criticized but not others.
Turley reminds us that rules must be followed consistently if they are to have validity
but I think the larger point is that there are no rules anymore. The former rule book is now
used exclusively as a bludgeon by entitled parties.
Global Times seems to have declared an Open Season today on the Outlaw US Empire
and its vassals/lackeys with a Broadside of articles that build on yestaerday's outstanding editorial
. First is this Infographic that asks six
pertinent questions based on FDR's Four Freedoms that are now at the core of Western Values
despite their being completely disregarded. Next we have Blinken making a fool of himself
again at the China-hosted virtual session of the UNSC for claiming to uphold the UN
Charter that the Outlaw US Empire's violated daily since 1945 and by attempting to smear
others for violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when the Empire isn't even a
party to that treaty, never having ratified it. But the stunner comes from an odd source,
The Guardian , which cited a new poll:
"Reported by the Guardian on Wednesday, another poll in Western countries shows that
the US is seen as more of a threat to democracy than Russia and China , with 44
percent of respondents in the 53 countries concerned that the US threatens democracy in their
country.
"'They show neither the US, nor the G7, can simply assume the mantle of defenders of
democracy,' the Guardian said." [My Emphasis]
It can't be said the Chinese don't have a sense of humor since this article and the graphic it's
based on certainly prove otherwise--it's a big dig at how far the mighty have fallen
comparing the current G-7 and additional lackeys with those nations that invaded China 120
years ago.
"China's exports to the US rose 49.3 percent while imports gained 53.3 percent, and the
trade surplus with the US was 653.89 billion yuan, an increase of 47 percent . [My
Emphasis]
It seems all the Anti-China rhetoric and Congressional hearings only serve to increase
that dependence. The reason why is simple: the Neoliberal System is designed to do just that,
and Biden along with Congress is doing nothing to reverse that basic problem.
Lavrov "stating facts" at the virtual UNSC meeting is also a blistering critique of the
Outlaw US Empire and its EU vassals. Here is the beginning of the meat portion of his speech
that continues for another ten paragraphs:
"The core tenets of international law enshrined in the UN Charter have withstood the test
of time. Russia calls on all states to unconditionally follow the purposes and principles of
the Charter as they chart their foreign policies, respecting the sovereign equality of
states, not interfering in their internal affairs, settling disputes by political and
diplomatic means, and renouncing the threat or use of force. This is especially important at
the current stage in the difficult process of forming an international multipolar system. At
a time when new centres of economic growth, financial and political influence are gaining
strength, it is necessary to preserve the internationally recognised legal basis for building
a stable balance of interests that meets the new realities.
"Unfortunately, not all of our partners are driven by the imperative to work in good faith
to promote comprehensive multilateral cooperation. Realising that it is impossible to impose
their unilateral or bloc priorities on other states within the framework of the UN, the
leading Western countries have tried to reverse the process of forming a polycentric world
and slow down the course of history.
"Toward this end, the concept of the rules-based order is advanced as a substitute for
international law. It should be noted that international law already is a body of rules, but
rules agreed at universal platforms and reflecting consensus or broad agreement. The West's
goal is to oppose the collective efforts of all members of the world community with other
rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else. We only
see harm in such actions that bypass the UN and seek to usurp the only decision-making
process that can claim global relevance."
I thought this one of his best arrows, although others were equally sharp and on
target:
"By the way, as soon as we suggest discussing the current state of democracy not just
within states but on the international stage with our Western colleagues, they lose interest
in the conversation."
And Lavrov's facts are not out of line with global opinion as revealed by the info
supplied @26 above.
This is starting to look really like staging of "Brave new world..." Today's society is
closer to Huxley's "Brave New World" than to Orwell's "1984". But there are clear elements of
both. If you will, the worst of both worlds has come true today.
In 1949, sometime after the publication of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four , Aldous
Huxley, the author of Brave New World (1931), who was then living in California, wrote to
Orwell. Huxley had briefly taught French to Orwell as a student in high school at Eton.
Huxley generally praises Orwell's novel, which to many seemed very similar to Brave New
World in its dystopian view of a possible future. Huxley politely voices his opinion that his
own version of what might come to pass would be truer than Orwell's. Huxley observed that the
philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is sadism, whereas his own version is
more likely, that controlling an ignorant and unsuspecting public would be less arduous, less
wasteful by other means. Huxley's masses are seduced by a mind-numbing drug, Orwell's with
sadism and fear.
The most powerful quote In Huxley's letter to Orwell is this:
Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant
conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs
and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting
people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.
Aldous Huxley.
Could Huxley have more prescient? What do we see around us?
Masses of people dependent upon drugs, legal and illegal. The majority of advertisements
that air on television seem to be for prescription drugs, some of them miraculous but most of
them unnecessary. Then comes COVID, a quite possibly weaponized virus from the
Fauci-funded-with-taxpayer-dollars lab in Wuhan, China. The powers that be tragically deferred
to the malevolent Fauci who had long been hoping for just such an opportunity. Suddenly, there
was an opportunity to test the mRNA vaccines that had been in the works for nearly twenty
years. They could be authorized as an emergency measure but were still highly experimental.
These jabs are not really vaccines at all, but a form of gene therapy . There
are potential
disastrous consequences down the road. Government experiments on the public are
nothing new .
Since there have been no actual, long-term trials, no one who contributed to this massive
drug experiment knows what the long-term consequences might be. There have been countless
adverse injuries and deaths already for which the government-funded vaccine producers will
suffer no liability. With each passing day, new side-effects have begun to appear: blood clots,
seizures, heart failure.
As new adverse reactions become known despite the censorship employed by most media outlets,
the more the Biden administration is pushing the vaccine, urging private corporations to make
it mandatory for all employees. Colleges are making them mandatory for all students returning
to campus.
The leftmedia are advocating the "shunning" of the unvaccinated. The self-appointed
virtue-signaling Democrats are furious at anyone and everyone who declines the jab. Why? If
they are protected, why do they care? That is the question. Same goes for the ridiculous mask
requirements . They protect no one but for those in operating rooms with their insides
exposed, yet even the vaccinated are supposed to wear them!
Months ago, herd immunity was near. Now Fauci and the CDC say it will never be achieved? Now
the Pfizer shot will necessitate yearly booster shots. Pfizer
expects to make $21B this year from its COVID vaccine! Anyone who thinks this isn't about
money is a fool. It is all about money, which is why Fauci, Gates, et al. were so determined to
convince the public that HCQ and ivermectin, both of which are effective, prophylactically and
as treatment, were not only useless, but dangerous. Both of those drugs are tried, true, and
inexpensive. Many of those thousands of N.Y. nursing home fatalities might have been prevented
with the use of one or both of those drugs. Those deaths are on the hands of Cuomo and his
like-minded tyrants drunk on power.
Months ago, Fauci, et al. agreed that children were at little or no risk of getting COVID,
of transmitting it, least of all dying from it. Now Fauci is demanding that all teens be
vaccinated by the end of the year! Why? They are no more in danger of contracting it now than
they were a year ago. Why are parents around this country not standing up to prevent their kids
from being guinea pigs in this monstrous medical experiment? And now they are " experimenting
" on infants. Needless to say, some have died. There is no reason on Earth for teens, children,
and infants to be vaccinated. Not one.
Huxley also wrote this:
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they
will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be
able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' -- this is the height
of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats ."
Perhaps this explains the left's hysterical impulse to force these untested shots on those
of us who have made the decision to go without it. If they've decided that it is the thing to
do, then all of us must submit to their whims. If we decide otherwise, it gives them the
righteous right to smear all of us whom they already deplore.
As C.J. Hopkins has
written , the left means to criminalize dissent. Those of us who are vaccine-resistant are
soon to be outcasts, deprived of jobs and entry into everyday businesses. This kind of
discrimination should remind everyone of ...oh, Germany three quarters of a century ago. Huxley
also wrote, "The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other
sets of people are human." That is precisely what the left is up to, what BLM is planning, what
Critical Race Theory is all about.
Tal Zaks, Moderna's chief medical officer, said these new vaccines are "hacking the
software of life." Vaccine-promoters claim he never said this, but he did. Bill Gates called
the vaccines " an operating
system " to the horror of those promoting it, a Kinsley gaffe. Whether it is or isn't
hardly matters at this point, but these statements by those behind the vaccines are a clue to
what they have in mind.
There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love
their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears , so to speak, producing a kind of
painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their
liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it.
This is exactly what the left is working so hard to effect: a pharmacologically compromised
population happy to be taken care of by a massive state machine. And while millions of people
around the world have surrendered to the vaccine and mask hysteria, millions more, about 1.3
billion, want no part of this government vaccine mania.
In his letter to Orwell, Huxley ended with the quote cited above and again here because it
is so profound:
Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant
conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs
and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting
people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.
Huxley nailed the left more than seventy years ago, perhaps because leftists have never
changed throughout the ages. 61,497 173
Fat Beaver 14 hours ago (Edited)
If i am to be treated as an outcast or an undesirable because i refuse the vax, i will
immediately become someone that has zero reverence for the law, and i can only imagine 10's
of millions will be right there with me.
strych10 14 hours ago
Welcome to the club.
We have coffee in the corner and occasional meetings at various bars.
Dr. Chihuahua-González 13 hours ago
I'm a doctor, you could contact me anytime and receive your injection.
Fat Beaver 13 hours ago (Edited)
I've gotta feeling the normie world you think you live in is about to change drastically
for the worse...
sparky139 PREMIUM 10 hours ago
You mean you'll sign papers that you injected us *wink *wink? And toss it away?
bothneither 2 hours ago
Oh geez how uncommon, another useless doctor with no Scruples who sold out to big Pharma.
Please have my Gates sponsored secret sauce.
Unknown 6 hours ago (Edited)
Both Huxley and Orwell are wrong. Neoliberalism (the use of once office for personal
gains) is by far the most powerful force that subjugates the inept population. Neoliberalism
demolished the mighty USSR, now destroying the USA, and will do the same to China. And this
poison dribbles from the top to bottom creating self-centered population that is unable to
unite, much less resist.
Deathrips 15 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Tylers.
You gonna cover Tucker Carlsons show earlier today on FOX news about vaxxx deaths? almost 4k
reported so far this year.
Is the population of india up in arms or is the MSM?
Nelbev 10 hours ago
Facebook just flagged/censored it, must sign into see vid, Tuck also failed to mention
mRNA and adenovirus vaxes were experimental and not FDA approved nor gone through stage III
trials. Beside deaths, have blood clot issues. Good he mentioned how naturally immune if get
covid and recovered, better than vaccine, but not covered for bogus passports. Me personally,
I would rather catch covid and get natural immunity than be vaccinated with an untested
experimental vaccine.
Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya; Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche; Dr. Ron Brown; Dr. Ryan Cole; Dr.
Richard Fleming; Dr. Simone Gold; Dr. Sunetra Gupta; Dr. Carl Heneghan; Dr. Martin Kulldorff;
Dr. Paul Marik; Dr. Peter McCullough; Dr. Joseph Mercola; Dr. Lee Merritt; Dr. Judy Mikovits;
Dr. Dennis Modry; Dr. Hooman Noorchashm; Dr. Harvey Risch; Dr. Sherri Tenpenny; Dr. Richard
Urso; Dr. Michael Yeadon;
Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya; Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche; Dr. Ron Brown; Dr. Ryan Cole; Dr.
Richard Fleming; Dr. Simone Gold; Dr. Sunetra Gupta; Dr. Carl Heneghan; Dr. Martin Kulldorff;
Dr. Paul Marik; Dr. Peter McCullough; Dr. Joseph Mercola; Dr. Lee Merritt; Dr. Judy Mikovits;
Dr. Dennis Modry; Dr. Hooman Noorchashm; Dr. Harvey Risch; Dr. Sherri Tenpenny; Dr. Richard
Urso; Dr. Michael Yeadon;
His making of the gamma and delta workforce was quite prescient. We are seeing it play out
now, we all know gammas and delta. There was a really good ABC tv movie made in 1980 Brave
New World. Excellent show, it shows the Alphas and names them Rothchild and so on. Shows what
these people specifically want to do to the world. I wonder if the ruling psychopaths
actually wait for science fiction authors to plan the future and then follow their
script.
Mineshaft Gap 10 hours ago
If Huxley were starting out today no major publisher would touch him.
They'd tell him Brave New World doesn't have a diverse enough of cast. Even the mostly
likable totalitarian guy named Mustapha turns out to be white! A white Mustapha. It's soooo
triggering. Also, what's wrong with a little electronic fun and drug taking, anyway? Lighten
up , Aldous.
Meanwhile his portrait of shrieking medieval Catholic nuns who think they're possessed in
The Devils of Loudun might remind the leftist editors too uncomfortably of their own recent
bleating performances at "White Fragility" struggle sessions.
Yves here. Mark Blyth is such a treat. How can you not be a fan of the man who coined "The
Hamptons are not a defensible position"? Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive
and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder
for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo.
Yves here. Mark Blyth is such a treat. How can you not be a fan of the man who coined "The
Hamptons are not a defensible position"? Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive
and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder
for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo.
Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive and has such a strong point of view that
his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven
correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo. Even though he's not always right, he's so
incisive and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as
fodder for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation
bugaboo. By Paul Jay.
... ... ...
Paul Jay
And is the idea that inflation is about to come roaring back one of the stupid
ideas that you're talking about? And is the idea that inflation is about to come roaring back
one of the stupid ideas that you're talking about?
Mark Blyth
I hope that it is, but I'm going to go with Larry on this one. He says it's
about one third chance that it's going to do this. I'd probably give it about one in ten, so
it's not impossible.
So, let's unpack why we're going to see this. Can you generate inflation? Yeah. I mean, dead
easy. Imagine your Turkey. Why not be a kind of Turkish pseudo dictator?
Why not fire the head of your central bank in an economy that's basically dependent on other
people valuing your assets and giving you money through capital flows? And then why don't you
fire the central bank head and put in charge your brother-in-law? I think it was his
brother-in-law. And then insist that low interest rates cure inflation. And then watch as the
value of your currency, the lira collapses, which means all the stuff you import is massively
expensive, which means that people will pay more, and the general level of all prices will go
up, which is an inflation. So, can you generate an inflation in the modern world? Sure, yeah.
Easy. Just be an idiot, right? Now, does this apply to the United States? No. That's where it
gets entirely different. So, a couple of things to think about (first). So, you mentioned that
huge number of 20 trillion dollars. Well, that's more or less about two thirds of what we threw
into the global economy after the global financial crisis, and inflation singularly failed to
show up. All those people in 2010 screaming about inflation and China dumping bonds and all
that. Totally wrong. Completely wrong. No central bank that's got a brass nameplate worth a
damn has managed to hit its inflation target of two percent in over a decade. All that would
imply that there is a huge amount of what we call "˜slack' in the economy. (Also) think
about the fact that we've had, since the 1990s, across the OECD, by any measure, full
employment. That is to say, most people who want a job can actually find one, and at the same
time, despite that, there has been almost no price pressure coming from wages, pushing on into
prices, to push up inflation. So rather than the so-called vertical Phillips curve, which most
of modern macro is based upon, whereby there's a kind of speed bump for the economy, and if the
government spends money, it can't push this curve out, all it can do is push it up in terms of
prices. What we seem to actually have is one whereby you can have a constant level of
inflation, which is very low, and any amount of unemployment you want from 2 percent to 12
percent, depending on where you look and in which time-period.
All of which suggests that at least for big developed, open, globalized economies, where
you've destroyed trade unions, busted up national product cartels, globally integrated your
markets, and added 600 million people to the global labor supply, you just can't generate
inflation very easily. Now, we're running, depending on how much actually passes, a two to five
trillion-dollar experiment on which theory of inflation is right. This one, or is it this one?
That's basically what we're doing just now. Larry's given it one in three that it's his one.
I'd give it one in ten his one's right. Now, if I may just go on just for a seconds longer.
This is where the politics of this gets interesting. Most people don't understand what
inflation is. You get all this stuff talked by economists and central bankers about inflation
and expectations and all that, but you go out and survey people and they have no idea what the
damn thing is. Think about the fact that most people talk about house price inflation.
There is no such thing as house price inflation. Inflation is a general rise in the level of
all prices. A sustained rise in the level of prices. The fact that house prices in Toronto have
gone up is because Canada stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into an
asset class and let the 10 percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other. That is
singularly not an inflation. So, what's going to happen coming out of Covid is there will be a
big pickup in spending, a pickup in employment. I think it's (going to be) less than people
expect because the people with the money are not going to go out and spend it because they have
all they want already. There are only so many Sub-Zero fridges you can buy. Meanwhile, the
bottom 60 percent of the income distribution are too busy paying back debt from the past year
to go on a spending spree, but there definitely will be a pickup. Now, does that mean that
there's going to be what we used to call bottlenecks? Yeah, because basically firms run down
inventory because they're in the middle of a bloody recession. Does it mean that there are
going to be supply chain problems? Yes, we see this with computer chips. So, what's going to
happen is that computer chips are going to go up in price.
So, lots of individual things are going to go up in price, and what's going to happen is
people are going to go "there's the inflation, there's that terrible inflation," and it's not.
It's just basically short-term factors that will dissipate after 18 months. That is my bet. For
Larry to be right what would have to be true?
That we would have to have the institutions, agreements, labor markets and product markets
of the 1970s. We don't.
... ... ...
So, I just don't actually see what the generator of inflation would be. We are not Turkey
dependent on capital imports for our survival with a currency that's falling off a cliff. That
is entirely different. That import mechanism, which is the way that most countries these days
get a bit of inflation. That simply doesn't apply in the U.S. So, with my money on it, if I had
to bet, it's one in 10 Larry's right, rather one in 3.
Paul Jay
The other point he raises, and we talked a little bit about this in a previous
interview, but let's revisit it, is that the size of the American debt, even if it isn't
inflationary at some point, creates some kind of crisis of confidence in the dollar being the
reserve currency of the world, and so this big infrastructure spending is a problem because of
that. That's part of, I believe, one of his arguments. The other point he raises, and we talked
a little bit about this in a previous interview, but let's revisit it, is that the size of the
American debt, even if it isn't inflationary at some point, creates some kind of crisis of
confidence in the dollar being the reserve currency of the world, and so this big
infrastructure spending is a problem because of that. That's part of, I believe, one of his
arguments.
Mark Blyth
The way political economists look at the financial plumbing, I think, is
different to the way that macro economists do. We see it rather differently. The first thing
is, what's your alternative to the dollar unless you're basically going to go all-in on gold or
bitcoin? And good luck with those. If we go into a crushing recession and our bond market
collapses, don't think that Europe's going to be a safe haven given that they've got half the
US growth rate. And we could talk about what Europe's got going on post-pandemic because it's
not that good. So what's your alternative (to the Dollar)? Buy yen? No, not really. You're
going to buy Chinese assets? Well, good luck, and given the way that their country is being run
at the moment, if you ever want to take your capital out. I'm not sure that's going to work for
you, even if you could. So you're kind of stuck with it. Mechanically there's another problem.
All of the countries that make surpluses in the world make surpluses because we run deficits.
One has to balance the other. So, when you're a Chinese firm selling to the United States,
which is probably an American firm in China with Chinese subcontractors selling to the United
States, what happens is they get paid in dollars. When they receive those dollars in China,
they don't let them into the domestic banking system. They sterilize them and they turn them
into the local currency, which is why China has all these (dollar) reserves. That's their
national savings. Would you like to burn your reserves in a giant pile? Well, one way to do
that would be to dump American debt, which would be equivalent to burning your national
savings. If you're a firm, what do you do? Well, you basically have to use dollars for your
invoicing. You have to use dollars for your purchasing, and you keep accumulating dollars,
which you hand back to your central bank, which then hands you the domestic currency. The
central bank then has a problem because it's got a liability " (foreign) cash rather than an
asset. So, what's the easiest asset to buy? Buy another 10-year Treasury bill, rinse and
repeat, rinse and repeat. So, if we were to actually have that type of crisis of confidence,
the people who would actually suffer would be the Germans and the Chinese, because their
export-driven models only makes sense in terms of the deficits that we run. Think of it as kind
of monetarily assured destruction because the plumbing works this way. I just don't see how you
can have that crisis of confidence because you've got nowhere else to take your confidence.
Paul Jay
If I understand it correctly, the majority of American government debt is held
by Americans, so it's actually really the wealth is still inside the United States. I saw a
number, this was done three or four years ago, maybe, but I think it was Brookings Institute,
that assets after liabilities in private hands in the United States is something like 98
trillion dollars. So I don't get where this crisis of confidence is going to come any time
soon. If I understand it correctly, the majority of American government debt is held by
Americans, so it's actually really the wealth is still inside the United States. I saw a
number, this was done three or four years ago, maybe, but I think it was Brookings Institute,
that assets after liabilities in private hands in the United States is something like 98
trillion dollars. So I don't get where this crisis of confidence is going to come any time
soon.
Mark Blyth
Basically, if your economy grows faster (than the rest of the world because
you are) the technological leader, your stock markets grows faster than the others. If you're
an international investor, you want access to that. (That ends) only if there were actual real
deep economic problems (for the US), like, for example, China invents fusion energy and gives
it free to the world. That would definitely screw up Texas. But short of that, it's hard to see
exactly what would be these game-changers that would result in this. And of course, this is
where the Bitcoin people come in. It's all about crypto, and nobody has any faith in the
dollar, and all this sort of stuff. Well, I don't see why we have faith in something (like that
instead . I think it was just last week. There wasn't much reporting on this, I don't know if
you caught this, but there were some twenty-nine-year-old dude ran a crypto exchange. I can't
remember where it was. Maybe somewhere like Turkey. But basically he had two billion in crypto
and he just walked off with the cash. You don't walk off with the Fed, but you could walk off
with a crypto exchange. So until those problems are basically sorted out, the notion that we
can all jump into a digital currency, which at the end of the day, to buy anything, you need to
turn back into a physical currency because you don't buy your coffee with crypto, we're back to
that (old) problem. How do you get out of the dollar? That structural feature is incredibly
important.
Paul Jay
So there's some critique of the Biden infrastructure plan and some of the
other stimulus, coming from the left, because, one, the left more or less agrees with what you
said about inflation, and the critique is that it's actually not big enough, and let me add to
that. I'm kind of a little bit surprised, maybe not anymore, but Wall Street on the whole, not
Larry Summers and a few others, but most of them actually seem quite in support of the Biden
plan. You don't hear a lot of screaming about inflation from Wall Street. Maybe from the
Republicans, but not from listening to Bloomberg Radio. So there's some critique of the Biden
infrastructure plan and some of the other stimulus, coming from the left, because, one, the
left more or less agrees with what you said about inflation, and the critique is that it's
actually not big enough, and let me add to that. I'm kind of a little bit surprised, maybe not
anymore, but Wall Street on the whole, not Larry Summers and a few others, but most of them
actually seem quite in support of the Biden plan. You don't hear a lot of screaming about
inflation from Wall Street. Maybe from the Republicans, but not from listening to Bloomberg
Radio.
Mark Blyth
You don't even hear a lot of screaming about corporate taxes, which is
fascinating, right? You'd think they'd be up in arms about this? I actually spoke to a business
audience recently about this, and I kind of did an informal survey and I said, "why are you
guys not up in arms about this?" And someone that was on the call said, "well, you know, the
Warren Buffet line about you find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes out? What if a
lot of firms that we think are great firms are just really good at tax optimization? What if
those profits are really just contingent on that? That would be really nice to know this
because then we could stop investing in them and invest in better stuff that actually does
things." You don't even hear a lot of screaming about corporate taxes, which is fascinating,
right? You'd think they'd be up in arms about this? I actually spoke to a business audience
recently about this, and I kind of did an informal survey and I said, "why are you guys not up
in arms about this?" And someone that was on the call said, "well, you know, the Warren Buffet
line about you find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes out? What if a lot of firms
that we think are great firms are just really good at tax optimization? What if those profits
are really just contingent on that? That would be really nice to know this because then we
could stop investing in them and invest in better stuff that actually does things."
Paul Jay
And pick up the pieces of what's left of them for a penny if they have to go
down. And pick up the pieces of what's left of them for a penny if they have to go down.
Mark Blyth
Absolutely. Just one thought that we'll circle back, to the left does not
think it's big enough, etc. Well, yes, of course they wouldn't, and this is one of those things
whereby you kind of have to check yourself. I give the inflation problem a one in ten. But what
I'm really dispassionately trying to do is to look at this as just a problem. My political
preferences lie on the side of "˜the state should do more.' They lie on the side of
"˜I think we should have higher real wages.' They lay on the side that says that
"˜populism is something that can be fixed if the bottom 60 percent actually had some kind
of growth.' So, therefore, I like programs that do that. Psychologically, I am predisposed
therefore to discount inflation. I'm totally discounting that because that's my priors and I'm
really deeply trying to check this. In this debate, it's always worth bearing in mind, no one's
doing that. The Republicans and the right are absolutely going to be hell bent on inflation,
not because they necessarily really believe in (inevitable) inflation, (but) because it's a
useful way to stop things happening. And then for the left to turn around and say, well, it
isn't big enough, (is because you might as well play double or quits because, you know, you've
got Biden and that's the best that's going to get. So there's a way in which when we really are
trying to figure out these things, we kind of have to check our partisan preferences because
they basically multiply the errors in our thinking, I think.
Paul Jay
Now, earlier you said that one of the main factors why inflation is
structurally low now, I don't know if you said exactly those words. Now, earlier you said that
one of the main factors why inflation is structurally low now, I don't know if you said exactly
those words.
Mark Blyth
I would say that yes. I would say that yes.
Paul Jay
Is the weakness of the unions, the weakness of workers in virtually all
countries, but particularly in the U.S., because it matters so much. That organizing of workers
is just, they're so unable to raise their wages over decades of essentially wages that barely
keep up with inflation and don't grow in any way, certainly not in any relationship to the way
productivity has grown. So we as progressives, well, we want workers to get better organized.
We want stronger unions. We want higher wages, but we want it without inflation. Is the
weakness of the unions, the weakness of workers in virtually all countries, but particularly in
the U.S., because it matters so much. That organizing of workers is just, they're so unable to
raise their wages over decades of essentially wages that barely keep up with inflation and
don't grow in any way, certainly not in any relationship to the way productivity has grown. So
we as progressives, well, we want workers to get better organized. We want stronger unions. We
want higher wages, but we want it without inflation.
Mark Blyth
And it's a question of how much room you have to do that. I mean,
essentially, if you quintuple the money supply, eventually prices will have to rise"¦but
that depends upon the velocity of money which has actually been collapsing. So maybe you'd have
to do it 10 times. There's interesting research out of London, which I saw a couple of weeks
ago, that basically says you really can't correlate inflation with increases in the money
supply. It's just not true. It's not the money that's doing it. It's the expectations. That
then begs the question, well, who's actually paying attention if we all don't really understand
what inflation is? So I tend to think of this as basically a kind of a physical process. It's
very easy to understand if your currency goes down by 50 percent and you're heavily dependent
on imports. You're import (prices) go up. All the prices in the shops are going to go up.
That's a mechanism that I can clearly identify that will generate rising prices. If you have
big unions, if you have kind of cartel-like vertically integrated firms that control the
national market, if you have COLA contracts. If you have labor able to do what we used to call
leapfrogging wage claims against other unions, if this is all institutionally and legally
protected, I can see how that generates inflation, that is a mechanism I can point to. That
doesn't exist just now. Let's unpack this for a minute. The sort of fundamental theoretical
assumption on this is based is some kind of "˜marginal productivity theory of wages.' In
a perfectly free market with free exchange, in which we don't live, what would happen is you
would hire me up to the point that my marginal product is basically paying off for you, and
once it produces zero profits, that's kind of where my wages end. I'm paid up to the point that
my marginal product is useful to the firm. This is not really a useful way of thinking about it
because if you're the employer and I'm the worker, and I walk up to you and say, hey, my
marginal productivity is seven, so how about you pay me seven bucks? You just say, shut up or
I'll fire you and get someone else. Now, the way that we used to deal with this was a kind of
"˜higher than your outside option,' on wages. The way we used to think about this was
"why would you pay somebody ten bucks at McDonald's?" Because then you might actually get them
to and flip the burgers because they're outside option is probably seven bucks, and if you pay
them seven bucks, they just won't show up. So we used to have to pay workers a bit more. So
that was, in a sense, (workers) claiming (a bit of the surplus) from productivity. But now what
we've done, Suresh Naidu the economist was talking about this the other day, is we have all
these technologies for surveilling workers (instead of paying them more). So now what we can do
is take that difference between seven and ten and just pocket it because we can actually pay
workers at your outside option, because I monitor everything you do, and if you don't do
exactly what I say I'll fire you, and get somebody else for seven bucks. So all the mechanisms
for the sharing of sharing productivity, unions, technology, now lies in the hands of
employers. It's all going against labor. So (as a result) we have this fiction that somehow
when the economy grows, our productivity goes up, and workers share in that. Again, what's the
mechanism? Once you take out unions and once you weaponize the ability of employers to extract
surplus through mechanisms like technology, franchising, all the rest of it, then it just tilts
the playing field so much that we just don't see any increase in wages. (Now) let's bring this
back to inflation. Unless you see systematic (and sustained) increases in the real wage that
increases costs for firms to the point that they need to push on prices, I just don't see the
mechanism for generating inflation. It just isn't there. And we've underpaid the bottom 60
percent of the U.S. labor market so long it would take a hell of a lot of wage inflation to get
there, with or without unions.
Paul Jay
Yeah, what's that number, that if the minimum wage was adjusted for inflation
and it was what the minimum wage was, what, 30 years ago, the minimum wage would be somewhere
between 25 and 30 bucks, and that wasn't causing raging inflation. Yeah, what's that number,
that if the minimum wage was adjusted for inflation and it was what the minimum wage was, what,
30 years ago, the minimum wage would be somewhere between 25 and 30 bucks, and that wasn't
causing raging inflation.
Mark Blyth
And there is that RAND study from November 2020 that was adeninely entitled, "˜Trends
in Income 1979 to 2020,' and they calculated, and I think this is the number, but even if I'm
off, the order of magnitude is there, that transfers, because of tax and regulatory changes,
from the 90th percentile of the distribution to the 10 percentile, totalled something in the
order of $34 trillion. That's how much was vacuumed up and practically nothing trickled down.
So when you consider that as a mechanism of extraction, why are worrying about inflation
(from wages)? The best story on inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out
last year. We got a long period of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because
of demographic trends. It's a combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and
demographics all coming together to basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get
this long period of deflation, which leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly
reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The
demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're
going to create this inflation problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20
years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in
deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation,
I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? And there is that RAND study from November
2020 that was adeninely entitled, "˜Trends in Income 1979 to 2020,' and they
calculated, and I think this is the number, but even if I'm off, the order of magnitude is
there, that transfers, because of tax and regulatory changes, from the 90th percentile of the
distribution to the 10 percentile, totalled something in the order of $34 trillion. That's
how much was vacuumed up and practically nothing trickled down. So when you consider that as
a mechanism of extraction, why are worrying about inflation (from wages)? The best story on
inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out last year. We got a long period
of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because of demographic trends. It's a
combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and demographics all coming together to
basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get this long period of deflation, which
leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly reasonable way of explaining it. And
his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The demographics are shifting, or
shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're going to create this inflation
problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told
we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the
climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real
problem here? The best story on inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out
last year. We got a long period of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because
of demographic trends. It's a combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and
demographics all coming together to basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get
this long period of deflation, which leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly
reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The
demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're
going to create this inflation problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20
years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in
deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation,
I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? The best story on inflation is actually
Charles Goodhart's book that came out last year. We got a long period of low inflation
because of global supply chains, and because of demographic trends. It's a combination of
global supply chains, Chinese labor, and demographics all coming together to basically push
down labor costs, and that's why you get this long period of deflation, which leads to rising
profits and zero inflation. A perfectly reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is
that, well, that's coming to an end. The demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going
back to more closed economies. You're going to create this inflation problem again. OK,
what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to
fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus
single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? OK,
what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to
fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus
single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? OK,
what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to
fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus
single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? A few
years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If
we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left
wondering what is the real problem here? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix
the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus
single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here?
Great piece. He put to words something I've thought about but couldn't articulate: if
wages are stagnant, how could you possibly get broad based inflation?
There is no upward pressure on labor costs anywhere in the economy. The pressures are
all downward.
You would need government spending in the order of magnitudes to drive up wages. Or
release from a lot of debt, like student loan forgiveness or what have you.
I'm not sure you need wage growth to get inflation. As Blyth notes, most of the time
inflation is a currency or a monetary issue. In the 70s, it was initially an oil thing " and
oil flows through a lot of products " and then really went crazy only when Volker started
raising interest rates. I don't think there is an episode of "wage-push" inflation in
history. (The union cost-of-living clauses don't "cause" inflation, they only adjust for past
inflation. If unions can cause wage-push inflation, someone needs to explain how they did
this in the late 70s, when they were much less powerful and unemployment was substantially
higher, than in the 1950s.) One could argue that expansive fiscal policy might drive
inflation but, even then, the mechanism is through price increases, not wage increases. You
do need consumption but that can always come from the wealthy and further debt immiseration
of the rest of us.
Blythe is one of those guys who is *almost* correct. For example he declares that
expectations drive inflation. What about genuine shortages? The most recent U.S. big inflation
stemmed from OPEC withholding oil"a shortage we answered by increasing the price ($1.75/bbl in
1971 -> $42/bbl in 1982). In Germany, the hyperinflation was driven by the French invading
the Ruhr, something roughly like shutting down Ohio in the U.S. A shortage of goods resulted.
Inflation! In Zimbabwe, the Rhodesian (white) farmers left, and the natives who took over their
farms were not producing enough food. A shortage of food, requiring imports, resulted.
Inflation!
I guess you could say people in Zimbabwe "expected" food"¦but that's not standard
English.
JFYI, Blythe is not a fan of MMT. He calls it "annoying." Yep, that's his well-reasoned
argument about how to think about it.
As a *political* economist, he may have a point in saying MMT is a difficult political sell,
but otherwise, I'd say the guy is clueless about it.
Inflation isn't caused by the amount of money in the economy but by the amount of
*spending*.
Like the other commenter, I've wondered this too"if wages have been stagnant for a
generation, then how are we going to get inflation? By what mechanism? It seems like almost all
of the new money just adds a few zeros to the end of the bank account balances of the already
rich (or else disappears offshore).
Still, you just cannot people to understand this because of houses, health care and
education. One might even argue that inflated house and education prices are helping keep
inflation down. If more and more of our meager income is going to pay for these fixed
expenditures, then there's no money left over to pay increased prices for goods and services.
So there's no room to increase the prices of those things. As Michael Hudson would point out,
it's all sucked away for debt service, meaning a lot of the "money printing" is just
subsidizing Wall Street.
But if you pay attention to the internet, for years there have been conspiracy theories all
across the political spectrum that we were really in hyperinflation and the government just
secretly "cooked the books" and manipulated the statistics to convince us all it wasn't
happening. Of course, these conspiracy theories all pointed to the cost of housing, medicine
and education as "proof" of this theory (three things which, ironically, didn't go up
spectacularly during the Great Inflation of the 1970's). Or else they'd point to gas prices,
but that strategy lost it's potency after 2012. Or else they'd complain that their peanut
butter was secretly getting smaller, hiding the inflation (shrinkflation is real, or course,
but it's not a vast conspiracy to hide price increases from the public).
I'm convinced that this was the ground zero for the kind of anti-government conspiratorial
thinking that's taken over our politics today. These ideas was heavy promoted by libertarians
like Ron Paul starting in the nineties, helped by tracts like "The Creature from Jekyll
Island," which argued that the Fed itself was one big conspiracy. I've seen plenty of people
across the political spectrum"including on the far Left"take all of this stuff as gospel.
So if the government is secretly hiding inflation and the Fed itself is a grand conspiracy
to convince us that paper is money (rather than "real" money, aka gold), then is it that hard
to believe they're manipulating Covid statistics and plotting to control us all by forcing us
all to wear masks and get vaccinated? In my view, it all started with inflation paranoia.
Blyth explains why housing inflation isn't really a sign of hyperinflation. But the average
"man on the street" just doesn't get it. To Joe Sixpack, not counting some of the things he has
to pay for is cheating. So are "substitutions" like ground beef when steak gets too pricey, or
a Honda Civic for a Toyota Camry, for example. The complexity of counting inflation is totally
lost on them, making them vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking. Since Biden was elected, the
ZOMG HyPeRiNfLaTiOn!!&%! articles are ubiquitous.
Does anyone have a good way of explaining this to ordinary (i.e. non-economically literate)
people? I'd love to hear it! Thanks.
"There is no such thing as house price inflation. Inflation is a general rise in the level
of all prices. A sustained rise in the level of prices. The fact that house prices in Toronto
have gone up is because Canada stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into
an asset class and let the 10 percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other. That
is singularly not an inflation."
Maybe I am totally off but, I would say"¦. By your definition, inflation does not exist
in the economic terminology as inflation only exists if generally all prices go up and a
singularity of soaring house prices and education and healthcare do not constitute an inflation
because the number of things inflating do not meet some unknown number of items needed for a
general rise in all prices to create an inflation.
What I read you to say is that if Labor prices go up " that could lead to inflation " but if
house prices go up (as they have) that is not inflation.
Hypothetically " if labor prices do not go up and the "˜nessesities of living' prices go
up (Housing and Med) " would you not have an inflation in the cost of living? " I am convinced
that economists and market experts try to claim that the economy and markets are seperate and
distinct from humans as a science " and that Political science has nothing to do with what they
present. Yet, humans are the only species to have formed the markets and money we all
participate and, the only species, therefore, to have an exclusive asset ownership, indifferent
to any other species " IE " if you can't pay you can't play and have no say.
I submit that one or a few asset price increases that are combined with labor price stasis(the
actual money outlayed for those asset price increased products not moving up) " especially one
that is a basic to living (shelter) and not mobile (like money) is inflation " Land prices
going up will generally increase the prices of all products created thereon.
I think there's two things going on here. There's different inflation indicators, and asset
prices are by definition never a part of inflation
The main indicator of CPI has so many different things in it that the inflation of any one
item is going to have little effect on it. But you can look up BEA's detailed GDP deflator to
see inflation for more specific things like housing expenses (rent) or transportation.
So back to real estate/land: real estate and land are like the stock market. They aren't
subject to inflation. They are subject to appreciation. There is somewhat of a feedback effect
for sure though: Increased real estate prices can drive up inflation. Rent for sure gets driven
up, but also any other good that's built domestically if the owners of capital need to pay more
to rent their factories/farms etc.
As noted in the article though, capitalists can simply move their production overseas so
there's a limit to how much US land appreciation can filter into inflation. Its definitely
happening with rent as housing can't be outsourced. But rent is only one part of overall
inflation
The point he was making is that the price change in housing is the result of a policy
restructuring of the market: no new public housing and financial deregulation.
The price of food is similarly a response to policy changes: industry consolidation and
resulting price setting to juice financial profits.
The point is distinguishing between political forces and market forces. The former is
socially/politically determined while the latter has to do with material realities within a
more or less static market structure.
This is a distinction essential to making good policy but useless from a cost of living
perspective.
One could prevent crossover for awhile, but eventually certain policies are going to affect
certain markets. The policy of giving the rich money drives up asset prices, real estate is a
kind of asset, eventually rising real estate costs affect the market the proles enter when they
have to buy or rent real estate.
If state institutions tell them there is no inflation, the proles learn that the state
institutions lie because they know better from direct experience. Once that gap develops, it's
as with personal relationships: when trust is broken, it is very hard to replace. Once belief
in state institutions is lost, significant political effects ensue. Often they are rather
unpleasant.
Blyth pointed to the lack of systemic drivers of price increases, and how the traditional
ones have disappeared. I think one that he missed, that results in a disconnect with the
evidence of price increases across multiple sectors, is the neoliberal infestation.
Rent-sucking intermediaries have imposed themselves into growing swaths of the mechanisms of
survival, hollowed out productive capacity, and crapified artifacts to the extent that their
value is irredeemably reduced. This is a systemic cause for reduced buying power, i.e.
inflation, but it is not a result of monetary or fiscal policy, but political and ideological
power.
> . . . The fact that house prices in Toronto have gone up is because Canada
stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into an asset class and let the 10
percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other.
That is a total load of baloney. The eighties were a time when the Conservative government
came up with the foreign investor program and it was people from Hong Kong getting out before
the British hand over to China in 1997.
I was there, trying to save for a house and for every buck saved the houses went up twenty.
I finally pulled the plug in 89 when someone subdivided a one car garage from their house and
sold it for a small fortune. The stories of Hong Kongers coming up to people raking their yard
and offering cash well above supposed market rates and the homeowner dropping their rakes and
handing over the keys were legendary.
It's still that way except now they come from mainland China, CCP members laundering their
loot.
Any government that makes domestic labor compete with foreign richies for housing is
mendacious.
When a Canadian drug dealer "saves up" a million to buy a house and the RCMP get wind of it,
they lose the house. When a foreigner show up at the border with a million, it's all clean.
Many people who talk about avoiding inflation are speaking euphemistically about preventing
wage growth, and only that; dog whistles, clearly heard by the intended audience. Yet they are
rarely confronted directly on this point. Instead we hear that they don't understand what the
word inflation means, and Mark seems to be saying these euphamists (eupahmites?) needn't be so
concerned because wages will not go up anyway. If so, what we are talking about here is merely
helping workers stay afloat without making any fundamental changes. Well, both sides can agree
to that as usual. Guess I'm just worn out by this kind of thing.
The thing that I like about Mark Blyth is how he cuts to the chase and does not waffle. Must
be his upbringing in Scotland I would say. The revelation that the US minimum wage should be
about $25-30 is just mind-boggling in itself. But in that talk he unintentionally put a value
on how much is at stake in making a fairer economic system and it works out to be about $34
trillion. That is how much has been stolen by the upper percentile and why workers have gone
from having a job, car, family & annual vacation to crushing student debt, a job at an
Amazon fulfillment center and a second job being an Uber driver while living out of car.
That $25-30 wage was keeping up with inflation , if it were keeping up with
productivity it would be, IIRC, nearly twice that. It is interesting to see a dollar
figure put on the amount you can reap after a generation or two of growing a middle class, by
impoverishing it.
But now what we've done, Suresh Naidu the economist was talking about this the other day,
is we have all these technologies for surveilling workers (instead of paying them
more) . So now what we can do is take that difference between seven and ten and just
pocket it because we can actually pay workers at your outside option, because I monitor
everything you do, and if you don't do exactly what I say I'll fire you, and get somebody
else for seven bucks.
Praise be the STEM workers. Without them where would the criminal corporate class be?
Every time I listen to the news (without barfing) the story is, we need moar STEM workers,
and I ask myself, what do they do for a living?
If that kind of tidbit excites you:
Before going into economics, Alan Greenspan was a sax and clarinet player who played with the
likes of Stan Getz and Quincy Jones.
And Michael Hudson studied piano and conducting .
Do failed musicians gravitate to economics? Perhaps for the same reason as my bank manager, a
failed bass player (honors graduate from Classy Cdn U in double bass), they see the handwriting
on the wall. He told me his epiphany came when he and his band-mates were trying to make
cup-o-noodles with tap water in a room over the pub in Thunder Bay where they were playing.
The mental gymnastics to get to "everything needed to survive costs more but wages have not
gone up in decades so therefore its all transitory and inflation does not exist" must be
painful. How high does the price for cat food have to get before we stop eating?
Yes! "The Hamptons are not a defensible position" ranks right up there with "It is easier to
imagine the end of the world than the end of (neoliberal) capitalism" by Mark Fisher (and F.
Jameson?).
Very good, Mark. This leads to the next Q. How do we maintain aggregate demand? The rich
guys increasingly Hoover everything up and pay no taxes. So, there is no T. Is the only way to
get cash and avoid deflation deficit spending by the G? There is no I worth a damn. (X-M) is a
total drain on everything since it's all M in the US and no X. The deficits will have to go out
of sight in the future.
You say that there is no velocity of money. Is this because the more money pored into the
economy by the G, the more money the rich guys steal? So, there is a general collapse in C.
Maybe the work around for the rich guy theft is a $2,000 (sorry, $1,400) check every now and
then to the great unwashed. The poors can circulate it a couple of times before the rich guys
steal it. Seems like the macro-economists have a lot of "˜splainin' to do. Oh, right,
they are busy right now measuring the output gap.
I'd like to see Mark go into a discussion on the velocity of money. I remember the old timey
Keynesians lecturing about it, and that's all I remember. I'm guessing that it's related to the
marginal propensity to consume.
I may be getting a bit out over my skis, but the St. Louis Fed calculates the velocity of
money ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V ). It is
defined as
The velocity of money is the frequency at which one unit of currency is used to purchase
domestically- produced goods and services within a given time period. In other words, it is the
number of times one dollar is spent to buy goods and services per unit of time. If the velocity
of money is increasing, then more transactions are occurring between individuals in an
economy.
So as velocity slows, fewer transactions happen. Based on the linked chart, the peak
velocity was 2.2 in mid-1997. In Q1 2021, it was 1.12. By my understanding, although the money
supply continues to increase, the money isn't flowing through the economy in the way it was
over the last 30 years (or even 10 years ago).
It's beyond my level of understanding to say with any certainty as to why the slowdown in
velocity has occurred, but I speculate it's directly related to the ever-growing inequality in
the US economy and the ongoing rentier-ism that Dr. Hudson discusses. [simplistically, if Jeff
Bezos has $1.3 billion more on Monday than on Friday, that money will flow virtually nowhere.
If each of Amazon's employees equally shared that $1.3 billion (about $1,000 each), the
preponderance of the money would flow into the economy in short order].
I've always speculated that money velocity is one of the key indicators of the stagnant
economy since 2008. It certainly has coincided with the dramatic increase in wealth in the top
fraction (not the 1% but the 0.001%) of the US population.
What Blythe has laid out is not a tale about inflation or money, but a tale about power.
If money goes to the non-elite, you get inflation. If it goes to the elite, you don't get
inflation.
If you are a country with little control of your resources (not lack of resources, but control)
and/or loans (think IMF)/debt (think war reparations) that give people with little interest in
whether you live or die control over your countries' finances, you can be prone to inflation or
even hyperinflation.
Yeah, I figured out a long time ago that none of this is any "natural economic law" because
there is no such thing as "nature" in economics. Inflation is all about political decisions and
perceptions.
And I saw this on YouTube a couple of days ago"¦and I still can't think of anything
around me that hasn't gone up on price.
This is a good response to Summers. But I have a quibble and a concern.
My quibble is that he offers no theory of inflation except implicitly aggregate supply
exceeding aggregate demand and there is nothing but hand-waving regarding what he is referring
to that he feels has a one chance in ten of happening versus Summers one in three. A second
part of this quibble is: what does it mean for inflation to "come roaring back." I assume it
means more than just a short-term adjustment to a shot of government spending and gifting. I
believe if he thought this through he would have to conclude that without changes in the
current structure of the global economy there is no way for this to happen. That really is the
case he has made. With labor beaten down not only in the US but worldwide inflation will not
come roaring back, period. That is unless there is a chance either that a labor renewal is a
near-term possibility. I doubt he believes this. Or does he believe there is another way for
inflation to roar back? If so, what is that way, what is the theory behind it?
A more fundamental concern is the part where he relies on marginal productivity theory when
discussing employment and exploitation. Conceptually that far from Marx's fundamental
distinction between labor and labor power.
Hyperinflation doesn't seem to be possible in this age of digital money no matter how much
you conjure up because nobody notices the extreme amount of monies around all of the sudden as
the average joe isn't in the know.
Used houses are always appreciating in value, but none dare call it inflationary, more of a
desired outcome in income advancement if you own a domicile.
There were no shortages of anything in the aftermath of the GFC, and now for want of a
semiconductor, a car sale was lost. Everything got way too complex, and we'll be paying the
price for that.
I think the inflation to come won't be caused by a lack of faith in a given country's money,
but the products and services it enabled us to purchase.
""¦and now for want of a semiconductor, a car sale was lost"¦."
Sometimes car sales are lost because the price of cars has gone up (new and used)"¦just
don't call it inflation"¦
I'm going to let some more time pass, but stimulus or not, we went from all economic
problems being laid at the feet of Covid to now moving on to "shortages"
everywhere"¦
Just enought to make you go"¦hmmmm"¦.unti more time passes.
Used houses always appreciate " or is it that they appreciate due to a combination of
inflation in income over time and the dramatic decrease in interest rates over the last 20
years?
A very quick back of the envelope calc (literally " and all number are approximate):
In June 2000, median US income was $40,500; 30 yr mortgage rate was 8.25%. 28% of monthly
income = $945. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc) of
roughly $125,000.
In June 2005, median US income was $44,000; 30 yr mortgage rate was 5.5%. 28% of monthly
income = $1026. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc)
of roughly $180,000.
In June 2010, median US income was $49,500; 30 yr mortgage rate was 4.69%. 28% of monthly
income = $1155. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc)
of roughly $225,000.
In June 2015, median US income was $53,600; 30 yr mortgage rate was 4.00%. 28% of monthly
income = $1250. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc)
of roughly $260,000.
Finally, In June 2020, median US income was $63,000; 30 yr mortgage rate was 3.25%. 28% of
monthly income = $1470. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax,
insurance, etc) of roughly $340,000.
And for fun, if you went to 40% of income in 2020 (payment only), a $2100 monthly payment
will cover nearly a $500,000 mortgage in 2020.
For the vast majority of home buyers, the price isn't the main consideration " it's how much
will it cost per month. So a small increase in median income (roughly 2% per year) combined
with dramatically lower interest rates can drive a HUGE increase in a mortgage " and ultimately
the price that can be paid for a house.
Can't say I really understand this sort of thing but saying rocketing house-prices is
"˜a singularity' rather than "˜house-price inflation' has to me echoes of the
Bourbon's "Bread too expensive? Let them eat cake." And Versailles wasn't a defensive position
either.
In my version of economics-for-the-under-tens you get inflation in two situations. First is
where enough folk have enough cash in their pockets for producers/manufacturers/retailers to
hike their prices without hitting their sales too much and secondly where there's a shortage of
stuff people want and/or need which leads to a bidding war. However I'd agree with Blyth that
neither condition exists now or seems likely to arise for a while, making a "˜spike' in
inflation unlikely.
I am a non-economist, and so my thoughts below may be wrong. However, here goes.
I would say we have had inflation. Roaring inflation. For the past 20 years of so.
Inflation in wages and ordinary costs of living? No, wages have been stagnant. Health care
has led the charge in cost of living increases, but most other living expense increases have
been low.
Inflation in asset prices? We have had massive inflation in the costs of residential housing
where I live.
20 years ago I could buy a 5 br, 3 bath home on a decent block in a good area close to
everything for $270,000 dollars. Sure it needed some renovation, but still"¦. Now to buy
that home it would cost me around $1,250,000. So that home has gone up in value by 500%. Man,
that is inflation.
As I understand it, asset inflation is not counted by governments in the GDP or CPI. It
appears that those who have most of the assets don't want this to be counted, by the very fact
that they control the politicians who control what is counted, and asset inflation isn't
counted in the economic data that the politicians rely upon to prove how prudent they are.
So if you want a day to day example of where all this free money is going, look at housing.
And also have a quick look at the insane increases in the worth of billionaires. They love all
this government spending which magically? seems to end up, via asset purchase and asset price
inflation, in their pockets.
Price is what one pays, value is what one gets. That house is roughly the same, so the value
has not changed, but the price has gone up by a factor of 5
Same with stawks. One share of Amazon stawk is $3,467.42 as of yesterday.
What is its value? If Bezos can work his tools ever harder, monitor them down to the
nanosecond and wring ever moar productivity out of them before throwing them in the tool
dumpster behind every Amazon warehouse, the value proposition is that someone else will believe
the stawk price should be even higher, at which point one can sell it at greater price for a
profit.
What is inflation? Good question. I'd say inflation is fear of monetary devaluation. Not
devaluation, just the fear of it. We'll never overcome this unease if we always deal in
numbers. Dollars, digits, whatever. We need to deal in commodities " let's call just about
everything we live with and use a "commodity". Including unpaid family help/care; and the more
obvious things like transportation. If we simply took a summary of all the necessary things we
need to live decent lives " but not translated into dollars because dollars have no sense " and
then provided these necessities via some government agency so that they were not "inflated" in
the process and thereby provided a stable society, then government could MMT this very easily.
Our current approach is so audaciously stupid it will never make sense let alone balance any
balance sheets. That's a feature, not a bug because it's the best way to steal a profit. The
best way to stop demand inflation or some fake scarcity or whatever is to provide the necessary
availability. That's where uncle Joe is gonna run headlong into a brick wall. He has spent his
entire life doing the exact opposite.
The figure for the upward transfer of wealth from the Rand Study was $50 trillion between
1975-2018. It was adjusted up by the authors from $47 trillion to bring it up to 2020
trends.
Now the interesting thing to me is this " look at the date of the publication in Time
magazine: Sept. 14, 2020, so right in the heart of campaign fever, and it never came up in the
debates, in the press"¦I didn't hear about it until Blyth made one of his appearances on
Jay's show with Rana Foroohar. Long after the election.
As long as 80% of Americans are head over heels in debt and 52% of 18-to-29-year-olds are
currently living with their parents, there never will be the wage inflation of the 1970s. A
majority of the people arrested for the Capitol riot had a history of financial trouble. The
elite blue zones in Washington State and Oregon that prospered from globalism are seeing a
spike in coronavirus cases. North American neoliberal governments have failed dismally. It is
intentional in order to exploit more wealth for the rich from the natural resources and
workers. If the mRNA vaccines do not control coronavirus variants, and a workable national
public health system is not implemented; succession and chaos will bring on Zimbabwe type
inflation.
There is a reason why Portland Oregon has been a center of unrest for the past year. The
Elite just do not want to see it. How can Janet Yellen deal with this? She can't. She is an
Insider. She was paid 7.2 million dollars in speaker and seminar fees in the last two years not
to.
@animalogic
respasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us ." is the translation presented in the
Revised Standard Version of the Bible. What is lost in translation is the fact that Jesus
came "to preach the gospel to the poor to preach the acceptable Year of the Lord": He came,
that is, to proclaim a Jubilee Year, a restoration of deror for debtors: He came to institute
a Clean Slate Amnesty (which is what Hebrew דְּרוֹר
connotes in this context).
It is quite possible to have balanced civilizations that lasts for thousands of years;
however it is impossible in the West, since the west is based on faulty assumptions about
reality.
I view the 2008 election as the major failing-to-turn-back-when-we-had-the-chance
point. Obama could have undone Bush's worst policies, but instead he cemented them into place
forever.
Our elites are both stupid and evil, but Bush is more stupid and Obama is more evil
.
I like to verify things myself and you can do so as well by reading the California
Department of Education Mathematics
Framework .
In its framework, the Department of Education seeks " Culturally responsive mathematics
education ."
Introduction Highlights
Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural
forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways
must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking . [i.e. no
advance classes].
implementation of this framework and the standards, teachers must be mindful of other
considerations that are a high priority for California's education system including the
Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) which allow students to examine issues of
environmental and social justice .
Teaching for Equity Highlights
The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities
for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.
Teachers are encouraged to align instruction with the outcomes of the California ELD
Standards, which state that linguistically and culturally diverse English learners receive
instruction that values their home cultures.
Need to Broaden Perceptions of Mathematics
I did not go through all the chapters. Reason uncovered these gems.
The inequity of mathematics tracking in California can be undone through a coordinated
approach in grades 6–12 .
Middle-school students are best served in heterogeneous classes.
The push to calculus in grade twelve is itself misguided.
To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden
perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view
mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and
reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong.
Sabotage the Best
Reason concludes, and I agree " If California adopts this framework, which is currently
under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students . The government
should let kids opt out of math if it's not for them. Don't let the false idea that there's no
such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely."
Instead, and in the name of "equity", the proposed framework aims to keep everyone learning
at the same dumbed down level for as long as possible.
The intention is clear. The California Board of Education intends to sabotage the best and
brightest, hoping to make everyone equal.
The public does not support these polices. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of talk that
nearly got Trump reelected.
Biden should speak out against such nonsense, but he won't. He is beholden to Teachers'
Unions and Boards of Education.
Care to complain? If so the California Department of Education posted these
ways.
Phone Number and Address
Phone: 916-319-0598
Instructional Quality Commission
1430 N Street, Room 3207
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-319-0172
I keep happening on these mentions of manufacturing jobs succumbing to automation, and I
can't think of where these people are getting their information.
I work in manufacturing. Production manufacturing, in fact, involving hundreds, thousands,
tens of thousands of parts produced per week. Automation has come a long way, but it also
hasn't. A layman might marvel at the technologies while taking a tour of the factory, but
upon closer inspection, the returns are greatly diminished in the last two decades. Advances
have afforded greater precision, cheaper technologies, but the only reason China is a giant
of manufacturing is because labor is cheap. They automate less than Western factories, not
more, because humans cost next to nothing, but machines are expensive.
It's easy to become inured to the daily procession of flagrant falsehoods, tendentious
misrepresentations, deceitful exaggerations and narrative-driven editorial distortions from
many of the nation's leading media outlets. As opinion surveys suggest that most of these
organizations now rank in public trust a little below emailed pleas from deposed Nigerian
princes, it's easy to think the power they once wielded has been so diminished that they are
little more than a mildly diverting source of contemporary color in our lives.
"... Not a single resource on the Pfizer Executive team or Board of Directors has been injected with the Pfizer (experimental poison yet) vaccine yet. - C Weissman. Excuses allegedly provided offering the less fortunate an opportunity to go first. Don't laugh. True story. Some real humanitarians. ..."
Not a single resource on the Pfizer Executive team or Board of Directors has been injected
with the Pfizer (experimental poison yet) vaccine yet. - C Weissman. Excuses allegedly provided offering the less fortunate an opportunity to go first. Don't
laugh. True story. Some real humanitarians.
"... All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court. ..."
"... Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud! ..."
"... Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end ..."
The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens...
The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978 (FISA).
If you
sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered
for the FBI "Citizens Academy" program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.
But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding
judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans'
constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations
that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet
officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches,
authorizing the FBI "to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S.
person target's home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office, vehicles,
computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails."
In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration's pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by
enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication,
a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court
slammed the FBI for abusing that
database with warrantless searches that violated Americans' rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal
Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct
thousands of illegal searches on Americans' personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
declared that
an Inspector General report on the abusive searches "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act." FBI
chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new
Office of Integrity and Compliance
as "another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law."
Be still my beating heart!
The FBI's promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through
the personal data it received from NSA. Monday's disclosure "a delayed release of a report by the court last November "revealed
that the FBI has conducted
warrantless searches of the data trove for "domestic terrorism," "public corruption and bribery," "health care fraud,"
and other targets "including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman
wrote
in the Daily Beast , "The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine
criminal investigations." That type of search "potentially jeopardizes an accused person's ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried
material "˜was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,' but such usage at trial has happened before," Ackerman noted. Some illicit
FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the
New York Times reported ,
an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search "using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them
had connections to an investigation."
In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented "apparent widespread violations" of the legal restrictions for FBI searches.
Regardless,
Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: "The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI's] procedures meet
statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements." "Willing to again conclude" sounds better than "close enough for constitutional."
At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps
worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately,
the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing "a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law.
Consider Boasberg's recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector
General reported that the FBI made "fundamental
errors " and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The
I.G. report said the FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a "well-developed conspiracy" between Russians
and the Trump campaign even though it was "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page"
in that dossier, which was later debunked.
A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy
on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal
editorial noted , Clinesmith "changed an
email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words "˜not a source'
before he forwarded it." A federal prosecutor declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action.
But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy,
noting that Clinesmith
"went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane"¦ Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in
government service"what has given his life much of its meaning." Scorning the federal prosecutor's recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist
slap"400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding
with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing
matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should
remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been
craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded
upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed
requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have "slowed
such investigations drastically," the
Washington Post reported
. So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.
The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don't occur to pretending that violations don't matter. Practically
the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy . But if a sweeping
new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court
rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans
were "relevant" to a terrorism
investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later
denounced by a federal judge as "almost Orwellian." FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates
a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.
The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists
who doubted Biden's election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law
is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA's technicalities. Will FBI
agents conducting warrantless searches rely on
the same
harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: "someone searching the web for suspicious stuff"? Unfortunately, unless
an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI
abuses
ebworthen 39 minutes ago
"You want to harass a political opponent? Sure, we can do that...
JaxPavan 42 minutes ago
All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to
send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch
write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court.
Joe Bribem 32 minutes ago
It's almost like we did this to Trump. But it'll never come to light. Oops it did. Not that anything will happen to us because
we own the corrupt DOJ and FBI.
Obama's own personal private army.
You_Cant_Quit_Me 7 minutes ago
A lot of tips come in from overseas. For example, the US spies on citizens of another country and then sends that country tips,
in exchange that country does the same by spying on US citizens and sending the FBI tips. Then it starts, "we are just
following up on a tip"
wee-weed up 36 minutes ago (Edited)
Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud!
You_Cant_Quit_Me 37 minutes ago
Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and
someone wanting get off their lazy rear end
takeaction 58 minutes ago (Edited)
If you own a smart phone...everything you do is recorded...and logged.
"They" have been listening
to you for a long time if they want to.
If you own any smart device...they can listen and watch. They are monitoring what I am typing and this site. There really is no way to hide.
*** Please Note: Russia is not weak considering that it has the ability to nuke America in
to ashes within 30 minutes, or any other bunch of idiots that chooses to step over her red
lines. Okay the US has 350 million people compared to 150 million Russians, but the US is
irrevocably divided and Russia is fully united even the Muslim minority is united with the
State in Russia. A divided house can not stand no man can serve two masters. On top of that
the US has no moral values whereas Russia is a Christian country where marriage is between a
man and a woman, by State law. Biden can fly all the queer flags he likes but he still leads
a divided nation with a corrupt State comprised of dual passport holders, amoral materialists
and deluded mentally challenged idiots like Waters and Pelosi.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced in a statement on Monday that it was
creating a
new intelligence “center†focused on tracking so-called “ foreign malign influence, †reported Politico. This new
entity, known as the Foreign Malign Influence Center, was mandated in the recent intelligence and defense budget authorization acts,
representing the reality that the impetus for its creation came from Congress, and not the intelligence community.
For example, the most recent
defense
expenditure authorization required that the ODNI establish a “ social media data analysis center †to coordinate and
track foreign social media influence operations by analyzing data voluntarily shared by US social media companies. Based upon this
analysis, the ODNI would report to Congress on a quarterly basis on trends in foreign influence and disinformation operations to
the public. As envisioned by Congress, the intelligence community would determine jointly with US social media companies which data
and metadata will be made available for analysis.
In short, the intelligence community, using data obtained from the social media accounts of American citizens, will report to
Congress how this data influences the political decision making of these same American citizens.
If this does not make the most ardent defender of the US Constitution ill, nothing will.
It is not as if the US intelligence community wasn’t trending in this direction on its own volition. The straw that broke the
camel’s back, so to speak, was the publication in March 2021 of an
intelligence community assessment
entitled ‘Foreign Threats to the US 2020 Presidential Election’. In this document, the US intelligence community assessed that
“ Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed
at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence
in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US .â€
But the most damning portion of this assessment came when it delved into the specific methodology employed by Russia to achieve
these nefarious aims. “ Throughout the election cycle â€, the assessment declared, “ Russia’s online influence actors
sought to affect US public perceptions of the candidates, as well as advance Moscow’s long standing goals of undermining confidence
in US election processes and increasing sociopolitical divisions among the American people. During the presidential primaries and
dating back to 2019, these actors backed candidates from both major US political parties that Moscow viewed as outsiders, while later
claiming that election fraud helped what they called ‘establishment’ candidates. Throughout the election, Russia’s online influence
actors sought to amplify mistrust in the electoral process by denigrating mail-in ballots, highlighting alleged irregularities, and
accusing the Democratic Party of voter fraud. â€
As an American citizen who is politically engaged, I read the intelligence community assessment with a combination of interest,
concern, and outrage. The notion of “ Russian online influence actors †affecting “US public perceptions of the candidatesâ€
is as intellectually vacuous as it is factually unsustainable. The stupidity encapsulated by such analysis can only be excused by
the fact that the intelligence community assessment is a document produced more for the benefit of domestic political consumption
than a genuine effort at identifying and quantifying legitimate threats to the US.
The assessment itself is short on hard data. However,
the House Intelligence
Committee has documented some 3,000 social media ads bought by Russian “troll farms†between 2015-2017, at a cost of some
$100,000. These ads were in addition to so-called “organic posts,†some 80,000 of which were published on US social media, free
of charge, by alleged Russian “bots†resulting in 126 million “views†by Americans. These ads were crude, unfocused, and simply
inane in terms of their content.
To put the alleged Russian influence campaign into perspective, one need only reflect on the fact that during his short bid for
the Democratic nomination,
Michael Bloomberg spent nearly $1 billion underwriting the single most sophisticated public relations campaign, including hundreds
of millions of targeted social media ads put together by the most brilliant political minds money could buy. All this money, time
and effort, however, could not change the reality that, to the American public, Michael Bloomberg was an unattractive candidate â€"
in the end his $1 billion bought him exactly two delegates.
The fact is, the political opinions of most American citizens are formed based upon a lifetime of exposure to issues that matter
for them the most, whether it be education, right-to-life, gun control, social justice, agriculture, energy, environment, law enforcement,
or any other of the multitude of sources of causation that impact the day-to-day existence of the American electorate.
Some of these beliefs are inherited, such as the working-class attachment to unions. Some are driven by current affairs, such
as the growing awareness of climate change. But all are derived from the life experience of each American, and the thought that these
deeply held beliefs could be bought, changed, or otherwise manipulated by social media posts published by foreign actors, malign
or otherwise, is deeply insulting to me, and should be to every other American as well.
The irony is that by creating an intelligence organization whose task it is to help prevent the political Balkanization of America
by analyzing the social media accounts of Americans who hold differing political beliefs than “the establishment†the newly minted
Foreign Malign Influence Center ostensibly serves, the resulting process will only cause the further political division of the United
States.
Some 74 million Americans voted for a candidate, Donald Trump, who has promulgated the very issues that the Democratic-controlled
Congress seeks to denigrate and suppress through the work of this new intelligence center. These ideas will not simply disappear
because the Democrats in Congress have empowered a “center†within the intelligence community whose sole function is to demonize
any political thought that does not conform with the powers that be.
As it is currently focused, the Foreign Malign Influence Center is the living, breathing embodiment of politicized intelligence,
two words which, when put together, represent the death knell for any intelligence organization. Worse, the work it will be doing,
when turned over to a Democratically controlled Congress desperate to undermine the political viability of those 74 million American
citizens, will only further fracture an already divided nation.
The Foreign Malign Influence Center was specifically mandated to examine the social media influence campaigns operated by Russia,
China, Iran, and North Korea. It is particularly telling that they were not directed to investigate the two largest foreign sources
of political influence in America today, namely the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee and the Murdoch media empire. President
Putin could only dream about being able to buy congressional seats the way AIPAC does, or control what information becomes magnified
(and, by extension, suppressed) by the newspapers, television and radio enterprises owned by Rupert Murdoch.
These are the true villains when it comes to foreign corruption of American politics. These foreigners, however, have a seat at
the establishment table. Their malign influence will never be labeled as such, and they will never have to withstand the ignominy
of having their work scrutinized under the politicized microscope of an intelligence community that has allowed itself to be corrupted
by domestic American politics to the point that it no longer serves the American people as a whole, but only a select class of American
persons.
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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.
Congozebilu 4 hours ago 4 hours ago
Foreign Malign Influence Center sounds like something out of a cartoon.
AwareAussie2 Congozebilu 4 hours ago 4 hours ago
The catch words "freedom", "democracy" and "terrorism" don't work any more, they need to now use different phrases to con us.
John Titor 4 hours ago 4 hours ago
The Foreign Malign Influence Center is just the latest in the Democrat Government Propaganda machine.
frankfalseflag 4 hours ago 4 hours ago
Does Scott Ritter actually expect Americans to wake up to the fact that they are getting more lies and propaganda than the Germans
got from their Reich Chancellery in the 30s and 40s?
These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is spilling over the world:
Dear Director of National Intelligence,
we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about
the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents.
We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China.
However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support
those judgments
Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide.
Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties
to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately
no soldier got hurt
by those rumors.
Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran
and China are doing these things.
They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries.
Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET.
We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments. *
Sincerely
The Generals
---- PS: * Either that or shut the fuck up.
Look, The generals and the intelligence agencies haven't won a war for a long time. So now they will fight each other
. At least ONE of them will win this time ! Success.
Yes just finished listening to my dose of bullshit on ABC. The amazing thing is they
actually telling you it's bullshit if people listen closely. The number of new infections in
India. Hundreds of thousands. Deaths a few hundred. In a country where the normal annual death
rate is 9.6 Million and 26,000 people die EVERY DAY. It's like a joke. Like they testing our
stupidity. And you can't say; No we not falling for it because there is no longer anywhere to
say it! I feel like I have permanent road rage over this crap.
It's the tone and emotive words like crisis, and other exaggerated terms they use that
triggers fear. The viewer remembers the number of cases, not deaths because the number is
larger. But the cases are based on testing.
Leftists reacted with fury after Fox News host Tucker Carlson said people who wear masks
outside should be mocked and that parents who made their kids wear them were engaging in "child
abuse."
Carlson noted that masks were "purely a sign of political obedience like Kim Il-Sung pins in
Pyongyang" and that the only people who voluntarily wear masks outside are "zealots and
neurotics."
He then asserted that the tables should be turned on Biden voters who have been harassing
conservatives for almost a year for not wearing a mask in public.
"The rest of us should be snorting at them first, they're the aggressors – it's our
job to brush them back and restore the society we were born in," said Carlson.
"So the next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or on the bike path, do not
hesitate. Ask politely but firmly, ' Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there
is no reason for you to be wearing it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable, " he added.
"We should do that and we should keep doing it until wearing a mask outside is roughly as
socially accepted as lighting a Marlboro on an elevator."
The Fox News host went on to call mask wearing "repulsive" while asserting that forcing
children to wear masks outside should be illegal.
"Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from
your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately. Contact
Child Protective Services. Keep calling until someone arrives," Carlson said.
"What you're looking at is abuse, it's child abuse, and you are morally obligated to attempt
to prevent it," he added.
As expected, Carlson immediately began trending on Twitter, with hysterical leftists
hyperventilating over Tucker once again challenging their cult. Many called for the Fox News
host to be fired while others ludicrously described him as a "national security threat."
As we
highlighted yesterday , even Dr. Fauci now admits that the risk of vaccinated people
spreading COVID outside is "minuscule," and yet some health professionals are pushing for the
mask mandates to be made permanent.
The transmission of COVID-19 outdoors is almost non-existent, making mask mandates merely a
political tool of population control.
In a recent open letter to the German government and state premiers, five leading members of
the Association for Aerosol Research (GAeF) wrote, "The transmission of SARS-CoV-2 viruses
takes place indoors almost without exception. Transmission outdoors is extremely rare and never
leads to cluster infections as can be observed indoors."
Why the us government did not fund this type of mask for all is telling what the overall
strategy is.
Controlling you, your neighbor, and others that think for themselves.
Its not about the virus
Robert Neville 7 hours ago
Actually, M95 masks filter out 95% of particles over 4 microns in diameter in perfect
conditions. In the real world it is much less effective than that. Viruses are generally less
than one micron in size so they are ineffective for most viruses. Also, the masks are so hard
to breath through that some version have an exhale valve so they do nothing to protect others
if you are infected. Most masks don't protect your eyes. The only thing that works is a space
suit that is decontaminated before you remove it. The rest is virtue siganling.
Properly fitted n95's do protect against virus and the science proves it.
Dickweed Wang 10 hours ago (Edited)
This is an excerpt from the "Stanford Study" from November 2020 (that's been making the
rounds in the alternative media and conservative media space recently) about the uselessness
of masks in preventing "the virus":
A meta -analysis among health care workers found that compared to no masks, surgical
mask and N95 respirators were not effective against transmission of viral infections or
influenza-like illness based on six RCTs [28] . Using
separate analysis of 23 observational studies, this meta -analysis found no protective
effect of medical mask or N95 respirators against SARS virus [28] . A recent
systematic review of 39 studies including 33,867 participants in community settings
(self-report illness), found no difference between N95 respirators versus surgical masks
and surgical mask versus no masks in the risk for developing influenza or influenza-like
illness, suggesting their ineffectiveness of blocking viral transmissions in community
settings [29] .
It's predictable that the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to "fact check" and
disparage the entire paper (do an internet search for 'Stanford Mask Paper' and you'll see
what I'm talking about). Their main criticism is 'that wasn't published by Stanford', while
they totally ignore the claims made in the paper. When you look at the people and
organizations doing the fact checking it really shows that the entire mask issue is a
political/control ploy. Here's the link to the entire paper if anyone is interested:
The NYT is simply a propaganda organ of the corporate oligarchy. Whenever the US does
something bad, it is always "alleged". When opponents of US hegemony are accused of doing
something bad, it is never "alleged" - for example, you won't read about the "alleged Douma
chemical attack" in the NYT.
Just a small point about English grammar: "alleged burglar", "alleged miracle" and
"alleged conspiracy" are all correct, because "alleged" is being used here as an adjective.
"Alleged antique vase", on the other hand, is incorrect because what is being alleged is not
that the object is a vase; what is being alleged is that the vase is antique. Because it is
being used to describe an adjective (antique), it is being used adverbially: therefore the
correct usage is "allegedly antique vase".
This reminds me of John Michael Greer's formulation: the "allegedly smart phone". I use it
all the time, to imply that intensive users of mobile devices may not be quite as intelligent
as is generally believed. Note that what is being is alleged is not that it's a phone, but
that it's smart!
NYT does use "alleged" correctly. In the land of truth, one need merely state one's
statement. In the land of lies, one must insert "alleged", so that others know the statement
is truth.
The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis recently held a panel discussion to discuss recent
research findings related to Covid-19.
The expert panel included four professors of medicine from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford
Universities, who are all PhDs and experts in a field of disease research. And that just
scratches the surface of their credentials relevant to being considered Covid-19 experts.
The panel spoke against forcing children and vaccinated people to wear masks, and said there
was no proof that lockdowns reduced the spread or death rates of Covid-19. They cited specific,
peer reviewed scholarly research on which they based their opinions.
But YouTube decided that these experts were spreading misinformation , and took down the
video, “because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local
and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of
COVID-19.â€
This, of course, is an absurd statement, as the video itself proves there is no scientific
consensus.
Earlier this week, Gov. DeSantis reconvened the panel to discuss not just Covid, but also
the censorship of the scientific debate on Covid-19 best practices.
The panelists pointed out that the censorship of scientific debate is responsible for some
percentage of Covid deaths over the past year, as well as deaths from suicide, and untreated
medical issues.
That’s because the scientific community and public were not allowed to
discuss best practices in a free and open environment, which according to the scientific
method, leads closest to the truth.
Unsurprisingly, the rich have gotten richer, and their preferred asset classes are the most
protected by the tax code.
Just one of many first-order economic problems in the US. Wealth, once entrenched –
most particularly when it is unearned and inherited – will never be voluntarily
disgorged. The beneficiaries would rather give up democracy, give up the Rule of Law, rather
than see their privileged status compromised.
Why they dusted off those remnants from Bush and Obama neocon gangs?
When interventionists and national security deep state hawks need to prolong what's already
the longest war in in US history, who're they gonna call?...
"Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
they're worried about President Biden's plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, with
Rice suggesting the US may need to go back,"
Axios reports.
The pair's "expert" testimony was given over Zoom and appears to have been kept relatively
quiet, given it was a 'closed door' members only call, until Axios learned of it.
Rice of course infamously served as George Bush's National Security Advisor during the
initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and crucially helped make the case for war to
the American public, later serving as Bush's Secretary of State through 2009.
Having helped start two failed wars, both of which have long remained deeply unpopular among
the American public, naturally Condi Rice as a pre-eminent neocon voice would be consulted as a
"stay the course" point of view . It's also deeply revealing that there's no foreign policy
space in terms of viewpoint whatsoever between Rice and Clinton - latter who pushed for the
US-NATO invasion of Libya and planned covert regime change in Syria against Assad.
Little is known about precisely what Hillary testified, but it's not difficult to imagine.
Here are a few key insights
via Axios :
"Condi Rice is like, 'You know, we’re probably gonna have to go
back,' " amid a potential surge in terrorism, the member said.
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the committee, told Axios: "With the
potential for an Islamic State, coupled with what they're going to do to our contractors in
Yemen and Afghanistan is, sadly, it's going to be tragic there and we all see it
coming."
Another member of the committee confirmed both Clinton and Rice raised concerns about
the potential fallout from a quick removal of all U.S. troops .
Both also expressed concerns about protecting U.S. diplomats on the ground following the
withdrawal and what the move will mean for the global war on terrorism.
One unnamed committee member told Axios further that "they both agreed we're going to need
to sustain a counterterrorism mission somehow outside of that country."
Well of course!...there always needs to be a war going on somehow and somewhere - otherwise
how would these warmongering ladies sleep at night?
"... We can’t leave anybody behind. We will all benefit, we will all be safer when everyone everywhere has equal access to the vaccine. ..."
"... “We must pursue equitable vaccine distribution, and in that, restore faith in our common humanity. This mission couldn’t be more critical.†..."
Generous and fair-minded Harry and Meghan have said: “ We
can’t leave anybody behind. We will all benefit, we will all be safer when
everyone everywhere has equal access to the vaccine.
“We must pursue equitable vaccine distribution, and in that, restore
faith in our common humanity. This mission couldn’t be more
critical.â€
I wonder how much Harry and Meghan will be paid for this promotion?
From comments: " Tucker is right on this one. If you wear a mask outside you truly are a
moron. You may as well add goggles and a butt plug." ... "Don't forget about those solo drivers
with masks on!", "Maskers are stupid scared virtue signalers"
As an anti-mask militant for quite a while now I've been going out of my way to ask people
with masks on outdoors why they're wearing one (I've really tried to be polite but it's
getting increasingly hard to do that). In literally hundreds of instances I haven't gotten a
straight answer yet. It's stunning that people are so gullible but it shows what the power of
propaganda really is. 99% of that is coming from teevee, which truly rots your brain.
Capt Tripps 10 hours ago remove link
They are signaling the submission to a tyrannical state. That submission makes us all less
free.
safelyG 10 hours ago
mister tucker is wrongeddy wrong wrong.
we must all wear multiple masks. indoors. outdoors. at work. at play. while we sleep.
while we bathe. while we eat. while we sing praises unto the most high.
and we must remain 8 feet apart, one from the other. at all times.
and report our whereabouts and our contacts and our body temperature. to the
authorities.
get your vacines!
lovingly,
bill n melinda
radical-extremist 10 hours ago
When Tucker Carlson says to tell people to take off their masks and call CPS on parents
who mask their children he's trolling the Left. And because the Left has no sense of humor or
irony or hypocrisy...they're of course OUTRAGED, which was his point.
Realism 10 hours ago remove link
I like it best when hiking outside, in 75 degree weather with a nice breeze, you see
people put up their mask as they walk by
Pure comedy, it's hard to understand the stupidity if you think you'll get any disease
much less Covid walking by someone
And importantly, would you really be hiking if you had Covid LOL
aztrader 10 hours ago
Mask wears see it as a badge of honor because they "care" about other people. In reality,
it's a badge of Stupidity and ignorance.
Prince Velveeta 10 hours ago (Edited) remove link
California is an open-air mental ward. I was just out there and the collective idiocy is
astounding. People jogging with masks on , exaggerating their breathing as they pass you in
some competitive virtue signaling event. I witnessed some idiot jogging up the hill past my
family member's house, with a bandana on his face, being sucked into his mouth as he's
gasping for air.....
I said: Okay, I get it, if you lend them the money, then they can pay. This is like a
Ponzi scheme: you lend the investors enough to pay the interest and keep current. That
was my introduction to how the balance of payments worked between the United States and the
third world and how political the whole credit problem was.
Free markets are only free for parasites and usurers to run their schemes. Lolbertarianism
is an ideology of our (((friends))), and I think its adherents are dupes. I no longer think
they are well meaning dupes either, they have a personality defect, where they lack
empathy.
Looks like an attempt to redirect anger against neolibel elite into racial antimosity does nto work well. A least for this UNZ commentariant.
They are not folled by woke nonsense.
In any case it looks like the USA is a divided country.
Never underestimate the insanity of Zionists, be they full Jews, half-Jews, or soulless Jew-wannabes like Joe "I am a Zionist"
Biden. We're in unprecedented territory -- an empire run by Zoglodytes. They'll run it into the ground sooner or later, but just
how quickly and at what cost to the humanity is anyone's guess.
Of course, none of it would be possible but for the Anglo-elites doing deals with ((bankers)) in search of post-Imperial easy-living.
In fact, that's probably what caused WW2.
Today, gangsters from every creed, race and religion want in on the Zionist action, and happily signal to their criminal lodestar
that they're "all in" with virtually unlimited aid, wars and diplomatic support in Congress for the Jewish state.
The New World Order. How do you like it, whitey? You just had to listen to the gold-plated promises of the Jew confidence man.
The streets will be paved with gold, right?
If you're white and in the armed forces/police, you're a moron.
The fact is Americans are nothing but the Jew's bitch, killing for them. There isn't one American, who's defended their country,
well, you'll have to go back to the war of independence for that. Every, serving member of the armed forces is a mercenary, paid
by the US taxpayer, to kill fire Israel as they establish greater Israel.
So STOP looking at your armed forces as heroes. They aren't, not one, single one! See them for what they are, braindead, brainwashed,
fighting machines, WHO DON'T FIGHT FOR YOU! And that's what's worrying. Throughout history every armed force has been turned against
its own nation and its just a matter of time with the US. THEY WILL use them against you, to push nationwide vaccination.
The armed forces, like the police, are your enemy and I strongly suggest that if you know anyone in them, or a friend whose
family members are in them, tell them to leave ASAP before they institute martial law. Remember, the armed forces don't serve
you, so leaving them is doing the people good while staying within is causing them harm.
I'm suspicious of Biden's planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. The troops will probably get reassigned to the Middle East or
the Polish Border. Trump's "withdrawal" from Syria just amounted to shipping those troops to Iraq.
The Biden administration is a revolutionary one. It is not American and doesn't pretend to be. Like Lenin's early revolutionary
Bolshevik government it is comprised of mostly Jews and racial/ethnic minorities who are antagonistic towards the majority population
and its history and traditions.
I believe that the Jews, radical blacks and others who are really in charge of the Biden administration have no plans to relinquish
power in 2024 even if they lose the election. Since the courts refused to provide a legal remedy for battleground states breaking
their own elections laws to massively increase Democrat mail-in ballots then they will just do it again unless Republicans can
win the gubernatorial elections in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But that might not be possible with mail-in ballot schemes
that were illegally put in place.
Will whites support a globalist regime that picks fights abroad and wars against them at home? The mood of the country is
comparable to East German during the 1980's. Resignation and apathy. The last election was a fraud, the media are liars, the courts
are political, privacy and free speech aren't being protected, and half the country declares it hates the other half.
Go ahead, try to conjure a false flag to rally Team America
There are no signs whites are about to repudiate the Evil Empire. Trace Adkins, Gerald McRaney are on tv advertisements imploring
whites to provide financial support to the fools who came back crippled from fighting in Israel's wars.
"Will Whites Support A Globalist American Empire That Picks Fights Abroad and Wars Against Them At Home?"
The answer is YES, they will.
Why?
Because they've been zombified by 150 years of corporate media whose only purpose is to use subliminal messages 24/7 to control
them. Worse of all, they pay monthly fees in order to be zombified!
Wait for the next false flag attack against the US "Interests" at home or abroad and you'll see how the zombies behave.
Elites, oligarchs, plutocrats, super-rich, whatever, but don't slime the Yankees.
And while I agree with much of this, don't forget that in the late 1960's the elites imported Mexicans to specifically replace
blacks. And then cried a river of tears at how blacks were mysteriously losing ground!!!!
Oh and also: nobody NEEDS cheap labor to run factories. History has shown that without cheap labor factories run perfectly
well. It's just that the elites need cheap labor to stay elite
The real enemy of the American working class and middle class all of them is neoliberalism ! Coupled with a two party plutocracy
that disenfranchises the same Americans who desperately need a more equitable society! Nothing to do with Russia or China we caused
it all by ourselves!
This is why there needs to be White Liberation from Jewish Supremacism. But Jewish Power tries to preempt this by making a
big stink about 'white supremacism'.
No more white support for Jewish supremacist tyranny over Palestinians and mass murder of Arabs/Muslims. If, after 2020, any
white person still harbors sentimentality about Jewish Power, he or she is cuck-roach. Useless and worthless.
Currently, an indebted, belligerent, imperialist U.S. is being propped up by naïve, well-meaning whites.
These "well-meaning whites" are the enemy. "Well-meaning whites" have always been the greatest enemy of Whites. A lot of people
here consider Jews to be our greatest enemies. But why are they here in such huge numbers and why are they in control? It started
with the Powdered-Wig Gang (a.k.a. the Founding Fathers) giving them citizenship on the basis of their shit "Enlightenment" ideology,
which held that religion was merely a private matter and of no importance. No country at the time gave Jews citizenship save Poland,
which had fallen under their sway and paid an exceedingly high price for it. Then France followed the American example when they
had their own powdered-wig revolution.
The tragedy of the US is that nearly every fair-skinned, non-Jewish individual who has any influence here is a "well-meaning
White". Generations of brainwashing have done that. Their latest bit of tomfoolery is the belief "Uncle Tim" Scott, a dim, charmless,
venal, ugly black mediocrity, will be their savior. By the way, the first time I laid eyes on Uncle Tim, I said myself, "They're
going to want to make that fellow president." That's no reason to brag, however, because "well-meaning whites" are nothing if
not predictable.
"Well-meaning whites" have no common sense and can't learn from experience. They could not conceive the idea "diversity" is
the problem. "Diversity" elected Joe Biden, through bloc-voting by non-Whites and by she-boons in black-dominated counties bringing
in suitcases of fake ballots, but guess what: as far as "well-meaning Whites" are concerned, "diversity" in the form of "Uncle
Tim" Scott is the solution.
What it comes down to is that if Whites want the White race to survive, then "well-meaning whites", who can accurately be called
"liberals", have to go. Whites cannot afford to be sentimental about "well-meaning whites".
@xyzxy the Zio-western imperialists decided ( ie "backed down") not to risk crossing them.
Incidentally JK I don't disagree with this position --
"Rather than feeling anger or shame at this national humiliation, instead I feel something like schadenfreude against them --
along with righteous indignation on behalf of the countless patriots used up and spat out by a System unworthy of their sacrifice."
But perhaps you could spare a few words & emotions for the poor bloody average Afghans who have died in their 100's of 1000's
in this vicious, stupid war.
A lack of sympathy for & indeed basic knowledge of, other peoples is part of the reason the US constantly gets stuck in these
ridiculous wars. (Had they the "leaders" we have now , the Vietnam War would probably have limped to a halt sometime in
the late 80's).
Hmm. Kirkpatrick doesn't seem to realize that 911 was sort of an official beginning to the elites domestic threat problem?
There was never a reason to enter Afghanistan because Afghanistan never attacked us and nor did Osama Bin Laden.
As long as ppl believe the official story there will always be a reason the American citizen can support for invading middle east
countries
Like the holocaust, it is a lynch pin lie that is the pre-requisite for all sorts claims and behaviors that without them would
otherwise not give validation
I doubt Russia has any regard for Turkey – it has a very long history of wars against them and knows just how treacherous they
are.
Russia alone is powerful enough to end life in USA
USA has lost Europe already- Merkel is aligning with China
Americans think Russian gas binds Germany rather than export markets like China and the fact EU needs semiconductors and Asia
is where they are produced
No one takes USA seriously any more it is peripheral as in 19th century. You forget Europeans cannot travel to US and frankly
fear to do so anyway
This cannot be said nearly enough. WASP culture is WASP elites hating all 'other' whites and pretending not to hate
a few non-WASP white groups when they (the WASPs) can use them against the whites they most hate or fear at the moment. WASPs
discard all groups they use as soon as they no longer need them to wage some type war against still other whites.
The Scotch-Irish are probably the best example of what WASPs think of even those who serve them most ruthlessly.
The mood of the country is comparable to East German during the 1980's. Resignation and apathy.
The last election was a fraud, the media are liars, the courts are political, privacy and free speech aren't being protected,
and half the country declares it hates the other half.
Go ahead, try to conjure a false flag to rally Team America.
It does look like resignation and apathy – which is sort of logical – given that all centers of power are in the hands of the
totalitarians (same as in the old East Germany).
The totalitarian Communist East German regime actually collapsed when it became caught up in the mass demonstrations of neighbouring
countries (Poland Feb. 1989 and Hungary the following month). The Communists didn't have the political will/ability to suppress
demonstrations on this scale and ceded power. Two points here are 1) that the public in each country overwhelmingly opposed the
government 2) each country was ethnically united (Poles in Poland, Hungarians in Hungary and Germans in East Germany) and viewed
their oppression as sourced externally (the Soviet Union).
The US looks different, since the population is split both politically and ethnically. So if anything is going to happen (unlikely)
then it's either a civil war, a military coup or a world war (nuclear) removing most major American cities + Israel.
@anonymouseperson c accountants uncovering the depths of Israel and its fifth column's theft of many tens of billions of our
war matériel and of our most guarded military secrets, which were then sold to China in concert with the Greenspan/Goldman Sachs
plan to transfer of our industrial intellectual assets and over 50,000 factories to China in preparation for a new order based
on joint Israeli-Chinese technocratic hegemony.
My point is that the uninterrupted, elaborate efforts at 9/11 concealment legally constitute, by themselves, sufficient proof
of the Pentagon's complicity and guilt in 9/11 and, therefore, make it an alien occupation force that serves Israel, its fifth
column, and no other. A war completing the "Bolsheviks" effective extermination of white Christian Russia at the same time as
exterminating white Christian America appears to be the objective of International Jewry, whom alone Joe Biden and his Pentagon
answer to.
When I was in the US Army, I never met anyone who signed up to 'fight for the Anglo-Zionist empire'. We were there for a variety
of reasons, no job, to get training, money for college, adventure or maybe running away from a crazy girlfriend. As the grandson
of immigrants, I was probably the most patriotic, the rest of the guys, not so much. Young men will always join the military,
whether the military oppresses its people or not. How many Irishmen served in the British military when they had few civil rights
back home? In the military, a young White man can learn a trade, learn military tactics, earn money for college and become a real
asset to his community. You can also get killed or maimed, but at 18 or 19, we didn't think about that.
Will Whites Support A Globalist American Empire That Picks Fights Abroad and Wars Against Them At Home?
If they are members of Congress, the military leadership, the police, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, the MSM, or the leadership
of either political party the answer is clearly a resounding YES!!
I believe a large percentage of whites in America have a Stockholm syndrome of some kind going on. The title of the article
has rolled two very separate issues into one. As far as continuing to support wars abroad that aren't benefiting the average person
of whatever color is not an issue that can be specifically directed at Marxist oriented regimes such as that of Obama/Hillary
and now Sleepy Joe & Camel Toe. One can never forget the years of the faux conservative Bushlet regime. Whites as a group more
overtly support the military than do other racial groups (even though blacks and Hispanics make up a large percentage of our military).
They are very reluctant to criticize American foreign policy as unpatriotic and somehow react to military interventions as if
they were a sporting event.
Their concept of patriotism is very puerile. Many never ask the question of who benefits? (bankers, weapons manufacturers
and Zionists). As far as the war on whites is concerned, here is where the Stockholm syndrome comes more into play. Our people
have been psychologically beaten into submission by accepting whatever the Marxist intelligentsia throws at them.But there is
also a cultural flaw primarily among Northern European Protestant whites which consists of being perceived as NICE. Stop being
NICE, especially to people who wish you dead. Is this some sort of perversion of Christianity? Maybe. Rather than throwing the
whole Gospel message out the window, a recalibration of one's Christianity needs to happen as well. The churches have not been
our friend either.
Back in the good old days, when things were more innocent and simple, the psychopathic
Central Intelligence Agency had to covertly infiltrate the news media to manipulate the
information Americans were consuming about their nation and the world. Nowadays, there is no
meaningful separation between the news media and the CIA at all.
Analysis: US
blinks first on Russia-Ukraine tensions
Journalist Glenn Greenwald just highlighted an interesting point about the reporting by The
New York Times on the so-called
“Bountygate†story the outlet broke in June of last year
about the Russian government trying to pay Taliban-linked fighters to attack US soldiers in
Afghanistan.
“One of the NYT reporters who originally broke the Russia bounty story
(originally attributed to unnamed ‘intelligence
officials’) say today that it was a CIA claim,†Greenwald
tweeted .
“So media outlets - again - repeated CIA stories with no questioning:
congrats to all.â€
Indeed, NYT’s original
story made no mention of CIA involvement in the narrative, citing only
“officials,†yet this latest article speaks as though it had
been informing its readers of the story’s roots in the
lying, torturing , drug-running , warmongering Central
Intelligence Agency from the very beginning. The author even writes “The New
York Times
first reported last summer the existence of the C.I.A.’s
assessment,†with the hyperlink leading to the initial article which made no
mention of the CIA. It wasn’t until later that The New York Times began reporting that the CIA
was looking into the Russian bounties allegations at all.
The Daily Beast , which has itself uncritically published many articles
promoting the CIA “Bountygate†narrative, reports the
following:
It was a blockbuster
story about Russia’s return to the imperial “Great
Game†in Afghanistan. The Kremlin had spread money around the longtime central
Asian battlefield for militants to kill remaining U.S. forces. It sparked a massive outcry
from Democrats and their #resistance amplifiers about the treasonous Russian puppet in the
White House whose admiration for Vladimir Putin had endangered American troops.
But on Thursday, the Biden administration announced that U.S. intelligence only had
“low to moderate†confidence in the story after all.
Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the
story is, at best, unproven â€" and possibly untrue.
So the mass media aggressively promoted a CIA narrative that none of them ever saw proof of,
because there was no proof, because it was an entirely unfounded claim from the very beginning.
They quite literally ran a CIA press release and disguised it as a news story.
In totalitarian dictatorships, the government spy agency tells the news media what stories
to run, and the news media unquestioningly publish it. In free democracies, the government spy
agency says “Hoo buddy, have I got a scoop for you!†and the
news media unquestioningly publish it.
In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “ The CIA and the Media
†reporting that the CIA had
covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had
over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as
Operation Mockingbird . It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media is meant to
report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the
agendas of spooks and warmongers.
Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and people are too
propagandized to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like The New
York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news
pundits . The sole owner of The Washington Post is a CIA contractor ,
and WaPo has never once disclosed this conflict of interest when reporting on US intelligence
agencies per standard journalistic protocol. Mass media outlets
now openly employ intelligence agency veterans like John Brennan, James Clapper,
Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall, Samantha
Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano, Jeremy Bash,
Susan Hennessey, Ned Price and Rick Francona, as are known
CIA assets like NBC’s Ken Dilanian, as are
CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like
Tucker Carlson.
This isn’t Operation Mockingbird. It’s so much worse.
Operation Mockingbird was the CIA doing something to the media. What we are seeing now is the
CIA openly acting as the media. Any separation between the CIA and the news media, indeed even
any pretence of separation, has been dropped.
This is bad. This is very, very bad. Democracy has no meaningful existence if
people’s votes aren’t being cast with a clear
understanding of what’s happening in their nation and their world, and if
their understanding is being shaped to suit the agendas of the very government
they’re meant to be influencing with their votes, what you have is the most
powerful military and economic force in the history of civilization with no accountability to
the electorate whatsoever. It’s just an immense globe-spanning power
structure, doing whatever it wants to whoever it wants. A totalitarian dictatorship in
disguise.
And the CIA is the very worst institution that could possibly be spearheading the movements
of that dictatorship. A little research into the many, many horrific
things the CIA has done over the years will quickly show you that this is true; hell, just
a glance at what the CIA was up to with the
Phoenix Program in Vietnam will.
There’s a common delusion in our society that depraved government
agencies who are known to have done evil things in the past have simply stopped doing evil
things for some reason. This belief is backed by zero evidence, and is contradicted by
mountains of evidence to the contrary. It’s believed because it is
comfortable, and for literally no other reason.
The CIA should not exist at all, let alone control the news media, much less the movements
of the US empire. May we one day know a humanity that is entirely free from the rule of
psychopaths, from our total planetary behavior as a collective, all the way down to the
thoughts we think in our own heads.
May we extract their horrible fingers from every aspect of our being.
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For several centuries, Europe served as the Ancient Greece to the American Rome -- the source of most of the most important
cultural inspirations, despite a certain underlying criticism of 'effeminacy' and 'dissolution.'
The 20th Century's Modernism and Postmodernism was similar to Rome's sometimes successful but more usually inferior attempts
to incorporate and ultimately replace the influence of Greek culture. Despite proclaiming a concrete Roman character, Rome was
often just a hodgepodge of various assimilated Mediterranean influences (a bland but somehow also nationalistic multiculturalism)
until Christianity gave its thinkers and artists a more or less focused and unified point of departure.
Which would indicate some of what the future holds for the European triumphs of the Renaissance to the 20th Century -- a weak
acknowledgment of its importance, with a handful of individuals remembered and very little in the way of context or continuity.
At best, there could be another Renaissance after the Dark Age that looms. But it doesn't look likely from here, as the Empire
is taking so much down with it as it falls.
As I
argued recently , the decline of soft neoliberalism in the US Democratic Party can be
explained largely in terms of generational replacement. What about hard neoliberalism and the
Republican Party?
After four years of the Trump Administration, and a few months of post-election madness, the
Republican Party has completed a transition that has been going on for decades. In the 1980s
and 1990s, the Republicans were a hard neoliberal party, spending most of their policy effort
on tax cuts and deregulation, and using white grievance politics to attract votes. Now the
situation is reversed. The Republicans are a white grievance party, whose targets include
'woke corporations', However, they still attempt to
attract support from corporations by advocating tax cuts. While any pretence of principled
aversion to regulation has been abandoned, crony capitalist exemptions from regulation are
still on offer if the price is right
The core claim of hard neoliberalism was that a free market economy with a modest
'safety net' could do a better job of delivering broad
prosperity than the welfare state built on the New Deal and Keynesian economics. The optimism
of this message, reflected in Reagan's 'Morning in America' turned into triumphalism with the end of the Cold War.
Hard neoliberals supported globalisation, and cheered on the idea that borderless capital
would bring governments under control, and put an end to budget deficits. In particular,
Republicans supported trade deals like NAFTA
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/09/history-lesson-more-republicans-than-democrats-supported-nafta/
The high point of hard neoliberalism was the 1994 Contract with America, the slogan under
which the Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time since 1952. The Contract
called for balanced budgets and reduced welfare spending for single-parent families, but also
proposed positive measures including an expanded child tax credit.
The commitment to balanced budgets was the first element of hard neoliberalism to be
ditched. Responding to the collapse of the dotcom boom, the Bush Administration introduced
large, and effectively permanent (fn: the most regressive elements were allowed to expire under
Obama) tax cuts. These cuts, along with massive expenditure on the 'forever wars' that began after the 2001 terror attacks, pushed the government budget
from the surplus that had been achieved under the Clinton Administration into permanent
deficit.
For a brief period, the 'Tea Party' revolt against the
Obama Administration appeared as a reversion to hard neoliberalism, with a non-partisan focus
on sound finance. In reality, the Tea Party was a mixture of Republican activists and grifters
who used its appeal to solicit donations, largely used to fund well-paid jobs for themselves.
Both groups have been prominent among the support base for
Donald Trump .
By the time the Republicans turned to Trump, grievance politics were already dominant. Trump
discarded long held beliefs about free trade and the need for government to stay out of
business. But even during Trump's Presidency, Congressional Republicans held
on to a few elements of the old mixture, such as corporate tax cuts and pro-corporate changes
to regulation. It is only in the aftermath of Trump's attempt to overturn
the 2020 election that the alliance between Republicans and big business has been broken.
On the one hand, corporations regularly run afoul of grievance politics, by taking
initiatives seen as 'woke'. On the other hand, the threat
posed to constitutional government by the Republican party is now so obvious as to arouse
corporate resistance. Corporations with a long-term view of their prospects correctly prefer to
risk higher tax rates than to operate in a Trumpist banana republic.
A puzzle remains. On the one hand, as we have seen, Trumpism is the culmination of trends
going back many decades. On the other hand, today's far right Republican
party is clearly different in kind from the party that nominated moderate globalist Mitt Romney
for the presidency in 2012
One useful metaphor for this process is that of a phase transition, such as from liquid to
gas, or dissolved solid to crystal) in physics and chemistry.
To develop the metaphor, think of the Eisenhower-era Republican party as a complicated
mixture of many dissolved ingredients, in which the dominant element was the business
establishment, and the Trump era party as a crystallised mass of plutocratic economics, racism
and all-round craziness. The development over the 60 years between the two has consisted of
keeping the mixture simmering, while adding more and more appeals to racial animus and magical
thinking (supply-side economics, climate denial, the Iraq war and so on). In this process
various elements of the original mix have boiled off or precipitated out and discarded as
dregs.
Boiling off is the process by which various groups (Blacks and Northeastern liberal
Republicans in C20, liberaltarians more recently) have left the Republican coalition in
response to its racism and know-nothingism. The dregs that have precipitated out are ideas that
were supposed to be important to Republicans (free trade, scientific truth, classical
liberalism, moral character and so on) that turned out not to matter at all.
Trump's arrival is the catalyst seed crystal that produces the phase
change. The final product of the reaction emerges in its crystallised form.
Eisenhower was president from 1953-1961. The Great Realignment
Republican'">Democrat happened in the 1930s under Roosevelt, and the Southern
Strategy that eventually switched the South from Democrat'">Republican and
laid out the current US political alignment happened either in 1964 with Goldwater or 1968
with Nixon, in either case after Eisenhower. I'm not sure how
reliable the date I have for the first half of this political realignment is (I admit I got
it from Wikipedia), but I'm pretty confident of the second half being
post-Eisenhower. As a result, I raise my eyebrows quite a bit when I hear about a transition
directly from an Eisenhower-era Republican Party to a Trump-era Republican Party. What about
the intervening Republican presidents?
In short, I actually agree with this being a direct transition, but I'd
argue that the 'œTrump-era' Republican Party starts with Nixon
and hasn't stopped since. They made a conscious decision, whose evidence
we can see in macro voting patterns and in their correspondence, to incorporate White
Grievance into their coalition. I'm unable to find a position on which the
Republican Party has changed on a coalition-building level since.
The OP is making the case for Free Markets being such a thing, and I think
it's the topic for which the strongest case can be made, but I
don't buy it. Republican administrations since Nixon have supported
cronyism, military adventures in support of their favored companies, suppression of specific
industries (e.g. solar), subsidizing others (e.g. fossil fuels and pharmaceuticals).
I'm not an economist, but I suspect that if we zoom in
we'd find more cases of Republican administrations intervening against
Free Markets than to protect them on the level of individual companies too.
When Republicans say Free Markets, they mean Deregulation and Low Taxes on the Rich,
both of which notably continued under Trump.
Romney, for comparison, would probably also have supported Deregulation and Low Taxes on
the Rich, but Eisenhower didn't.
Working in the Midwest and Idaho I think there is a large group of jumping voters. I
called the 2016 election for Trump after staying in multiple AirBnBs with people who voted
Obama twice and were voting for Trump. Same reason '" hope for change.
The past few years I was surrounded by Trump voters, some still good friends. They
aren't conspiracy dingbats. They also liked Yang. They radically dislike
the democrats corruption and warmongering. It's the religious who sign up
to fight those wars and their children coming home in body bags.
The real issue is no choice, nobody except liars, and politicians on the take.
Don't kid yourself, John. The current white house occupants are a
senile old warmonger whose drug addict son has him wrapped around his finger, and the one
primary candidate who resoundingly lost.
Those two, foisted on the nation by DNC oligarchs, nearly lost! They came within a hair
of losing to an uncouth, marginally literate clown. Ignore the electoral college. Look at the
margins in states that won.. this is no victory, no mandate, nor is it stable. This pack of
Same old drivelers in both parties is busy shoving the same garbage that created
Trump's victory.
If you think that the Republicans media machine is unhinged, read Matt Taibbi on
Russiagate's lies. How much more unhinged is it for the Democrats media
(Rachel Maddow and co) to attack and provoke a nuclear super power into creating new weapons
and reinstating MAD.
I think I'd want to go back further than Sashas. Researching an article
on Helen Keller a while back, I discovered to my surprise not only that Ms Keller was a Wob
(in the Debs/Wobbly intersect to be precise) but that she was funded by Andrew Carnegie '" and that the GOP of her day was, as well as a party of bankers and
strikebreakers, a party of East Coast pencil-necked liberals with fingers in every
progressive cause going (excepting the cause of labour, for obvious reasons).
All this was in the period prior to the US joining the Great War '" which is
what we historians refer to as a hell of a long time ago '" and the Dems have
also gone through a change or two in the same period. (Well, one big one.) Still, I wonder if
the story of the GOP could be told as a series of these transitions '" from
plutocrat/business/liberal to plutocrat/business/conservative to
plutocrat/business/conservative/racist to today's hard core
plutocrat/racist '" with the only constant being the presence of people with the
kind of money that can endow libraries around the world, or do
less useful things .
Wouldn't it be nice to wait and see if there has actually been an
end to hard neoliberalism (or, indeed, a leftward shift in the Democratic Party) before
making confident and information-free declarations about such matters? As far as I can make
out there is essentially no current plan to make any substantive changes in the U.S. economic
system arising out of the Democratic Party, and no sign of any substantive shift in the
Republican Party's positions.
It is always comforting to believe that such things are true. Liberals, however, have been
fooled before, over and over, by the Democratic Party. Naturally politicians attempt to say
some nice things, which are then fed back to the appropriate demographics by compliant media
houses which have their own agendas and which know that their audience know no
alternatives.
As Mr. Fenton put it:
Listen to what they did.
Don't listen to what they said.
What was written in blood
Has been set up in lead.
Lead tears the heart.
Lead tears the brain.
What was written in blood
Has been set up again.
The heart is a drum.
The drum has a snare.
The snare is in the blood.
The blood is in the air.
Listen to what they did.
Listen to what's to come.
Listen to the blood.
Listen to the drum.
I think that the real backbone of conservative parties is small business, more than big
corporations. It certainly is so here in Italy (where however we have a much larger share of
small business to big business relative to the USA), but I wonder if this is a common
phenomenon.
I think that the clash between big business and small business is a big part of the
apparent change in right wing parties.
JQ: 'œAfter four years of the Trump Administration, and a few months of post-election madness, the Republican Party has
completed a transition that has been going on for decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Republicans were a hard neoliberal
party, spending most of their policy effort on tax cuts and deregulation. Now the situation is reversed.'
I suggest you read that snippet again (in isolation), and try to make sense of it. I
can't. What has been reversed? Is there a missing step in your argument?
'œTax cuts and deregulation' is a concise description of Trump
administration policies, and there is no indication whatsoever that the post-Trump GOP will
be any different. And the Culture War has been a staple of right wing politics in the US for
decades. So what do you mean by reversal?
John, have you read Before the Storm (2001) by Rick Perlstein? You may find it useful for
the Goldwater years.
I have also similar issues with the claim of Republicans being free marketeers. Yes,
obviously, they (used to) say that they are pro-market but they rarely walk the talk. E.g.:
Reagan increased the budget deficit; Trump-like concerns for the trade deficit (with Japan at
the time) and currency manipulation spurred the 1985 Plaza Accord; even when they are in
favor of lower taxes, they rarely care about how this may distort incentives (e.g. no sales
tax on goods purchased on Internet are a subsidy to Bezos), they just (claim that they) want
to starve the beast; Casey Mulligan advised Trump and according to him Trump is the greatest
deregulator ever; and 'œfreedom' is always a loaded term, e.g.
they are against immigration which is just the freedom of one factor of production (labor) to
freely move across countries. So, yeah, the libertarians who have (mainly in the past but
some also now) supported Republicans are hard neoliberals free marketeers but most Republican
rarely fit that description.
More general question (no need to answer, obviously, just for your thoughts): what is the
role of this intellectual history section in your book? It seems you are forced to make some
generalizations that some may object to, even though it is not clear to me how essential they
are to your main thesis.
Brian: 'œThe past few years I was surrounded by Trump voters, some
still good friends. They aren't conspiracy dingbats. They also liked
Yang. They radically dislike the democrats corruption and warmongering.
It's the religious who sign up to fight those wars and their children coming home in body bags.'
It's the religious right who loved them some o' dat
war. It's the religious right who loves corruption, especially in their
leaders.
Perhaps relevant to a couple of the above comments is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote
in 2016, when I was reading Perlstein's Before the Storm (which I
didn't finish):
One thing (among others) that comes through clearly in the first 50 pp. or so of the
book is the extent to which the emergent or reconstituting U.S. Right in the
'50s and early '60s found a key constituency in
family-owned and/or privately-held manufacturing and other businesses'¦
Indeed Perlstein opens the first chapter with a sketch of the political views and
trajectory of one such (hypothetical) businessman.
Here's one actual example of many: In '59, on the
eve of Khrushchev's visit to the U.S., we're told
that 'œMilwaukee's Allen-Bradley Company bought a full
page in the Wall Street Journal: 'To Khrushchev, 'œPeace and Friendship' means the total enslavement of all
nations, of all peoples, of all things, under the God-denying Communist conspiracy of which
he is the current Czar'¦. Don't let it happen
here!'' (p.52)
Pretty clearly only a family-run or closely-held business would have felt able to spring
for this kind of full-page ad in the WSJ '" a big publicly-traded company
presumably would not have done this sort of thing, even if some of its executives might
have shared the same views. (I use the word 'œpresumably'
because I'm not sure that this speculation is correct, but it seems
fairly logical.)
John: 'œFor a brief period, the 'Tea
Party' revolt against the Obama Administration appeared as a reversion to hard neoliberalism, with a non-partisan focus on
sound finance. '
No, they never did, except for people willing to believe. They didn't
have a single problem with abuses under Dubya.
JQ 25, I think I get your point but I wouldn't call this much of a
reversal. An interesting question is at what point Culture War became a (not yet
'the') defining feature of the GOP, and how that point
is related to the hard neoliberal turn.
Phil 6 describes the transition 'œfrom plutocrat/business/liberal to
plutocrat/business/conservative to plutocrat/business/conservative/racist to
today's hard core plutocrat/racist' (i. e. fascist I would
say).
Fwiw there also is an account that paints the pre-Reaganite GOP as more complex than that,
e. g. they weren't always strictly anti-labor ( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/opinion/labor-unions-republicans.html
). It seems to me that one characteristic of the GOP of our time is the strict and in the US
context extremely unusual ideological homogeneity, which imho strengthens the case for
classifying that party as fascist.
35: 'œThe right wing of earlier times did worship at the altar of engineering and technology for its ability to deliver
shiny toys and things that go boom but that did not require either an understanding or respect for science as a methodology.'
You have to look no further than the Nazis. Their general outlook was anti-modernity,
anti-enlightenment, they condemned relativity as 'œJewish
science' and had quite some affinity with certain esoteric movements (and vice
versa), but they also had the engineering/technologiy-worshipping side. See also Italian
Futurism.
"... '˜An important limitation of Bruenig's analysis is that she treats 'capital' as a unitary force. There is a sharp division between global corporations, with a long-run interest in the preservation of the rule of law under a democratic government, and the crony capitalists, epitomized by Trump himself, for whom the object is to extract as much as possible from the US economy, as quickly as they can'. ..."
Capital is unfaithful. It can, and does, play all sides. Many of the courageous businesses that protested North Carolina's
2016 'bathroom bill,' for instance, also
donated to
political groups that helped fund the candidacies of the very politicians who passed the bill.
This is the nature of alliances of convenience. When the Western Allies joined Stalin to fight against Hitler they had no (or
at least few) illusions about him, and didn't rely on him to keep his word any longer than necessary, or to refrain from undermining
them in other quarters
It isn't possible to cooperate with capital on social matters while fighting them in other theaters; capital can fight you
in all theaters at once, all while enjoying public adulation for helping you, as well.
This simply isn't correct as the Biden Administration is showing. Despite co-operating with capital on social matters,. Biden
has proposed substantial increases in corporate tax rates and global action against corporate tax avoidance. In this context, it
is the position of capital that has been weakened by the toxicity of its usual allies, the Republicans.
Setting aside the fact that capital can in a single moment be both heroic and diabolical '" Amazon wants you to be able to
vote , but
it would prefer if you didn't
unionize
'" it is, incredibly, even less democratic, accountable and responsive than our ramshackle democracy. Capital rallies
to the defense of democracy while aggressively quashing that very thing in the workplaces where its workers labor.
Again, this is what happens in an alliance of this kind. Fights over unionization go on, in parallel with an alliance over the
right to vote. Once again, it's the corporations who face the bigger problem here, with opportunistic Republicans pretending to
back the rights of the workers.
I have no idea what to do about this other than know it for what it is. If it were ever the case that knowledge was power,
it certainly isn't so anymore: Knowledge is more widely dispersed than ever; power remains notably concentrated. But knowledge
confers a certain dignity. It's worse to be powerless and unaware than to be powerless and perfectly clear on where you stand.
This is a counsel of despair, without any real basis. Bruenig gives no reason to suppose that the fight for democracy can't
be won, even if it requires alliances between groups with interests that are otherwise opposed. But if the Republicans can be held
at bay long enough to allow the passage of strong voting rights law, they will have to reform themselves or face permanent minority
status. Getting to that point (for example, by winning bigger majorities in both Houses of Congress in 2022, then scrapping the filibuster)
will be difficult, but not impossible
An important limitation of Bruenig's analysis is that she treats 'capital' as a unitary force. There is a sharp division
between global corporations, with a long-run interest in the preservation of the rule of law under a democratic government, and the
crony capitalists, epitomized by Trump himself, for whom the object is to extract as much as possible from the US economy, as quickly
as they can.
Someone with more expertise than me could interpret all this in terms of the 'fractions of capital' idea put forward by Poulantzas
and others in C20. A search on those terms produced
this piece in The Guardian , which covers some of those points.
'˜An important limitation of Bruenig's analysis is that she treats 'capital' as a unitary force. There is a sharp division
between global corporations, with a long-run interest in the preservation of the rule of law under a democratic government, and
the crony capitalists, epitomized by Trump himself, for whom the object is to extract as much as possible from the US economy,
as quickly as they can'.
I couldn't agree more as:
'˜An important limitation of any current analysis about the US Chaos is that outdated political labels are treated as a unitary
forces. There is a sharp division between so called '˜Elites' who are considered to be '˜Elites' because they have a lot
of dough, and '˜Elites' who are able to understand jokes about rich Idiots '"
(just joking!)
with a long-run interest in NOT preservation of the rule of law under a democratic government.
I think that Bruenig's basic problem is not so much despair, as the expectations of friendship and loyalty that we want to
give and receive. That may work fine in small groups, but fails utterly in larger political and economic situations. Corporations
exploit that as much as they can for the benefits of employee and customer loyalty, and hardly ever reciprocate, leading to a
lot of disappointment, resentment, and cynicism. I agree with John that there is a different strategy of alliances that's needed
for the latter, and it's a shame we don't educate students directly about it.
Major point: Crony capitalism and crony capitalists are hissable villains. Any clique can nominate whomever they wish as Snidely
Whiplash, but as an identifiable group, I believe the crony capitalists are even harder to identify than the aristocracy of labor.
They are in economic terms, unproductive capitalists. It's not clear how anyone who rejects the usefulness, or claims the impossibility,
of distinguishing unproductive labor from productive labor could accept this as a real category.
Minor point: The supposed alliance of convenience of the 'Allies' with 'Stalin' is not quite the point believed. The
supposed allies of Stalin delayed meaningful entry into the war, the second front. And the supposed allies of Stalin turned against
the war-ravaged USSR as quickly as possible, launching decades of hostility, including military actions, attempted subversion
and economic warfare. This example of 'alliance of convenience' means the corporations will rely on the small-d democrats to
fight the bulk of the war, then attack their convenient allies as soon as possible.
'There is a sharp division between global corporations, with a long-run interest in the preservation of the rule of
law under a democratic government, and the crony capitalists, epitomized by Trump himself, for whom the object is to
extract as much as possible from the US economy, as quickly as they can. '
Whoa. I happen to feel (and it seems fairly obvious to me) that it's exactly the opposite: domestic capital is interested
in long-term prosperity and stability, while global capital operates by invading, squeezing all juice, and moving on.
Bruenig would have liberals fight a war on all fronts, apparently, without any allies.
[Amazon] is, incredibly, even less democratic, accountable and responsive than our ramshackle democracy.
Well, that may be because it is not in any sense a '˜democracy' . It is a corporation operating within the state
framework of a representative democracy.
Corporations are quite responsive to societal concerns the moment their bottom line is threatened . This is the
power that consumers have in a consumer-driven economy.
Certainly 'Capital' has deep and abiding shared interests with the Republican party; the GOP has long been their reliable
partner delivering the things they want, less taxes, regulation and free reign in international markets; trumpism threatens that,
because the essence of Trumpism is it's chaotic arbitrariness.
Witness the whole arc of the '˜banning' of TikTok because people using that platform humiliated Dear Leader. In the
end it amounted to'¦well, we still don't know what, exactly it has amounted to.
This kind of chaos isn't even beneficial to crony capitalists, because as we've seen time and time again in Russia'¦your
status as a '˜crony' is always precarious, subject to the whims and paranoia of the autocrat.
The
linked Guardian piece has the added appeal for you (I imagine) of using chemistry metaphors similar to the phase transition
ones you used here
.
On the broader topic of instrumental alliances, you are of course correct, at least if the desired end is achieved goals rather
than individual purity. Tom Lehrer's Folksong Army
may be a useful counter to Breunig's argument.
OP; 'When the Western Allies joined Stalin to fight against Hitler they had no (or at least few) illusions about him.`'
Umm. It seems fairly clear that Roosevelt said, at Yalta 'Stalin doesn't want anything but security for his country, and
I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he wouldn't try to
annex anything and will work with for a world of democracy and peace.'
Now with Roosevelt, perhaps even more than with other politicians, there may be a gap between what he really thought and what
he wanted his listeners to believe he thought. All the same '¦
As for steven t Johnson @3:
'The supposed allies of Stalin delayed meaningful entry into the war, the second front.'
I would be interested to get an explanation as to why stj thinks that
a) the allied actions before the invasion of France (which is what all good Communists in Britain meant when they painted 'SECOND
FRONT NOW' on walls in 1942 or 1943) were not meaningful; and
b) how an invasion of France in 1942 or 1943 would have in fact have shortened the war, other than to Germany's advantage.
Oh? '"
I just would love to '" as aren't you the '˜Petrovna' who once wrote that Greedy Outsourcers are NOT '˜Greedy Outsourcers'?
'"
so how does square with your idea of:
'˜domestic capital is interested in long-term prosperity and stability, while outsourcers operate by invading, squeezing all
juice, and moving on'.
I'd say Ms. Bruenig is primarily just someone who needs to grow up and understand that the entire world isn't arrayed around
whatever she imagines democracy might be about. She appears as someone who thinks democracy is about waiting your turn in the
Starbucks line and tipping the minority barista because they've had to face struggles in life.
Score this as the latest in a line of '˜woke' media who sit and vilify Amazon by posting their views on Facebook, ignoring
that every few days a fresh box shows up with a swoosh on their doorstep.
This one uses the NEW YORK F-ing Times as her soapbox '" ironic, no? Last I looked they weren't exactly a not for profit,
indeed manufacturing fake concern, real concern, any concern for money is why they exist '" not exclusively, but if not for the
$$$ their impact would be equal to the same article in the East Overshoe Nebraska, Gazette.
Many might rail against Exxon and pals but when the tank is on E and its the only station on the highway I know of none that
pull over and walk instead of fill up.
Companies exist to fill particular needs '" their political, environmental and social impacts (all of which are important)
are by products of their primary mission and are managed as needed in proportion to the degree it impacts their objectives (which
heavily involve profit making but only rarely are exclusively focused on profit making).
As JQ notes, they will be an ally when it suits them or (or when it suits you) but they are tools to their own end, not a tool
to be wielded by others.
Bruenig has the right of it, of course '" Biden will help drive our civilization into the climate apocalypse as eagerly as
Trump did, and the end result will be the exact same levels of brutality and misery. Biden and Trump are two sides of the same
coin; salvation does not come from the 'Senator from MBNA.'
Sooner or later, Biden will get tired of pretending to be benevolent papa. He's already there on weed, police brutality,
and imperialism. It's just a matter of time.
Stephen@7 is preaching to the choir, thus briefly as possible: The USSR joining the UN; restraining the Italian and French
CPs; surrendering the Greek CP (well, to be fair, Tito was even more important to this, but still); withdrawal from Austria and
Iran; neutralization of Finland; the recognition of Israel; the offer of neutralization of Germany; limited aid (to put it mildly)
to the Chinese CP, etc. There are an estimated 20 million reasons why 'Stalin' played it that way. Nonetheless, Stephen's
Cold War triumphalism is still wrong.
And as to the alleged mysteries Stephen doesn't understand? The number of German divisions tied down in Italy was about,
if I remember correctly, was eight. Churchill may have coined a vivid phrase in 'the soft underbelly of Europe' but it was
BS meant to divert troops away from fighting Germans save to protect Egypt etc. The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis, not the Allies.
It's true that if the Allies had managed to join the Nazis in alliance with the Finns that the Soviet Union would almost certainly
have been defeated. No doubt Stephen regrets the lost opportunity. Or, along with David Brin, wishes the atomic bomb could have
been used in Europe to stop'¦Stalin?
The other question, as phrased suggests that a second front in France in 1942 or 1943 would have been advantageous to Germany.
I suggest this is simply nuts. Unless there's some assumption that a second front would have promoted the chances of a negotiated
peace between the Allies and the Nazis? But this I think is just wishful thinking.
Bruenig has the right of it, of course '" Biden will help drive our civilization into the climate apocalypse as eagerly
as Trump did, and the end result will be the exact same levels of brutality and misery. Biden and Trump are two sides of the
same coin; salvation does not come from the 'Senator from MBNA.'
Sooner or later, Biden will get tired of pretending to be benevolent papa. He's already there on weed, police brutality,
and imperialism. It's just a matter of time.
Elizabeth Bruenig says nothing whatever about Joe Biden (good or bad), so why are you trying to change the subject in this
way?
In the alleged real world, those liberals (whatever that now means) tempted to pick a side in the current ruling-class struggles
should remember what Mr. Carlin said: '˜They got a club, and you ain't in it.'
It seems to me that certain fractions of the left are just awful when it comes to tactical politics. Tactical alliances are
part of almost all successful politics. One doesn't have to always be friends to have common political goals under selective
circumstances.
@Stephen 7 Umm. It seems fairly clear that Roosevelt said, at Yalta 'Stalin doesn't want anything but security for his country, and
I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he wouldn't try to
annex anything and will work with for a world of democracy and peace.'
Stalin did, for example, call the communist italian partigiani and told them NOT to attempt a communist takeover in Italy,
but instead to collaborate with other democratic forces.
This is because Stalin agreed at Yalta that Italy was to be under the western sphere of influence, and he didn't want stir too
much the situation.
What are the acions that Stalin did outside of the USSR that prove Roosvelt wrong?
That Stalin was a terrible tyrant inside the eastern block is obviously true but this is not what Rooselt was speaking about,
I think.
It seems to me that you (Stephen) are underplayng the poular support Stalin (and on the other side, various fascist movements)
had in many parts of Europe at the time, and therefore you don't see how Stalin's actions were, in fact, not all that aggressive
on the international scene.
I don't see any meaningful and substantive distinction between the phenomenon Bruenig purports to describe and as a consequence
what she is counseling (despite saying she isn't) and the We Should Improve Society Somewhat toon. It's a more or less perfect
distillation of nominally pro-labor anti-Democratic thinkythoughters who for the sake of purity preach no collective action or
cooperation beyond the right kind of trade unionism. Yet another entry in the prevailing Atomized Style.
Breunig is religious left. Religious types tend to be very deontological'"they care much more about right v. wrong than good
v. bad. Many readers of this blog might agree that capital is 'wrong.' (Not, you, Tim W.!) But since we are good consequentialists
here, we would also agree that this particular alliance with capital is 'good.'
Bruenig has a problem most of us don't: she wants abortion banned, and she wants to continue thinking this position is both
liberal and popular out in the public at large. It's pretty clear that corporate America at large isn't going to help get
her any closer to that.
Bruenig is typical of a school of thought that would like everyone to act on principal 100% of the time. Is it possible to
persuade someone to do the right thing even if they didn't already want to? Apparently that's even worse than if they can't
be persuaded by any means. Is it possible to persuade imperfect people to improve the world? That's not good enough. We should
live with the world's problems while continuing our search for perfect people.
When this goes along with treating 'capitalism' as both a totalizing force and something that can never be worked with,
it doesn't leave a lot of room for anything short of a kind of leftist Benedict Option, unless it's total war against even
quite mild manifestations.
MisterMr @17: thank you for a rational, though I think in several ways mistaken, reply.
I quoted Roosevelt's belief at Yalta that Stalin would 'not try to annex anything' and 'work for a world of democracy and
peace.' Even before Yalta, Stalin's behaviour in foreign policy (Nazi-Soviet pact, annexation of the Baltic states and eastern
Poland, Katyn) and domestic policy (Holodmor, the Great Terror) should have been enough to show that he had no interest refraining
from annexation, nor in democracy or peace.
You ask ' What are the actions that Stalin did outside of the USSR that prove Roosevelt wrong?' Well, apart from those above,
there were his postwar annexations of as much of Europe as he could manage, and his behaving there as (in your own words) ' a
terrible tyrant'.
You say I am 'underplaying the popular support Stalin '¦ had in many parts of Europe at the time'. I can't quite see
how that is relevant: I don't think he had much support in the parts of Europe he annexed. Among the French and Italian Communist
parties, yes, but I think those countries were much better off for not being annexed.
As for steven t johnson @12: I am entirely unable to understand how your intemperant rant relates to anything I wrote, or have
previously written. In other circumstances I would have concluded 'the man's clearly delusionary, ignore him' but you accuse
me of regretting an opportunity for the UK to ally with the Nazis and defeat the Soviet Union. or even of wishing for atomic warfare
in Europe. These are completely unjustifiable and seriously defamatory conclusions, such as I had not expected to find on CT.
What train of thought '" I can hardly say, of logic '" led you to them, I cannot say.
As far as I can follow your argument, it is that
1) Regarding the Allied contribution to defeating Germany before the Normandy invasion, 'The number of German divisions tied
down in Italy was about, if I remember correctly, was eight.' I don't have a history of the Italian campaign to hand, but the
Wikipedia article states that in May 1944 the German forces in italy numbered 439,224. Eight bloody big divisions, surely.
It also gives Axis losses in Italy, before the final surrender, as being about 530,000. And I don't know why, apart from sheer
ignorance, you regard the Allied contribution, pre-Normandy, as being restricted to the Italian campaign. Which, incidentally,
made the rather important Allied invasion of southern France possible.
2) Arguing that there were cases where Stalin did not invade and tyrannise his neighbours does not refute the obvious case
that there were many times when he did.
3) ' The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis.' In terms of the land battle in eastern Europe, of course that's true, apart
from the rather embarrassing period when they were trying to help the Nazis to defeat the Western democracies. Whether they could
have succeeded without help from the West is not at all obvious.
4) I await, without much hope, svj's explanation of why a cross-Channel invasion in 1942 or 1943 would have been other than
an extensive and complete catastrophe: Dieppe writ very large, Kasserine-sur-mer? If that had happened, I suspect that a negotiated
peace might have resulted. but I would regard that as fearful, not wishful thinking.
5) I wrote that Roosevelt was naive in believing that the concept of 'noblesse oblige' applied to Stalin, and that therefore
I am guilty of 'Cold War triumphalism'. Well, I lived through most of the Cold War, and could foresee four possible developments:
a) War in Europe becomes hot. I hope stj would agree that would have been a global catastrophe, even if the Soviet Union had in
some sense 'won'.
b) Cold war continues indefinitely, so that in 2021 we would still have the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact and NATO confronting
each other, with (a) on the cards, and eastern Europe under unwelcome Soviet domination.
c) Cold War in Europe ends with collapse of Western alliance under the influence of Communist-Neutralist-Defeatist elements, followed
by the installation of Soviet-type domination in Europe.
d) Cold War ends with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its domination under the weight of its own internal contradictions.
Personally, I am very glad that (d) happened. I suspect '" though I would be happy to have stj's own opinion '" that he would
much have preferred (c) or failing that (b).
Pre-emptive comment: no, of course I don't think that the effects of the collapse of Actually Existing Socialism have been always
desirable. A basic lesson from history is that solving one problem always leaves many other problems unsolved, and often gives
rise to new ones.
Unless someone wants to make the case that the US and UK governments should not have allied themselves with Stalin, I request
that we draw a halt to the discussion on that point.
The dictionary offers more than one spelling. You chose the one you preferred, I chose the one I preferred. I am more sensitive
on the subject of misspelling of names. For all I know, Bruening is in fact a correct spelling, it's just not the correct spelling
of Elizabeth Bruenig's surname.
There is an important difference between the advice '˜If you sup with the devil, you should have a long spoon' and the advice
'˜Never sup with the devil, no matter how long your spoon, even if the alternative is starvation'.
1) To the extent that corporations do this to ally themselves with the Democratic party's power, as opposed to conforming
to consumers' woke orthodox culture, what do they want in return?
2) Corporations in America are uniquely (in the rich world) able enforce correct speech and thought because of the unusually
big power they have over their employees. The answers I usually hear from democratic party supporters is a mix between rejoicing
in woke mccarthyism and 'lol, the first amendment doesn't apply to corporations, you dummy!'.
The point is: is this healthy and what are we going to do about it?
3) Related to (2), woke monopolies have crippled the right-wing social media infrastructure (after cultivating the fash-curious
information bubble for years) and are big enough to bully states into changing their election laws -for the better, this time.
Again, the point is 'is this healthy and what are we going to do about it'.
If the 'left''˜s reaction is 'be happy that Daddy beat up my enemy today', cool, but maybe it's not the best way to go
about it.
"... Don't deny W his agency. As I followed the horrors, from Vietnam to Iraq to Syria to Central America and elsewhere, the full list that was visible anyway, of the W regime, it sure seemed clear to me that W played the bumbling yuk very well. ..."
"... the dumb cluck thing was mostly an act. he was deliberately talking that way not only to paint himself as stupid, but also because those in power assume we must be spoken to as children (they've studied president speeches since JFK have decreased from high school level to 6th grade in complexity, word usage etc). ..."
"... In our kayfabe duoparty system, it also gave the "opposing" side the "W is a Chimp" talking point to harp on (dress rehearsal for the same stuff against tRUMP). ..."
"... Abu Ghraib was not an anomaly, Con Son Island served the same purpose during the Vietnam War. When I was young I was proud to be an American Citizen, we had the Bill of Rights, the Military was controlled by Civilians and their oath was to defend the Constitution from "All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.". I have been horrified, ashamed and deeply saddened by what has happened in the US over the last half Century or so. ..."
"... I view the 2008 election as the major failing-to-turn-back-when-we-had-the-chance point. Obama could have undone Bush's worst policies, but instead he cemented them into place forever. ..."
"... Our elites are both stupid and evil, but Bush is more stupid and Obama is more evil ..."
"... you are 40 years off the mark-It was Reagan who's brand of avuncular fascism, celebrating stupidity as a virtue who paved the way. ..."
"... albrt: I agree with your take. Obama campaigned as an anti-war candidate (at least wrt Iraq). He then proceeded to "˜surge' into Afghanistan and added Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to the regime change mix. Never a thought given to prosecuting the war criminals: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Feith, Wolfowitz, Powell, et al; much less even consider a truth and reconciliation commission. ..."
"... Obama was equally complicit in this never ending horror show and, I am hopeful, history will hold him equally accountable. ..."
"... Is it not written that Margaret Thatcher's true legacy was Tony Blair? If that is true, then the true legacy of Dubya is Obama. ..."
"... As far as harm that George W. Bush did and launched (illegal/immoral wars, domestic surveillance, tax cuts for the wealthy"¦.) Bush should take the award. ..."
"... When Obama deliberately and with malice aforethought turned all the admitted (and in fact proudly self-avowed) war-criminals and criminals-against humanity loose, free and clear under "look forward not back", he routinised and permanentized the up-to-that-very-minute irregular and extra-constitutional novel methods of governance and practice which the Cheney-Bush Administration had pioneered. Obama deliberately made torture, aggressive war, etc. "legal" when America does it and "permanent" as long as America is strong enough to keep doing it. ..."
"... The Greatest Disappointment in History. No-one else comes close, in terms of the sheer numbers of people globally who he let down. The Bait and Switch King, The Great Betrayer. After the nightmare of Bush we got him and his "˜eloquence', pulling the wool over the dazzled sheeple's eyes while he entrenched the 1% and the neocon MI complex, his paymasters, and sponsors for his entry into the overclass. ..."
"... Lambert, you forgot this one" Biden presents Liberty Medal to George and Laura Bush Instead of a war crimes trial at the Hague, Biden gave him a (family bloging) medal! ..."
"... A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing the Realm ..."
"... It's really sickening to see George W being "rehabilitated" and made to look like some kind of a senior statesman, when he should be hauled off to the Hague to spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes. For me, his election in 2000 was mostly the beginning of the end of the rule of law in this country. As a result, the U.S. has Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, in addition to all the other events mentioned, and don't forget he tried to privatize Social Security. ..."
"... and welfare "reform", the crime bill. Talk of privatizing SSI made commonplace acceptable. Repeal of Glass Steagall. They were going to do to healthcare what oBLAM succeeded at, 20 years before him but got sidelined by Lewinsky's blue dress stains. Clintoon is a criminal and so is his spouse, and he did his share of damage everywhere. people who think otherwise might be looking back with nostalgia on a simpler (pre 9.11) time. ..."
"... Jeff Wells wrote some interesting essays in the Bush years, though many of his connections were a bit too far out, even for me. He had some striking collateral evidence for his concept of High Weirdness in high places "" sex abuse, torture and magick figuring prominently, juxtaposed with political skulduggery, and financial crimes and misdemeanours. The Gannon/Guckert affair, the Franklin ring and Gary Caradori were the sort of thing that laced his quite penetrating analyses of events. Facts were jumping off points for speculations, but given our lack of facts his imaginings were a nourishment of sorts, though often very troubling indeed. ..."
"... People have been brain washed by the glossed over history of the US they are taught. It gives people a false belief of our past. The phrase American Exceptionalism comes to mind. It is a myth. The real history is out there but you have to search it out. From it's beginning continuing to today our government is responsible for bad behavior. ..."
"... We Americans have this thing called exceptionalism which among other things creates the idea that our government is more virtuous than others. ..."
"... We are not at Hitler/Stalin/Mao standards ""yet"" but who's to say that could never happen here? One of the bafflements of the 20th century was how a civilized people descended into the dark barbarism of Nazi Germany. ..."
"... Noam Chomsky observed some thirty years ago that if the Nuremberg standards were applied to all the post-war American Presidents, then all of them would hang. ..."
"... We have such a dismal record. Little George was the most audacious of all our criminal presidents, but he has plenty of company. My question is now, looking back, why was the USA incapable of organizing a peaceful world after WW2? I start there. 1945. ..."
Bush became President in the year 2000. That was "" let me break out my calculator "" 2021 "" 2000 = 21 years ago. It occurs to
me that our younger readers, born in 2000, or even 1990, may not know how genuinely horrid Bush was, as President.
I was blogging even back then, and I remember how horrid Bush was; certainly worse than Trump, at least for Trump's first three
years in office, until the Covid pandemic. To convey the full horror of the Bush years would not a series of posts, but a book. The
entire experience was wretched and shameful.
Of the many horrors of the Bush years, I will pick three. (I am omitting many, many others, including
Hurricane Katrina , the
Plame Affair
, Medicare Part D, the Cheney Energy Task Force
, that time
Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face ,
Bush's missing
Texas Air National Guard records , Bush gaslighting the 2004 Republican National Convention with terror alerts, and on and on
and on. And I didn't even get to 9/11, "
You've covered your ass ," WMDs, and
the AUMF. Sorry. It's exhausting.) I'm afraid my recounting of these incidents will be sketchy: I lived and blogged in them, and
the memories of the horror well up in such volume and detail that I lose control of the material. Not only that, there was an actual,
functioning blogosphere at that time, which did great work, but unfortunately most of that work has succumbed to link rot. And my
memory of events two decades ago is not as strong as it could be.
The White House Iraq Group
Here I will rely on excerpts from Colonel Sam Gardiner's (PDF) "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence,
Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II" (2003), whose introduction
has been saved from link rot by the
National Security Archive and
a full version
by the University of Leeds . I would bet, long forgotten even by many of those who blogged through those times. ("Gulf II" is
what we refer to as the "War in Iraq.") Quoting from the full version:
You will see in my analysis and comments that I do not accept the notion that the first casualty of war is truth. I think we
have to have a higher standard. In the most basic sense, Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies
to come to right decisions. Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage.
Seems familiar. (Gardiner's report can be read as a brilliant media critique; it's really worth sitting down with a cup of coffee
and reading it all.)[2] More:
My research suggests there were over 50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture of Gulf
II for the American and British people . I'll cover most in this report. At the end, I will also describe some stories that
seem as if they were part of the strategic influence campaign although the evidence is only circumstantial.
What becomes important is not each story taken individually. If that were the case, it would probably seem only more of the
same. If you were to look at them one at a time, you could conclude, "Okay we sort of knew that was happening." It is the pattern
that becomes important. It's the summary of everything. To use a phrase often heard during the war, it's the mosaic. Recognizing
I said I wouldn't exaggerate, it would not be an exaggeration to say the people of the United States and UK can find out more
about the contents of a can of soup they buy than the contents of the can of worms they bought with the 2003 war in the Gulf.
The White House was, naturally, at the center of the operation:
One way to view how the US Government was organized to do the strategic communications effort before, during and after the
war is to use the chart that was used by the Assistant Deputy Director for Information Operations. The center is the White House
Office of Global Communications, the organization originally created by Karen Hughes as the Coalition Information Office. The
White House is at the center of the strategic communications process"¦.
Handy chart:
And:
Inside the White House there was an Iraq Group that did policy direction and then the Office of Global Communications itself.
Membership of the White House Iraq Group:
So, in 2020 Bush's write-in vote for President was Condi Rice, the [x] Black [x] woman who helped run a domestic disinformation
campaign for him in 2003, to sell the Iraq War to the American people. Isn't that"¦. sweet?
Of course, I was very naive at that point. I had come up as a Democrat, and my first real political engagement was the Clinton
impeachment. Back in 2003, I was amazed to discover that there was a White House operation that was planting fake stories in the
press "" and that I had been playing whackamole on them. At a higher level, I was disturbed that "Washington and London did not trust
the peoples of their democracies to come to right decisions." Now it all seems perfectly normal, which is sad.
Torture at Abu Ghraib
There are a lot of images of our torture prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib. This one (
via ) is not the
most famous , but to me it is the most shocking:
What kind of country sets dogs on a naked prisoner? Well, my kind of country, apparently. (Later, I remember discussing
politics with somebody who came from a country that might be considered less governed by the rule of law than my own, and they said:
"Abu Ghraib. You have nothing to say." And they were right.)
For those who came in late, here's a snapshot (the detail of the story is in fact overwhelming, and I also have pity for the poor
shlubs the brass tossed into that hellhole[3].) From the Los Angeles Times, "
Few have faced consequences
for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq " (2015):
[A] 44-year-old Al Jazeera reporter named Salah Ejaili, said in a phone interview from Qatar that he was arrested in 2003 while
covering an explosion in the Iraqi province of Diyala. He was held at Abu Ghraib for 48 days after six days in another facility,
he said.
"Most of the pictures that came out in 2004, I saw that firsthand "" the human pyramid where men were stacked up naked on top
of each other, people pulled around on leashes," he said in the interview, with one of his attorneys translating. "I used to hear
loud screams during the torture sessions."
Ejaili says he was beaten, left naked and exposed to the elements for long periods, and left in solitary confinement, among
other acts.
"When people look at others who are naked, they feel like they're animals in a zoo, in addition to being termed as criminals
and as terrorists," he said. "That had a very strong psychological impact."
The plaintiffs also say they suffered electric shocks; deprivation of food, water and oxygen; sexual abuse; threats from dogs;
beatings; and sensory deprivation.
Taha Yaseen Arraq Rashid, a laborer, says he was sexually abused by a woman while he was cuffed and shackled, and also that
he was forced to watch a female prisoner's rape.
Ejaili said that his face was often covered during interrogations, making it difficult for him to identify those involved,
but that he was able to notice that many of the interrogators who entered the facility wore civilian clothing.
His attorneys, citing military investigations into abuses at Abu Ghraib and other evidence, say the contractors took control
of the prison and issued orders to uniformed military.
"Abu Ghraib was pretty chaotic," said Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought suits
against CACI and L-3 Services. "They were involved in a conspiracy with the military police to abuse our clients.""¦. Eleven U.S.
soldiers were convicted in military trials of crimes related to the humiliation and abuse of the prisoners.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers , and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If our legal system had the slightest shred of integrity, it would be obvious to the Courts, as it is to a six-old-child, that
what we laughingly call our "personal" computers and cellphones contain "paper," not in the tediously literal sense of a physical
material made from wood fibre, but in the sense of content . Bits and bytes are 20th Century paper, stored on silicon and
hard disk platters. Of course a warrant should be needed to read what's on my phone, ffs.
That Fourth Amendment common sense did not prevail is IMNSHO due in large part to Bush's program of warrantless surveillance,
put in place as part of the Global War on Terror. Here again, the complexity is overwhelming and took several years to unravel. I'm
afraid I have to quote Wikipedia on
this one :
A week after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), which
inaugurated the "War on Terror". It later featured heavily in arguments over the NSA program.
Soon after the 9/11 attacks President Bush established the President's Surveillance Program. As part of the program, the Terrorist
Surveillance Program was established pursuant to an executive order that authorized the NSA to surveil certain telephone calls
without obtaining a warrant (see 50 U.S.C. § 1802 50 U.S.C. § 1809). The complete details of the executive order are not public,
but according to administration statements, the authorization covers communication originating overseas from or to a person suspected
of having links to terrorist organizations or their affiliates even when the other party to the call is within the US.
In October 2001, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which granted the administration broad powers to fight terrorism. The Bush
administration used these powers to bypass the FISC and directed the NSA to spy directly on al-Qaeda via a new NSA electronic
surveillance program. Reports at the time indicate that an "apparently accidental" "glitch" resulted in the interception of communications
that were between two U.S. parties. This act was challenged by multiple groups, including Congress, as unconstitutional.
The precise scope of the program remains secret, but the NSA was provided total, unsupervised access to all fiber-optic
communications between the nation's largest telecommunication companies' major interconnected locations, encompassing phone conversations,
email, Internet activity, text messages and corporate private network traffic .
Of course, all this is perfectly normal today. So much for the Fourth Amendment, good job. (You will note that the telcos had
to be in on it; amusingly, the CEO of Qwest, the only telco that refused to participate, was charged and convicted of insider trading,
good job again.) The legal aspects of all this are insanely complex, but as you see from my introduction, they should be simple.
Conclusion
Here's a video of the Iraqi (now in Parliament) who threw shoes at Bush (who got off lightly, all things considered):
We should all be throwing shoes at Bush, seriously if not literally. We should not be accepting candy from him. We should not
be treating him as an elder statesman. Or a "partner in crime." We should not be admiring his paintings. Bush ran a bad, bad, bad
administration and we are living with the consequences of his badness today. Bush is a bad man. We are ruled by bad people. Tomorrow,
Obama!
NOTES
[1] Indeed.
[2] For example, I vividly remember playing whack-a-mole as a blogger with the following WMD stories: Drones, weapons labs, WMD
cluster bombs, Scuds, nuclear materials from Niger, aluminum tubes, and dirty bombs. They one and all fell apart on close inspection.
And they were only a small part of the operation, as Gardiner shows in detail.
[3] My personal speculation is that Dick Cheney had a direct feed from the Abu Ghraib torture chambers to the White House, and
watched the proceedings live. Some of the soldiers burned images of torture onto CDs as trophies, and the prison also had a server,
whose connectivity was very conveniently not revealed by the judge in a lawsuit I dimly remember being brought in Germany. So it
goes.
Does anyone believe that W, son of H. W. Bush, H. W. son of Senator Prescott Bush, would have been been pres without that familial
lineage and its important govt connections? The pity is W wasn't smart enough to grasp world politics and the US's importance
as an accepted fulcrum in same beyond his momentary wants. imo. Brent Scowcroft and others warned him off his vain pursuits. The
word "squander" come to mind, though I wish it did not.
See for example Kevin Phillips' book American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
. ( Kevin Phillips is a great
modernist American historian, imo, who saw the rise of Nixon before anyone else.)
Don't deny W his agency. As I followed the horrors, from Vietnam to Iraq to Syria to Central America and elsewhere, the
full list that was visible anyway, of the W regime, it sure seemed clear to me that W played the bumbling yuk very well.
He did what he set out to do, no doubt with careful guidance from that sh!t of a father (magically turned into a laid-in-state
"statesman") and mother-of-string-of-pearls, and of course Cheney and the rest of the corpo-gov policy gang.
The Consent Manufacturers are whitewashing an evil man and his slicker but equally evil successor and his glamorous spouse.
Helluva job, Georgie! Full marks for kicking the world a long way down a dark road.
the dumb cluck thing was mostly an act. he was deliberately talking that way not only to paint himself as stupid, but also
because those in power assume we must be spoken to as children (they've studied president speeches since JFK have decreased from
high school level to 6th grade in complexity, word usage etc).
see Pelosi's daughter's film of his campaign trail. He's no Angel Merkel, but sly enough for politics in this country
and most third world corruptocracies.
In our kayfabe duoparty system, it also gave the "opposing" side the "W is a Chimp" talking point to harp on (dress rehearsal
for the same stuff against tRUMP).
Abu Ghraib was not an anomaly, Con Son Island served the same purpose during the Vietnam War. When I was young I was proud
to be an American Citizen, we had the Bill of Rights, the Military was controlled by Civilians and their oath was to defend the
Constitution from "All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.". I have been horrified, ashamed and deeply saddened by what has happened
in the US over the last half Century or so.
And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
You actually "˜blogged' back when we had to use punch cards to program our PCs? How oh how did you clamber on up out of "the
Well" so many times a week? I am somewhat convinced that the Hollerith Cards Protocol was the origin of the Twitter 140 character
limit.
I also "lived through" the "˜Reign of "W""˜ and see it as a Time of Prophecy. Most of the things we are now staring down the
barrel of were effectuated then.
I may be foilly, (may be? who am I kidding,) but I view the 2000 election as a major turning point of American history.
I view the 2008 election as the major failing-to-turn-back-when-we-had-the-chance point. Obama could have undone Bush's worst
policies, but instead he cemented them into place forever.
Our elites are both stupid and evil, but Bush is more stupid and Obama is more evil.
All the pomp and circumstance surrounding the personage of the President serves to conceal the people behind the scenes who
vetted and groomed said president, and actively advise him while in office. It's in this way that a Jimmy Carter may be viewed
as a gentle soul so far as presidents go, but he was actually vetted by Brzezinski on behalf of the CFR goons. Once in office
he was then advised by Brzezinski and Volcker, among other assorted lunatics. And he gladly took their advice the entire time.
That's how he came to be president in the first place. And so it goes.
albrt: I agree with your take. Obama campaigned as an anti-war candidate (at least wrt Iraq). He then proceeded to "˜surge'
into Afghanistan and added Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to the regime change mix. Never a thought given to prosecuting the war criminals:
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Feith, Wolfowitz, Powell, et al; much less even consider a truth and reconciliation commission.
Obama was equally complicit in this never ending horror show and, I am hopeful, history will hold him equally accountable.
Could you explain your view that Obama and Trump are "worse than that" (Bush-Cheney).?
As far as harm that George W. Bush did and launched (illegal/immoral wars, domestic surveillance, tax cuts for the wealthy"¦.)
Bush should take the award.
Obama did push for military action in Libya, but at least held back from Syria.
The administrations after Bush "kicked the can down the road" but he initiated the events they simply continued. And Trump
did attempt to pull troops back from Bush initiated wars. How is Trump worse than Bush? What are your metrics?
I am just a commenter here, but I would say that . . .
When Obama deliberately and with malice aforethought turned all the admitted (and in fact proudly self-avowed) war-criminals
and criminals-against humanity loose, free and clear under "look forward not back", he routinised and permanentized the up-to-that-very-minute
irregular and extra-constitutional novel methods of governance and practice which the Cheney-Bush Administration had pioneered.
Obama deliberately made torture, aggressive war, etc. "legal" when America does it and "permanent" as long as America is strong
enough to keep doing it.
He did some other things like that which I don't have time to mention right now. Maybe others will beat me to it.
Most of all, by slickly conning or permitting to self-con numbers of people about "hope and change" to come from an Obama Administration,
he destroyed all hope of hope. He destroyed hope itself. Hope is not a "thing" any more in this country, thanks to Obama.
He may also have destroyed black politicians' dreams of becoming America's " Second Black President" for several decades to
come. Been there, done that. Never Again. But since I am not Black, that is not my problem. That is something Black America can
thank Obama for, if they decide to wake up to the fact of that reality.
Of course , if the Evil Countess Draculamala becomes President after Biden, then I guess I will be proven wrong about that
particular observation.
The Greatest Disappointment in History. No-one else comes close, in terms of the sheer numbers of people globally who he let
down. The Bait and Switch King, The Great Betrayer. After the nightmare of Bush we got him and his "˜eloquence', pulling the wool over the dazzled sheeple's eyes while he entrenched
the 1% and the neocon MI complex, his paymasters, and sponsors for his entry into the overclass.
Last, does any single person with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, bear so much responsibility for the election of
Trump?
Remember that Obama voted in favor of FISAA, the bill that immunized Bush and his flunkies from prosecution for their felony
FISA violations, as a senator, not long before the presidential election. It was impossible to make myself vote for him after
that.
Thanks Lambert. I'd add that the intelligence being sent to the "White House Iraq Group" was being manufactured by the Office
of Special Plans (OSP) which was set up and run by Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. Following Feith's history and connections
alone is a fruitful endeavor for those so inclined.
Among other things, Feith co-authored, along with Richard Perle and David Wurmser, the A Clean Break: A New Strategy For
Securing the Realm paper prepared for the prime minister of a certain foreign country. This is back in 1996. Around the same
time the PNAC boys were formed by Kagan and Kristol and started selling the same policy prescriptions vis a vis Iraq to the pols
and public here.
Feith was also fired from the NSC back in the early 80's for passing classified information to some little country. Fast forward
to his OSP days and, lo and behold, his employee Larry Franklin is convicted of the same thing, along with Steve Rosen and Keith
Weissman of AIPAC.
This stuff has gone on forever. What amount of ventilation is needed to blow this kind of dung out of the Augean stables of
geopolitics? Not much chance of that anyway, given all the incentives and and interests"
Is it luck that Putin and Xi might be a little less monstrous?
It's really sickening to see George W being "rehabilitated" and made to look like some kind of a senior statesman, when he
should be hauled off to the Hague to spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes. For me, his election in 2000 was mostly
the beginning of the end of the rule of law in this country. As a result, the U.S. has Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, in addition
to all the other events mentioned, and don't forget he tried to privatize Social Security.
His eight years as president, for me, was a horror show. What really bothers me is that he got away with all of it "" and now
he's hailed as an eminence gris. I can't help but think that his rehabilitation is to remind us all of how bad Orange Man was
"" Obama was just as bad because he cemented everything W did "" and more.
That is an assignment, which is a violation of our written site Policies. This applies to reader comments when you could easily
find the answer in less than 30 seconds on Google rather than being a jerk and challenging a reader (or even worse, me derivatively)
on bogus grounds.
> For me, [W's] election in 2000 was mostly the beginning of the end of the rule of law in this country.
At this moment I'm writing it is still early days for this thread: there are only 24 comments. In these comments are named
many bad people. However, one name that does not (yet) appear is "˜Clinton'. W was a monster as president (and likely remains
a monster as a human being) but surely Billy Jeff needn't yield to him in his contempt for the rule of law.
Quite right, of course. My comment was specifically in regard to his disdain for and abuse of the rule, and rôle, of law in
the American polity, e.g., his perjury > disbarment. Sort of like the famous photograph of Nelson Rockefeller who, while serving
as VP, was captured giving the finger to a group of protestors; Clinton also oozed that kind of hubristic impunity.
Regarding Clinton, the damage he caused to his own country and the world was substantial. The destruction of Yugoslavia caused
considerable mayhem "" in addition to bombing and breaking apart a sovereign nation, it enabled "liberals" to feel good about
war again, and paved the way for the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.
And the damage done by NAFTA was enormous "" in terms of leading to deaths of despair in both the US and Mexico I suspect NAFTA
has a higher domestic "body count" than any of the subsequent forever wars.
and welfare "reform", the crime bill. Talk of privatizing SSI made commonplace acceptable. Repeal of Glass Steagall.
They were going to do to healthcare what oBLAM succeeded at, 20 years before him but got sidelined by Lewinsky's blue dress
stains. Clintoon is a criminal and so is his spouse, and he did his share of damage everywhere. people who think otherwise might be
looking back with nostalgia on a simpler (pre 9.11) time.
little known covered up crime from his ARK days is the selling of HIV tainted blood (taken from prisoners) to Canada, among
other things.
yet another who had credible rape allegations. which damages our image at home and abroad.
I read that for the very briefest time, somebody or other was selling Total Information Awareness memorabilia with the Total
Information Awareness symbol on it. I wish I had thought to buy a Total Information Awareness mug.
I imagine knockoffs and parodies exist, but I am not sure the real thing is findable any more.
After Dennis Rader, the Wichita serial killer, murdered someone, the cops always found his semen on the floor next to the mutilated
victim. He got sexual pleasure out of gruesome murder. This is how I always pictured Cheney's attitude toward torture. Well. I
tried not to actually picture it.
Talk about your target rich environment. Where do you even start? Where do you begin? A serial business failure, draft dodger,
military deserter, drunk driver "" and all that was before he became President. A man so incurious about the world "" just like
Trump "" that he never even owned a passport until he actually became President and who never knew that Islam (prior to the Iraq
invasion) , for example, was just not one religion but was divided into Sunni and Shia in the same way Christianity is divided
into "" mostly "" Protestant and Catholics. But to me he was always the "Frat Boy President". His family always protected him
from his many flaws and he never had to grow up like his father had to in WW2. Even as President he never grew into the job, again,
just like Trump.
Lambert gives a few good reminders but there were many others and these are just the top of my head. He cared little for the
US Constitution and called it nothing more than a goddamn scrap of paper. He officially made the US a torture nation, not only
by pretending that US laws did not apply in Guantanamo bay but also aboard US Navy ships for which laws definitely did apply.
As part of a movement to make America an oil-fueled hegemony for the 21st century, he invaded Iraq with the firm intention on
invading Iran next so that Washington would have a firm grip on the fuel pump of the world. As he said "" "America is addicted
to oil." He dropped the ball on 9/11 through over-obsessing on Iraq and in the immediate aftermath sent jets around the country
"" when all jets were grounded "" to fly Saudi royalty back to Saudi Arabia before the FBI could interrogate them about all their
knowledge of the attack. All this to hide his very deep connections with the Saudis.
I could go on for several more paragraphs but what would be the point? For the neocons he was a great fronts-man to be followed
by a even greater one. I sometimes think that if Biden was a "˜real' Republican, then he would have been a great vice-president
for Bush. And now the establishment and their trained seals in the media are trying to make him out as "America's Favourite Uncle"
or something so that when he dies, he will have the same sort of funeral as John McCain did. And I predict that tens of thousands
of veterans around the country will then raise their glasses to him "" and then pour the contents on the ground.
W's rehab continues in the UK MSM, not just the Independent. The worst offenders are probably the Grauniad and Channel 4, both
Blairite.
The rehab mirrored the rise of Trump. His lack of interest in war upset these preachy imperialists.
Using Michelle Obama to facilitate the rehab brought id pol into the equation and made it easier. It was remarkable how often
the above photo is used in the neo liberal and neo con media.
Thank you, Colonel. That foto is remarkable and I suspect that the origins for the idea for it may lay on the other side of
the pond as it seemed so familiar-
There is a blog called Rigorous Intuition 2.0. Many of its blogposts are about the Bush period and Bush related subjects and
events. ( Many others are not). The sections on 9/11, Iraq, and Katrina probably have the highest percent of Bush-related blogposts,
in case one is interested.
Jeff Wells wrote some interesting essays in the Bush years, though many of his connections were a bit too far out, even for
me. He had some striking collateral evidence for his concept of High Weirdness in high places "" sex abuse, torture and magick
figuring prominently, juxtaposed with political skulduggery, and financial crimes and misdemeanours. The Gannon/Guckert affair,
the Franklin ring and Gary Caradori were the sort of thing that laced his quite penetrating analyses of events. Facts were jumping
off points for speculations, but given our lack of facts his imaginings were a nourishment of sorts, though often very troubling
indeed.
Who needs to make shit up during those years?
The facts"¦the shit he actually did, was glossed over or simply forgotten.
If shit was made up about his sorry ass i didn't bother checking, Sir.
I just assumed it was true.
Bushies destroyed the country. If there's a country in 100 years they'll be paying for those years.
And then came obama and big Mike
People have been brain washed by the glossed over history of the US they are taught. It gives people a false belief of our
past. The phrase American Exceptionalism comes to mind. It is a myth. The real history is out there but you have to search it out. From
it's beginning continuing to today our government is responsible for bad behavior.
Some scholars like Noam Chomsky write about
our real history. Unfortunately most people don't read this material. They are content with our glossed over shining star version
of US history that unfortunately continues to be taught in our educational system , starting in elementary school continuing through
a 4 year college education. Our system of government is so corrupted , I don't believe it can be fixed.
Nixon was rehabbed so he could open China, Kissinger got to keep his mantle. W portrayed by Josh Brolin pretty good take. Nice
to see dunking on GW, but the cycle of rehabilitation is due. The question is can he do some good or is there too much mud on
his boots. Can't see W as a new Jimmy Carter. Glossing over history begins the moment it's made. Makes me miss LBJ
Between 1998 and 2000, under the rule of Saddam Hussein, about 1000 prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison were executed and buried
in mass graves.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prison
How many Abu Ghraib prisoners did the US army execute?
Tell me again how many Iraqis were killed by the US Army because they were doing their own version of "Red Dawn"? And that
tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive if Saddam was simply left in place. Here is a video to watch
while you have a little think about it-
We Americans have this thing called exceptionalism which among other things creates the idea that our government is more virtuous
than others. It's a useful idea in that it calls us to be different and better than the average nation, and certainly different
and better than a cruel dictatorship. But it's also a dangerous idea because too many of us actually believe it to be true. Our
atrocities are different in kind, but the scale is the same.
We are not at Hitler/Stalin/Mao standards ""yet"" but who's to say
that could never happen here? One of the bafflements of the 20th century was how a civilized people descended into the dark barbarism
of Nazi Germany.
"(I am omitting many, many others, including Hurricane Katrina, the Plame Affair, Medicare Part D, the Cheney Energy Task Force,
that time Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face, Bush's missing Texas Air National Guard records, Bush gaslighting the 2004
Republican National Convention with terror alerts, and on and on and on. An I didn't even get to 9/11, "You've covered your ass,"
WMDs, and the AUMF. Sorry. It's exhausting.)"
Agree with all the criticism of Bush, Cheney, Obama. On a lighter note, my father-in-law is a high tech oil prospector in W
Texas, much of it in Midland, overlapping in time with W. Both members of the Petroleum Club (been there once, very stuffy) and
worked out at the same gym. Naturally, my wife asked if he had ever seen W naked. Her dad wouldn't answer, but did turn beet red.
We take this as confirmation.
Noam Chomsky observed some thirty years ago that if the Nuremberg standards were applied to all the post-war American Presidents,
then all of them would hang. Chomsky could not have imagined the future sequence of presidents from that point forward, but certainly
they did not break the chain of criminality. My point is that Bush is not unique in the type of crimes, just the enormity of them.
But I also believe he set new standards (lower) for shamelessness. Remember his smirk?
But also remember Obama joking about killing people.
Remember the comedy skit in which GWB "looked" for Iraq WMD's in the Oval office as part of the White House Correspondent's
dinner?
Anyone with any sense of decency would have refused to do this skit, but Bush apparently followed his handlers' advice to get
some laughs. That the USA was led by someone of such limited talent for 8 years speaks volumes. Years ago, a New York Times reader wrote that Hillary Clinton is a "well-connected mediocrity".
That comment may be true for ALL of the recent political candidates, from both parties, for a great many years.
LBJ was definitely not mediocre (civil rights/war on poverty), and would be viewed far more favorably, maybe as great, if he
had pulled out of Vietnam rather than escalating. Carter in his post presidency has much to recommend. Post presidency Bush is painting his portraits rather than having any retrospective regrets for the harm he did.
We have such a dismal record. Little George was the most audacious of all our criminal presidents, but he has plenty of company.
My question is now, looking back, why was the USA incapable of organizing a peaceful world after WW2? I start there. 1945. How
did our ideology become so inept? And everything I have read about our failures over the years is contrasted with what might have
been. We have operated under a system that could not function without extraction. There was always a sell-by date on the cover;
one that we tried to ignore. There's no doubt in my mind that it has finally failed completely. Ignominiously. But we have also
learned and come to admit certain realities. The most important one is that there can be no more war; civilization cannot survive
a modern war. So, ironically, our advanced warfare might well bring a peaceful world without world war. And our advances in science
(mostly militarily inspired) will help us now survive.
Lambert, thank you for this piece. I won't repeat what others have opined. I've had a real problem with Michelle Obama being
the rehabilitation cheerleader leader for Dubya. Imho, we lost all of our rights under the odious Patriot Act, which was pre-written.
Russ Feingold was the lone Senate holdout. And I recall Byrd's ire and rant at the tome they had no time to read, but he caved.
It went downhill from there. The links below, (apologies, I don't know how to fashion a hot link..) are about Bush's crimes and
Amnesty International's exhaustive investigation of them.
I don't have the citation anymore, and I've knocked myself out trying to find it. But there exists a UN human rights commission
memo suggesting (?) Obama to do a number of things: hold Bushco accountable for war crimes etc, as well as address what is termed
as "systematic racism" in incarceration (and more). I had printed it out a number of years ago and can't find it.)
I'm not buying that Bush fils is any elder statesman. He and his cronies used torture, extreme rendition, hired mercenaries and
completely destabilized the Middle East. We still don't have our rights back, and I'm betting the Patriot Act will never go away.
(Nor will data mining under the guise of "targeted advertising" and sold to..the military.) The NYT's link is how Obama elected
to rug sweep and just move ahead! I look forward to Lambert's take on the Obama administration..
Finally, someone has the courage to point out the obvious. An excellent article, well researched and nicely nuanced.
I'm disappointed with the remedy proposed, however. Throwing shoes is not enough; it's merely symbolic. The potential crimes
committed here, including lying us into war, the extent of torture committed, and practices that violate international military
norms and intelligence require a transparent and impartial investigation. One possible venue is the International Criminal Courts
in the Hague.
I've been told many times that sunlight can be an effective deterrent against disease.
Ditto. I am sure the CIA will be grinding the generals as we speak. Even the letter in
Politico could well be one of their strategies. I posted a piece in the open thread yesterday
from The HILL that was
pure propaganda.
USA is not alone in losing guerrilla warfare.
Watch for Biden announcing a 'shake up' of the military command in the next few
weeks/months.
The US military 2021 retreat from Kabul will result in a slaughter in the USA.
I see the Pentagon pulling the plug on the opium income for the CIA. Now THAT is the real
war. So the CIA now has to pay its mercenary army to defend the harvest and extraction. That
added cost to the CIA will not be taken lightly.
"... By Tom Engelhardt. Originally published at TomDispatch ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... I supported the rule of law and human rights, not to mention the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. ..."
"... In these years, one key to so much of this is the fact that, as the Vietnam War began winding down in 1973, the draft was ended and war itself became a “voluntary†activity for Americans. In other words, it became ever easier not only to not protest American war-making, but to pay no attention to it or to the changing military that went with it. And that military was indeed altering and growing in remarkable ways. ..."
"... “The dislike of government spending, whether on public investment or consumption, is overcome by concentrating government expenditure on armaments†..."
"... “The dislike of government spending, whether on public investment or consumption, is overcome by concentrating government expenditure on armaments†..."
"... “Large-scale armaments are inseparable from the expansion of the armed forces and the preparation of plans for a war of conquest. They also induce competitive rearmament of other countries.†..."
Yves here. Englehardt describes how US war-making has been a continuing exercise starting
with World War II. It’s important to recognize that before that, US military
budgets were modest both in national and global terms. But with manufacturing less specialized,
the US was able to turn a considerable amount of its productive capacity to armaments in fairly
short order.
A second point is as someone who was in Manhattan on 9/11, I did not experience the attacks
as war. I saw them as very impressive terrorism. However, I was appalled at how quickly
individuals in positions of authority pushed sentiment in that direction. The attack was on a
Tuesday (I had a blood draw and voted before I even realized Something Bad had happened). I was
appalled to see the saber-rattling in Bush’s speech at the National
Cathedral on Friday. On Sunday, I decided to go to the Unitarian Church around the corner. I
was shocked to hear more martial-speak. And because the church was packed, I had to sit in the
front on the floor, which meant I couldn’t duck out.
Here’s the strange thing in an ever-stranger world: I was born in July
1944 in the midst of a devastating world war. That war ended in August 1945 with the atomic
obliteration of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the most devastating bombs in
history up to that moment, given the sweet code names
“Little Boy†and “Fat Man.â€
I was the littlest of boys at the time. More than three-quarters of a century has passed
since, on September 2, 1945, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro
Umezu
signed the Instrument of Surrender on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay,
officially ending World War II. That was V-J (for Victory over Japan) Day, but in a sense for
me, my whole generation, and this country, war never really ended.
The United States has been at war, or at least in armed conflicts of various sorts, often in
distant lands, for more or less my entire life. Yes, for some of those years, that war was
“cold†(which often meant that such carnage, regularly sponsored
by the CIA, happened largely off-screen and out of sight), but war as a way of life never
really ended, not to this very moment.
In fact, as the decades went by, it would become the
“infrastructure†in which Americans increasingly invested their
tax dollars via aircraft
carriers , trillion-dollar jet fighters, drones armed
with Hellfire missiles, and the creation and maintenance of hundreds of military garrisons
around the globe, rather than roads, bridges, or
rail lines (no less the high-speed
version of the same) here at home. During those same years, the Pentagon budget would grab
an ever-larger percentage of
federal discretionary spending and the full-scale annual investment in what has come to be
known as the national security state would rise to a staggering $1.2
trillion or more.
In a sense, future V-J Days became inconceivable. There were no longer moments, even as wars
ended, when some version of peace might descend and America’s vast military
contingents could, as at the end of World War II, be significantly demobilized. The closest
equivalent was undoubtedly the moment when the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the Cold War
officially ended, and the Washington establishment declared itself globally triumphant. But of
course, the promised “peace dividend†would never be paid out as
the first Gulf War with Iraq occurred that very year and the serious downsizing of the U.S.
military (and the CIA) never happened.
Never-Ending War
Consider it typical that, when President Biden recently
announced the official ending of the nearly 20-year-old American conflict in Afghanistan
with the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from that country by 9/11/21, it would functionally
be paired with the news that the
Pentagon budget was about to rise yet again from its record heights in the Trump years.
“Only in America,†as retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and
historian William Astore wrote recently,
“do wars end and war budgets go up.â€
Of course, even the ending of that never-ending Afghan War may prove exaggerated. In fact,
let’s consider Afghanistan apart from the rest of this
country’s war-making history for a moment. After all, if I had told you in
1978 that, of the 42 years to follow, the U.S. would be involved in war in a single country for
30 of them and asked you to identify it, I can guarantee that Afghanistan
wouldn’t have been your pick. And yet so it’s been. From
1979 to 1989, there was the
CIA-backed Islamist extremist war against the Soviet army there (to the tune of billions
and billions of dollars). And yet the obvious lesson the Russians learned from that adventure,
as their military limped home in defeat and the Soviet Union imploded not long after
â€" that Afghanistan is indeed the “graveyard of
empires†â€" clearly had no impact in Washington.
Or how do you explain the 19-plus years of warfare there that followed the 9/11 attacks,
themselves committed by a small Islamist outfit, al-Qaeda, born as an American ally in that
first Afghan War? Only recently, the invaluable Costs of War Project
estimated that America’s second Afghan War has cost this country almost
$2.3 trillion (not including the price of lifetime care for its vets) and has left at least
241,000 people dead, including 2,442 American service members. In 1978, after the disaster of
the Vietnam War, had I assured you that such a never-ending failure of a conflict was in our
future, you would undoubtedly have laughed in my face.
And yet, three decades later, the U.S. military high command still seems not faintly to have
grasped the lesson that we “taught†the Russians and then
experienced ourselves. As a result, according to recent reports, they have uniformly
opposed President Biden’s decision to withdraw all American troops from
that country by the 20th anniversary of 9/11. In fact, it’s not even clear
that, by September 11, 2021, if the president’s proposal goes according to
plan, that war will have truly ended. After all, the same military commanders and intelligence
chiefs seem intent on organizing long-distance versions of that conflict or, as the New
York Timesput
it , are determined to “fight from afar†there. They are
evidently even considering
establishing new bases in neighboring lands to do so.
America’s
“forever wars†â€" once known as the Global War on
Terror and, when the administration of George W. Bush launched it, proudly aimed at 60 countries â€"
do seem to be slowly winding down. Unfortunately, other kinds of potential wars, especially new
cold wars with China and Russia (involving new kinds of
high-tech weaponry) only seem to be gearing up.
War in Our Time
In these years, one key to so much of this is the fact that, as the Vietnam War began
winding down in 1973, the draft was
ended and war itself became a “voluntary†activity for
Americans. In other words, it became ever easier not only to not protest American war-making,
but to pay no attention to it or to the changing military that went with it. And that military
was indeed altering and growing in remarkable ways.
In the years that followed, for instance, the elite Green Berets of the Vietnam era would be
incorporated into an ever more expansive set of Special Operations forces, up to 70,000 of
them (larger, that is, than the armed forces of many countries). Those special operators would
functionally become a second, more secretive American military embedded inside the larger force
and largely freed from citizen oversight of any sort. In 2020, as Nick Turse reported, they
would be stationed in a staggering 154 countries
around the planet, often involved in semi-secret conflicts “in the
shadows†that Americans would pay remarkably little attention to.
Since the Vietnam War, which roiled the politics of this nation and was protested in the
streets of this country by an antiwar movement that came to include significant numbers of
active-duty soldiers and veterans, war has played a remarkably recessive role in American life.
Yes, there have been the endless thank-yous
offered by citizens and corporations to “the troops.†But
that’s where the attentiveness stops, while both political parties, year
after endless year, remain remarkably
supportive of a growing Pentagon budget and the industrial (that is, weapons-making) part
of the military-industrial complex. War, American-style, may be forever, but â€"
despite, for instance, the militarization
of this country’s police and the way in which those wars came home
to the Capitol last January 6th â€" it remains a remarkably distant reality for most
Americans.
One explanation: though the U.S. has, as I’ve said, been functionally at
war since 1941, there were just two times when this country felt war directly â€" on
December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and on September 11, 2001, when 19
mostly Saudi hijackers in commercial jets struck New York’s World Trade
Center and the Pentagon.
And yet, in another sense, war has been and remains us. Let’s just
consider some of that war-making for a moment. If you’re of a certain age,
you can certainly call to mind the big wars: Korea (1950-1953), Vietnam (1954-1975)
â€" and don’t forget the brutal bloodlettings in neighboring Laos
and Cambodia as well â€" that first Gulf War of 1991, and the disastrous second one,
the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Then, of course, there was that Global War on Terror that began
soon after September 11, 2001, with the invasion of Afghanistan, only to spread to much of the
rest of the Greater Middle East, and to significant parts of Africa. In March, for instance,
the
first 12 American special-ops trainers
arrived in embattled Mozambique, just one more small extension of an already widespread
American anti-Islamist terror role (
now failing ) across much of that continent.
And then, of course, there were the smaller conflicts (though not necessarily so to the
people in the countries involved) that we’ve now generally forgotten about,
the ones that I had to search my fading brain to recall. I mean, who today thinks much about
President John F. Kennedy’s April 1961 CIA disaster at the Bay of Pigs in
Cuba; or President Lyndon Johnson’s sending of 22,000 U.S. troops to the
Dominican Republic in 1965 to “restore orderâ€; or President
Ronald Reagan’s version of “aggressive
self-defense†by U.S. Marines sent to Lebanon who, in October 1983, were attacked
in their barracks by a suicide bomber, killing 241 of them;
or the anti-Cuban invasion of the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada that
same month in which 19 Americans were killed and 116 wounded?
And then, define and categorize them as you will, there were the CIA’s
endless militarized attempts (sometimes with the help of the U.S. military) to intervene in the
affairs of other countries, ranging from taking the nationalist side against Mao
Zedong’s communist forces in China from 1945 to 1949 to stoking a small ongoing
conflict in Tibet in the 1950s and early 1960s, and overthrowing the governments of Guatemala
and Iran, among other places. There were an
estimated 72 such interventions from 1947 to 1989, many warlike in nature. There were, for
instance, the proxy conflicts in Central America, first in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas
and then in El Salvador, bloody events even if few U.S. soldiers or CIA agents died in them.
No, these were hardly “wars,†as traditionally defined, not all
of them, though they did sometimes involve military coups and the like, but they were generally
carnage-producing in the countries they were in. And that only begins to suggest the range of
this country’s militarized interventions in the post-1945 era, as journalist
William Blum’s “
A Brief History of Interventions †makes all too clear.
Whenever you look for the equivalent of a warless American moment, some reality trips you
up. For instance, perhaps you had in mind the brief period between when the Red Army limped
home in defeat from Afghanistan in 1989 and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, that
moment when Washington politicians, initially shocked that the Cold War had ended so
unexpectedly, declared themselves triumphant on Planet Earth. That brief period might almost
have passed for “peace,†American-style, if the U.S. military
under President George H. W. Bush hadn’t, in fact, invaded Panama
(“Operation Just Causeâ€) as 1989 ended to get rid of its
autocratic leader Manuel Noriega (a former CIA asset, by the way). Up to 3,000 Panamanians
(including many civilians) died along with 23 American troops in that episode.
And then, of course, in January 1991 the First Gulf War began . It
would result in perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi deaths and “onlyâ€
a few hundred deaths among the U.S.-led coalition of forces. Air strikes against Iraq would
follow in the years to come. And let’s not forget that even Europe
wasn’t exempt since, in 1999, during the presidency of Bill Clinton, the
U.S. Air Force launched a destructive 10-week bombing
campaign against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia.
And all of this remains a distinctly incomplete list, especially in this century when
something like 2
00,000 U.S. troops have regularly been stationed abroad and U.S. Special Operations forces
have deployed to staggering numbers of countries, while American drones regularly attacked
“terrorists†in nation after nation and American presidents
quite literally became assassins-in-chief . To this day,
what scholar and former CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson called
an American “empire of bases†â€" a historically
unprecedented 800 or more of them â€"
across much of the planet remains untouched and, at any moment, there could be more to come
from the country whose military budget
at least equals those of the next 10 (yes, that’s 10!) countries
combined, including China and Russia.
A Timeline of Carnage
The last three-quarters of this somewhat truncated post-World War II American Century have,
in effect, been a timeline of carnage, though few in this country would notice or acknowledge
that. After all, since 1945, Americans have only once been “at
war†at home, when almost 3,000 civilians died in an attack meant to provoke
â€" well, something like the war on terror that also become a war of terror and a
spreader of terror movements in our world.
As journalist William Arkin recently argued , the U.S. has created a
permanent war state meant to facilitate “endless war.†As he
writes, at this very moment, our nation “is killing or bombing in perhaps 10
different countries,†possibly more, and there’s nothing
remarkably out of the ordinary about that in our recent past.
The question that Americans seldom even think to ask is this: What if the U.S. were to begin
to dismantle its empire of bases,
repurpose so many of those militarized taxpayer dollars to our domestic needs, abandon this
country’s focus on permanent war, and forsake the Pentagon as our holy
church? What if, even briefly, the wars, conflicts, plots, killings, drone assassinations, all
of it stopped?
What would our world actually be like if you simply declared peace and came home?
Here in Asia, many people think the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was an act of
flaying the dying horse, since Japan was staring at defeat even without the bombs. It was a
totally callous act of the USA to drop the bombs just to “test their
efficacyâ€.
Why then the bombs could not have dropped on Germany that was still waging war at that
time? Asians smirk and say one) the “collateral†damage of
radiation etc., to neighbours like France who were Allies and two) they were (and are)
‘whites’; unlike Japan and its neighbours.
I think that you have the dates mixed up. The war against Germany in Europe ended on May
7th and the testing of the first atom bomb was not until 16th July when the first bomb went
off at Alamogordo in New Mexico. The following month the two remaining atom bombs that the US
had were dropped on Japan. In short, the bombs arrived too late to use in Europe.
The bomb was built with Berlin being the first target, but because the war ended a year
sooner than what everyone thought it would and making the very first bombs took longer than
planned, it was used on Japan. It was probably used as a demonstration for the Soviets, but
considering that sixty-six other large Japanese cities had already been completely destroyed
by “conventional†firebombing, and in
Tokyo’s case, with greater casualties than either nuclear bombing, the
Bomb wasn’t really needed. The descriptions and the personal accounts of
the destruction of Tokyo (or Dresden and Hamburg) are (if that is even possible) worse than
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Honestly, just what new and excitingly horrific ways of killing people the atom bomb used
was not clearly understood. They generally thought of it as a bigger kaboom in a smaller
package. And honestly, being pre-cremated during an entire night with your family and
neighbors in the local bomb-shelter or dying after a few days, weeks, or even a month from
radiation poisoning, is not really a difference is it?
“FOR 20 years after Harry Truman ordered the atomic bomb dropped on
Japan in August 1945, most American scholars and citizens subscribed to the original,
official version of the story: the President had acted to avert a horrendous invasion of
Japan that could have cost 200,000 to 500,000 American lives. Then a young political
economist named Gar Alperovitz published a book of ferocious revisionism,
“Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam†(1965). While
acknowledging the paucity of evidence available at the time, he argued that dropping the
atomic bomb “was not needed to end the war or to save livesâ€
but was Truman’s means of sending a chastening message to the Soviet
Union.â€
If we accept that at face value, then certainly the second bombing was unecessary. The
threat would have been enough. But the US had a second bomb design to
test…
Few things working here. The US needed Japan to surrender quickly before Stalin invaded
(which they asked him to do) so he couldn’t get his forces onto the island
where the Allies couldn’t stop him. Most Japanese feared Stalin and
preferred surrendering to the US but the Japanese government was trying to use talks with the
USSR to get better terms than unconditional surrender (little did they know Stalin was
licking his chops for more territory under his iron curtain).
The first bomb design (little man) was significantly less ambitious, it was so certain to
function they never tested it because a study had proven there was almost no chance it would
fail.
Fat boy was the scientific leap in technology needing to be demonstrated. Building little
man was mostly a matter of enriching Uranium vs Fat boy Plutonium enrichment harder and
detonation mechanism more complicated. However the end result was a bomb that could produce
significantly higher yields with smaller amounts of fissionable material where both the size
of the bomb could be significantly reduced and the yield of the device could be significantly
scaled up at the same time.
Fat boy demonstrated the USA could someday be putting nukes on V2 rockets recently
smuggled out of Germany. Even more important Fat boy is a precursor to the mechanism that
initiates the H bomb fusion devices that Edward Teller would soon be Dr Strangloving.
Even after Trinity Fat boy still had very high odds of failure. They feared looking like
fools if it failed and the USSR ended up with the Plutoniumt. As a result the US Air Force
dropped little man first because it was certain to work. After the 1st bomb dropped, the
Soviets declared war and began their invasion of Japan which forced
Truman’s hand to drop Fat boy too. Even after Fat Boy, war mongers in
Japan still refused to surrender where Emperor Hirohito finally overruled them and although
there was a military coupe attempted, it failed.
Thus ended the most bloody conflict in the history of human kind.
I’m not saying it isn’t true, but is there any
actual evidence that the bombs were dropped as “a message to the Soviet
Union†and not to speed the end of the war?
Also, who exactly wanted to send this “message� The US
generals were against it, I understand.
“What would our world actually be like if you simply declared peace and
came home?â€
a. All those families whose livelihood is based on waging war would have to find a new
job. These people will fight tooth and nail to avoid change
b. The resource grabs by the rich people behind the Oz-like curtain would fail. Their fate
would be that of the English aristocrats who have to rent out their castles in order to
maintain a roof over their head. These people will fight tooth and nail to avoid change
c. The general public would have a fire-hose of newly-available resources to direct toward
activities which benefit all the rest of the families outside A and B above
d. Fear-based leverage by the few over the many would be diminished. Attention would be
re-directed toward valid problems we all face
=====
There’s an interesting question which I see posed from time to time,
and often ask myself. It runs thus:
“Who decides who our “enemies†are, and
why they are “enemies�
This is a fundamental question which I believe very few of us can currently answer
accurately. Yet this question carries a $1.2T per year consequence. That’s
a lot of money to allocate toward something we know nothing about.
One time I asked an acquaintance â€" who spent a career at CIA â€"
that question. His reply was “Why, Congress decides who our enemies are,
and why. Congress then tells the CIA what to doâ€.
I wasn’t sure if he truly believed that. It’s quite
possible he did, of course, and I’m sure many of the people in group A
above surely do think they’re doing honorable and patriotic work.
Group B above â€" the people who are actually moving the chess pieces of
“the Great Game†â€" they are pretty clear on who
defines our “enemies†and why they are
“enemiesâ€. And they wisely don’t stand in
front of podiums and explain their actions. These people aren’t visible,
or explained, or known because it’s better for them not to be.
The way to combat manipulation by these predators is to:
a. Know them by their actions. Predators predate.
b. Don’t participate. In order for them to predate, they need minions.
Don’t be a minion. Instead…
c. Be the giver, the creator and the constructor of things that are of no use to
predators
It’s not the soldiers but the contractors who live in dumpy overpriced
holes like Northern Virginia.
As to your acquaintance, my godfather was in the CIA in the 60’s and a
bit into the 70’s, and he might not say Congress as much as the
President’s Chief of Staff as threat they choose what the President sees.
You have to remember it’s primarily an organization of boring paper
pushers looking to get promoted which requires political patronage. Imagine getting the
Canada desk. You’ll be at a dead end unless you paint it as a grave
threat. Then there is information overload and just the sheer size of the US. They would file
reports, he mentioned an incident in Africa in the wake of decolonization when y godfather
was stationed there that maybe warranted the President’s attention, but to
get information to the President’s CoS took so long, it was in the
President’s daily newspaper before the report could be handled. By then,
why care, given the size of the US? Who can get to the Chief of Staff? Congress, so everyone
else lobbies them. The CIA director is an appendage of the CoS.
When the President wants something, everyone jumps, but when the President
doesn’t care, everyone is jockeying get for patronage.
The war machine is sustained by plutocrats and their sociopathic flunkies in the national
security state. How this works is clearly depicted in “The
Devil’s Chessboard,†by David Talbot, a deeply depressing
chronicle of how Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles did the dirty work of US
corporations worldwide. The arrogance, impunity, and irresponsibility of these men
established the framework of our secret government, which remains intact to this day.
It would be pleasant to believe that this evil persists because of public ignorance, but
like the good Germans of the Nazi era, Americans accept that deception, torture, and murder
are routinely practiced on our behalf to maintain our high standard of living and to keep us
“safe.†The reverence for the operatives of the US national
security state is evident throughout our popular culture, and that is a damning judgment on
the American people.
Of course the core problems are stationed at the place hardest to get to: right between
our ears. This complicity disease runs deep and wide.
While I often succumb to that same despondency you mentioned, occasionally I interrupt the
doom tape to notice that there’s a lot of people who are paddling hard
toward a new ethos…like the posters here @ NC, for ex.
So today I’m going to indulge in a little happiness. Plant a tree. Do
something good, something durable, something hopeful.
Something that offers no real hope of rent extraction potential.
It was nice being accused of supporting the terrorists because I supported the rule of
law and human rights, not to mention the United States Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.
WTF do some people think that the Founders wanted an extremely small army, a large
organized militia, and passed the Bill of Rights? It was a reaction to what the British Army
did to them (using much of the same tactics as the current
“justice†system does today.) The ignorance and lack of
thinking is really annoying.
Much of what the British military did was not good. Even now some of it would not be
allowed in a court of law, but I do not recall them being nearly as violent, brutal, or
deadly in their tactics while enforcing the King’s Law as the current
regime or the local police are. That the milder British tactics caused a civil war with in a
decade, and that the people then had less to fear from an occupying army as we do from
“our†police is disturbing to think on.
But wars always come home, don’t they? Faux toughness on the supposed
baddies here with claims of treason and insurrections on protests and riots now that often
would hardly be in the news fifty years ago, so great was the protests and riots happening
then. The cry to use the same tactics that did not work overseas to be used here at home.
“To keep us safe.â€
There’s truth to this, but once the war was really on, British and
Tory/Loyalist brutality had decisive effects on public opinion, putting lots of people into
the Whig/Patriot camp. Tom Paine makes great efforts to publicize British sexual assaults,
looting, and general thugishness as they chase the Continental Army across New Jersey in
1776; the cruelty of backcountry British cavalry officers and Tory rangers in the Carolinas
was legendary as the war reaches its latter phases.
And there was brutality on the other side, too, especially for Loyalist elites who faced a
kind of “social death.†It was a war, after all, as well as a
social revolution. It wasn’t France in 1789 or Russia in 1917, but it was
rough, especially given the small population size.
Except as Engelhardt just pointed out, the national security state does not
“maintain our high standard of livingâ€.
It’s an immense net drain on our standard of living. The only Americans
made well-to-do or wealthy by it are those who are directly involved in supplying contract
goods and services to the system.
I don’t know if Americans “accept†it as
opposed to taking a dim view of being able to affect change.
The levers the average person has to change the behavior of the state is infinitesimal.
Add to that the scope of action and Overton window mediated by the hypernormalized press
ecosystem just means those in power get to act without restraint.
Hell, Obama literally said “We tortured some
folks†and the media and government barely shrugged. To my knowledge, no one went
to jail, no one was brought up in the Hague, and some of the same ghouls that perpetrated
such crimes got cushy commenter jobs in the media.
Right now, localities can’t even keep their police from regularly
killing citizens.
What does the average person do in the face of such things?
Hell, Obama literally said “We tortured some folks†and
the media and government barely shrugged. To my knowledge, no one went to jail, no one was
brought up in the Hague, and some of the same ghouls that perpetrated such crimes got cushy
commenter jobs in the media.
No one went to jail. Certainly no one went before the Hague. No bankers went to jail
either. Even during the nutty Reagan administration, people went to jail for financial
shenanigans. Some got long sentences. Hell, the Iran-Contra stuff was at least covered and
people were indicted, even if they all got pardoned. Not anymore. These shenanigans are the
norm and happen right out in the open. I’d imagine some of
it’s been given legal cover. It seems like it’s become
the expected behavior within these circles. To act otherwise â€" to attempt to be
honest, in other words â€" is seen as weak and is mocked as fiercely as a weaker
child on the playground might be.
It’s just a continuing regression. And as you note,
it’s an excellent career builder:
“Looking for a job in mainstream media? Research has shown that
reducing your sense of ethics and morality actually helps you get ahead.â€
Doubtless, Ms. Smith and Ms. Engelhardt have provided a key public service here. And I
speak as a veteran, decorated for service in the War Over Oil (a.k.a. the
“Persian Gulf Warâ€).
Between the vast economic inequality currently raging in our country, the social
stratification enabled by access to colleges and universities accepted as
“eliteâ€, the trashing of Constitutional protections (e.g. the
4th Amendment, now thoroughly eviscerated owing to the “PATRIOT
ACTâ€), and the rampaging rule by “intelligence
agencies†over foreign policy, I see no reason why any father should tell his
children that this is a country worth fighting and dying for. [Think: China] Of course, the
Empire â€" just as Rome did in its dying days â€" will be able to find
enough desperately poor who will take the king’s shilling and don the
uniform.
If anyone wishes to prove me wrong, let them work for a substantive
“peace dividend†for a 2-3 years. Then we can sit down and
talk; I’ll buy the ale.
In these years, one key to so much of this is the fact that, as the Vietnam War began
winding down in 1973, the draft was ended and war itself became a
“voluntary†activity for Americans. In other words, it became
ever easier not only to not protest American war-making, but to pay no attention to it or to
the changing military that went with it. And that military was indeed altering and growing in
remarkable ways.
Because, imo,
Since the Vietnam War, which roiled the politics of this nation and was protested in the
streets of this country by an antiwar movement that came to include significant numbers of
active-duty soldiers and veterans, war has played a remarkably recessive role in American
life.
Despite having already ‘pledged’ at my Uncles
Invitation, with the Draft’s End, I had great hope my future would see the
great Peace Dividand rather than 9 more Opportunity Conflicts.
Little did that then 21 year old see the brilliance in that Pentagon Strategy.
I Now firmly support a No Exemption Draft for all post HS.
Military Service being only one, and a restricted one, of many counter-balancing options
available for Public Service for that cohort.
This article reminded me of one of the best Congressional Research Service reports that
I’ve read: Instances of Use of United States
Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2020 . Despite being just a list of dates and locations with a
brief description, it comes in at around 50 pages, which I think is a testament to how
important foreign military engagement has been to the growth of the US even before 1945.
Between these foreign wars and the genocidal war against the indigenous people of the
continent I think it’s fair to say this country has been at war since its
founding.
Correct. Even the so called Louisiana Purchase was not really a purchase of land, but a
faux “option†to engage in land treaties with the native
Americans;.the US chose Indian Wars and relocation treaties that have been violated
repeatedly. (This territory is now known as the Red States.)
The rest of the land extending to the west coast was acquired through conquest with the
new nation of Mexico. I guess the only real honest acquisition would be
Seward’s Icebox.
>>I guess the only real honest acquisition would be Seward’s
Icebox.
Alaska has only been inhabited for a few tens of thousands of years. I would think that
the natives should have some say about who “owns†the land
even though the Russian Empire did say that they did. The reasons sometimes included the use
of guns. As for stealing Mexico’s territory, again that was, and in some
areas still is, inhabited by natives who somehow became under the
“governance†of New Spain or the country of Mexico despite not
being asked about it and often still a majority part of the population in many areas when
Mexico lost control.
Often, Europeans or Americans would show up somewhere, plant a flag, and say that they
claimed or owned the very inhabited land, sometimes with farms and even entire cities. Rather
arrogant, I would say.
I agree. Seward’s Icebox was not empty at time of sale. My
understanding is that Seward thought it was. So faraway, so cold; no one would be living
there, right?
As I’ve commented here many times, it was small pox not small bullets
that allowed the Old World to take the New. There were estimates of 20 million native
Americans living on the land now known as Mexico and the US. 90% were felled by Old World
disease before Custer lost his scalp to the northern Plains Indians. In a fair fight the
Indians would be enforcing the treaties.
It is amazing how the US continues to engage in war and still lose: Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Iraq. . .Ukraine?
For nearly a decade now every time I’ve read about the war in
Afghanistan I’ve thought about Tim Kreider’s mordant
2011 cartoon We
Could’ve Had The Moon, Instead We Get Afghanistan . Ten years later,
that $432 billion has ballooned to $2.3 trillion (and more) and every word he wrote still
stands. :-(
The author has retired from cartooning and now focuses on essay writing.
We are going to have to halt the production lines.
The warehouses are full of bombs already, there is no more room.
Biden to the rescue; he’s started dropping bombs already.
When you have a large defence industry, you need war.
The only purpose is to use up the output from the defence industry.
“The dislike of government spending, whether on public investment
or consumption, is overcome by concentrating government expenditure on
armamentsâ€
“Large-scale armaments are inseparable from the expansion of the
armed forces and the preparation of plans for a war of conquest. They also induce competitive
rearmament of other countries.â€
These were the lessons they learnt from the 1930s.
So now, here we are. And how do we create a peaceful world? Refit the US military for a
sustainable world. It will prove to be very useful. We and other advanced nations still have
the advantage for prosperity but we should not abuse it. The whole idea back in 1945 was for
the world to prosper. So I’ll just suggest my usual hack: Get rid of the
profit motive. It’s pure mercantilism. And totally self defeating in a
world seeking sustainability for everyone.
The Manhattan Project was an enormously expensive enterprise with two components
â€" the development of a uranium bomb (Oak Ridge) and a plutonium bomb (Hanford,
WA).
If no bomb had been used, the project would have been considered a waste of time, and
there would have been a congressional investigation. If only one bomb had been used, half the
cost would have been considered a waste.
I’m not saying these were the only reasons for dropping the bombs. The
event was, as they say, “overdetermined.â€
Few people, apart from specialists, may have heard of the JCPOA Joint Commission.
That’s the group in charge of a Sisyphean task: the attempt to revive the
2015 Iran nuclear deal through a series of negotiations in Vienna.
The Iranian negotiating team was back in Vienna yesterday, led by Deputy Foreign Minister
Seyed Abbas Araghchi. Shadowplay starts with the fact the Iranians negotiate with the other
members of the P+1 â€" Russia, China, France, UK and Germany â€" but not
directly with the US.
That’s quite something: after all, it was the Trump administration that
blew up the JCPOA. There is an American delegation in Vienna, but they only talk with the
Europeans.
Shadowplay goes turbo when every Viennese coffee table knows about
Tehran’s red lines: either it’s back to the original
JCPOA as it was agreed in Vienna in 2015 and then ratified by the UN Security Council, or
nothing.
Araghchi, mild-mannered and polite, has had to go on the record once again to stress that
Tehran will leave if the talks veer towards “bullyingâ€, time
wasting or even a
step-by-step ballroom dance, which is time wasting under different terminology.
Neither flat out optimistic nor pessimistic, he remains, let’s say,
cautiously upbeat, at least in public: “We are not disappointed and we will
do our job. Our positions are very clear and firm. The sanctions must be lifted, verified and
then Iran must return to its commitments.â€
So, at least in the thesis, the debate is still on. Araghchi: “There are
two types of U.S. sanctions against Iran. First, categorized or so-called divisional sanctions,
such as oil, banking and insurance, shipping, petrochemical, building and automobile sanctions,
and second, sanctions against real and legal individuals.â€
“Second†is the key issue. There’s
absolutely no guarantee the US Congress will lift most or at least a significant part of these
sanctions.
Everyone in Washington knows it â€" and the American delegation knows it.
When the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, for instance, says that 60% or 70% has been agreed
upon, that’s code for lifting of divisional sanctions. When it comes to
“secondâ€, Araghchi has to be evasive: “There
are complex issues in this area that we are examiningâ€.
Now compare it with the assessment of informed Iranian insiders in Washington such as
nuclear policy expert
Seyed Hossein Mousavian : they’re more like pessimistic realists.
That takes into consideration the non-negotiable red lines established by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei himself. Plus non-stop pressure by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are
all JCPOA-adverse.
But then there’s extra shadowplay. Israeli intel has already notified the
security cabinet that a deal most certainly will be reached in Vienna. After all, the narrative
of a successful deal is already being constructed as a foreign policy victory by the
Biden-Harris administration â€" or, as cynics prefer, Obama-Biden 3.0.
Meanwhile, Iranian diplomacy remains on overdrive. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is visiting
Qatar and Iraq, and has
already met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim al Thani.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, virtually at the end of his term before the June
presidential elections, always goes back to the same point: no more US sanctions;
Iran’s verification; then Iran will return to its
“nuclear obligationsâ€.
The Foreign Ministry has even released a quite detailed fact sheet once again
stressing the need to remove “all sanctions imposed, re-imposed and
re-labeled since January 20, 2017â€.
The window of opportunity for a deal won’t last long. Hardliners in
Tehran couldn’t care less. At least 80% of Tehran members of Parliament are
now hardliners. The next President most certainly will be a hardliner. Team
Rouhani’s efforts have been branded a failure since the onset of
Trump’s “maximum pressure†campaign.
Hardliners are already in post-JCPOA mode.
That fateful Fateh
What none of the actors in the shadowplay can admit is that the revival of the JCPOA pales
compared to the real issue: the power of Iranian missiles.
In the original 2015 negotiations in Vienna â€" follow them in my Persian
Miniatures e-book â€" Obama-Biden 2.0 did everything in their power to include
missiles in the deal.
Every grain of sand in the Negev desert knows that Israel will go no holds barred to retain
its nuclear weapon primacy in the Middle East. Via a spectacular kabuki, the fact that Israel
is a nuclear power happens to remain “invisible†to most of
world public opinion.
While Khamenei has issued a fatwa clearly stating that producing, stockpiling and using
weapons of mass destruction â€" nuclear included â€" is haram (banned by
Islam), Israel’s leadership feels free to order stunts such as the sabotage
via Mossad of the (civilian) Iranian nuclear complex at Natanz.
The head of Iran’s Parliament Energy Committee, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani,
even accused Washington and London of being accomplices to the sabotage of Natanz, as they
arguably supplied intel to Tel Aviv.
Yet now a lone missile is literally exploding a great deal of the shadowplay.
On April 22, in the dead of night before dawn, a Syrian missile exploded only 30 km away
from the ultra-sensitive Israeli nuclear reactor of Dimona. The official â€" and
insistent â€" Israeli spin: this was an “errantâ€.
Well, not really.
Here â€" third video from the top
â€" is footage of the quite significant explosion. Also significantly, Tel Aviv
remained absolutely mum when it comes to offering a missile proof of ID. Was it an old Soviet
1967 SA-5? Or, rather more likely, a 2012 Iranian Fateh-110 short range surface-to-surface,
manufactured in Syria as the M-600 , and also possessed by Hezbollah?
A Fateh family tree can be seen in the attached chart. The inestimable Elijah Magnier has
posed some very
good questions about the Dimona near-hit. I complemented it with a quite enlightening
discussion with physicists, with input by a military intel expert.
The Fateh-110 operates as a classic ballistic missile, until the moment the warhead starts
maneuvering to evade ABM defenses. Precision is up to 10 meters, nominally 6 meters. So it hit
exactly where it was supposed to hit. Israel officially confirmed that the missile was not
intercepted â€" after a trajectory of roughly 266 km.
This opens a brand new can of worms. It implies that the performance of the much hyped and
recently
upgraded Iron Dome is far from stellar â€" and talk about an euphemism. The
Fateh flew so low that Iron Dome could not identify it.
The inevitable conclusion is this was a message/warning combo. From Damascus. With a
personal stamp from Bashar al-Assad, who had to clear such a sensitive missile launch. A
message/warning delivered via Iranian missile technology fully available to the Axis of
Resistance â€" proving that regional actors have serious stealth capability.
It’s crucial to remember that when Tehran dispatched a volley of
deliberately older Fateh-313 versions at the US base Ayn al-Assad in Iraq, as a response to the
assassination of Gen Soleimani in January 2020, the American radars went blank.
Iranian missile technology as top strategic deterrence. Now that’s the
shadowplay that turns Vienna into a sideshow.
Biden is privatising the war in Afghanistan. 18,000 private contractors will stay behind
to maintain a landing area for U.S. aircraft should the need arise. According to war monger
Lynn Cheney the "troops will never leave". The U.S. National Guard has been fighting
undeclared wars all over the ME for twenty years and legislation is being proposed at the
state level to end the abuse. I personally know one man who has done three tours in Iraq as a
National Guardsman.
I totally agree with your comments concerning the U.S. government here at home. It is
Bolshevism 2.0.
"... we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents. ..."
"... We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those judgments ..."
"... Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide. ..."
"... You say that Russia thought to manipulate Trump allies and to smear Biden , that Russia and Iran aimed to sway the 2020 election through covert campaigns and that China runs covert operations to influence members of Congress . ..."
"... Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately no soldier got hurt by those rumors. ..."
"... Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things. ..."
"... They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries. ..."
"... Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET. ..."
"... We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments. * ..."
These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is
spilling over the world:
Dear Director of National Intelligence,
we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are
increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our
opponents.
We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful
activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe
to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those
judgments
Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide.
Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China
and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately
no soldier got
hurt by those rumors.
Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They
want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things.
They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own
countries.
Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep
telling our that all of it is SECRET.
We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments.
*
Sincerely
The Generals
---- PS: * Either that or shut the fuck up.
The above may well have been a draft for the letter behind
this report :
America’s top spies say they are looking for ways to declassify and
release more intelligence about adversaries’ bad behavior, after a group
of four-star military commanders sent a rare and urgent plea asking for help in the
information war against Russia and China.
The internal memo from nine regional military commanders last year, which was reviewed by
POLITICO and not made public, implored spy agencies to provide more evidence to combat
"pernicious conduct."
Only by "waging the truth in the public domain against America’s 21st
century challengers†can Washington shore up support from American allies, they
said. But efforts to compete in the battle of ideas, they added, are hamstrung by overly
stringent secrecy practices.
“We request this help to better enable the US, and by extension its
allies and partners, to win without fighting, to fight now in so-called gray zones, and to
supply ammunition in the ongoing war of narratives," the commanders who oversee U.S. military
forces in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America, as well as special operations troops, wrote to
then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire last January.
“Unfortunately, we continue to miss opportunities to clarify truth,
counter distortions, puncture false narratives, and influence events in time to make a
difference," they added.
The generals must have been seriously miffed to write such a letter. There have been a
number of published intelligence judgments where the NSA had expressed
low confidence in conclusions made mainly by the CIA. The NSA is part of the military.
Between two bureaucracies such an accusing letter or internal memo is the equivalent of a
declaration of war. It is doubtful that the intelligence folks would win that fight.
That gives some hope that the Office of the DNI and the agencies below it will now lessen
their production of nonsensical claims.
Posted by b on April 28, 2021 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink
Thanks for that b....is it rubber meets the road time?
I just read that the US is getting all its ambassadorial folk out of Afghanistan....maybe
somebody is believing May 1 is a firmer deadline than the Biden 9/11 myth.
The shit show is about to crash, IMO, but if it is in slow motion, this crazy could go on
for a while....what geo-political straw will break the camel's back?
Lewis Black, a pretty good US comedian, used to have a bit in the mid-2000's where he would
ask the W administration flacks why they didn't just make up evidence about the Iraq WMDs
after they "found out" that there were no weapons in the country. Black would tell them just
make it up; we're used to it. Just give us an excuse to believe in the BS for God's sake;
we'll do it!
I feel it's the same with our satrap nations around the world. At this time, is there
anyone who does not understand that US foreign policy is conducted for and by MICIMATT (look
it up)? So the generals have got nothing to worry about: keep pounding out that BS; there's a
willing, able, and ready corps of salesmen and women in the media who will make enough of the
public believe it for "democracy's" purposes.
General Mackenzie who testified before the US House Armed Services Committee said
Iran’s widespread use of drones means that the US is operating without
complete air superiority for the first time since the Korean War.
Iran has time and again stated that its military capabilities are merely defensive and are
designed to deter foreign threats.
General Flynn had been head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (military).
The CIA was out to get him. It took a while but they eventually hamstrung him good.
"Dear Generals, who haven't won a war in 75 years, so much for the DIA huh? We'd love to
share our intelligence with you, our evidence showing the overwhelming and egregious misdeeds
of our hateful, spiteful disgusting enemies, whose questioning of our Word should be met with
charges of treason, but to give you evidence on top of our own unquestionable and 100%
correct threat estimations, would compromise our Intelligence Gathering Methods which are of
the strictest security and would threaten the ongoing ability of this Agency to gather and
disseminate the unquestionable facts that without fear of contradiction we know is the truth.
In short, dear Generals - work on winning a war, any war, and don't meddle in places that
befuddle your ability to follow orders. Hooah! The CIA."
Intel Wars: DIA, CIA and Flynn’s Battle to Consolidate Spying
The Defense Department wants in on the spying game. But will the CIA block their
efforts?
The CIA essentially absorbed the Pentagon’s only military-wide spying
agency seven years ago [2006]
when the Defense HUMINT Service was dismantled -- and now, the Pentagon wants it back.
The CIA is quietly pushing the Armed Services committees along, hoping that
Flynn’s DCS will be remembered by history as a failed power
grab.
The CIA/FBI/17+ known/unknown agencies are clearly a security apparatus that's gone out of
control when even the USA's "nine regional [four-star general] military commanders" are out
of the loop and pleading to be better informed. Worryingly, though, they ask for "ammunition
in the ongoing war of narratives," which they apparently are ready to go right along
with.
Western news media, of course, has become but a compliant weaponized appendage of that
security apparatus, and democracy, which depends on informed voters, is nowhere in control of
any of this.
I do not see how this is possible. Every major event, from Vietnam, to JFK, to 9-11, and a
myriad of others, had US lies baked into the cake. If the US ceased to lie, it would cease to
function as America functions today. It would be incapable of empire.
The US establishment, from the President on down, is based on lies. They cannot survive on
truth.
b ended his post with: " lessen their production of nonsensical claims."
"Nonsensical" misses the mark. They are *agenda-driven* claims.
I don't believe the Generals care one whit whether the spineless jellyfish pols
in other countries see through our lies. The Generals want the Pentagon to
have more participation in shaping the agenda and it's attendant narrative.
The military used to be that part pf the US government apparatus ("deep state") that
emphasized the value and importance of allies the most.
IMHO what is happening here is that the generals sense the imcreasing cracks in the
US-centered alliance system. They attribute it to the work of the intelligence community,
which is certainly a contributing factor, but thr real cause is the relative decline in US
power and general unreliability due to political instability. The USA is less and less
attractive as a partner. When the generals ask another country for a favour as they had been
used to for decades they increasingly often get just questions and excuses in return.
Is this a sign of a struggle between the CIA and Pentagon as to who is the boss of foreign
and war policy? Anybody remember when CIA supported jihadists were fighting Pentagon
supported groups (were they jihadists?) in Syria. Seems like the Pentagon is the one deciding
on relations with the Syrian Kurds, and not the CIA. Flynn was actively helping the Damascus
with info about the CIA backed jihadists.
I would rather have the Pentagon win as they are not all that hot-to-trot for actual wars.
The CIA should just go back to running US media, law makers, corporation and ruining civil
liberties.
Isn't it safe to assume that *anything* the CIA says publicly, either through direct
channels or their co-opted corporate media, is false? Cue the Mike Pimpeo quote: "We lied, we
cheated, we stole..." and of course the entire history of that useless agency, lol.
Yves here. This article confirms my prejudices about the importance of avoiding those spying home assistants at all costs. And
it takes a bit of effort to try to thwart financial institutions’ efforts to use your voiceprint as an ID (I tell them they need
to note any recording as invalid because I have my assistants get through the phone trees for me, and if they try taking a voiceprint,
it won’t be of the right voice. That seems to put them on tilt).
But the notion of using voice patterns to guess at health issues or psychological profiles or product reactions sounds like 21st
century phrenology. Although a lot of consultants will rake in a lot of dough selling these unproven schemes.
By Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries, University of Pennsylvania. Originally published
at
The Conversation
You decide to call a store that sells some hiking boots you’re thinking of buying. As you dial in, the computer of an artificial
intelligence company hired by the store is activated. It retrieves its analysis of the speaking style you used when you phoned other
companies the software firm services. The computer has concluded you are “friendly and talkative.†Using predictive routing,
it connects you to a customer service agent who company research has identified as being especially good at getting friendly and
talkative customers to buy more expensive versions of the goods they’re considering.
This hypothetical situation may sound as if it’s from some distant future. But automated voice-guided marketing activities like
this are happening all the time
.
If you hear “This call is being recorded for training and quality control,†it isn’t just the customer service representative
they’re monitoring.
It can be you, too.
When conducting research for my forthcoming book, “
The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In
to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet ,†I went through over 1,000 trade magazine and news articles on the
companies connected to various forms of voice profiling. I examined hundreds of pages of U.S. and EU laws applying to biometric surveillance.
I analyzed dozens of patents. And because so much about this industry is evolving, I spoke to 43 people who are working to shape
it.
It soon became clear to me that we’re in the early stages of a voice-profiling revolution that companies see as integral to
the future of marketing.
Thanks to the public’s embrace of smart speakers, intelligent car displays and voice-responsive phones â€" along with the rise
of voice intelligence in call centers â€" marketers say they are on the verge of being able to use AI-assisted vocal analysis technology
to achieve unprecedented insights into shoppers’ identities and inclinations. In doing so, they believe they’ll be able to circumvent
the errors and fraud associated with traditional targeted advertising.
Not only can people be profiled by their speech patterns, but they can also be assessed by the sound of their voices â€" which,
according to
some researchers , is unique and can reveal their feelings, personalities and even their physical characteristics.
Flaws in Targeted Advertising
Top marketing executives I interviewed said that they expect their customer interactions to include voice profiling within a decade
or so.
Part of what attracts them to this new technology is a belief that the current digital system of creating unique customer profiles
â€" and then targeting them with personalized messages, offers and ads â€"
has major drawbacks .
A simmering worry among internet advertisers,
one that burst into the open during the 2010s
, is that customer data often isn’t up to date, profiles may be based on multiple users of a device, names can be confused
and people lie.
Advertisers are also uneasy about
ad blocking
and click fraud , which happens when
a site or app uses bots or low-paid workers to click on ads placed there so that the advertisers have to pay up.
These are all barriers to understanding individual shoppers.
Voice analysis, on the other hand, is seen as a solution that makes it nearly impossible for people to hide their feelings or
evade their identities.
Building Out the Infrastructure
Most of the activity in voice profiling is happening in customer support centers, which are largely out of the public eye.
But there are also
hundreds of millions of Amazon Echoes, Google Nests and other smart speakers out there. Smartphones also contain such technology.
All are listening and capturing people’s individual voices. They respond to your requests. But the assistants are also tied
to advanced machine learning and deep neural network programs
that analyze
what you say and how you say it
Amazon and Google â€" the leading purveyors of smart speakers outside China â€" appear to be doing little voice analysis on those
devices beyond recognizing and responding to individual owners. Perhaps they fear that pushing the technology too far will, at this
point, lead to bad publicity.
Nevertheless, the user agreements of Amazon and Google â€" as well as Pandora, Bank of America and other companies that people
access routinely via phone apps â€" give them the right to use their digital assistants
to understand you by the way you sound
. Amazon’s most public application of voice profiling so far is its Halo wristband,
which claims to know the emotions you’re conveying when you talk to relatives, friends and employers.
The patents from these tech companies offer a vision of what’s coming.
In one Amazon patent , a device with the Alexa
assistant picks up a woman’s speech irregularities that imply a cold through using “an analysis of pitch, pulse, voicing, jittering,
and/or harmonicity of a user’s voice, as determined from processing the voice data.†From that conclusion, Alexa asks if the
woman wants a recipe for chicken soup. When she says no, it offers to sell her cough drops with one-hour delivery.
An Amazon patent depicts a device picking up a woman’s cough â€" and then asking if she wants a recipe for chicken soup.
Google Patents
Another Amazon patent suggests an app to help a store
salesperson decipher a shopper’s voice to plumb unconscious reactions to products. The contention is that how people sound allegedly
does a better job indicating what people like than their words.
And one of Google’s proprietary inventions
involves tracking family members in real time using special microphones placed throughout a home. Based on the pitch of voice
signatures, Google circuitry infers gender and age information â€" for example, one adult male and one female child â€" and tags
them as separate individuals.
The company’s patent asserts that over time the system’s “household policy manager†will be able to compare life patterns,
such as when and how long family members eat meals, how long the children watch television, and when electronic game devices are
working â€" and then have the system suggest better eating schedules for the kids, or offer to control their TV viewing and game
playing.
Seductive Surveillance
In the West, the road to this advertising future starts with firms encouraging users to give them permission to gather voice data.
Firms gain customers’ permission by enticing them to buy inexpensive voice technologies.
When tech companies have further developed voice analysis software â€" and people have become increasingly reliant on voice devices
â€" I expect the companies to begin widespread profiling and marketing based on voice data. Hewing to the letter if not the spirit
of whatever privacy laws exist, the companies will, I expect, forge ahead into their new incarnations, even if most of their users
joined before this new business model existed.
This
classic bait and switch marked the rise of both Google and Facebook . Only when the numbers of people flocking to these sites
became large enough to attract high-paying advertisers did their business models solidify around selling ads personalized to what
Google and Facebook knew about their users.
Here’s the catch: It’s not clear how accurate voice profiling is, especially when it comes to emotions.
It is true,
according to Carnegie Mellon voice recognition scholar Rita Singh , that the activity of your vocal nerves is connected to your
emotional state. However, Singh told me that she worries that with the easy availability of machine-learning packages, people with
limited skills will be tempted to run shoddy analyses of people’s voices, leading to conclusions that are as dubious as the methods.
She also argues that inferences that link physiology to emotions and forms of stress may be culturally biased and prone to error.
That concern hasn’t deterred marketers, who typically use voice profiling to draw conclusions about individuals’ emotions, attitudes
and personalities.
While some of these advances promise to
make life easier , it’s not difficult to see how voice technology can be abused and exploited. What if voice profiling tells
a prospective employer that you’re a bad risk for a job that you covet or desperately need? What if it tells a bank that you’re
a bad risk for a loan? What if a restaurant decides it won’t take your reservation because you sound low class, or too demanding?
Consider, too, the discrimination that can take place
if voice profilers
follow some scientists’ claims that it is possible to use an individual’s vocalizations to tell the person’s height, weight,
race, gender and health.
People are already subjected to different offers and opportunities based on the personal information companies have collected.
Voice profiling adds an especially insidious means of labeling. Today, some states such as Illinois and Texas
require
companies to ask for permission before conducting analysis of vocal, facial or other biometric features.
But other states expect people to be aware of the information that’s collected about them from the privacy policies or terms
of service â€" which
means they rarely will . And the federal government hasn’t enacted a sweeping marketing surveillance law.
With the looming widespread adoption of voice analysis technology, it’s important for government leaders to adopt policies and
regulations that protect the personal information revealed by the sound of a person’s voice.
One proposal: While the use of voice
authentication â€" or using a person’s voice to prove their identity â€" could be allowed under certain carefully regulated
circumstances, all voice profiling should be prohibited in marketers’ interactions with individuals. This prohibition should also
apply to political campaigns and to government activities without a warrant.
That seems like the best way to ensure that the coming era of voice profiling is constrained before it becomes too integrated
into daily life and too pervasive to control.
Very interesting. However, I want Fidelity to use voice printing when I call for banking services. I was impressed when they
implemented the technology, and I’m happy they’re using it to identify and prevent bad actors.
Very interesting. However, I want Fidelity to use voice printing when I call for banking services. I was impressed when they
implemented the technology, and I’m happy they’re using it to identify and prevent bad actors.
I was thinking of trying to acquire one of those gadgets you see in the crime-oriented moving picture shows that alters the
voice to sound deep and harsh. Use it to answer any call from an unknown number. Have a little fun freaking them out (momentarily)
while preventing voice profiling. I wonder if there’s an app for that by now…the Kermit setting could be fun too.
Looks like there are smartphone apps that will change your voice on a phone call. That could be useful. I don’t know if any
of them work well.
Ofc that can only help when the listening device is on the other end of a phone call. Not much use when, for example, conversing
in person with someone who has a phone that’s listening all the time.
There is an effect, the Eventide Harmonizer, that is sometimes used to alter voices (Darth Vader’s voice in Star Wars for
example). It’s an expensive audio device mostly used in recording studios, but nowadays I’m sure there is some app that can
do similar things.
“Don’t get on the ship! That book? It’s a….cookbook!!†Thanks for that; it’s a classic I’ll never forget.
It seems we’ve got weirder stuff now. For whatever reason, those automatic answering programs do not understand me. I’ve
found if you get scrappy with them (such as Joseph K suggests babbling some nonsense) they throw up their robotic hands and they
get you to a person.
Someone once advised me to shut up through the whole menu thing and they get you to a human. But many companies are on to this.
Unfortunately. You may want to stick with insane babbling.
Yes, silence used to work. Now, sounding like a) a ferinner, b) an oldster without dentures c) someone with special needs,
or any other demographic AI can’t handle yet, means that regrettably the human of last resort is going to have to be tasked,
and paid. So far, mixing up “aeuieueooeiueoueuoiueuiahh!†with “aeuieuueiahh!†and ““uoiueuiahh!†etc works. So
far. Next may have to be Darth Vader voice.
Not so long ago, most people would be outraged if they discovered someone had planted eavesdropping devices in their home.
Now some tech. co’s have persuaded people to pay to “bug†themselves!
I have to (grudgingly) admit that’s an amazing bit of marketing/salesmanship.
A few times over recent years, I’d been prompted by computerized voices to speak slowly and answer prompts such as “What
is your destination?â€. Even simple prompts had me suspicious as in “Say yes to confirm or no if you would like something elseâ€.
In a previous life as an audio engineer, I knew they could analyze the wave form and deduce many things. So, I would gargle, yodel,
or sing falsetto my response. I have never put financial or personal information on line and wasn’t about to through audio.
At this point, I use a Harmon or cup mute to speak to institutions via the phone.
This sentence from the article gave me a laugh: “it’s important for government leaders to adopt policies and regulations
that protect the personal information…..â€. No, I think most of us are so enamoured by the new, shiny toys that we have lost
our way and have nowhere to turn. My latest bumper sticker idea: “Eschew Convenienceâ€.
The problem is, that the companies that have developed these voice-profiling and facial recognition are probably talking to
interested parties in the Department of Homeland Security, and it is probably matter of time before the TSA adopts facial recognition
and voice scanning as a requirement of flight boarding much like they did with bodyscanners.
I doubt any degree of protest or backlash would be able to change Washington’s mind.
> Amazon ’s most public application of voice profiling so far is its Halo wristband, which claims to know the emotions
you’re conveying when you talk to relatives, friends and employers.
The company assures customers it doesn’t use Halo data for its own purposes . But it’s clearly a proof of concept
â€" and a nod toward the future.
Amazon “spokespeople†are lying sacks of shit. Not one word they say has an iota of truth.
Know what else this portends? Moar power sucking data centers to store all the gibberish Amazon, Googlag and the rest of the
digital creeps collect. And because they use so much electricity they get it super cheap instead of being charged triple retail
to discourage the gargantuan waste. All to sell you moar garbage that you don’t need. What a waste of a STEM education. That’s
what so called “data scientists†signed up for?
I’m glad I have no children to suffer in the digital hellhole being built by these creeps.
Naturally I wonder if smart phones and their various apps don’t already do this, not to mention desk and lap tops; all of
which are equipped with mikes. And of course Ma Bell and Verizon and on and on get our voices all the time. What are the laws
that protect the user from those behemoths? Are what ever is left of privacy laws strong enough to dampen the enthusiasm of companies
like Google or Amazon who seem to consider laws like taxes; quaint vestiges of once upon a time nation states?
yes to this
they’ll do whatever they can’t be actively prevented from doing. If it’s illegal they call it data research then start lobbying
congress to write laws to accommodate what ever grift they can mine from the mountain of said data. No need for facial recognition,
the camera on your phone has given them a detailed three dimensional you, your location, your habits, and if you like brunettes.
I still think back to when the somehow I think it was the nsa revealed googles offshore data shenanigans and am sure google was
all “hey, we would have given you all that data! why did you tell everyone we’re collecting it! And now bezos is consulting
the pentagon. At this point I truly feel the only thing that could stop the path we’re on is a massive economic crash due to
an unexpected event, hurricanes, earthquake or a pandemic that kills lots more people than covid.
I’m racing to get a draft manuscript of The Economic Consequences of
the Pandemic , not helped by the fact that Biden keeps doing pretty much what I think he
should do. More of the fold. Comments greatly appreciated, as always.
Like Keynes’ Londoner in the aftermath of the Great War, we are emerging
from the pandemic into a world where the certitudes of the past have crumbled into dust.
Balanced budgets, free trade, credit ratings, financial markets, above all free markets; these
ideas have ceased to command any belief.
The failure of these ideas evident since the GFC and, in many respects, since the beginning
of the 21st century. It have sunk in gradually as the neoliberal political class formed in the
1980s and 1990s has passed from the scene, replaced by younger people whose experience of
financialised capitalism is almost entirely negative.
But it is only with the shock of the pandemic that the thinking of the past has completely
lost its grip on the great majority. The absence of any serious resistance to
Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure package reflects the fact that hardly
anyone seriously believes the old verities of balanced budgets and free markets
Yet the fundamental realities of economic life remain unchanged. We can collectively consume
or invest what we produce, nothing more and nothing less. And our productive capacity is
constrained by resources and technology, as it always has been. One way or another we need to
decide what goods and services will be produced and who will get to consume them.
What has changed is that the economic system we have used to allocate resources and
investments for the last forty years is no longer fit for purpose. Financial markets are not
repositories of wisdom and market discipline; rather they are, in Keynes words, gambling houses
where ‘enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of
speculation.’ And as Keynes said ‘When the capital
development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely
to be ill-done.’.
Unsurprisingly, the casino economy has delivered huge gains for a small number of winners,
and losses for everyone else, certainly when compared to the broadly shared gains of the mid
20th century. But contrary to the claims of trickle-down advocates, these massive rewards have
not generated increases in productivity. Profits are obtained, not by making a better product
at lower cost, but by securing and holding a monopoly position.
How should we respond? The answer must be a combination of past, present and future. First,
we need to look at the institutions of the 20th century Golden Age, and ask which can be
revived and refurbished to address our current problems. Second, we must consider what elements
of the neoliberal era are worth saving. Finally we must consider our future options in a world
unlike anything that has come before.
The first step must be to look back at the institutions of the postwar Golden Age. Not all
of these will turn out to be useful in our current situation, and some were inappropriate even
at the time they operated. Nevertheless, taken all in all, the mixed economy of the mid-20th
century worked much better than the system of financialised capitalism that prevailed in the
era of neoliberalism.
Most of the policy program announced by the Biden Administration can be understood as a
return to Golden Age policies wound back or abandoned in the neoliberal era. Examples include
explicit support for unions, investment in physical infrastructure, partial repeal of the 2017
tax cuts, and free community college.
Unions, progressive taxes, expanding education â€" the case for all of these is
as strong or stronger as it was in the aftermath of the Great Wars. Similarly, the need for
public investment in physical infrastructure, after years of neglect, is evident.
Biden’s measures so far are steps in the right direction, but much more
remains to be done.
The innovations of the neoliberal era have mostly been negative. But there have been some
positive developments. The movement towards racial and gender equality, which began in the
1960s continued, if slowly and with occasional reversals, through the neoliberal area. And some
more specifically neoliberal policy innovations such as the earned income credit and emissions
taxes have been value. Similarly, while most financial innovations have been harmful, there
have been exceptions such as the rise of venture capital.
Looking to the future, the shift from an industrial to an information economy requires
fundamentally new approaches to economics. We are still at the beginning of understanding what
is needed here; but it is already obvious that the combination of financialized capitalism and
Big Tech is not working out well as a solution.
GM and Google
The archetypal product of the 20th century industrial economy was the motor car, the
archetypal technology was the production line and the archetypal firm was General Motors. Each
car that rolled off GM’s production line embodied a set of physical and
labour inputs; steel for the body, parts supplied by a network of subcontractors, the work of a
large body of skilled and semi-skilled workers. Dealers and finance providers distributed the
cars to buyers, who then owned and uses the products. Our thinking about how an economy works
still reflects this model.
A 20th century firm like General Motors can easily be understood in terms of the economic
categories of mainstream classical and neoclassical economists, beginning with Adam Smith. The
whole apparatus of national accounting, reflected in concepts like GDP, was developed to deal
with such firms.
But consider a firm like Google. Google doesn’t produce a physical good1;
it doesn’t even generate the information that is at the core of its
business. Rather, it indexes the information generated by others, with or without their
permission, then allows users to search those indexes, with advertising attached.
Google
doesn’t fit at all comfortably into the categories of traditional economics.
Its output can’t be measured in quantitative terms, nor is there any obvious
price attached to it. This hasn’t stopped Google making massive profits, or
attaining a stratospheric market valuation. On the other hand, it is far from obvious that this
is the best way of making the information resources of the Internet available to everyone.
1 Except for a relatively modest business producing tablet computers that run
Google’s Chrome operating system.
“Its output can’t be measured in quantitative terms,
nor is there any obvious price attached to it.â€
This connects with this:
“The whole apparatus of national accounting, reflected in concepts like
GDP,â€
At which point we’ve a certain problem using measures like GDP to
discuss the success and or failure of neoliberalism or even financialised capitalism. Because
we’re already insisting that the archetypal firms of the neoliberal era
aren’t well measured by GDP.
So insistences that growth was faster back in that Golden Age and so on become a little
more difficult. So too insistences that living standards rose faster and all that.
We also end up with difficulties over something like this:
“Unsurprisingly, the casino economy has delivered huge gains for a
small number of winners, and losses for everyone else, certainly when compared to the broadly
shared gains of the mid 20th century. But contrary to the claims of trickle-down advocates,
these massive rewards have not generated increases in productivity. Profits are obtained, not
by making a better product at lower cost, but by securing and holding a monopoly
position.â€
OK, Facebook, monopoly and all that. But increases in productivity? WhatsApp. You can talk
to 1 billion people for free. OK, people might not say very much but still.
There’s nothing of this in GDP â€" there’s
no fee nor even advertising. Last time I asked Facebook about this they said
“couple of hundred engineers†work on this. So,
we’ve the costs of a couple of hundred engineers â€" $100
million including stock awards and office space? â€" in the national accounts.
We’ve no corresponding output. This is a reduction in productivity.
But we’ve 1 billion people getting telecoms for free and this is a
reduction in productivity?
Precisely because you’re saying that GDP doesn;t measure all this new
economy stuff well it becomes very difficult to insist that this new economy stuff hasn;t
worked well if the measure is going to be GDP…..
That’s a problem with posting extracts. I’m well
aware of these points and will deal with them. No time to respond in detail now, as I need to
submit ASAP.
J-D 05.01.21 at 11:15 pm (no link)
Its output can’t be measured in quantitative terms, nor is there any
obvious price attached to it.
So from this point of view Google’s product is already priced in the
price of the stuff that is sold after being advertised through Google (directly or
indirectly).
The people who pay money to Google are the advertisers. What they are paying Google for is
advertising space. So Google’s product is advertising space. They create
advertising space and sell it. Advertising space generally has a price. It is the price paid
by advertisers to whomever it is that provides the advertisers with the advertising space.
That’s not something new. It works for Google the same way it works, for
example, for commercial free-to-air television and radio broadcasters. Their viewers and
listeners are not the people who pay them for their product (just as Google users are not the
people who pay Google); the advertisers are the people who pay them, and they pay them for
the use of the advertising space which they have produced.
likbez 05.02.21 at 3:45 am (no link)
@J-D 05.01.21 at 11:15 pm (5)
So Google’s product is advertising space.
No only. Google was/is an integral part of PRISM. So mass surveillance is probably another
major product and like Facebook it has several “facesâ€. With
one is being a government sponsored surveillance company with Gmail and Android as the major
franchises.
Any site that have Google advertisement can be considered as monitored by Google as Google
essentially replicates Web logs via its advertising inserts. In this sense Google is an
essential part of NSA.
They now try to diversify and get some foothold in the cloud but that’s
also fit surveillance company profile.
All is all the old question “Is Google evil?†is an
interesting one. IMHO it needs to be split into several companies.
"... All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court. ..."
"... Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud! ..."
"... Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end ..."
The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens...
The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978 (FISA).
If you
sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered
for the FBI "Citizens Academy" program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.
But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding
judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans'
constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations
that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet
officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches,
authorizing the FBI "to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S.
person target's home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office, vehicles,
computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails."
In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration's pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by
enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication,
a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court
slammed the FBI for abusing that
database with warrantless searches that violated Americans' rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal
Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct
thousands of illegal searches on Americans' personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
declared that
an Inspector General report on the abusive searches "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act." FBI
chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new
Office of Integrity and Compliance
as "another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law."
Be still my beating heart!
The FBI's promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through
the personal data it received from NSA. Monday's disclosure "a delayed release of a report by the court last November "revealed
that the FBI has conducted
warrantless searches of the data trove for "domestic terrorism," "public corruption and bribery," "health care fraud,"
and other targets "including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman
wrote
in the Daily Beast , "The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine
criminal investigations." That type of search "potentially jeopardizes an accused person's ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried
material "˜was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,' but such usage at trial has happened before," Ackerman noted. Some illicit
FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the
New York Times reported ,
an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search "using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them
had connections to an investigation."
In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented "apparent widespread violations" of the legal restrictions for FBI searches.
Regardless,
Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: "The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI's] procedures meet
statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements." "Willing to again conclude" sounds better than "close enough for constitutional."
At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps
worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately,
the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing "a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law.
Consider Boasberg's recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector
General reported that the FBI made "fundamental
errors " and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The
I.G. report said the FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a "well-developed conspiracy" between Russians
and the Trump campaign even though it was "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page"
in that dossier, which was later debunked.
A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy
on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal
editorial noted , Clinesmith "changed an
email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words "˜not a source'
before he forwarded it." A federal prosecutor declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action.
But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy,
noting that Clinesmith
"went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane"¦ Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in
government service"what has given his life much of its meaning." Scorning the federal prosecutor's recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist
slap"400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding
with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing
matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should
remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been
craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded
upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed
requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have "slowed
such investigations drastically," the
Washington Post reported
. So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.
The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don't occur to pretending that violations don't matter. Practically
the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy . But if a sweeping
new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court
rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans
were "relevant" to a terrorism
investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later
denounced by a federal judge as "almost Orwellian." FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates
a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.
The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists
who doubted Biden's election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law
is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA's technicalities. Will FBI
agents conducting warrantless searches rely on
the same
harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: "someone searching the web for suspicious stuff"? Unfortunately, unless
an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI
abuses
ebworthen 39 minutes ago
"You want to harass a political opponent? Sure, we can do that...
JaxPavan 42 minutes ago
All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to
send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch
write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court.
Joe Bribem 32 minutes ago
It's almost like we did this to Trump. But it'll never come to light. Oops it did. Not that anything will happen to us because
we own the corrupt DOJ and FBI.
Obama's own personal private army.
You_Cant_Quit_Me 7 minutes ago
A lot of tips come in from overseas. For example, the US spies on citizens of another country and then sends that country tips,
in exchange that country does the same by spying on US citizens and sending the FBI tips. Then it starts, "we are just
following up on a tip"
wee-weed up 36 minutes ago (Edited)
Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud!
You_Cant_Quit_Me 37 minutes ago
Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and
someone wanting get off their lazy rear end
takeaction 58 minutes ago (Edited)
If you own a smart phone...everything you do is recorded...and logged.
"They" have been listening
to you for a long time if they want to.
If you own any smart device...they can listen and watch. They are monitoring what I am typing and this site. There really is no way to hide.
"Nearly half a millennium ago Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince described three
options for how a conquering power might treat states that it defeated in war but that 'have
been accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom: the first is to ruin them, the
next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit them to live under their own laws,
drawing a tribute, and establishing within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to
you....'
"U.S. strategists have preferred Machiavelli's third option: To leave the defeated
adversary nominally independent but to rule via client oligarchies."
Michael then succinctly spells out the current crisis and its roots:
"The U.S.-China confrontation is not simply a national rivalry, but a conflict of economic
and social systems. The reason why today's world is being plunged into an economic and
near-military Cold War 2.0 is to be found in the prospect of socialist control of what
Western economies since classical antiquity have treated as privately owned rent-yielding
assets: money and banking (along with the rules governing debt and foreclosure), land and
natural resources, and infrastructure monopolies .
"This contrast in whether money and credit, land and natural monopolies will be privatized
and duly concentrated in the hands of a rentier oligarchy or used to promote general
prosperity and growth has basically become one of finance capitalism and socialism. Yet in
its broadest terms this conflict existed already 2500 years ago in the contrast between Near
Eastern kingship and the Greek and Roman oligarchies. These oligarchies, ostensibly
democratic in superficial political form and sanctimonious ideology, fought against the
concept of kingship. The source of that opposition was that royal power – or that of
domestic 'tyrants' – might sponsor what Greek and Roman democratic reformers were
advocating: cancellation of debts to save populations from being reduced to debt bondage and
dependency (and ultimately to serfdom), and redistribution of lands to prevent its ownership
from becoming polarized and concentrated in the hands of creditors and-landlords .
"From today's U.S. vantage point, that polarization is the basic dynamic of today's
U.S.-sponsored neoliberalism. China and Russia are existential threats to the global
expansion of financialized rentier wealth. Today's Cold War 2.0 aims to deter China and
potentially other counties from socializing their financial systems, land and natural
resources, and keeping infrastructure utilities public to prevent their being monopolized in
private hands to siphon off economic rents at the expense of productive investment in
economic growth ." [My Emphasis]
This is Hudson's best, tersest, explanation of the current crisis, that in reality has
existed for a great many centuries. He then narrows to a few crucial specifics:
"Financialized industrial capital wants a strong state to serve itself, but not to serve
labor, consumers, the environment or long-term social progress at the cost of eroding profits
and rents.
"U.S. attempts to globalize this neoliberal policy are driving China to resist Western
financialization. Its success provides other countries with an object lesson of why to avoid
financialization and rent-seeking that adds to the economy's overhead and hence its cost of
living and doing business.
"China also is providing an object lesson in how to protect its economy and that of its
allies from foreign sanctions and related destabilization. Its most basic response has
been to prevent an independent domestic or foreign-backed oligarchy from emerging . That
has been one first and foremost by maintaining government control of finance and credit,
property and land tenure policy in government hands with a long-term plan in mind." [My
Emphasis]
That is precisely why China's governing political method is so heavily distorted and
demonized, and why all attempts to emulate it are viciously attacked--Iran, Cuba and
Venezuela being prominent examples. The ongoing situation's very fluid, but the upper hand is
clearly held by China and the emerging Eurasian Bloc. An example of China's lead is its
successful initiation of its space station project to be
completed and fully operational next year while Biden has given the reigns of the Outlaw US
Empire's space project to Kamala Harris who is completely unqualified to lead such an
endeavor.
Joe Biden took the riskiest step of his presidency with a call for higher taxes on the
wealthy to fund a massive investment in the nation's social safety net, betting he could sell
the American public on sweeping change following a pandemic that exacerbated economic and
social divides.
Biden devoted his first address to a joint session of Congress to a call for a "a
once-in-a-generation investment in our families," prescribing trillions of dollars in new
spending for infrastructure, child care, paid leave, community college tuition, and a bevy of
subsidies for working class families.
And in a full-throated confrontation of Wall Street, Biden said the nation's wealthiest
taxpayers and companies should foot the bill. He declared investors "didn't build this country"
and said the wealthy had lined their pockets during the pandemic without paying their fair
share.
"I stand here tonight before you in a new and vital hour of life and democracy of our
nation," Biden said.
The speech was delivered to a House chamber where heightened security and social distancing
measures underscored the disease and division still confronting the nation. It amounted to an
audacious gamble that Biden can harness public support not only for trillions of dollars in new
federal programs for lower- and middle-income Americans, but the biggest tax hikes in
decades.
But his ambitions rest on a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, where the defections
of only a single moderate or two would mean failure.
Biden painted the deadly course of the virus as embodying and exaggerating the inequalities
that have broadened in recent decades, with working class Americans shouldering economic and
health insecurity while the wealthiest flourished. At risk is not only his vision for
rebuilding the economy, but the razor-thin advantage his party holds in Congress ahead of the
2022 midterm elections, when Republicans are well positioned to retake the majority at least in
the House.
"Doing nothing is not an option," the president implored.
Unattainable Wealth
Biden's effort was in many ways a break from the cautious center-left triangulation that has
defined Democratic presidential politics since the Reagan Revolution. His calculation is that
voters battered by the virus just a decade after a painful recession are no longer as concerned
about deficit spending or retaining low tax rates for a tier of wealth that seems increasingly
unattainable.
And Biden used one of the biggest bully pulpits he's provided to offer a presidential
validation of the growing influence of the progressive left, pitching at least US$3.8 trillion
in new spending, sweeping new changes to the health care system, and substantial gun control
measures.
Biden's own tendencies are more conciliatory, and he's likely to ultimately jettison some of
the more ambitious proposals as he seeks to navigate legislation through Capitol Hill --
particularly with moderate Democrats already expressing skepticism about new taxes and
spending. He took pains to caveat his broadsides against the nation's wealthiest, saying he was
"not out to punish anyone" and, in a line improvised from the prepared text, acknowledged the
"good guys and women on Wall Street."
But he left little room for critics within his party to argue he lacked ambition, and his
presidential legacy will now be defined by his ability to deliver a once-in-a-generation suite
of new government investments, services, and programs.
The forum for Biden's call for structural economic change itself seemed designed to
underscore the unprecedented moment. Because of coronavirus precautions, only about 200
lawmakers were invited to attend the speech in person, and some of the Senate's most powerful
moderates -- including West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Utah Republican Mitt Romney --
were relegated to seats in the upper balcony.
The president's tone and tenor suggested that even if ordinary Americans weren't in the
room, he felt emboldened by polls that suggest his proposals are popular – and that he
himself has been buoyed by a largely successful vaccine campaign that's administered more than
315 million shots and a stimulus program that provided more than 160 million checks to
taxpayers.
The president's approval rating is at 57 per cent, according to a Gallup poll released
Friday, matching his post-inauguration high. And seven in 10 Americans favored Biden's initial
US$1.9 trillion stimulus bill, with only around a third of those surveyed by the Pew Research
Center earlier this month saying it spent too much.
His new US$1.8 trillion families plan and the US$2.25 trillion infrastructure proposal
– which he christened a "blue-collar blueprint to build America" -- directly targeted two
key constituencies: suburban moms and the White working class of the Rust Belt.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index erased its losses as of 12:00 p.m. in Hong Kong, as traders
who were betting on a bigger spending plan from Biden cut back on currency risk positions.
Treasury futures were little changed and U.S. equity futures maintained their gains.B
Pandemic Disparities
There's reason for Biden to direct his appeal to those he said "feel left behind and
forgotten."
The pandemic ushered in not only disproportionate health outcomes -- a recent study by Ball
State University showed a higher death rate among counties with higher poverty levels -- but
deepened disparate economic trends.
While the richest 1 per cent in the U.S. saw their wealth increase by US$4 trillion, the
bottom half of Americans shared just a US$471 billion increase. Female participation in the
labor force has slipped to 57 per cent -- the lowest level since 1988 – and a half
million more women exited the workforce than men during a crisis that saw 10 million jobs
disappear.
White House advisers have made no secret about the opening they see.
Chief of Staff Ron Klain has spent recent weeks promoting stories that bluntly describe
Biden's plans to hike taxes on the wealthy in a flurry of social media posts.
Economic adviser Brian Deese declined to publicly address any element of Biden's families
plan ahead of its rollout Wednesday – except a provision to hike capital gains taxes on
Americans making over US$1 million a year. And political adviser Anita Dunn on Tuesday penned a
memo to "interested parties" pointing to recent Fox News polling that showed 56 per cent of
respondents backed paying for infrastructure through increased taxes on corporations and 63 per
cent supported raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
"We need to make the case, but the American people seem very supportive of the idea that
when it comes to longstanding challenges in this country, we need to come together and make the
investments we need in order to address them," said White House economic adviser David
Kamin.
Congressional Difficulties
Still, the success of Biden's effort will hinge on parlaying that popular support into votes
in a narrowly divided Congress, where Republicans remain loathe to offer any assistance and
without them, moderate Senate Democrats like Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema and Manchin can scuttle
any piece of legislation single-handedly.
Both have already voiced skepticism about Biden's proposed tax increases, leaving open the
question of how the White House's proposals can proceed. And Republicans looked to fan that
uncertainty, painting the president's vision as excessive and ineffective.
"Our best future won't come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams," Senator Tim Scott,
a South Carolina Republican, said in the GOP rebuttal to Biden's address. "It will come from
you -- the American people."
Biden, for his part, said that big investments in jobs and infrastructure "have often had
bipartisan support" and looked to win skeptics by adopting rhetoric more familiar to
Republicans and painting his plans as essential to winning a global battle for the future.
"We have to prove democracy still works," the president said. "That our government still
works -- and can deliver for the people."
--With assistance from Jennifer Epstein and Tan Hwee Ann.
Wealthiest Americans get US$195 billion richer in Biden's first 100 days
Simon Hunt and Ben Steverman , Bloomberg News
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.453.0_en.html#goog_1563483815 Getting
Biden's capital gains tax through congress is slim to none: Federated Hermes' Orlando
Biden tax plans have roadblocks but will trigger a big sell-off i...
Joe Biden's election has done little to slow the inexorable surge of wealth among U.S.
billionaires.
In the president's first 100 days in office, against a drumbeat of calls for the rich to pay
more in taxes, the 100 wealthiest Americans added a combined US$195 billion to their fortunes,
according to a Bloomberg analysis.
The most recent gains have been fueled by the continued rise of the stock market since Biden
was sworn in Jan. 20, along with the vaccination program's fast rollout and a US$1.9 trillion
government stimulus package. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes have both climbed more than
10 per cent during that time.
Attempts such as Biden's to refloat the economy can boost incomes and wealth at the very
top, said Mike Savage, a sociology professor at the London School of Economics.
"We've seen that paradox since the 2008 financial crash with quantitative easing, which has
mostly benefited people with assets, inflating their value significantly,'' Savage said.
The richest 100 made a further US$267 billion between the 2020 election and Biden's
inauguration, amounting to a total gain of US$461 billion since Nov. 4. From Donald Trump's
2017 inauguration to last fall's election, those billionaires got about US$860 billion
richer.
The combined fortunes of the richest 100 Americans have reached US$2.9 trillion, greater
than the combined US$2.5 trillion wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of the U.S. population,
according to data from the Federal Reserve.
The rise has been driven by an explosion of wealth among a handful of ultra-billionaires.
The 10 wealthiest Americans have added US$255 billion since election day, bringing their
combined net worth to US$1.2 trillion.
The biggest driver of this wealth surge has been tech companies like Amazon.com Inc.,
Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, bolstered by increased online and stay-at-home
activity during the coronavirus pandemic. The FANG stocks index has climbed 94 per cent in the
past 12 months compared with the 45 per cent advance of the S&P 500.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, has gotten US$11.7 billion richer this
year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, adding to about US$120 billion of wealth
gains during the Trump presidency. Mark Zuckerberg's net worth rose US$8.1 billion yesterday
alone on the strength of Facebook's first-quarter results.
Google's Larry Page has added US$26.6 billion this year after the California-based company
posted record profit last year, while the wealth of Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk has grown US$5.1
billion since January.
Finance billionaires such as Warren Buffett and Blackstone Group Inc.'s Stephen Schwarzman
have also been major beneficiaries of stock market rises.
In his first 100 days, Biden has moved quickly to propose sharp tax hikes for the rich and
programs to funnel trillions of dollars to middle- and lower-class Americans in the form of new
infrastructure, social spending and stimulus checks. He laid out those policies in his first
address to Congress on Wednesday.
"Sometimes I have arguments with my friends in the Democratic Party," Biden said. "I think
you should be able to become a billionaire or a millionaire. But pay your fair share."
Under his "American Families Plan" announced Wednesday, the top rate of personal income tax
would increase to 39.6 per cent for the highest 1 per cent of earners from the current 37 per
cent, while the capital gains rate would be raised to the same level for those earning above
US$1 million, wiping out the discrepancy between income and capital gains tax rates that has
benefitted many of the ultra-rich.
The wealthiest 1 per cent currently pay 40 per cent of all federal income taxes, according
to Internal Revenue Service data, an amount that doesn't include payroll taxes.
"When you ask the American people what they want, they want corporations and millionaires
and billionaires to pay higher taxes," said Erica Payne, founder of the Patriotic Millionaires,
a group of progressive high-net-worth individuals. "It is politically a winner, it is
economically the right thing to do and it is morally a no-brainer."
Corporate tax hike
The White House has also proposed a plan to hike corporate taxes to fund infrastructure
spending. In a surprise this month, Bezos issued a statement saying he supports the general
idea. "We look forward to Congress and the administration coming together to find the right,
balanced solution that maintains or enhances U.S. competitiveness," he said.
Conservatives say boosting spending by adding a greater burden on the wealthy can
backfire.
"Government investments are often sold to the public with the promise that they will improve
lives and improve the economy," Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, argued in
testimony before Congress this week. "In every case, the economic harm caused by the taxes
would swamp any of the benefits from the new spending, leaving taxpayers and the economy worse
off."
Despite the pandemic, Fed data show all groups gained wealth last year. The top 1 per cent
did best, however, adding US$4 trillion in 2020 and bringing their total net worth to almost
US$39 billion, more than the bottom 90 per cent of Americans combined. Personal incomes in the
U.S. jumped a record 21 per cent in March, surging after households received a third round of
relief checks.
In his speech to Congress, Biden emphasized his efforts to create good-paying jobs,
especially those that don't require a college degree. The increasing dominance of tech giants,
however, won't necessarily help middle-class Americans. As a proportion of their market
capitalization, most technology companies employ relatively few Americans compared with their
older listed peers, concentrating wealth in the hands of a select few.
"The whole retail distribution system is changing," said Robert Miller, professor of
economics and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. "Recent technology has been hollowing
out some parts of middle management, so you can see parts of the middle class slipping
away."
Tax loopholes
Democrats in Congress are pushing other plans to close loopholes and tax wealth. To claw
back gains made by America's richest during the pandemic, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a
Massachusetts Democrat, proposed an Ultra Millionaire tax, a new version of the wealth tax she
floated as a presidential candidate. Under her proposal, those with fortunes exceeding US$50
million would face a 2 per cent tax on their wealth, increasing to 3 per cent for those worth
more than US$1 billion. The plan is unlikely to become law, given opposition from Biden and
other Democrats.
Higher taxes aren't "going to have very much effect in the long term on redistributing
wealth," Carnegie Mellon's Miller said. "This focus on how we're going to get the money is a
bit misplaced – we should be thinking more about how we want to help the people that need
help."
PHOTO: DENIS CHARLET/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES Listen to this article 6 minutes 00:00 / 06:00 1x This is the year of the woke corporation, the year the chieftains of the most powerful companies got bored with making money and decided to remake America, principally by telling Americans how bigoted and backward they are. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. This is the year of the woke corporation, the year the chieftains of the most powerful companies got bored with making money and decided to remake America, principally by telling Americans how bigoted and backward they are. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. Major League Baseball shipped the All-Star Game out of Georgia when that state's elected representatives dared enact modest election-integrity measures. Big Tech silenced a sitting president, banned books it didn't like, and threatened to install itself as censor of the nation's speech. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. America's founders had a word for this state of affairs: aristocracy. We might call it oligarchy, rule of the wealthy and the few. The founders understood that concentrations of power in either government or the economy are dangerous, threatening the rule of the people. That's why they curbed monopolies and strictly limited the corporate form, largely confining its use to educational institutions and churches and sometimes public-works projects. They wanted the people to govern the nation, not an elite, whether that elite resided in government or business. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. It's time America recovered the founders' political economy. We need a new era of trustbusting, an agenda to break up Big Tech and the other concentrations of woke capital that threaten to turn the U.S. into a corporate oligarchy. The aim should be simple: Give working Americans control again over their government and their society. In short, protect our democracy. NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
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We are living in an age of monopoly power. Since the 1990s, two-thirds of American industry has become more
concentrated. In 1995 the nation boasted 60 major pharmaceutical companies. By 2015 they had merged to form just
10. Big banks grow bigger while top airlines control ever larger shares of revenue. The credit-card market is now
effectively a duopoly, and online it's no better. Google and
Facebook
control
more than 60% of digital advertising.
Big-business consolidation strips Americans of economic opportunity. In today's corporate economy, small and new
businesses struggle. New-business formation is barely half what it was in the 1970s, and the pandemic has further
privileged the largest players at the expense of local and family enterprises. Concentrations of
market
power
also mean a smaller share of gross domestic product for labor, which leads to flat wages for workers. As
the market power of big U.S. corporations has increased, business investment has declined, meaning less spending
on innovation and less productivity growth.
Not surprisingly, corporate monopoly leads to political power. It has always been thus. The giant railroads of the
19th century tried to bully and buy entire legislatures, including the U.S. Congress. Today, Major League
Baseball -- exempt from antitrust laws -- and a cohort of megacorporations such as Delta and
Coca-Cola
are
trying to order about states on election integrity, while Google, Facebook and
Twitter
decide
which citizens may say what in the public square.
Nike
lectures
the nation on social justice while it is suspected of profiting from forced labor overseas, as the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China noted in its March 2020
report
.
Welcome to the woke economy, led by concentrated woke capital. Do as these companies say or face cancellation.
Americans weren't content to let monopolists run the country a century ago, and we shouldn't be today.
I propose three measures. First, break up Big Tech. The tech companies are the most powerful corporations in the
country and likely in American history. They control what Americans read and what they say, what Americans share
and what they buy. The Big Tech companies are the railroad monopolies, Standard Oil and the newspaper trust rolled
into one, and tech CEOs are our robber barons. Congress should enact new bars on industry consolidation that will
prevent the dominant tech platforms from simultaneously controlling separate industries and services. Google, for
example, shouldn't be able to own the world's dominant web-search platform and run the cloud. That's too much
power and it's bad for competition.
Second, cut the other megacorporations down to size. We can start by banning mergers and acquisitions for
corporations larger than $100 billion. No exceptions. There is no good reason for a corporation to buy its way to
the size of a small country. Vertical integration, in which one company buys up an entire supply chain -- think
Amazon
marrying
Whole Foods with its Prime shipping network -- should also receive antitrust scrutiny.
Third, give courts a new standard to evaluate anticompetitive conduct. For years, courts have asked whether an
alleged monopolist harms consumer welfare. In other words, does the business behavior in question drive up
consumer costs? That's a fine question, but trustbusting isn't about consumer prices alone. The tech companies
insist that most of their services are free, even as they extract monopoly rents in other ways, like taking
private consumer data without consent.
Trustbusting is about promoting robust competition. It's competition that helps workers, spurs innovation and
ultimately preserves the power of the ordinary citizen. Our founders understood that competition, not monopoly, is
a friend to liberty.
Republicans were once the party of trustbusters. They should be again. The left is increasingly willing to cheer
on the new monopolists -- so long as they push the left's agenda on cultural and other issues. In the face of this
new alliance between big government and big business, conservatives must recover the wisdom of the founders'
vision: liberty, not monopoly.
Mr. Hawley, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Missouri. He is
author
of
"The Tyranny of Big Tech," forthcoming May 4.
Anytime I hear the word "justice" it makes be wary. Justice has always been in the eye of the
beholder, but now there is only one justice - the woke justice. It is catching on like a fire
and there are few media outlets left to describe that it is anything but justice.
Anytime I hear the word "justice" it makes be wary. Justice has always been in the eye of
the beholder, but now there is only one justice - the woke justice. It is catching on like
a fire and there are few media outlets left to describe that it is anything but justice.
Of course they act like this, 'cause they are republics ruled by money and think they are
racially superior -- as opposed to those states that send vaccines almost for free to other
needy nations: Cuba, China and (in part) Russia.
It bugs me how even well-informed critics of North Atlanticist regimes and their foreign
policies write and talk of them as "western democracies". The "Founding Fathers" of the USA
feared nothing more than 'democracy' -- by which they thought of ancient Athens, or the
ancient republic of San Marino or some Swiss Cantons. What they wanted was a republic in the
mold of Ancient Rome, Venice, or like the Netherlands before Wilhelm of Orange, i.e. roled by
rich men's clubs and throuh inherited wealth, be that from land ownership, slave-holding or
from commercial gains and prate privatering -- plus of course exploiting colonies and
controlled marketing opium and its derivats (plus cocaine).
None of the present-day Atlanticist nations call themselves "democracies" in their name or
constitutions. Only Greece does -- and only because they don't have the romance word
"republic" in their language.
In observation of these linguistic and political facts, the governments of Central Europe
east of NATO: China, Viet-Nâm and Chosôn ("North Korea") all called themselves
"people's republics" -- as opposed the the states further west that were ruled by the elected
representatives of Capital and Big Banking.
"... Bernie Sanders in 2016, the self-described democratic socialist "showed little interest or knowledge about US-Russia relations and the attendant dangers of a new cold war." Instead, Sanders was ultimately content to mimic the juvenile and Manichean "democracies versus authoritarians" model of international relations. ..."
"... in the Obama era, as mediocre academics like Celeste Wallander were given positions on the National Security Council, and an ideologue like Michael McFaul was bizarrely appointed as ambassador. ..."
"... Under Biden – who caved to pressure from the foreign policy blob to not appoint Rojansky – the advisers who are in place or in line, including Jake Sullivan , Antony Blinken , Madeleine Albright/Hillary Clinton adviser Wendy Sherman, the German Marshall Fund's Karen Donfried , and State Department nominee Victoria Nuland represent more of the same dangerous ineptitude and strident thinking. Many of these advisers, like their predecessors, have little on-the-ground experience with contemporary Russia. ..."
"... Neoconservative ideologue Nuland, of course, is a slightly different case in that she has put her boots on the ground in the region. Unfortunately, that experience includes facilitating the dangerously divisive 2014 coup in Ukraine, without which Crimea would still be in Ukraine and the Donbass would be at peace. Competent officials would have warned Obama and Biden that the Maidan would lead to consequences like these. ..."
"... importantly, this 'perceived enemy' and its corresponding narrative sells... it enriches the military complexes, CIA etc. Even if it sounded unbelievable and outrageous, they will still be regurgitated and at best, given a new guised repackaging ..."
"... the author assumes that the mistakes made by advisors to Obama and others were because of incompetence, when in fact it should be seriously considered they were actually quite deliberate and planned ..."
"... the job was NOT to deliver facts to the public; the job was to tell the public how to think and what to believe; ie. anti-Russia propaganda. ..."
The rejection
of Matthew Rojansky's candidacy as a Russia adviser to Joe Biden represents an escalation, and
not a departure, from a pervasive bipartisan American pattern of dangerous ignorance about
Russia in the post-Soviet era.
It was reported last week that Joe Biden's government would not be hiring Rojansky, of the
Kennan Institute think tank, to help form policy towards Russia. Though the analyst is known as
a moderate realist regarding Russia issues – in other words, he is not a virulent
anti-Moscow ideologue – he was considered too controversial to be allowed a hearing
during White House deliberations on policy regarding the world's largest country.
Rojansky's sin? Unlike many of the current crop of foreign policy officials, he actually has
some expertise and experience on the subject.
While the scholar's fate may be a glaring and extreme
example of an anti-Russia mindset in Washington that is counterproductive, it represents
only a new low, and not a change from a pervasive bipartisan pattern in the post-Soviet
era.
Those who aspire to, or attain, the most powerful executive position in the United States
have shown a disturbingly willful ignorance of Russia. I learned from a former State Department
official that, in response to a renowned Russia expert attempting to brief presidential
candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016, the self-described democratic socialist "showed little
interest or knowledge about US-Russia relations and the attendant dangers of a new cold
war." Instead, Sanders was ultimately content
to mimic the juvenile and Manichean "democracies versus authoritarians" model of
international relations.
Similarly, an American business executive told me that, during a lunch with him and other
leaders of commerce at the US Embassy in Moscow in 2012, then-Vice President Joe Biden showed
no interest in his interlocutors' suggestions that it was in the US' best interests to partner
with Russia after they offered social, economic, and strategic justifications for their
view.
Biden seemed to see the meeting as an opportunity to lecture on his position rather than to
learn or seek insight on Russia.
Moreover, once a US president is in power, the advisers that are appointed to counsel the
commander in chief about Russia have been less than impressive from the 1990s onward.
Condoleezza Rice served as an expert in the George Bush Senior administration and was
wrong about the impending collapse of the Soviet Union. During her stint as secretary of
state in the second term of the junior Bush administration, her Russian counterparts who spent
significant time with her made the observation
that Rice was "a Soviet expert, and not a Russia expert."
There was little improvement in the Obama era, as mediocre academics like Celeste Wallander were
given positions on the National Security Council, and an ideologue like Michael McFaul was
bizarrely appointed as ambassador.
According to investigative journalist Gareth Porter, advisers to Obama were so utterly
incompetent that those serving in the administration really didn't think Russia had the ability
or inclination to counter Washington's provocative actions in
Syria, and therefore they did not plan for that possibility. This incompetence was also
highlighted by Obama's public comments to the Economist in 2014, in which he claimed that
Russia didn't make anything, immigrants didn't go there, and male life expectancy was 60 years
– three claims that anyone with actual expertise on Russia should have easily known were
false.
In fact, at that point, Russia was the second most popular migration destination in the
world, after America itself, while average lifespans have been converging with those of the US
over the past decade. As for manufacturing, Obama said these words at a time when the US, for
instance, was totally reliant on Russian rockets for access to space, having retired its own
unreliable Space Shuttle fleet. If he had access to a competent adviser on the subject, would
he have made these mistakes?
Under Biden – who caved to pressure from the foreign policy blob to not appoint
Rojansky – the advisers who are in place or in line, including Jake Sullivan , Antony Blinken ,
Madeleine Albright/Hillary Clinton adviser Wendy Sherman, the German Marshall Fund's Karen
Donfried , and State
Department nominee Victoria Nuland represent more of the same dangerous
ineptitude and strident thinking. Many of these advisers, like their predecessors, have little
on-the-ground experience with contemporary Russia.
Neoconservative ideologue Nuland, of course, is a slightly different case in that she has
put her boots on the ground in the region. Unfortunately, that experience includes facilitating
the dangerously divisive 2014 coup in Ukraine, without which Crimea would still be in Ukraine
and the Donbass would be at peace. Competent officials would have warned Obama and Biden that
the Maidan would lead to consequences like these.
It takes a special kind of hubris for the US political class to keep thinking they can get
away with this level of sloppiness in understanding the world's other nuclear superpower
– a country so massive that it straddles two major continents and is the sixth largest
economy in terms of purchasing power parity – without serious consequences. At what point
will God's providence run out?
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
If you like this story, share it with a friend!
Natylie Baldwin is author of "The View from Moscow: Understanding Russia and U.S.-Russia
Relations," available at Amazon. She blogs at http://natyliesbaldwin.com/ .
"Washington has a dangerous & destructive pattern of wilful ignorance on Russia in
post-Soviet era" It is not just wilful ignorance per se. Without a 'perceived enemy', the
narrative for Russia will fall apart. Ditto China, Iran, N Korea et al.
But importantly, this
'perceived enemy' and its corresponding narrative sells... it enriches the military
complexes, CIA etc. Even if it sounded unbelievable and outrageous, they will still be
regurgitated and at best, given a new guised repackaging, but with the antiquated contents
remaining intact.
dotmafia 6 hours ago 6 hours ago
Good article, but, the author assumes that the mistakes made by advisors to Obama and others
were because of incompetence, when in fact it should be seriously considered they were
actually quite deliberate and planned. In the example of Obama's remarks to The Economist,
the job was NOT to deliver facts to the public; the job was to tell the public how to think
and what to believe; ie. anti-Russia propaganda.
Levin High 8 hours ago 8 hours ago
It used to be said that you couldn't be fired for buying IBM, now days in the US you seem to
be hired for blaming Russia.
apothqowejh 9 hours ago 9 hours ago
The US State Department is packed with idiots, political appointees, ideologues and globalist
nut jobs. Their lack of anything remotely like competence is as astonishing as the CIA's full
on embrace of evil.
wowhead1977 4 hours ago 4 hours ago
The cabal in America always want to blame Russia. I'm a American citizen and have no problem
with Russia. These so called sanctions on other countries is a control tactic that most
Americans didn't vote for. This race baiting tactic is from The Fabian Society play book.
Wolf in sheep's clothing is the Fabian Society logo.
We must realize that our Party's most
powerful weapon is racial tension. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races,
that for centuries have been oppressed by the Whites, we can mold them to the program of the
Communist Party ... In America, we will aim for subtle victory. While enflaming the color
people minority against the Whites, we will instill in the Whites, a guilt complex for the
exploitation of the color people.
We will aid the color people to rise to prominence in every
walk of life, in the professions, and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this
prestige, the color people will be able to intermarry with the Whites, and begin a process
which will deliver America to our cause." ~ Israel Cohen - Fabian Society Founder
The social engineers at the World Economic Forum -- seizing on the opportunities presented
by mass fear over COVID-19 and the choking lockdowns on economies and societies worldwide --
have an authoritarian vision for the future of humanity, carefully choreographed from on high
at the top levels of the global power structure.
Unaccountable, unelected entities are hard at work constructing this brave new world through
a shadowy process they have ominously dubbed the " Great Reset ":
"The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and
reset our world."
A sea change, just now coming into clear focus, is afoot. Without grassroots pushback from a
united populist front, as the
former CDC director recently forecasted , "nothing is ever going back to normal" –
ever.
Addressing the globalist Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
group advocating "free trade" – a misleadingly labeled concept which means nothing more
than corporate profiteering across borders to capitalize on cheap labor and instantiating
dystopian
corporate sovereignty into law while bleeding the working classes in rich nations dry
– Canadian Prime Minister expounded on the ethos of the "Great Reset":
"This pandemic is truly a global challenge. And not just because every country in every
corner of the world has been affected: because there is no part of society, no industry, no
aspect of daily life that has not changed . This is our chance to build back societies that are
fairer and economics that are more resilient ."
All of which begs the questions:
Who decided on these changes?
What populations in the Western "democracies" were permitted to exercise popular will in
a vote on these changes?
For whose benefit are these "Great Reset" policies enacted?
"The most promising [Global Reset] ideas will be taken up within existing IMF and World Bank
processes as well as at the G7 and G20 Leader Summit This pandemic has provided an opportunity
for a reset . This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to re-imagine economic
systems ."
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the G7 and G20 are unelected,
non-representative international bodies run by and for the interests of the global elite at the
expense of the working classes in every country on Earth.
Debt slavery, slave wages, hollowed-out middle
classes in the US Rust Belt , corporate tyranny, environmental catastrophe, and destruction
of human rights are the rotten fruits of globalism.
Normal people have no seat at the table nor any voice in the decisions by these global
behemoths. At its core, the international regime is fundamentally anti-democratic and,
increasingly, anti-human.
-- -- -- -- -- -- –
The real agenda of the ruling class -- as it has been for decades since globalized trade and
politicization began in earnest -- is to further remove power from everyday people and place it
into the hands of distant corporations and internationalized bureaucracies:
"We have to do more. We have to diversify our supply chains. We need to deepen our
cooperation with different parts of the world we look for new iterations of multilateral
structures as people are looking at a transforming world."
At the current crossroads in American -- and indeed, global -- history, reform is no longer
a viable solution; on the contrary, reform is a fool's errand. World trade, and even more so
world government, is a death machine :
"Globalization now connotes economic dislocation, increasing inequality, unwanted
immigration, and a vehicle for the transmission of disease. The pandemic has emphasized the
dangers rather than the benefits of efficient linkages between markets, laying bare the dangers
of complex global supply chains where any node can become a 'choke point', and the risks of
overspecialization or the concentration of technological knowledge and/or production capacity
in a single country or region."
"Choke point" indeed. The task before us -- the only possible solution to the corporate,
technocratic, medicalized, authoritarian nightmare we are hurdling toward at breakneck speed --
is our own populist, ultra-localized rendition of the "Great Reset" or the "Great UpSet." Some
suggest that we are not uprising but rather "upwising" – arming ourselves with knowledge
to carry out a peaceful reinstatement of public power.
The DC Swamp – not to mention the lurking global behemoths like the United Nations
– is beyond reform. There is no salvation to be found in these institutions. Congress
members don't represent average people – how could they ? Average people don't make small
talk with them at Georgetown cocktail parties. Average people don't finance their campaigns.
Average people don't give them lucrative positions in the never-ending revolving lobbying door
after they conclude their terms.
We must insist, by our own means, on restoring control over our own communities. We must
work to rebuild intimate human bonds at levels below abstraction – ones in which we are
invested spiritually and financially:
"While local government is closest to voters, turnout in local elections is low; it is
highest in national elections . Despite the pivotal importance of local politics getting out
the vote is the toughest problem that party and labor leaders face."
The only way to reverse course is to decentralize. Decouple from the toxic corporate-state
ties that bind and enslave your local community. Reconnect with your neighbors. Shop locally
and, whenever possible, sell locally.
Flout immoral laws imposed by far-off authorities. Target and eliminate national and
international influence from bloated government and transnational corporations with no
allegiance to you, your family, or community. Their claims to authority are illegitimate,
non-representative, malevolent, and, increasingly, even genocidal.
Destroy what destroys; nourish what nourishes.
The time has come to #UNRIG not just our elections, but our entire economy and society to
restore control to the local level, with the people, the only place it has ever rightfully
belonged.
Robert David Steele, alt-right white male and former US spy as well as founder of the Open
Source Everything movement, has joined with Kevin Jenkins and others to launch ARISE USA! The
Resurrection Tour , that will visit all 50 US states from 15 May to 6 September and could
transform into a global movement, Arise.World.
In partnership with Sheriff Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs movement
that challenges federal and state abuse of power, as well as other icons of freedom, they are
building the definitive organic pro-human movement from the ground up – the only way to
build anything of value.
Join the tour as a Founding Citizen at BigBatUSA.org ; learn about election fraud and reform options at
UNRIG.net .
Ben Bartee is a Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Contact him via
Armageddon Prose .
"... As has happened with epochal champions of generational transformation and change in U.S. history before her, Gabbard’s eclipse in Hawaii could lead to her comeback in a far more spectacular form. ..."
As has happened with epochal champions of generational transformation and change in U.S.
history before her, Gabbard’s eclipse in Hawaii could lead to her comeback
in a far more spectacular form.
Forget that old fraud Bernie Sanders; Tulsi Gabbard and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the
best hopes progressives in United States now have for saving and renewing Democratic values and
a functioning political system. And watch Senator Ted Cruz to eventually unify a resurgent
nationalist Right.
In my 2015 book “
Cycles of Change †I predicted both the nationalist insurgency of Donald Trump
in the Republican Party and the progressive one unexpectedly spearheaded by Senator Bernie
Sanders in the Democratic Party that lastingly transformed U.S. politics in the 2016 election
cycle.
The Big Lie (of Josef Goebbels) proportions that Russia influenced or decided the shock
outcome of the 2016 presidential election in reality was cooked up by defeated Democratic
candidate Hillary Clinton â€" a bungling loser of historic proportions
â€" on the very same night she was still reeling from her rejection at the Javits
Center in Brooklyn after the results came out.
Since then, the old Republicans and Democratic Establishments alike have since eagerly clung
to the Big Lie because it offers them an excuse to deny and ignore what really happened: The
American people for once fitfully rose to express their ringing rejection â€" on
both sides of the political divide â€" of the ruinous policies of free trade,
globalization and ludicrous pretensions to World Empire to which they had been subjected for
the previous 70 years.
However, President Donald Trump was ruthlessly opposed, undermined, betrayed, slandered and
blocked on his honorable and responsible foreign policy and national security goals to restrain
NATO improve relations with Russia and pull U.S. combat forces out of both Iraq and Afghanistan
over the following four years and by the time of the next national election in 2024, he will be
78 â€" as old as Joe Biden is now. Undoubtedly the efforts to destroy and discredit
Trump will continue unabated from now until then.
Trump should not yet be ruled out by any means but he has already played the role of being
the Prophetic Precursor of the new and coming Political Age, as I pointed, out in
“Cycles of Change,†my overview of more than 200 years of U.S.
political history, published in 2015.
That “prophetic†pioneering role wa splayed by General John
Fremont in 1856 for Abraham Lincoln four years later; by New York Governor Al Smith, the
“Happy Warrior†in 1928 for the epochal election victory of
Franklin D. Roosevelt four years later; and by Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964 for the eventual
presidency and new political era of Ronald Reagan starting in 1980-81.
Who will be the coming leader of the conservative/nationalist Right in 21st century America?
The most likely candidate so far by far is Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who ran unsuccessfully
against Trump in 2016 before learning for himself the policies and priorities of the coming
Political Age.
On April 14, Cruz, renowned for having easily the most brilliant legal mind in the U.S.
Congress, eviscerated Kristen Clarke, President Biden’s nominee to head the
Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department when she appeared before the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
On the Democrats’ side, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont
is now a twice-busted flush: Both in 2016 and 2020, the Democratic presidential nomination was
his for the asking: He in real terms decisively and humiliatingly exposed first Hillary Clinton
and then Joe Biden â€" both heirs of the worthless and despicable Bill Clinton and
Barack Obama administrations they served so energetically for so long.
However, on both occasions, Sanders froze up at the crucial moments of decision when the
nomination was twice stolen from him by vote manipulation (in 20216) and political chicanery
(in 2020) before his eyes. When it comes to the High Noon moment of any political showdown,
Sanders will always fold â€" just as he always has.
On the Democrats’ side, the contest for leadership superficial appears
more open, but two dynamic young women in reality easily lead the field.
Right now, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, †AOC†,
who was supporting herself as a bartender before she won the Democratic nomination for her
district and then the congressional election in shock outcomes in 2018, is by far in the lead.
This is not even primarily because of AOC’s passionate advocacy of a Green
New Deal, which indeed makes absolutely no industrial or economic or financial sense the closer
one looks at it: It is because she is genuinely charismatic, genuinely aggressive and fearless
in her public appearances.
The more that America’s progressives â€" admittedly an
exceptionally slow-witted lot â€" wake up to the fact that Bernie Sanders will never
lead them to real power or victory in anything, the higher AOC’s star
rises.
She is already, at only age 31, the real leader of the Progressive Caucus in the Democratic
Party and she is half a century younger than 81-year-old Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi only won her precious House majority in November 2018. Yet already, she is watching
it vanish before her eyes.
Worse for Pelosi is sure to come: It is perfectly feasible that even before next
year’s congressional midterm elections, a handful of congressional special
elections could throw control of the House to current Republican Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy, who loathes Pelosi and her ancient creaking clique of cronies with a never-burning
passion. Then, Pelosi’s fading clout will be totally gone and AOC with her
passion and a new generation of radicals riding the Winds of Change with her will take over
Democratic Party in Congress far earlier than any of the Old Fogeys on either side dreams.
AOC must therefore be seen as the frontrunner for the new age: But if she fails to measure
up and establish national credibility, the other most likely future presidential hopeful for
the Democrats is another forceful, beautiful and exceptionally intelligent young lady hardly
older than the New York congresswoman is: That is former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard from
Hawaii, who was effectively squeezed out from her own congressional seat on the idyllic Pacific
island by the machinations of the old Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi gang of rotting old
politicos.
However, as has happened with epochal champions of generational transformation and change in
U.S. history before her, Gabbard’s eclipse in Hawaii could lead to her
comeback in a far more spectacular form.
She may move to California â€" a vastly superior political base to her home in
Hawaii for national U.S. politics. Also, her outstanding military record, highly unusual for a
young rising female Democrat of the current generation and her mastery of defense and national
security issues potentially gives her a far more potent and impressive credibility across the
American continent than AOC.
For Ocasio-Cortez’s appeal is like a laser beam: It is undoubtedly
powerful but also quite narrow, centered on the East and West Coasts and to a far lesser
degree, the much smaller progressive enclaves in major metropolitan areas across the
country.
Gabbard by contrast has the potential to reach deep into the Heartland. She was carefully
kept out of most of the nationally televised political debates for the 2020 presidential
nomination by her own party’s leaders. They were terrified of her.
However, Gabbard was an absolute knockout in the debates when she got a word in edgewise.
And she proved effortlessly able especially to demolish then-Senator and now-Vice President
Kamala Harris. That could prove of priceless importance to the national credibility of the
Progressive movement if, as appears likely Harris succeeds Biden into the White House in 2024,
or even sooner.
However, Gabbard has also shown the potential to move dramatically from one extreme of the
political chessboard to the other, much like a bishop moved a diagonal right across the
board:
In January 2021, she launched her own podcast called “This is Tulsi
Gabbard†and she has appeared a number of times on the conservative-leaning Fox
News Channel since she left Congress, focusing her outspoken attacks on Pelosi and House
Judiciary Committee Chair and leading Pelosi crony Congressman Adam Schiff. It is not
inconceivable to see her as an eventual running mate for the nationalist right on a Republican
ticket led by Senator Ted Cruz in 2024 or 2028. (In 2028, she will still be only 47).
Cruz and AOC are truly powerful potent emerging forces on the Right and Left of U.S.
politics. Gabbard has the intriguing potential to completely transform the picture on either
side. Between them, they offer hope that the new forces awakened by Trump and Sanders may
triumph yet.
West of the Mississippi is where most cops kill Whites. The US does have a problem with
militarized police. They go to Israel to learn how to treat all of us like Palestinians.
Thats a fact jack.
Jurist_Naturalist_UA1 41 minutes ago
Yep, I knew we were in trouble when every cop shack started getting armored vehicles. In
washington state it's almost a sport for cops pulling over everyone who just left a bar.
Militarized to the hilt, jackin' around honest folks just trying to make it day to day. I've
never needed a cop, atleast not the version we have today. I need their pensions even
less.
moose21 5 hours ago
The idiot is the person believing that sh$t
Check your premise
Maher did know and was just playing and fooling the idiots and fools.
That does not make him an idiot. It makes him despicable , smart and evil
Omni Consumer Product 4 hours ago
Any professional comedian or pundit today doesn't write his own material.
Whether it's Colbert, Kimmel, Cuomo, Maher, et. al; they have an army of staff writers to
do that
Of course, the producer sets the overall tone - or "agenda" - and then the writers have to
come up with stuff to fit the narrative
dbtunr 11 hours ago
If you watched him the past 20 years, it's not new. He just hated Trump....for good
reason. His ideas were always "Politically Incorrect"
Southern_Boy 11 hours ago
I've never watched him and have no plans to do so in the future.
He and his program are a total waste of time.
consistentliving PREMIUM 10 hours ago
and people accuse the South of being close minded.
watch Fox sure, but you have to know the other side of the argument my parents taught
me
Maher is better than 99.99% of liberals and has some good ideas just as Trump did
Champie 10 hours ago
Not watching Bill Maher does NOT make someone a Fox viewer.
consistentliving PREMIUM 9 hours ago
point taken.
ohm 2 hours ago
The more you watch TV, the more stupid you become.
DonkeyKickin 9 hours ago remove link
Even when Maher has a broken clock moment he is still irritating. If he is better than
most liberals, they are in deep trouble.
Propaganda is a business, there are few distinctions.
dbtunr 10 hours ago (Edited)
I look forward to watching his program. I don't agree with many of his opinions, but you
can always learn something from one of his guests if you watch. You may not agree with what
that they say, but you can get a perspective on something to see WHY the other side thinks
that way. it's called "learning". I know this is a radical idea to the narrow minded ZH
crowd, but you should try it once in a while.
A federal politician travels to the scene of a controversial trial to threaten a riot if the
jury doesn’t deliver the “correct†verdict.
Rule of law is such an antiquated idea.
In front of God and country (and journalists with cameras) Rep. Maxine Waters â€"
from behind a face mask/face shield combo for COVID safety, of course â€"
declared:
“We’re looking for a guilty
verdict… If nothing does not happen [sic], then we know that we have got
to… stay in the streets…I hope we get a verdict that
says guilty, guilty… And if we don’t, we cannot go
away.â€
When asked what she thinks protesters should do, Waters explicitly told them to
“get more activeâ€:
"We’ve got to stay on the street. We get more active,
we’ve got to get more confrontational . We’ve got to make
sure that they know that we mean business.â€
The subtext, of course, is that previous protests were not confrontational or
“active†enough. What exactly would a “more
active†Minneapolis riot round #2 look like?
Maxine Waters, incidentally, theoretically represents LA â€" quite a long drive
from Minneapolis or, for that matter, Washington, D.C. Waters most likely flew in on a
chartered jet, though, and left the driving to the proletariat.
The judge in the case, Peter Cahill,
replied to Chauvin’s lawyers’ motion that he declare
a mistrial due to Maxine Waters’ threatening rhetoric on the streets of
Minneapolis:
“I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially
in a manner that’s disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial
branch and our function… I’m aware the Congresswoman
Waters was talking specifically about this trial… if (representatives) want
to give their opinions, they should do so in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the
Constitution to respect the co-equal branch of government… Their failure to
do so, I think, is abhorrent .â€
This is practical proof that the trustees of the fictitious democracy fantasy we are all
forced to accept don’t believe in the legal process or rule of law
â€" as if Americans required more evidence of their Congressional
representatives’ failings, over and over and over.
Outside of rule of law, the federal government and the corporations that functionally own it
treat the American citizenry to a host of abuses:
Warrant-free mass surveillance
Endless foreign wars with no legal declaration of war
‘In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State.â€
Imagine, for a moment, the mental process of a juror in the Floyd case, a resident of
Minneapolis â€" the same city in which Maxine Waters threatened mass violence if the
jury you belong to fails to render a “guilty†verdict. Perhaps
you live in one of the same neighborhoods that was essentially leveled in the riots of June
2020.
Maybe, for some masochistic reason, you enjoyed shopping at your local Target before
“protesters†pillaged it and you couldn’t
buy waffle batter and Korean electronics or whatever.
Or, maybe you really liked the guys at the local AutoZone who helped you out with sourcing
car parts â€" the ones who don’t have a job anymore because they
don’t have a building to work in
after protestors torched it .
Yes, you have been instructed not to view news surrounding the trial as all jurors are. But
now, after coming home from a long day at court, Waters’ tirade is all over
your social media as you scroll through your newsfeed.
How could it not be? A sitting member of Congress not only sanctioned but encouraged riots
in the same case that you, again, are charged with rendering an impartial verdict in.
Even if you wanted to ignore Waters’ threats to remain in good faith as a
juror and try your best to deliver justice, you couldn’t. Humans, however
Stoic, are not robots.
What are you going to do? Is impartiality possible in such circumstances when
it’s your own city, maybe even your own neighborhood, on the chopping block
at the whim of a faceless, nameless mob?
Or are you going to bow to the pressure and give the mob the verdict it wants â€"
and hope and pray that’s enough to satisfy them and prevent more lootings
and burnings (though that’s certainly no guarantee).
If Waters believed in rule of law, a basic Constitutional function of the government, why
would she not let the process finish?
In the weeks leading up to her calls for riots on the streets in the event of an acquittal,
every legal analyst worth his or her salt predicted a guilty verdict on all counts.
So, why would you disrupt the process days before the guilty verdict demanded by the mob,
tainting the jury pool potentially and, as a result, nullifying the entire court proceedings
and mandating a retrial?
“Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may
result in this whole trial being overturned.â€
Of course she gave cause for appeal, by any rational standard or analysis. A sitting member
of Congress traveling to the scene of active protests to fan the flames of rage and threaten
riots on camera that almost literally everyone â€" including the jurors in the case
â€" have seen.
This is not a mere case of Congressional misconduct â€" those happen every day.
This is the instantiation of mob rule as a substitute for law. Justice is now dispensed at the
whim of popular opinion, which is not gauged by any scientific means like polling but rather
through raw expression of power on the streets.
Where this ends is anyone’s guess, but it’s not likely
to be anywhere decent. Some more multinational corporations that worship at the altar of
neoliberalism might get their Minneapolis stores torched along with rule of law, at least, and
no one will mourn the loss.
Ben Bartee is a Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Contact him via
his portfolio or on
LinkedIn
.
You can help protect us from BIG TECH DE-PLATFORMING by joining our email list.
This is the single biggest way to ensure we can't be silenced for speaking out against
censorship, and the elite/ cabal's plans for a "Great Reset"-- their New World Order meant to
render you impoverished and powerless.
This stupid woman is doing nothing but foment increased racial tension and disgust for
black culture. Black leadership of the likes of Sharpton, Jackson and this evil brain dead
congresswoman is disgraceful and self serving. Their idiotic messages are never about
self-reliance, living by acceptable moral standards, abiding by the law, valuing education,
valuing family, treating others with respect, etc.........but rather always hate filled,
victimhood mentality, and that someone else is responsible for keeping you down. Why on earth
are these self serving pieces of shyte leaders not seen for who they are (race baiting,
hustlers with no real agenda for improving race relations) by their black constituents?
Bioweapon 6 hours ago remove link
Why isn't she arrested for inciting violence? You know it's all aimed at White people and
their businesses and homes of which the remain the vast majority across the state.
left blank 8 hours ago (Edited)
maxine waters refuses to live in Compton neighborhood she represents.
just like the others' in a long list of California politicians who take orders from the
annual bohemian grove meeting of corporations , who then use taxpayer funded govt agencies to
impose their list of 25 rules - to overthrow and topple the usa
In China’s Cultural Revolution, Mao and his extreme leftists sought to
grab power and keep their opposition and public in a state of confusion by extremist
political sloganeering, creating constant chaos, and attacking tradition and rule of law.
They do it without fear of retribution because they cover themselves in sanctimony and
victimhood.
Waters isn’t very smart, but she knows what she’s
doing here.
optimator 6 hours ago (Edited)
a dedicated ruthless 10% of the population that means business is usually enough to grab
control of the government. Russia 1918, American Revolution, etc.
PRAGUE, April 25. /TASS/. The evidence that some "Russian agents" were present at the ammo
depot in the village of Vrbetice was not mentioned in the reports of the Czech
Republic’s Security Information Service, Czech President Milos Zeman said
in his emergency televised address in connection with the 2014 incident on Sunday.
"I can state that the report of the Security Information Service says and I underline this
- that there is neither proof nor evidence [of eyewitnesses] that these two agents [the
Russians who were accused of involvement in the incident - TASS] were at the [ammo depot] in
Vrbetice. When the premises of the second depot were examined right before the explosion
there, no explosive device was found there," Zeman said in his address broadcast by Prima and
CNN Prima News TV channels.
The president stressed that the suspicion about the alleged role of two foreign agents in
the 2014 ammo depot explosions in Vrbetice came to the surface over the past weeks. "The
Security Information Service had never before mentioned the incident in Vrbetice over the
past six years," he noted.
…
In the Russian-language version of the same story Zeman also talks about the possibility
that the explosives were not properly handled:
…
Zeman also said that careless handling of ammunition is being considered as the cause of the
explosions and the possible involvement of foreign intelligence services is being considered.
"We are working with two versions - that the explosions [in Vrbetica] occurred as a result of
careless handling of ammunition, and the second version - that agents of foreign special
services are to blame for this," Zeman said.
…
Zeman also provided an indirect hint as to who might have coordinated the scandal on the
Czech side and on whose orders:
PRAGUE, April 25. / TASS /. Czech President Milos Zeman questioned the effectiveness of the
American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in connection with incorrect information, on the
basis of which the United States made an erroneous decision on a military operation against
Iraq.
"The CIA is the intelligence agency that informed the US government that there are weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. And this [CIA allegation] was not only not confirmed, but was
[completely] refuted," Zeman said Sunday in an interview with Prima and CNN. Prima NEWS . -
The consequences [of this step by the CIA] were terrible - thousands of lives, enormous
material damage, and so on. Is this how a high-quality intelligence service works? "
The head of state made such a statement, answering the question whether he intends to
confer the rank of general on the head of the Security and Information Service -
counterintelligence of the Czech Republic - Michal Koudelka, who was recently awarded the CIA
medal in the United States . Zeman said that he would consider the possibility of his
promotion next year and only if the version of the Czech special services about the
involvement of foreign agents in the explosions at the ammunition depot in the village of
Vrbetice in 2014 is confirmed.
Earlier Zakharova noted that the local authorities didn’t even know who
operated the ammo depot:
…
“Seven years have passed. Did the trial take place? There was no court.
Two people died ... Here is the answer to your question, including - who is the beneficiary
of all this marasmic parade. There was an investigation, there was an investigation - nothing
came of it, " RIA Novosti quotes Zakharova.
…
She said that "the local authorities did not know that since 2006 the ammunition depot has
not been used by the army, and the Ministry of Defense is renting out the warehouse premises
to private arms companies."
Zakharova added that "the huge amount of weapons that were in the warehouses for eight
years were without any control from the authorities."
…
"... The danger is that Gressel, and other 'political scientists' like him, may once take up government positions and use their learned illusions to handle the next crisis. Stuck in the idea that Russia will retreat if only 'deterred' enough they will lean to measures that are outright hostile to Russia and may have indeed very tragic consequences. ..."
Some two month ago we discussed how the
U.S. focus on narratives will let it collide with reality . It is certainly not only the
U.S. government that creates narratives, comes to believe in them, and then fails when it is
confronted with reality. Carried by think tanks and media the narrative mold has grown
throughout the wider 'western' world.
On the danger of this development the above piece quoted Alastair Crooke who wrote
:
They lose the ability to stand apart, and see themselves â€" as others see
them. They become so enraptured by the virtue of their version of the world, that they lose
all ability to empathise or accept others’ truths. They cannot hear the
signals. The point here, is that in that talking past (and not listening) to other states,
the latters’ motives and intentions will be mis-construed â€"
sometimes tragically so.
Over the last weeks we passed through a crisis that easily could have had a tragic
ending.
Since February the Ukraine built up a force to retake the renegade Donbas region in
east-Ukraine by military force. After waiting several week to see the situation more clearly
Russia started to assemble a counterforce backed up by statements that were sufficiently
strong to deter the Ukraine from continuing its plans. The danger of a Ukrainian assault has
now receded.
Today the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave orders for the troops to return to their bases.
Much of the equipment though will stay on training grounds near Ukraine until the regular
fall maneuvers later this year take place. That minimizes transport costs and gives a little
time advantage should someone in the Ukraine again have silly ideas.
Russia has clearly won this round.
But that is not how it looks when seen from the 'western' narrative. In that version the
Ukrainian plans and its assembling of heavy weapons and troops near the Donbas border never
happened. The narrative says that the whole incident started as a 'Russian aggression' when
Russia very publicly showed its potential force.
Only a few
analysts on the 'western' side have rejected that narrative and stuck to reality. Dmitri
Trenin of Carnegie's Moscow Center is one who got it right :
In February, Zelensky ordered troops (as part of the rotation process) and heavy weapons
(as a show of force) to go near to the conflict zone in Donbas. He did not venture out as
far as Poroshenko, who dispatched small Ukrainian naval vessels through the
Russian-controlled waters near the Kerch Strait in late 2018, but it was enough to get him
noticed in Moscow.
The fact of the matter is that even if Ukraine cannot seriously hope to win the war in
Donbas, it can successfully provoke Russia into action.
This, in turn, would produce a knee-jerk reaction from Ukraine’s
Western supporters and further aggravate Moscow’s relations,
particularly with Europe. One way or another, the fate of Nord Stream II will directly
affect Ukraine’s interests. Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression
and presenting itself as a frontline state checking Russia’s further
advance toward Europe is a major asset of Kyiv’s foreign policy.
Russia intentionally over reacted to Kiev's opening move. It demonstrated its overkill
capability and made it clear to Zelensky's western sponsors that any further provocations
would have extremely harsh consequences. As Putin
said yesterday :
Those behind provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what
they have done in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time.
Zelensky's plan did not work out. While he did get verbal statements of support from Biden
and NATO everyone knew that those were empty promises. But for people who have fallen for the
false narrative the situation looks different. Consider this reaction to Shoigu's
return-to-barracks order today from a member of the European Council On Foreign Relations (a
U.S. lobby shop in Europe):
I have to congratulate (Flag of United States) @JoeBiden to deterence success and crisis
management. The right warnings were sent to Moscow, the right intelligence to Ukraine.
(Flag of Russia) could not extort concessions, could not provoke. Let's see w. these forces
aren't just redeployed to (Flag of Belarus).
Indeed Biden's order last week to
pull back two war ships that were supposed to go into the Black Sea to support Ukraine
was really great deterrence. But that was not a warning to Moscow. It did not deter Russia
from doing anything. But it did end Zelensky's illusions of U.S. support.
But for Gressel, who like others is stuck to the 'western' narrative, the sense is
different. He really seems to believe that the U.S. deterred Russia from some nefarious plans
which it never had. He ignores that Russia reacted to a Ukrainian provocation in a way that,
in the end, has made NATO and the U.S. look weak.
The danger is that Gressel, and other 'political scientists' like him, may once take
up government positions and use their learned illusions to handle the next crisis. Stuck in
the idea that Russia will retreat if only 'deterred' enough they will lean to measures that
are outright hostile to Russia and may have indeed very tragic consequences. To repeat
Crooke's warning
:
The point here, is that in that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the
latters’ motives and intentions will be mis-construed â€"
sometimes tragically so.
Posted by b on April 22, 2021 at 17:25 UTC |
Permalink
The Russians have only partly gone. Heavy weapons will remain in place which can be
reactivated easily. (Particularly in Crimea). However the Russian "Threat" to Zelnsky is
still there. Logically he should now have more difficulty in stirring up the EU and US for
cash and weapons as the "obvious and visble" threat is diminished. I don't think his troops
can stay indefinitely where they are. How can he continue to pay for all his new mercenaries,
new arms?
So how is the MSM going to react? They have a lot of "journalists" around there, waiting
for something to happen.
One obvious factor is that the supply lines of both are within their own countries
(Ukraine for Ukrainians, and Russia for the Russians). Those that have the longest supply
lines are NATO, the UK and US.
An earlier ploy (Attempted violent assassination of Lukashenko and most of the Belarusian
parliament), with Georgia and other close by countries getting involved too, is now unlikely.
BUT the US is desperate to cut the Russian-Chinese access to Europe by any means. What's
next? Plan ....F?
The Western narrative was also very clearly visible in the latest printed "Der Spiegel"
16/2021 (News magazine in Germany). They had a 4 page article about Ukraine with the title
"On the edge of war". They reported at length about russian troops near the border.
Explicitely they wrote about sabre rattling from russia and generally gave the impression
that all action is solely on the russian side and must be seen negatively or with grave
concerns.
But they failed completely to mention Ukrainian troop movements, bellicose rhetoric or even
the Zelensky's decrete 117/2021 from march 23rd with the translated title "Strategy of
de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol".
b... thanks.. yes - narrative and controlling the narrative is what so much of this is
about.... people in the west are not told of ukraines role in any of this or how they are
encouraged by the west... instead what they are told is how russia is building up along the
ukraine border.... in other words only one side of the story is told, and not both..nor is
the timing of all of it shared either... people are literally given a script or narrative
tailor made for brainwashing.. and indeed it works on most...
for an example of this today - i was listening to cbc radio - national news show ''the
currenct''.. the host matt galloway discusses the situation with Mark MacKinnon, senior
international correspondent for the Globe and Mail; Nina Khrushcheva, professor of
international affairs at the New School in New York; and Michael Bociurkiw, global affairs
analyst, formerly with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
I am not so sure that this is over. The Belarus coup was intended to be around May 9.
Zelensky has called up the reserves who ever they might be. He just floated the idea of
banning Russia from the SWIFT so that it is on everyone's mind when Ukraine claims they were
attacked. The NS2 will likely be initially complete in May. The USS Cook and Roosevelt are
waiting for the British boats and will likely enter together. They have not yet given notice
that I have seen. Two frigates are transiting the Suez to join their fellow yanks. I see a
perfect storm yet coming. Shoigu is bright and knows that it looks good to announce the
return to barracks, but he has access to my data plus a ton more. He knows that the situation
is still fluid and volatile.
... But for Gressel, who like others is stuck to the 'western' narrative, the sense is
different. He really seems to believe that the U.S. deterred Russia from some nefarious plans
which it never had. He ignores that Russia reacted to a Ukrainian provocation in a way that,
in the end, has made NATO and the U.S. look weak.
This delusion reminded me of a retort, from an astute observer, to a dopey remark made by
Bush II soon after the start if the Iraq Fake War. Bush said "We're gonna turn EyeRack into
fly-paper for ter'rists! To which the observer responded...
"If Iraq was fly-paper then the only bug that got stuck to it was Bush."
I'm one of the most ardent proponents of the "imbecilization of the West" hypothesis, but
this is clearly a diplomatic style face-saving plausible deniability exit by the West.
The West knows time is not on its side in the Ukrainian issue, and its puppet president
threw a Hail Mary. Russia correctly didn't swallow the bait, and the West fell back as it
knew it would have to, since this was a long shot.
NS-2 is now getting finished, and the Ukraine will consolidate itself more than ever as a
black hole of American resources. The West, however, has one last ace in the hole: the German
Green Party, which is well positioned to form the next government after the December national
elections. The NS-2 certainly won't be finished by then, if the American diplomacy is to do
its job properly, and the Greens will have all the tools at hand to implode the project, thus
giving the Ukraine some more years to ride on American finance by its gas leverage (over
which all its sovereign T-bonds rest at this point).
The key to Ukrainian success is in Germany, not in Russia.
One advantage that Ukraine has in military terms is the number of people who willingly and
enthusiastically want to join the army for the sake of de-occupation (interesting why they
invented a replacement of "liberation" that has at least two equivalents with Slavic roots,
perhaps they do not like their current occupations). The best proof is that through their
democratically elected representatives they voted for a huge increase of punishments for
avoiding conscription.
The other proof is that, temporarily at least, Ukrainians abolished the system of rotation
in which units were staying on the fortified lines literally dying of boredom and related
risk (alcohol poisoning, explosions of stills making moonshine, drug overdoses, suicide,
stepping over their own mines, to mention a few), instead the troops to be rotated stayed in
place and the other units joined them nearby.
However, Russian conscripts without the advantage of Ukrainian enthusiasm have better
weapons. Modernizing Ukrainian military is a tall order. The budget barely supports the
troops without modernization, the domestic industry in its better years relied to selling
parts to Russia and buying other parts, remnants of industrial integration of Soviet times.
Supplying them with NATO weapons would require huge gifts that (a) could be unpopular in the
West (b) raise risk of getting the best toys of NATO to Russian in exchange for non-toxic
alcohol, fresh Afghan heroin etc. Did I mention mind-killing military service? And with not
so best toys, like missile boats that are about to be de-commissioned, say, in Canada, they
do not really change the strategic balance.
Thus Zelensky had to be saved from his own rhetoric and gestures -- the aforementioned
change in "rotation". Kiev authorities have a good practice in "never mind". For example,
they utilize fascist radicals to intimidate opposition, but they are what I call "pet
cobras", biting the hand that feeds them is what is programmed into their reptilian minds
that do not have circuits for "friends" and "gratitude". And because of some grievances they
trashed the Presidential place of work, insulting graffiti, broken windows, a broken and
burned door, so three ringleaders got arrested, Parliament spent a few hours being appalled
(after thinking for a week what to say), and now one ringleader was let free, with the
remainder probably joining him soon (one at the time, I think). See folks: nothing
happened.
It is possible that Napoleonic rhetoric and gestures were planned to get a "street cred"
with those hoodlums, or that they were discreetly encouraged by an embassy (some people think
that UK is the leader here, USA having mental problems and distractions). Or some
combination.
Our problem here in the U$A is still the same as always. Mr. Z's announcement on 3/24
about his nation's intentions to take back the Crimea, were NEVER mentioned on our MSM. It's
always Russian aggression, or China's aggression. It's NEVER our fault.
Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression and presenting itself as a frontline state
checking Russia’s further advance toward Europe is a major asset
of Kyiv’s foreign policy.
Wait...what?
I think B takes the "administration" too literally -
We know they are lying, they know they are lying, everyone knows they are lying but they are
creating a virtual world in which their behavior is rational and justified. I am not sure why
exactly such an artificial construct is seen as helpful. I suppose you could blame it on the
voting public in the democratic west but we all realize by this point that the west is in no
way democratic in a literal, functional sense - they less than do not give a damn what the
little people think in fact they could well do with a lot fewer of them and really without
the need of actual vote counting.
Possibly to their dog at night under the covers and after many martinis to help them
forget what they are, they admit something like their best attempt at the truth.
The militias with their supposed morale â€" These are the grandkids and great
grandkids of WWII collaborators. Middle class and hipsters. In a country where there
basically is no middle class. Ukraine’s economy is at African level. Only
source of funds for anything is the US embassy. There is no agenda but the agenda of 1945.
Any from the 2014 crop who had anything on the ball whatsoever is now my neighbor. What is
left in Uke is the dregs. Hipsters do not hang around in failed states.
Entire political landscape is now centered on US Embassy. Oligarchs might have some input
still, their wealth is out of country and so are they most of time.
Pure political vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. CIA and their hired actors will fill the
stage, journalists will report their antics. They are playing to an empty house. Ukraine
could exist in same zone as Libya or Iraq for a long time. In end nothing fills the vacuum
but Russian Federation.
The Russian military's policy is not to use conscripts on the front lines, that role is
far too important to trust to what are partially trained soldiers, they are used in support
functions. The frontline is manned by professional soldiers.
Zelenski has got $300M of 'stuff' out of Congress this week so that was a result for
him.
Russia might be pulling back but the Ukrainians haven't got the message. My understanding
is there are 50,000 Ukrainian army and 20,000 Ukrainian security forces normally in the
Donbass on the frontlines against 30,000 or so NAF. This crisis came when another 30,000
troops plus heavy weapons were moved into the area. Two days ago OSCE reported that two
artillery battalions of self propelled 122mm and 152 guns have been moved up to the front.
Then apparently earlier this week, two battalions of the Azov were moved up from Mariupol
(their normal area) to the front lines facing Donetsk City. Most of these 20,000 security
forces would be your Nazi wannabe's with the Azov unit being the largest. For those of you
not watching in 2014/5 Azov are the evil bastards that make the Red Army in WW2 Germany look
like angels.
So Kiev is still building an overpowering strike force with a probable objective of a
thrust through the center to the Russian border, splitting the two 'rebel' states. Both US
and UK and no doubt other advisors are on site. The Global Hawk is sucking up data overhead
most days. There is NATO pride on the line here planning and directing. We await a false
flag.
I think b is being a bit too optimistic. Somehow they have to stop NS2, in many ways their
futures depend on transit gas and, as before, they won't care how many have to die to save
their skins and wallets.
President Putin consulted with Minster of Defense Shoigu and asks if the troops can be
scaled back from the lines of contact without significantly reducing tactical capability.
Shoigu runs the numbers and delivers the answer that Putin was looking for.
Putin is offering an olive branch to Zelensky knowing full well his military can roll over
the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine with impunity.
Does Zelensky do the same? No, instead he calls up reserve boys to make himself look
tough.
A Russian proverb that is most appropriate in this case is this:
Ð"урнаÌÑ
гоÐ"оваÌ
ногаÌм
покоÌÑ Ð½Ðµ
даÑ'Ñ‚. Translation: The stupid head doesn't leave
feet in rest or in other words, no rest for the wicked.
"... Bioâ€" Israel Shamir is a writer on international affairs, a radical political thinker, and a Biblical and Judaic scholar. His comments on current affairs are published on The Unz Review , and on his own sites www.israelshamir.net and www.israelshamir.com . His books Galilee Flowers , Cabbala of Power , Masters of Discourse are available on the Amazon… Shamir was a dissident in the USSR and in Israel where he called for full rights for the Palestinians. He is also a global dissident who calls for the dismantling the New World Order and the American Empire ..."
"... Churchill’s observation about the USA cannot be more apt, “The US will do the right thing, after it has done all others.†Hopefully, that is before nuclear Armageddon is unleashed upon us. ..."
Question 1â€" For the last 4 years, Democrat leaders have blamed Russia
for allegedly meddling in the 2016 elections. Now the Democratsâ€" who control all
three branches of government â€" have the power to reset US foreign policy and take
a more hostile approach to Moscow. But will they?
At present, there are roughly 40,000 US-NATO troops massed along the Russian border
conducting military exercises while scores of Russian tanks, artillery and an estimated 85,000
Russian troops are now located about 25 miles from Ukraine’s eastern border.
Both armies are on hair-trigger alert and prepared for any sudden provocation. If the Ukrainian
Army invades the Russian-speaking region of Ukraine (Donbas), Moscow will likely respond.
So, will there be a conflagration in the Ukraine this spring and, if so, how will Putin
respond? Will he limit the scope of his campaign to the Donbas or push onward to Kiev?
Israel Shamirâ€" If the Russian army crosses the Ukrainian border, it
won’t stop in the Donbas. The war will be brief and the Ukraine will be
split into pieces. But will it happen?
Russia’s totem animal, the Bear, is a strong and peaceful animal that is
not easily aroused, but once provoked, it is unstoppable. Russian rulers have typically fit
this image. They weren’t adventurous, but level-headed and prudent.
Putin, who is the quintessential Russian ruler, is risk-averse. He won’t
start a war he never wanted to begin with, but he will act decisively if he needs to do so.
Consider 2014, after the Ukrainian coup: the lawful Ukrainian president Mr Yanukovich ran to
Russia and asked Putin to help him regain power. At that time, the Ukrainian army was weak and
Russia could have easily retaken the country without facing any significant resistance. But,
surprisingly, Putin did not give the order to take Kiev.
Putin is unpredictable. He ordered the seizure of Crimea despite the counsel of his
advisors. It was an unexpected move, and it worked like a charm. He also pummeled Georgia in
2008 after Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia. This was another surprise move that succeeded
better than anyone could have imagined. If the Ukrainians try to retake Donbas, the Russian
army will beat them badly and continue on to Kiev. The presence of NATO’s
troops will not deter Putin.
As for the Democrats, they can push Kiev to attack, but they will end up losing the Ukraine
in the process. If the point is to poison relations between Russia and Europe, they can try to
do so, but if they think the Russo-Ukrainian war is going to drag on,
they’re mistaken. And if they think Putin won’t defend
the Donbas, they’ve made a serious miscalculation.
Biden’s recent phone call to Putin suggests that the administration has
decided not to launch a war after all. The unconfirmed report of two US ships turning away from
the Black Sea fits this assessment. However, we cannot be sure about this since the Kremlin
refused to agree to Biden’s offer for a meeting. The
Kremlin’s response was a frosty “We shall study the
proposalâ€. Russians feel that the summit proposal might be a trick aimed at buying
time to strengthen their position. Bottom line: We cannot know certain how things will play out
in the future.
Question 2â€" I have a hard time understanding what the Biden
administration hopes to gain by provoking a war in the Ukraine. Seizing the Donbas will force
the government to impose a costly, long-term military occupation that will be ferociously
resisted by Russian-speaking people who live in the area. How does that benefit Washington?
I don’t think it does. I think the real objective is to provoke Putin
into overreacting, thus, proving that Russia poses a threat to all of Europe. The only way
Washington can persuade its EU allies that they should not engage in critical business
transactions (like Nordstream) with Moscow, is if they can prove that Russia is an
“external threat†to their collective security.
Do you agree with this or do you think Washington has something to gain by launching a war
in the Ukraine?
Israel Shamirâ€" What do you mean by
‘overreacting’? Putin is not threatening to nuke
Washington or take over Brussels or storm Warsaw? But to solve the problem of Ukraine on such
occasion would be entirely reasonable .
When the regime in Kiev began to prepare for war a few months ago, they thought it would be
a repeat of 2015, where they attack Donbas, the Donbas suffers losses, and then the Russian
army steps in to prevent their defeat. They saw it as a limited war with a good chance of
regaining Donbas. But Moscow has indicated that they will respond to any unprovoked aggression
using their full strength, thereby crushing the Ukrainian state. In other words, the Russian
army won’t stop at the Donbas but will proceed to the western borders of the
Ukraine until the entire country is liberated.
Is that ‘overreacting’?
Definitely not. The people of Ukraine would be saved from the nationalist, anti-Russian
regime, and the people of Russia would be saved from a NATO base on their western flank.
Hopefully the EU will understand this. As for the US, the Russians have already made up their
minds; the United States is an enemy. There has been a tectonic shift in Russia, and that shift
is the result of Russia’s weariness with the United
States’ proxy assaults.
The US would like to see the Donbas reintegrated into the Ukrainian state because then
they’d be praised as a ‘mighty defender of an East
European country against Russia’. But then Russia would have permanent
low-level war on its border. Either way, Russia’s relations with Europe
would be poisoned and the EU would probably end up buying expensive liquefied gas from the US
rather than instead the much cheaper Russian gas.
Russia’s decision to launch a full-blown attack on the Ukraine has made
the whole plan irrelevant. Putin will not allow it to happen.
The Ukrainians are flexible folks. At present, they submit to anti-Russian
nationalist narrative, but if the Russian army were to come, the Ukrainians would quickly
remember that they were co-founders of the USSR, brothers to Russians, and they would shake off
the nightmarish nationalist rule. The Ukrainians are wonderful people, but they easily adapt to
new rulers, be they the German Wehrmacht, the Polish landlords, the Petlyura Nationalists, or
the Communists. They would adapt to a partnership with Russia, too. Similarly, the Russians
would embrace the Ukrainians as they did in 1920 and in 1945.
Question 3â€" The Russian army would have little problem capturing the
Capitol, but holding on to Kiev might be a different matter altogether.
Let’s say, Russian troops are deployed to Kiev to maintain the peace while a
provisional government is established in the run-up to free elections. What would the US
response be? What would NATO’s response be? How would this maneuver be
portrayed in the western media? Would it be portrayed as a
“liberation†or an “occupation by a ruthless
imperial power� Would this help or hurt Moscow’s relations with
its partners around the world and particularly Germany where Nordstream is still under
construction?
And wouldn’t this scenario prompt the US Intel agencies to arm, train and
fund disparate groups of far-right extremists who would carry out a protracted insurgency
against Russian troops in Kiev? How is that in Russia’s interest? Why would
Putin put himself in the same situation the US put itself in Afghanistan, where a poorly-armed,
ragtag militia has made governance impossible forcing the US to pack-up and leave 20 years
later. Is that what Putin wants?
Israel Shamirâ€"The comparison with Afghanistan is absurd. The Ukraine
is a part of Russia that became independent the moment the Soviet Union collapsed. Ukrainians
are Russians of a sort. They have the same religion, the same language, the same culture, and
the same history. Yes, the CIA did try to arm the Ukrainian insurgency after WWII, but with
little success. You could compare a takeover of Kiev with a takeover of Atlanta by Sherman.
Ukrainian independence and separation probably cannot be reversed right away, but instead of
one big unwieldy state, Ukraine can be transformed into a few coherent independent units.
Western Ukraine is likely to join Poland as an independent or semi-independent state. East and
South Ukraine could become semi-independent under Russian umbrella, or join Russian Federation.
And historical Ukraine around Poltava could try and go its own way. I think the Ukrainians
would be happy to reunite with their mother state, or at least to become friendly with Moscow.
There will be no need to deploy Russian troops in Kiev or elsewhere. There are enough
Ukrainians to govern and control the situation and to deal with remaining extreme
nationalists.
What would the US and NATO response be? How would this maneuver be portrayed in the western
media? Probably the same as their response to Crimea takeover. They will be angry, unhappy,
furious. The problem is they already are. They’ve already imposed sanctions
on Russia and reinstalled the Iron Curtain. They’ve already done everything
short of a military confrontation. Russia is so annoyed by it all, that she is beyond caring
about another bout of sanctions.
I am certain that Russia won’t start a war in the Ukraine, but if Kiev
does, the Russian army will topple the regime just like the US toppled regimes in Afghanistan,
Iraq and many other states. And, any attempt to establish US or NATO military bases in Ukraine
will undoubtedly be seen as casus belli.
Russians think that a big war is unavoidable, so it’s probably better
to have the Ukraine under Moscow’s control before that war breaks out. The
US is an enemy; that is the feeling in Russia. If the US wants to change that perception, it
should act fast .
Question 4â€" Is Washington genuinely interested in the Ukraine or is it
just a staging-ground for its war on Russia??
Israel Shamirâ€" Washington would like to initiate a low-intensity war between
Ukraine and Russia, a long-lasting war that would drain Russian resources and kill Russian
troops; a war that would divert Russia’s attention from other hotspots, like
in Syria or Libya . This is the way in which the US is laying the groundwork for an even
bigger confrontation with Russia in the future.
Putin has accepted the breakup of the USSR. He’s not trying to
reconstruct the Soviet empire nor is he particularly interested in the Ukraine. Twice he
allowed Russia’s enemies to carry Ukraine away: in 2004 and in 2014. He has
showed that he’d prefer to have as little to do with Ukraine as possible.
Being a lawyer by education, Putin has a legal mind. He thought that Minsk Treaties were good
enough a solution for all concerned. (The Minsk Treaty would
“federalize†the Ukraine) He didn’t expect
that Kiev would just ignore the treaties, but that’s what happened. Now
he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’s not keen
on annexing any part of Ukraine, but he might be forced to do so sooner or later.
In the last few weeks, US-Russian relations have deteriorated significantly. Russia is
deeply offended by recent developments and will not go back to “business as
usualâ€. We have entered uncharted waters and there is no way to predict what
will happen next.
Question 5â€" No one in the United States benefits from a conflict with
Russia, in fact, a military confrontation with Moscow poses a serious and, perhaps, existential
threat to Russians and Americans alike. Still, the rush to war continues apace, mainly because
the US military â€"with all of its millions of troops and high-tech
weaponryâ€" is in the hands of a foreign policy establishment that is determined to
control the vast resources and growth-potential of Central Asia despite the casualties and
destruction that strategy will undoubtedly cause.
The biggest obstacle to this plan is Russia, which is why â€"since the collapse
of the Soviet Unionâ€" the US and NATO have made every effort to encircle Russia,
deploy missile sites to its borders, conduct hostile military exercises on its perimeter, and
arm and train Islamic extremists to fight in its provinces. (Chechnya) Now that Joe Biden has
been elected president, I would expect the hostilities towards Russia will rapidly intensify in
both Ukraine and Syria. Biden has already shown that he will do whatever he is told to do by
the foreign policy “Borgâ€, which means that war with Russia
might be unavoidable.
Do you agree or disagree with this analysis?
Israel Shamirâ€" There are forces that want to control and direct mankind.
These forces use the US as their enforcer. The Trump-related part of the US elites want the
US to be the main beneficiary of the process. The Biden-related part of the US elites is more
globally-oriented. Russia is ready to adjust to some of their demands (vaccination, climate) in
order to avoid a final showdown. On the other hand, we don’t completely know
what these global elites really want. And why the sense of urgency? Why the lack of concern for
the American people or the Russians or the Europeans? Perhaps Davos is the new center of power
and they are simply upset by Putin’s disobedience?
What we can say for certain is that imperialists always seek world hegemony. Independent
Russia presents a challenge to that plan. Perhaps, western elites think they can bring Russia
into full compliance by brinkmanship and threatening war? Perhaps, what
we’re seeing in the Ukraine is an attempt to browbeat Russia into obedience?
The danger is that they will push things too far and start a war they can neither manage or
contain.
Putin remembers the fate of Saddam and Gadhafi. He’s not going to
throw in the towel and back down. He’s not going to give up or give
in.
To my American readers I’d say that the US is very strong and the people
of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in fact, hegemony is not in
their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong nationalist policy that cares for
the American people and avoids wasteful foreign wars.
Bioâ€" Israel Shamir is a writer on international affairs, a radical
political thinker, and a Biblical and Judaic scholar. His comments on current affairs are
published on The Unz Review , and on his own
sites www.israelshamir.net
and www.israelshamir.com . His books
Galilee Flowers , Cabbala of Power , Masters of Discourse are available on
the Amazon… Shamir was a dissident in the USSR and in Israel where he
called for full rights for the Palestinians. He is also a global dissident who calls for the
dismantling the New World Order and the American Empire
NATO forces near Ukraine are there for a showy training exercise. They
don’t have the ammunition or other supplies to fight for more than 48
hours. Moreover, the troops have no interest in an idiotic and suicidal war with Russia. Most
Ukrainian soldiers feel the same way. Ukraine is not part of NATO, and NATO Generals will do
nothing without approval from their own nation, which will not come. There is no Ukraine
crisis, this is just another game to boost military budgets.
Of all the forest folks, the one most zealous in protection of her cubs is Mama Bear. If
there are any adults pulling the strings in the Di$trict of Corruption; they should
understand that elementary bit of geopolitical logic.
Shamir could be correct in assuming that the Kamala’s Foote/Biden
regime, a selected rather than elected governmental administration, being comprised mostly of
poker players, did realize that Putin called their bluff when his foreign affairs and
military people let Washington know, and not in traditional diplomatic language, that those
two American destroyers dispatched to the Black Sea would be sailing in dangerous waters.
They promptly turned tail and headed back westwards. Almost literally, the Russian move was a
traditional shot across the bow.
Nevertheless, Putin’s Russia stands in the way of not only the
world’s greatest potential resource grab, but perhaps also they block
“The Great Resetâ€, signifiying the entire globalist New World
Order agenda as ordered by the West’s ruling Bank$ter crime clans. With
Russia now having developed the world’s most advanced military technology,
training and tactics and with a nonpareil civil defense organization and with China fast
becoming the planet’s most potent economic engine; the Cabal may feel
their horizon to seize full world control is rapidly narrowing. The next several months to
maybe three or four years could be make or break time for their overarching agenda of total
control.
So the wheel’s still in spin, as the 20th Century’s
great Jewish prophet, Bob Dylan sang it out some number of years ago. One of the more
positive aspects of Judaism is that they do produce some amazing prophets, rebels questioning
authority, the lot of them over multiples of centuries.
We are said by some meta-historical observers, to have entered the opening years of the
Age of Aquarius, a 2,600 year era of change, as of December 31, 2012. Perhaps that is another
reason why the Cabal seems to be going for broke in their encroachments on Russia, China,
Iran, Syria and even little Lebanon. The Age of Pisces, with its stolen version of
“Christianityâ€, is fast fading into a past created by Imperial
Rome. Younger people all across the globe are deserting organized religion and its many
dogmas.
Geopoliticallyâ€"militarilyâ€"astute observers tend to agree that
should the puppet regime in Kiev opt to march eastwards, they will get whupped upside the
head by an enraged (but not stupidly so) Mama Bear.
Personally, my own take is that should push come to shove, it is not likely that Russian
forces would attempt to take Kiev or the region around Poltava. Nor would they countenance
the certain headache of advancing on Uniate/Catholic/fascist-dominated Galicia. Their
stopline might actuate, say a hundred kilometers east of the Ukrainian capital. However,
their units might well envelop Odessa and the entire Black Sea coast all the way to the
Transnistria/Moldavia border.
Ukraine would be reduced to rump-state status but would be guaranteed independence and
protection by a Russia-Belorus consortium. The long Polish and then Austro-Hungarian
dominated Galicia would likely seek some form of federation status with Poland and Lithuania.
Chances are that the Kremlin would be happy with that outcome.
The Evil Empire and NATO will huff and puff. Diplomats will get shuffled around. Wiser
heads would consider the speed of the Russian advance and their combat efficiency and decide
to recoup their losses and do what they can to keep Europe in thrall. Time to work on Plan
B.
To my American readers I’d say that the US is very strong and the
people of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in fact, hegemony
is not in their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong nationalist policy
that cares for the American people and avoids wasteful foreign wars.
The problem here, is that the American people are crushed and powerless, and in the grip
of something morphing into a Neo-Bolshevik style dictatorship. Similarly to the mid
1930’s this dictatorship wants world power â€" and from this
perspective Ukraine looks more like Spain 1936 (the first act of a much bigger show).
Biden’s recent phone call to Putin suggests that the administration
has decided not to launch a war after all. The unconfirmed report of two US ships turning
away from the Black Sea fits this assessment. However, we cannot be sure about this since
the Kremlin refused to agree to Biden’s offer for a meeting. The
Kremlin’s response was a frosty “We shall study the
proposalâ€. Russians feel that the summit proposal might be a trick aimed at
buying time to strengthen their position.
Except that the US ordered two British warships to go there instead.
TASS, April 18. Two British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May. According to
The Sunday Times, a source in the Royal Navy indicated that this gesture is intended to
show solidarity with Ukraine and NATO in the region against the background of the situation
at the Russian-Ukrainian border.
According to the newspaper, one Type 45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles and
an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate will peel off from the Royal Navy’s
carrier task group in the Mediterranean and sail through the Bosphorus into the Black
Sea.
It is reported that the decision was made in order to support Ukraine after the US
cancelled its plans of sending two destroyers to the Black Sea in order to avoid further
escalation in the region and tensions with Russia. It is noted that in case of a threat on
the part of Russia, the UK is ready to send other military equipment to the region.
I would guess that the US Trotskyites plan to push the Ukrainians into a war and then
launch a massive international media barrage, “heroic Ukrainian
patriotsâ€, “Russian atrocitiesâ€,
“killer Putin†etc. sufficient to finish with Nord Stream 2
and scare France and Germany back into the US fold.
If this is right, then they’re not expecting Russia to retake the whole
of the Ukraine, and they’re not planning to start WW3.
However, Russia’s lowest risk strategy would probably still be to only
defend their existing positions making it difficult to claim a “Russian
invasionâ€. They’ve probably already lost Nord Stream (which is
really a German loss â€" and the Germans know what the ZioGlob are doing here).
This buys time, and given that the US is already on a fast downward slope, lets them keep
sliding.
The Ukrainians are flexible folks. At present, they submit to anti-Russian nationalist
narrative, but if the Russian army were to come, the Ukrainians would quickly remember that
they were co-founders of the USSR, brothers to Russians, and they would shake off the
nightmarish nationalist rule. The Ukrainians are wonderful people, but they easily adapt to
new rulers, be they the German Wehrmacht, the Polish landlords, the Petlyura Nationalists,
or the Communists. They would adapt to a partnership with Russia, too. Similarly, the
Russians would embrace the Ukrainians as they did in 1920 and in 1945.
Pure idealism.
Do not underestimate the extent to which the experience of independence, the anti-Russian
narrative, billions in remittances from migrant workers in Poland, the massive and entrenched
bribery system involving American politicians, and especially the
“annexation†of Crimea, have stoked nationalist sentiment in
every segment of Ukrainian society, short of those explicitly identifying as Russian.
I have seen Ukrainians from all over that country go as red in the face, and as fast, over
Crimea as Americans about “trans rightsâ€. It is fever-pitch
over there. We tend to look down on their small-nation complex, but at least
it’s about lebensraum and not some degenerate ideology. I assume Moscow
keeps that well in mind.
They may roll over in the end, but it will not be an embrace.
Things have changed a lot over the past 20 years. Governments and media have total control
over populations. For proof, just look at how stupid the population of countries like the UK
and Australia have become. They actually still believe that masks and lockdowns are a good
thing. They believe that they are personally threatened by a virus that hardly kills any
healthy person under the age of 70.
If the Russians get control of the centre of Kiev â€" with its mobile
telephony, TV, radio and websites â€" the game is up. It suffices to send an SMS
to all inhabitants of Kiev to say that they will be shot if they venture outdoors and that
will be the end of the matter. Gradually, shops, transport and businesses can reopen. The
police will have new orders and that will be it. There is no need for Russian troops to
patrol. There will be no ambushes by Nazis. The elite Jews who currently control the place
will panic.
There will be no repeat of Maidan. No one will be able to come by coach from Lvov to
create havoc. Most Nazis will try to pretend that they never had anything to do with it.
The personal links between all individuals is to be found in their mobile phone usage.
Anyone who spoke to Zelensky, Poroshenko etc in the last 12 months could be detained and
investigated. The same is true for their emails. Everyone uses Russian in Kiev. It would be a
cinch for the Russians to go through all the emails electronically.
Freeze all bank accounts and only allow a small withdrawal each week. Pull in all the
international transfers. Find out who has been siphoning money from the state and sending it
abroad. Arrest them.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Almost nothing we do these days is not permanently
recorded in different computer systems.
Arrest and put on trial all those involved in the atrocities in the Donbass over the past
7 years. 13,000 plus people died â€" most of them civilians. Justice must be
pursued. Hold a genuine investigation of the shootings at Maidan and the massacre in Odessa.
Those who tortured the police chief of Mariupol must be exposed and punished.
Good article- Thanks â€" Crimea didn’t need much pushing ,
in order to Vote to go back to Russia â€" they are an Autonomous Republic that
tried to go back in the 90s, but was foiled by Kyiv. Kiev made sure the Crimean Gov. was
always stacked with mafia leaders, and the monies for routine infrastructure, school,
hospital , gov. buildings, etc were pocketed.
Only the areas from Sevastopol to Yalta were kept up by Moscow itself. All the people saw
this â€" we are the size of Vermont.
Elephant in the room ? The Globalists â€" Monsanto/Bayer, Cargill, DuPont, Eli
Lili, and others that own a whole lot of Ukraine, esp. the breadbasket. Even the US Navy
guards the port near Odecca, where they export their grain etc. So, what this past skirmish
did was to move the security armies funding, from the Globalists to the US and EU taxpayer
â€" so to speak. Mr. Shamir touches on this when he speaks about the â€
Borgâ€. Globalist 5 Ukraine 0 .
The US is run by the children , grandchildren of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian
looters, the Babylonian Talmud Rabbi pet students, globalist stooges, and thousands of bought
off Americans that work for them. Call them what you wish â€" they are Illuminati,
Freemasons, Zionists, Bankers, Lawyers, Globalists, demented old men, opportunists
â€" many different classes. To most of us tho, they are the defined Enemy and
should be treated this way â€" mentally and physically.
Russians are totally different from todays Americans and that is what will keep Russia
alive. Putin’s personality, patience, and drive is a great example of this
. Shamir is spot on in his opinion of how laid back the Ukies are vs, the straight laced ,
serious Russians .
Churchill’s observation about the USA cannot be more apt,
“The US will do the right thing, after it has done all
others.†Hopefully, that is before nuclear Armageddon is unleashed upon
us.
The MIC would like nothing better than for the Russians to show they mean business.
Whatever it takes to justify even more outrageous military budgets in the future. The
American people will be required to sacrifice more and more because of the
“Russian threatâ€.
@Alfred
utin takes with neighboring peoples, even those Russia has just defeated, annexed, or
supported against some other nation, is characterized by conciliation. This
isn’t the 90’s; Ukraine, even the Donbas, is not
Chechnya.
I don’t believe Ukrainians could be pacified, in the event. Their
mentality has reached a level of blind hatred rivaled only by Jews for any whisper of dissent
from their worldview.
On the other hand, Washington is very much out for blood, as we all know. Whose blood
exactly is unclear, but the cost of retaining their Soros-funded Ukrainian honeypot,
obtaining Central Asian wealth and shoring up the dollar, or whatever the fuck they truly
want, would probably never be too high for others to pay.
Russia has 200,000 troops and heavy equipment on the border. The moment the first shot is
fired Ukie soldiers will be walking into a wall of lead and death. They know it so will the
Ukie gov.
In fact if they ever were crazy enough to launch such an attack they, the Ukie leadership
will almost certainly be signing their death warrants by triggering a military coup.
There’s not many humiliating military losses that don’t
end up in one for the instigators.
The US knows this so is trying a different type of escalation via Navalney hunger strike
and this absurd accusation on the Czech arms dump explosion 7 years ago
@Anonymous
finger and shriek about ‘Russian aggression’ in order
to pressure the Germans into cancelling Nordstream 2 and any other Russian supplied energy.
Of course if the Europeans weren’t run by (((banker))) stooges and if
they had any balls between them they would force the US to call the whole thing off and
pressure the Ukrainian fascists to honour the Minsk 2 agreement. Sadly we are just going to
have to prepare for the worst and hope it doesn’t go nuclear.
I see my own government (I am from the UK) has decided to send some sacrificial ships to
the Black sea (the US apparently doesn’t want to risk theirs) What else
can we expect when 2/3 of our parliament are in ‘Friends of
Israel’ groups?
Think of it like a game of geopolitical poker. About 30 years ago the US found itself with
most of the chips. Russia’s stack had dwindled to a dangerously low level.
China was husbanding its position. Now those other serious players have figured out how to
play to US weaknesses, goading him into high risk, low reward positions.
Like I’ve been saying, China won the post-Cold War quarter century,
hands down. It’s such a Sad Story, it’s been evident
for years there is no price too high to pay in terms of our national interest to cover up the
establishment’s malefactions.
In geopolitics, there’s a nasty tendency for strengths to morph into
weaknesses. That explains these two sober, informed observers â€" interviewer and
interviewee alike â€" struggling to delineate the method to the madness in US
strategy and tactics.
It’s a helluva thing to be the principal moving party in a play that
leaves the only question how big the gains will be for Russia and China, and in what ratio.
Make no mistake, it isn’t coincidental that China is very publicly
pressuring the US in the South China Sea at the moment. The land template has water
implications.
It’s impossible to overstate the deleterious effects of the
“Unipolar Moment†nonsense. Among the less consequential,
unless you want to understand geopolitical events, was that we didn’t have
to think to much about the geo-strategy of other powers. There’s been an
excuse made for all of them, so-called enemies and allies alike. Russia was down and out.
China just wanted to make a lot of washing machines. . . .
My essential point being â€" and we can file it as my suggesting you get ahead
of the curve â€" is that you cease ignoring the objectives of all of these powers.
They are not simply playing defense and, if you’re tempted to think that
they still are, then ask yourself whether that’s what you would do if you
sat in one of those big chairs with the US in such a piss poor condition?
Having succeeded with operation Get Rid Of Trump, as I predicted the payoffs have come
fast and furious. Though not fast enough for the most proactive foreign powers. I knew there
wasn’t much point in trying to figure out what the bargains were since
they would become obvious after they installed “Biden.â€
Beyond, that is, Nord Stream 2, the contours of which were visible in the Navalny
set-piece.
‘To my American readers I’d say that the US is very
strong and the people of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in
fact, hegemony is not in their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong
nationalist policy that cares for the American people and avoids wasteful foreign
wars.’
Many Americans have recognized just that … we don’t
seem to be able to defeat our ‘Deep State’. Trump was
elected in large part because his goal was exactly that. He was defeated by the
‘Establishment’, ‘Deep
State’, whatever you want to call it.
I’ve often pointed out that the US does not need an Empire, and in fact
it is only of benefit to our oligarchs. The US does not even need trade. The US is a
continent, it has everything it needs. If anyone wants to talk about oil/energy I would point
out the existence of uranium. By the way, the same is true of Russia. It could exist
perfectly well if it were the only country in the World.
But, we cannot change human nature … there are always the greedy and
power-mad, and they are numerous … any doubts should have been removed by
one word … lockdown.
“He (Putin) didn’t expect that Kiev would just
ignore the treaties, but that’s what happened.â€
I do not think Putin is an idiot, but anyone who believed that the Ukranazis
wouldn’t ignore the Minsk accords, which they signed only as a desperate
attempt to stave off total defeat in 2015 (after being routed at the Battles of Donetsk
Airport and Debaltsevo) is an idiot. This is the first time I have ever heard anyone
suggesting that Putin (or anyone else) expected the Minsk Accord to succeed.
“Consider 2014, after the Ukrainian coup: the lawful Ukrainian
president Mr Yanukovich ran to Russia and asked Putin to help him regain power. At that
time, the Ukrainian army was weak and Russia could have easily retaken the country without
facing any significant resistance.â€
And by not doing so Putin faces a much more difficult job now than in 2014.
In 2014 the Ukranazi military was disintegrating, which is why Russia did not find any
resistance in liberating Crimea. The Ukrainian army basically ceased to exist. Many if not
most of the troops defected to Russia in Crimea. Supporters of
Yanukovych’s Party of the Unions would have openly welcomed a Russian
intervention against the Nazi coup regime. That is why the Ukranazi coup regime picked the
Nazis of Azov, Svoboda and Pravii Sektor to attack the at that time almost defenceless
Novorossiyan people (who remember had to loot weapons from museums, including still working
WWII tanks). Even later by the end of the year the Ukrainian army had to rely on Nazi
“cyborgs†to fight for it. A Russian intervention would still
have been a cakewalk.
Even during the period 2015 to 2019 while Ukranazistan was falling apart
socioeconomically, the military grew relatively cohesive, in the sense that it incorporated
Azov (thus making itself the Ukranazi army) and was no longer self destructing, but it had
still no modern anti tank weapons, no modern drones, and very importantly no NATOstani forces
in the country arming and training it openly (in reality acting as human shields). Now none
of those things are true. They have the Ottoman Bayraktars, the world’s
only combat proven drone, Javelin anti tank missiles, open arming and training and most
importantly open propaganda support from the NATOstanis to an extent not seen since 2014. It
is obvious that Russia does not believe that the Donbass armies can possibly hold off the
Ukranazis even long enough for Russia to transfer forces from further away in the Russian
interior. And from this point on the Ukranazis can only get militarily more powerful. Even if
we believed the oft repeated but as far as I can see unsupported assertion that 50% or more
of their army is comprised of conscripts too demoralised to fight, the Ukranazis are now
renting jihadi headchoppers from Sultan ErdoÄŸan, not the cannon fodder in
Azerbaijan, but Chechens, Daghestanis and Tatars who speak Russian, know the country, and are
a bit tougher than the average child beheading al Qaeda junior partner from Idlibistan. And
don’t forget that they will have the full benefit of NATOstani satellite
intelligence and propaganda and diplomatic support, apart from the NATOstani
“trainers†and “advisors†who
Putin will, if recent history is any guide, go to almost any length to avoid harming, even if
they kill Russians.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia would have had to take on the
economic burden of Ukranazistan in 2014. All Russia would have to do is invade, crush the
Ukranazi coup regime (more likely than not with the enthusiastic support of most of East
Ukraine people), reinstate Yanukovych, and withdraw immediately with a statement that if
there were any more Maidans Russia would be back and this time to stay. No occupation, no
economic burden, just a souped up equivalent of the 2008 Georgia punitive expedition. Instead
Putin’s “restraint†meant:
1. Russia got none of the benefits it would have had by invading: crushing Ukranazism,
massively deterring NATO, avoiding “friends†like India
peeling away, the running expenses of having to maintain troops at the border, to say nothing
of building the Kerch bridge and subsidising the Donbass.
2. It got all the negative effects of invading: sanctions (which turned out a blessing in
disguise, yes, but which should not have been necessary to make Russia’s
economy self reliant anyway), massively increased enmity from its opponents.
3. It got all the negatives of doing nothing: NATOstani planes in Ukranazi airspace, NATO
openly arming and training the Ukranazis, the Ukrainian population becoming more
homogeneously anti Russian.
And now if Russia invades it will have to take over the ruins because there is simply
nobody else. It’s far too late to reinstate Yanukovych and leave.
Meanwhile Putin is apparently planning to address the nation on the 21st. Speculation
includes declaration of hostilities against Ukranazistan and merger of Russia with Belarus.
I’ll wait and see.
She is really bold: "Hobson, who is Black, noted that White men made up about 70% of board seats in the U.S. but only 30% of the
population in pre-2020 data." This one step from trying to examine ethnic composition of Wall Street firms. Not good for Starbucks ;-)
More content below
Anne Riley Moffat
Wed, April 21, 2021, 8:50 PM
+0.40%
More content below
SBUX
(Bloomberg) -- American
companies eschewing diversity in the boardroom risk “committing corporate suicide,†Starbucks Corp.’s Mellody Hobson said,
about a month after taking over as board chair at the coffee giant.
“You can’t be a leading
company in the world and not have a diverse board or have a real agenda around diversity without at some point dying as an
organization,†Hobson said Wednesday evening at a virtual event sponsored by Bowdoin College. “Now it may take a while, but
I do think it will be inevitable.“
All the while, unfriendly moves towards Russia have also continued unabated. Some countries
have taken up an unseemly routine where they pick on Russia for any reason, most often, for
no reason at all. It is some kind of new sport of who shouts the loudest.
In this regard, we behave in an extremely restrained manner, I would even say, modestly,
and I am saying this without irony. Often, we prefer not to respond at all, not just to
unfriendly moves, but even to outright rudeness. We want to maintain good relations with
everyone who participates in the international dialogue. But we see what is happening in
real life. As I said, every now and then they are picking on Russia, for no reason. And of
course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis are running around them like Tabaqui ran around Shere
Khan â€" everything is like in Kipling's book â€" howling along in
order to make their sovereign happy . Kipling was a great writer.
I think VVP is missing a golden opportunity to appoint an unofficial 'freelance' Court
Jester, or 2 or 3. The Court Jester's role would be to answer every childish slur from the
West's Naughty & undisciplined Little Kiddies with an equally insulting and personal slur
against the West's Spokes-Children.
If the West wants to behave like the Louts and Riff-Raff that hang around outside the
Local Saloon in the Wild West, trying to start a fight, it would be fun to encourage them to
push the boundaries. Considering the cornucopia if Silly Stuff the West believes, or pretends
to believe, it shouldn't be difficult to goad them into crossing their own Red Lines.
The Court Jester could start by asking the West to explain, comprehensively, why it wants
to Save Alexi Navalny whilst torturing Julian Assange to death?
Something strange is occurring in the gutter of "liberal comedy"... After four years of constant attacks on anything 'Trumpian'
and constant ignorance of anything 'Left', one man has begun to realize that there is plenty of farce on both sides of the aisle
and virtue-signaling to your cocktail party co-conspirators just doesn't pay the bills anymore (
cough CNN cough ).
Last week, Comedian Bill Maher used his HBO show to highlight some awkward 'facts' and ask some uncomfortable questions about
media and politicians approach to COVID .
This week, he has taken aim at the heart of the problem - American Millennials and Gen Z and their total ignorance of history.
"In India, young people touch old people's feet to show reverence. In Japan, there's a national 'respect for the aged' day.
You know the reason why advertisers in this country love the 18-34 demographic... because it's the most gullible .
A third of people under 35 say they're in favor of abolishing the police ...not defunding, but doing away with a police force
altogether... which is less of a policy position and more of a leg tattoo.
36% of Millennials think it might be a good idea to try Communism... but much of the world did try it... I know most of Millennials
think that doesn't count because they weren't alive when it happened... but it did happen, and there are people around who remember
it. Pining for communism is like pining for BetaMax or MySpace.
So when you say 'you're old, you don't get it', get what? Abolish the police? ...and the Border Patrol? ... and Capitalism?
... and cancel Lincoln?
No, "I get it"... the problem isn't that I don't get what you're saying or that I'm old. The problem is that your ideas are
stupid .
If you say "let's eat in the bathroom and shit in the kitchen" , yeah, that's a new idea, but I wouldn't call it interior design.
You think someone 80 is hopeless because they can’t use an iPhone? Maybe the one who is hopeless is the one who can’t stop
using it .
You think I'm out of it because I'm not on Twitch? Well maybe I 'get Twitch' but I just think people watching other people
play video games is a waste of fucking time .
20% of Gen Z agree with the statement that "society would be better off if all property was owned by the public and managed
by the government" and another 29% say 'they don't know if that's a good idea'...
Here's who does know... anyone who wasn't born yesterday!"
Watch the full monologues here (timestamped to begin at 5:13)
Manthong 8 hours ago (Edited)
You know when Bill Maher is right...
I hate when that happens.
But if you listen to the whole piece, he is shilling for a fool who is wholly owned and he is wrapping truth around deception
and falsity... very crafty.
But that's what they do.
various2 5 hours ago
Billionaires do not allow their direct peasants millionaires to deviate from left-right allocation. If he utters a word of
nationalism, he would be canceled fast.
Billionaires destroy America, and need firmly control over common peasants.
Money printing billionaires bought out all big tech and big media as fast as they become public.
Only Trump was allowed to speak certain limited truths like “China - enemy globalist proxyâ€, “Russia is America’s only
ally on a planetâ€.
But that was an experiment in compromise that billionaires failed.
Macho Latte 4 hours ago (Edited)
Maher is part of the problem, not part of the solution. His salary depends on that. The only reason he has "changed" his tune
is because he got permission to do it or he was told to do it.
DemonRats: The EVIL that lives among us.
Max Hunter 3 hours ago
He didn't change his tune that much, if you watch the first 5 minutes he is drooling all over Biden and shilling the orangeman
bad mantra.
Interesting essay over at Turcopolier.com about the atomisation of US society by Identity
Politics, Selective Censorship and Political Correctness (aka self-censorship).
The United States of 2 Americas
Posted on April 25, 2021 by Steven J. Willett
The following article by Ret. Col. John Mills from The Epoch Times should be of
interest to readers of this site.
Commentary
If you haven't noticed, the United States is reorganizing itself into two Americas --
blue and red. Although there is a president of the United States, state governors are in many
ways now driving the national narrative in this new America. etc, etc.
Wodehouse, that most perfect of stylists, was not as lost in his imaginary world as
all that. I suppose his main sources for pastiche or parody were the Bible,
Shakespeare, American gangster idiom and such novelists as Ethel M Dell. That's where
he got his square jawed characters who went out to often unspecified parts of the
Empire and did often unspecified great things. Wodehouse rips them to pieces, as he
also shreds the English Blut und Boden Fascists of the pre-war years. I suppose I,
courtesy of old second-hand bookshops, must be one of the few who've read Ethel M Dell.
Often wonder what people who haven't make of Wodehouse.
Dickens is I think misrepresented in the article. His extraordinarily vivid
characters derive from his personal and first hand experience. He knew little of Empire
or had little contact with it, but knew enough to rip apart Mrs Jellyby's misdirected
do-goodery in Borioboola-Gha. I thought of Mrs Jellyby when President Biden's
philanthropic schemes for South Amrerica were being discussed on the Colonel's site
recently.
In fact the British Empire, for all the harm it did, is a transient affair not to be
confused with the great continental land empires. Disraeli got going with the "Queen
Empress" braggadocio in the late nineteenth century and barely twenty years later
Kipling was writing the prophetic obituary of that chapter of English history.
It's an accurate article as far as I know – the exploitation of the Indian
peasant, for example, was shocking in its ruthlessness. We get a more balanced account
of the Irish famine from modern Irish historians though in my view, for all Victoria's
munificant £5,000, the failure to get to grips with that famine was not only a
condemnation of the neo-liberals of that era. It removed for all time any prospect of
peaceful union between Ireland and England. Don't forget Dr Johnson's remark when Union
was being mooted many decades earlier. ""Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should
unite with you only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had
anything of which we could have robbed them".
"... While the released documents portray the U.S. as having knowledge of the coup as opposed to intervening overtly or covertly, the aftermath shows U.S. involvement was considerable. ..."
While the released documents portray the U.S. as having knowledge of the coup as opposed
to intervening overtly or covertly, the aftermath shows U.S. involvement was
considerable.
Last March, on the 45 th anniversary of Argentina’s descent
into dictatorship, the National Security Archive posted a selection of
declassified documents revealing the U.S. knowledge of the military coup in the country in
1976. A month before the government of Isabel Peron was toppled by the military, the U.S. had
already informed the coup plotters that it would recognise the new government. Indications of a
possible coup in Argentina had reached the U.S. as early as 1975.
A declassified CIA document from February 1976 describes the imminence of the coup, to
the extent of mentioning military officers which would later become synonymous with torture,
killings and disappearances of coup opponents. Notably, the coup plotters, among them General
Jorge Rafael Videla, were already drawing up a list of individuals who would be subject to
arrest in the immediate aftermath of the coup.
One concern for the U.S. was its standing in international diplomacy with regard to the
Argentinian military dictatorship’s violence, which it pre-empted as a U.S.
State Department briefing to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shows. “An
Argentine military government would be almost certain to engage in human rights violations such
as to engender international criticism.â€
After the experience of Chile and U.S. involvement in the coup which heralded dictator
Augusto Pinochet’s rise to power, human rights violations became a key
factor. Kissinger had brushed off the U.S. Congress’s concerns, declaring a
policy that would turn a blind eye to the dictatorship’s atrocities.
“I think we should understand our policy-that however unpleasant they act,
this government is better for us than Allende was,†Kissinger had declared .
Months after expressing concern regarding the forthcoming human rights abuses as a result of
the dictatorship in Argentina, the U.S.
warned Pinochet about its dilemma in terms of justifying aid to a leadership which was
becoming notorious for its violence and disappearances of opponents. “We
have a practical problem to take into account, without bringing about pressures incompatible
with your dignity, and at the same time which does not lead to U.S. laws which will undermine
our relationship.â€
In the same declassified document from the Chile archives of 1976, Pinochet expresses his
concern over Orlando Letelier, a diplomat and ambassador to the U.S. during the era of Salvador
Allende and an influential figure among members of the U.S. Congress, stating that Letelier is
disseminating false information about Chile. Letelier was murdered by car bomb in Washington
that same year, by a CIA and National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agent Michael
Townley.
However, the Argentinian coup plotters deepened their dialogue with the U.S. over how human
rights violations would be committed. Aware of perceptions regarding
Pinochet’s record, military officials approached the U.S. seeking ways to
minimise the attention which Pinochet was garnering in Chile, while at the same time making it
clear to U.S. officials to “some executions would probably be
necessary.â€
Assuming a non-involvement position was also deemed crucial by the U.S. To mellow any
possible fallout, the coup plotters were especially keen to point out that the military coup
would not follow in the steps of Pinochet. One declassified cable document detailing U.S.
concern over involvement spells out how the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill planned to depart the
country prior to the coup, rather than cancel plans to see how the events pan out.
“The fact that I would be out of the country when the blow actually falls
would be, I believe, a fact in our favor indicating non- involvement of Embassy and
USG.†The main aim was to conceal evidence that the U.S. had prior knowledge of the
forthcoming coup in Argentina.
While the released documents portray the U.S. as having knowledge of the coup as opposed to
intervening overtly or covertly, the aftermath shows U.S. involvement was considerable. The
Chile experience, including the murder of a diplomat on U.S. soil, were clearly not deterrents
for U.S. policy in Latin America, as it extended further support for
Videla’s rule. The Videla dictatorship would eventually kill and disappear
over 30,000 Argentinians in seven years, aided by the U.S. which provided the aircraft
necessary for the death flights in the extermination operation known as Plan Condor.
These days evidence no longer has to be presented for a claim because the accusation is a
loyalty test for the Amerikastani Empire and vassal citizens. The more outlandish the claim
the more they have to rush to prove their loyalty so outlandish evidence free claims are far
from as insane as they seem to be. They have a very definite purpose.
I do not want to talk about Covid though I'm Indian and my former teacher died today of
it. I am convinced that discussions about it inevitably work to split the anti Imperialist
resistance.
"I am convinced that discussions about it inevitably work to split the anti Imperialist
resistance."
That is an interesting take - world view.
My view is that:
The world is essentially run by and for and as it pleases wealthy and influential persons
and organizations. They can do this because they have money and power and are thereby able to
control access to money and power. These persons and organizations are the owners and the
effect of their influence where it is somewhat constructive is neoliberalism and where it is
less constructive is destabilization (surely there is a better term).
Beneath them are the operatives which serve them and thereby climb the ladder of wealth
and influence. These are the politicians and beauracrats and media and the military. The
beauracrats are particularly problematic because they are unelected, unaccountable, operate
unmonitored and collaborate.
In this system, the only means for yourselves and family to survive is to serve the owners
- via the structures created to enrich the beauracrats.
When truth is marginalized, the fringe is the only place where it’s
to be found.
So it looks like Russia didn’t pay the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers
after all.
Last summer, the New York Times announced in a front-page
story that “American intelligence officials have concluded that a
Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants
killing coalition forces in Afghanistan â€" including targeting American
troops.â€
The article rang with certainty. “Some officials have theorized that the
Russians may be seeking revenge on NATO forces for a 2018 battle in Syria in which the American
military killed several hundred pro-Syrian forces, including numerous Russian
mercenaries,†it said. The operation, it went on, appears to be
“the handiwork of Unit 29155, an arm of Russia’s military
intelligence agency, known widely as the GRU. … Western intelligence
officials say the unit, which has operated for more than a decade, has been charged by the
Kremlin with carrying out a campaign to destabilize the West through subversion, sabotage and
assassination.â€
This was red meat for congressional Democrats eager to tar Trump with whatever brush was at
hand. Nancy Pelosi issued a call to arms, declaring: “Congress and the
country need answers now.†Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer adopted a tone of
mock disbelief: “Russia gives bounties to kill Americans and the
administration does nothing? Nothing? Donald Trump, you’re not being a very
strong president here as usual.†Joe Biden called the report
“horrifying†and said “there is no bottom to
the depth of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin’s depravity if
it’s true.â€
Except that it isn’t true now that we know that U.S. intelligence
agencies, according to the White House, view the report with only “low to
moderate confidence†â€" which, in layman’s language,
either means that it could be true â€" kind of, sort of, maybe â€" or
that it’s pure baloney. In any event, it’s hardly reason
to accus a sitting president of “a betrayal of every single American family
with a loved one serving in Afghanistan or anywhere overseas,†as Biden did the day
after the story broke.
Charlie Savage, whose byline appears on a number of last summer’s pieces,
offered a series of mealy-mouthed excuses for how he and his fellow Times reporters managed to
get it so wrong. “Former intelligence officials … have
noted that it is rare in the murky world of intelligence to have courtroom levels of proof
beyond a reasonable doubt about what an adversary is covertly doing,†he said . He
described the original intelligence findings as “muddiedâ€
because a key figure in the alleged plot “had fled to Russia â€"
possibly while using a passport linked to a Russian spy agency.â€
So it isn’t the Times’s or the
CIA’s fault, you see â€" it’s merely a hazard
of the trade. But isn’t it’s curious how words like
“murky†and “muddied†never
cropped up last summer when the Times was busily egging Democrats on with stories
charging that the bounties had led to “at least one U.S. troop
death†or maybe even
three ? “Father of Slain Marine Finds Heartbreak Anew in Possible
Russian Bounty,†a Times
headline declared. “American officials intercepted electronic data
showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s
military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account,†another
claimed .
All of which was nonsense, as is now clear. Yet not only has the Times failed to apologize
but White House spokesman Jen Psaki managed to spin the story last week so that
it’s still Moscow’s fault and “there
are [still] questions to be answered by the Russian government.â€
Although the corporate media dutifully echoed the Times, a few skeptics did get it right.
Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA official who now heads a group calling itself Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity, called the
story “dubious†right off the bat. Scott Ritter, the ex-UN
weapons inspector who blew the cover off charges that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
was bristling with weapons of mass destruction, wrote that
“there is no corroboration, nothing that would allow this raw
‘intelligence’ to be turned into a product worthy of the
name.†Caitlin Johnstone, who covers U.S. politics from Australia yet still does a
better job of it than most stateside reporters,
denounced the entire affair as a “malignant psyop,†adding:
“It really is funny how the most influential news outlets in the western
world will uncritically parrot whatever they’re told to say by the most
powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you
without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state
media.â€
Then there’s someone named Dan Lazare who had pointed
out a few obvious facts in Strategic Culture a few days after the supposed Times scoop came
out:
“But the report doesn’t even make sense. Not only have
the Taliban been at war with the United States since 2001, they’re winning.
So why should Russia pay them to do what they’ve been happily doing on their
own for close to two decades? Contrary to what the Times wants us to believe,
there’s no evidence that Russia backs the Taliban or wants the U.S. to leave
with its tail between its legs. Quite the opposite as a quick glance at a map will attest.
Given that Afghanistan abuts the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and
Kyrgyzstan and is less than a thousand miles from Chechnya, where Russia fought a brutal war
against Sunni Islamist separatists in 1999-2000, the last thing it wants is a Muslim
fundamentalist republic in the heart of Central Asia.â€
The fact that the New York doesn’t even consider†the broad
geopolitical backdrop, the article added, “makes its reporting seem all the
more dubious†â€" words that are as appropriate now as they were
then.
None of this matters, however, because Strategic Culture, it turns out, is
“controlled by Russian intelligence†and publishes
“fringe voices and conspiracy theories.†Yes,
that’s what the Times
says , and its source, as usual, is nothing more than unnamed U.S. government sources
whispering in its ear. But if Strategic Culture is so marginal, how is it that it got the story
right while the Times’s own conspiracy tales turned out to be false?
When truth is marginalized, the fringe is the only place where it’s to be
found.
B ack in the good old days, when things were more innocent and simple, the psychopathic
Central Intelligence Agency had to covertly infiltrate the news media to manipulate the
information Americans were consuming about their nation and the world. Nowadays, there is no
meaningful separation between the news media and the CIA at all.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald just highlighted an interesting point about the reporting by
The New York Times on the so-called
Bountygate story the outlet broke in June of last year about the Russian government trying
to pay Taliban-linked fighters to attack U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
“One of the NYT reporters who originally broke the Russia bounty story
(originally attributed to unnamed ‘intelligence
officials’) say today that it was a CIA claim,†Greenwald
tweeted .
“So media outlets â€" again â€" repeated CIA stories
with no questioning: congrats to all.â€
Indeed, the NYT’s
original story made no mention of CIA involvement in the narrative, citing only
“officials,†yet this latest article speaks as though it had been informing its
readers of the story’s roots in the
lying, torturing , drug-running , warmongering Central
Intelligence Agency from the very beginning. The author even writes “The New
York Times
first reported last summer the existence of the C.I.A.’s
assessment,†with the hyperlink leading to the initial article which made no
mention of the CIA. It wasn’t until later that The New York Times began reporting
that the CIA was looking into the Russian bounties allegations at all.
The Daily Beast , which has itself uncritically published many articles
promoting the CIA “Bountygate†narrative, reports the
following:
“It was a blockbuster
story about Russia’s return to the imperial “Great
Game†in Afghanistan. The Kremlin had spread money around the longtime central
Asian battlefield for militants to kill remaining U.S. forces. It sparked a massive outcry
from Democrats and their #resistance amplifiers about the treasonous Russian puppet in the
White House whose admiration for Vladimir Putin had endangered American troops.
But on Thursday, the Biden administration announced that U.S. intelligence only had
“low to moderate†confidence in the story after all.
Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the
story is, at best, unprovenâ€"and possibly untrue.â€
So the mass media aggressively promoted a CIA narrative that none of them ever saw proof of,
because there was no proof, because it was an entirely unfounded claim from the very beginning.
They quite literally ran a CIA press release and disguised it as a news story.
In totalitarian dictatorships, the government spy agency tells the news media what stories
to run, and the news media unquestioningly publish it. In free democracies, the government spy
agency says “Hoo buddy, have I got a scoop for you!†and the
news media unquestioningly publish it.
In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “ The CIA and the Media
†reporting that the CIA had
covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had
over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as
Operation Mockingbird . It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media is meant to
report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the
agendas of spooks and warmongers.
Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and people are too
propagandized to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like The
New York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news
pundits . The sole owner of The Washington Postis a CIA contractor ,
and WaPo has never once disclosed this conflict of interest when reporting on U.S.
intelligence agencies per standard journalistic protocol.
Mass media outlets
now openly employ intelligence agency veterans such as John Brennan, James
Clapper, Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall,
Samantha Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano,
Jeremy Bash, Susan Hennessey, Ned Price and Rick Francona, as are known
CIA assets like NBC’s Ken Dilanian, as are
CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like
Tucker Carlson.
This isn’t Operation Mockingbird. It’s so much worse.
Operation Mockingbird was the CIA doing something to the media. What we are seeing now
is the CIA openly acting as the media. Any separation between the CIA and the news
media, indeed even any pretence of separation, has been dropped.
This is bad. This is very, very bad. Democracy has no meaningful existence if
people’s votes are cast without a clear understanding of
what’s happening in their nation and their world. When their understanding
is being shaped to suit the agendas of the very government they’re meant to
be influencing with their votes, what you have is the most powerful military and economic force
in the history of civilization with no accountability to the electorate whatsoever.
It’s just an immense globe-spanning power structure, doing whatever it wants
to whoever it wants. A totalitarian dictatorship in disguise.
And the CIA is the very worst institution that could possibly be spearheading the movements
of that dictatorship. A little research into the many, many horrific
things the CIA has done over the years will quickly show you that this is true; hell, just
a glance at what the CIA was up to with the
Phoenix Program in Vietnam will.
There’s a common delusion in our society that depraved government
agencies who are known to have done evil things in the past have simply stopped doing evil
things for some reason. This belief is backed by zero evidence, and is contradicted by
mountains of evidence to the contrary. It’s believed because it is
comfortable, and for literally no other reason.
The CIA should not exist at all, let alone control the news media, much less the movements
of the US empire. May we one day know a humanity that is entirely free from the rule of
psychopaths, from our total planetary behavior as a collective, all the way down to the
thoughts we think in our own heads.
May we extract their horrible fingers from every aspect of our being.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
ofConsortium News.
Wiffle , April 22, 2021 at 17:36
Go to any platform and 98% of commentators’
“opinions†are exact duplicates of what the unholy intel/press
partnership has trained them to say.
Hot Dog , April 21, 2021 at 19:00
Douglas Adams, brilliant author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, invented the
Infinite Improbability Drive to cross vast intersteller distances in a mere nothingth of a
second without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. Following in his footsteps I
adopted the Infinite Improbability Filter, which I use to parse every statement from
governments. I recommend it. Afghans have to be paid by Russians to shoot the invaders and
occupiers of their country ?? Infinitely improbable. Saddam Hussein had nuclear bombs in
aluminum tubes that he could fly over US cities ?? ?? Infinitely improbable. A bunch of guys
in a cave can knock down a skyscraper in Manhattan ?? Infinitely improbable. Joe Biden will
put an end to war ?? ?? Infinitely improbable. The USA is spreading democracy in oil
producing nations ??? Infinitely improbable. Russia won the 2016 election ??? Infinitely
improbable. The CIA are the good guys ??? Infinitely improbable. Believe the corporate media
??? ??? Infinitely improbable. (hXXp://www.earthstar.co.uk/drive.htm). RIP Adams.
Rex Williams , April 21, 2021 at 18:52
“Drug-running�
Well done, Caitlin.First time I have seen any indication of that in the media and even I
have known about it for a decade. Not just drug-running, but the world control of heroin.
Australian soldiers filling in the role of protector of the crops in Afghanistan and also
killing innocent civilians, a matter now under investigation but proven already.
Thankfully, when you list the past members of that infamous group and the controlling role
they enjoy in today’s media, one should not forget the contributions made
by many ex-CIA personnel seen on the pages of Consortium News and what a valuable
contribution they have made to this publication. Many thanks to them.
I am sure that there will be many comments on this subject today.
Hot Dog, I could not agree more, but Hot Damn there is more so much more. Is it possible
that the revelations in this book I discuss might free Julian? The book proves miss use of
secrecy classifications that were used to cover up an act of executive action with extreme
prejudice
The pivotal events that allow the re-opening of the JFK murder case are exposed in Josiah
Thompson’s “LAST SECOND IN DALLASâ€.
Like I have stated already please don’t take my word for this. Read the
book thanks to the Zapruder film and the recordings taken that day of police radios being
still of a quality to allow top notch analysis of them, irrefutable evidence has been
verified. The story of facts have changed the nature of what we now know to be true. Facts
that are provided with their mathematical proof.
If you believe in science, especially science as pursued in this investigation by
individuals of exculpatory character and honesty you will learn the latest scientific
interpretations of the evidence analysis.
Something that, as it turn out cannot be said about the Ramsey Panel.
Thompson’s investigation has neutered the Warren Commission and other
various government attempts, see the House Select Committee effort and the Ramsey
Panel’s efforts to cover up the truth.
This results in exposing the lies the CIA committed to trying to cover up their
involvement. Lies ironically exposed by individuals investigating the murder, lies discovered
in part by the release of JFK documents in 2017. Why did CIA lie from day one, Nov.
22,1963?
DECLASSIFY, DECLASSIFY, DECLASSIFY, Jimm you got it, and the curtain has been pulled back
slightly if not more by this investigation.
Time for all to pressure CIA for the truth.
Thanks CN
PEACE
Anonymot , April 21, 2021 at 10:11
Yes, excellent about the media, but there’s a far greater importance
than that; the CIA IS, yes IS the American government. Certainly, it manages the public
through its controlling influence on the MSM, but its controlling interest in foreign affairs
has been followed by its creeping increasingly into the domestic field, also. It has been
fighting for supremacy over both the State Department and the FBI for years and won the
former hands down via the Bush and Obama years. Hillary at the State Department was the
CIA’s dream! The devastation that followed, from the burning of everything
from Libya to the Ukraine was their wildest wishes come true.
Trump ran on the idea that the intelligence agencies were too invasive and he battled with
them from the beginning, but the CIA knows where everyone’s skeletons are
hidden and Trump has a pile of them. What the CIA then did was point out to him that he had
little room to squiggle or they would put him in jeopardy. As a sop, they allowed him to
spend four years not hating Russia and instead, hating China, climate change, the EU, etc.
while he allowed them to dictate what the CIA wanted done domestically, pipelines, the
border, etc. That made them tower over the FBI.
Now that the CIA helped dump Trump with their media control, they are back in the saddle
with Biden, Russia, the CIA’s favorite target for WW III, is back on the
front burner with its usual hocus pocus stories about the Ukraine, Iran is heating up and so
is China.
But America is now the mosquito attacking the elephant and the CIA with all of its ignorance
and incompetence is back, leading the dance with their partners in the military and the
military industrial complex.
It will be great fun to go out with a bang.
Philip Reed , April 21, 2021 at 10:08
Whatever happened to Carl Bernstein? Where is that guy from Watergate and Mockingbird? Now
turned into a CNN shill.
Sad. Thanks Caitlin for reiterating what most of us know but always needs your persistent
clarification.
Just a short beef with your article. Why did you feel it necessary to include Tucker in your
list of CIA connected media personalities? Especially based on a link to an article that was
an obvious hit piece on Tucker. Tucker has morphed into one of the only MSM personalities who
attacks hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle. He reports on subjects that none of the other
corporate media outlets won’t touch out of pure political felty to the
Democratic Party. He used to take sides years ago. No longer the case. He often has Glenn
Greenwald on in recent times and they are obviously simpatico with each other. Give Tucker a
break Caitlin. He’s the only one on MS corporate media who dares to
deviate from the “ chosen narrative “.
Stevie Boy , April 21, 2021 at 08:02
Unfortunately, this is also true of all the members of the ‘Five
Eyes’ sewer.
In the UK, MI6, MI5, GCHQ and the other related institutions infest the MSM. The BBC and the
Guardian being two obvious direct mouthpieces for the security services. And, the CIA run
their operations directly out of RAF bases (Eg. Anne Sacoolas and her husband).
During the World Wars, the security services maybe had a legitimate role in fighting obvious
enemies. However, now we are the enemy !
Can this sewer ever be drained ?
Donald Duck , April 21, 2021 at 06:19
A slow-burning coup has been emerging in the West since the 1990s.; it is now reaching its
full fruition. Political parties, the MSM, the military and spook organisations, state and
corporate bureaucracies, a trillionaire class, film and entertainment industries have
congealed into a massive technocratic centrist blob. Orthodox politics and ideology is now a
thing of the past. These now are the controlling force behind a quasi-religious narrative
that now seems unassailable. Where this is taking us in anybody’s guess.
Maybe into the eugenicist Brave New World or of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s
dystopian novel ‘We’ first published in 1924.
Well we’d better wake up soon, or we are not going to wake up at
all.
Tumour: A ‘body’ can be 99 percent healthy yet one
cancerous cell can cause much damage growing into a tumour. Although it realizes that by
destroying the very body it feeds on it is also destroying itself yet that end does not
prevent its greed for reproduction. Most US citizens are well aware where the tumour lies and
its progress.
For those who have the interest I made a short video illustrating the thesis above regarding
the possibility that US is suffering a malignant tumour in three areas.The three areas are
the war machine, wall street, education. It can be found on YouTube. John Hagan.
Dave , April 20, 2021 at 21:17
Ms Johnstone is spot on, as usual. The CIA â€" aka the Christian Investment
Authority â€" is no longer needed. Of course, it never was needed, given that the
USA taxpayer funds more than fifteen other “intelligenceâ€
agencies, including State Dept. intelligence, the FBI, the various military intelligence
groups, etc. The CIA was from its beginning an extra-legal, law-breaking, and often illegal
operative group representing the filth, the sleaze of America’s corporate
and banking empires. If the CIA is defunded, don’t worry about its work
force. They will re-emerge in the media, the think-tanks, the corporate bureaucracies, the
military-industrial complex, and foreign government sinecures. Anyway, good riddance to bad
rubbish…at least an honest and responsible American can hope the CIA is
disbanded as soon as possible.
S.P. Korolev , April 22, 2021 at 04:17
Haven’t heard that acronym before, excellent! My favourite is
‘Capitalism’s Invisible
Army’…
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these
people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in
the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between
them.†â€" Thomas Jefferson
The trial was pointless .
We knew the outcome . We knew
the threat. Convict Derek Chauvin of murder, or cities will burn . Jurors
surely knew they would be doxxed if they didn’t vote to convict; one
potential juror was
dismissed after he dared mention this fear.
There is a debate to be had about police conduct. I’m not going to back
the blue unconditionally after Charlottesville
, Ashli Babbit , and
the ruthless
manhunt for January 6 rioters. Derek Chauvin would have carried out the same orders against
us. However, what Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd isn’t even close to
what happened to white
man Daniel Shaver , gunned down in a hotel hallway by a police officer who was later
acquitted and was paid for his mental suffering . This is about race, not police. I expect police will crack
down further on law-abiding
whites while ignoring black crime .
The howls for Derek Chauvin’s head were primal. I
haven’t heard such cries of triumph since O.J. Simpson was
acquitted .
Of course, Derek Chauvin was hardly a champion of white identity . In 2018, the
Twin Cities Pioneer Press gave a fawning profile to his then-wife, Hmong
refugee Kellie Chauvin. She called her husband a “gentlemanâ€
and “just a softie.†Less than two years later, just three days
after George
Floyd’s death , she divorced him. Her lawyer
told journalists about her “utmost sympathy†for
Floyd’s family.
What’s so striking about the Derek Chauvin case is that it could have
happened anywhere. Every police officer (or white person who lives in a black neighborhood)
knows about the sob stories, the wailing, the lying, and the sudden switch from threats to
begging and back again when blacks face cops. Floyd himself had
tried this soft-shoe routine when he was arrested in 2019. Derek Chauvin and his three
colleagues had probably seen far worse.
Whether a routine arrest like this becomes a cause depends on countless factors. If
the teenager Darnella Frazier had not
taken a video , nothing would have happened. Even with body cam footage, I suspect there
would have been no case. Without a simple image to rouse the simple masses, no one would have
cared.
The sanctification of George Floyd makes this even more surreal. The #MeToo movement took
down powerful men who had made inappropriate jokes or crude gestures decades ago, but a
criminal who spent his last moments on earth trying to rip-off shopkeepers and lying to police
has become a holy
figure , complete with literal claims of miracles. George Floyd’s life
and death were practically a caricature of what the crudest
“racist†would conjure out of a hateful imagination. A white man
with his record would have been treated exactly the
same , but because Floyd was black, journalists made him a saint. Most people let
others
build their reality . Post-white America has a new faith .
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, author of The Bible of Unspeakable Truths and The Joy
of Hate , said that even if Derek Chauvin wasn’t guilty of all charges,
he
thought the verdict was a good thing. “I want a verdict that keeps this
country from going up in flames,†he explained. That’s the
bravery of American conservatives for you. While the country didn’t
“go up in flames,†there were some troubling signs last night
that worse is to come.
The guilty verdict didn’t calm the streets. It didn’t
even calm the politicians. The President of the United States
said that “this can be a moment of significant change.â€
Kamala Harris , whose
parents are immigrants,
intones that this won’t “heal the pain that existed
for generations.†Barack and Michelle Obama
want “true justice,†which requires “that
we come to terms with the fact that Black Americans are treated differently, every
day.†(I don’t think they mean affirmative action.) Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez said the verdict
wasn’t justice and doesn’t want people to think the
system works. Empty-headed celebrities
demand that more be done.
Rep. Tlaib represents Detroit ,
where the already-ruined city saw a huge
increase in homicides and shootings in 2020, just another part of what was undoubtedly the
largest
single-year increase in the murder rate in American history. Almost all the added victims
were black. “The community†doesn’t seem to
care, so there’s no reason politicians should.
Let’s hear no wailing about “black lives.â€
The main victims of the crime wave are black, with victims including
children , partygoers , and funeral guests
. Voters who elect
progressive prosecutors don’t seem to care any more than the
“community†does. Do they prefer bloodshed to good police
work?
Vox
tells us BLM has led to a reduction in “police homicides†in
areas where there were protests. Of course, at least some of these homicides would have
been justified use of force. Yet the very same research Vox cites says that between 2014 and
2019, there were “somewhere between 1,000 and 6,000 more homicides than
would have been expected [absent protests]†in those places. Even if we accept the
unhinged premise that police suddenly stopped gunning down blacks for no reasons, the result of
BLM was thousands of dead blacks â€" and nice houses for the
movement’s co-founder .
Still, it’s not about blacks. It’s about us. Rudyard
Kipling, a poet who wouldn’t get far in our affirmative
action world , wrote :
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: â€"
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet
you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.â€
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
We paid the Dane-geld. We’ve shamefully paid it to people with far less
nobility and courage than the Vikings. The Minnesota protester screaming that riots worked is
right. They worked because they had media backing. If others ran the press, the Cannon
Hinnant case alone could have changed everything. Instead, most whites
haven’t heard of it, nor about the others of
our race butchered every
year .
Our loss of identity leaves us vulnerable to moral blackmail. Whites seem to be in a
permanent state of shellshock. White conservatives want to be left alone, with Tucker Carlson
saying
that what the nation needs “more than anything†is
“a moment to catch our national breath.†Really? Conservatives
know something is wrong, but don’t dare recognize the real problem.
Republicans who collaborate with this rotten system have
shut down even halting steps towards white
identity .
Meanwhile, over the last decade, white liberals have radically changed their views on race
and actively discriminate against
whites . It’s more correct to say that new views were
inserted into their brains through hysterical media coverage of police shootings. Those who
call themselves “very liberal†are hopelessly deluded. A
majority think that
police gun down over 1,000 unarmed black men a year â€" almost 100 times the actual
number.
https://www.bitchute.com/embed/5Bf07CnmFidD/
Statistics can’t compete with sob-stories, and stories give people
meaning. I believe many Americans get their moral purpose for life from them.
There are also specific benefits in keeping the system going. Activists and politicians
build careers. Blacks get a chance of hitting the “
ghetto lottery †(assumed they aren’t killed) and becoming
heroes. It’s a strong incentive to turn a petty scam into an epic showdown.
Journalists who want to lead a social revolution or just get clicks (or both) fall right in
line.
Even as this is written, there is a case in Columbus, Ohio that could be our next George
Floyd-style passion play. Officers arrived at a chaotic brawl and shot a black girl. Body cam
footage shows the girl trying to stab someone before she was shot. Nonetheless, the image the
Associated Press
uses for the story is a Black Lives Matter protest. It looks like yet another case of a
degenerate “community†causing chaos, attracting the police, and
causing a racial confrontation.
The police are going to lie. I’m so thankful that someone from the
family was actually on the scene,†[Aunt] Bryant said . . . .
“The police are going to lie. The police are going to cover up for
themselves. They don’t care. At this point, I feel like
they’re just out to kill Black people. They’re not here
to protect and serve. That isn’t happening. That’s been
over a long time ago. They’re not here to protect and serve.
They’re here to kill Black folks.
Like many other whites, I’m exhausted. Unlike Tucker Carlson , I don’t
think we need a chance to catch our breath or pursue change more slowly. We need radical
change.
Every confrontation between a white officer and a non-white criminal is a potential
riot . The process is corrupt
because judges, jurors, and politicians know that the mob has a veto over the verdict. The rule
of law is dead.
The answer is separation . Without it, this will never
stop.
https://www.bitchute.com/embed/2vb9uMyWhLuW/
The strange reality is that there is almost no difference now between being a notorious
white advocate or any white guy. Derek Chauvin went, in just one day, from a heartwarming
“softie†who married a Hmong refugee to the embodiment of white
supremacy. A few days ago, it was a
soldier who stopped a black guy from accosting women. He had to be chased from his home.
Tomorrow it could be you.
You could try to stop a crime. You could fight back against an assault. Maybe you just look
at someone the wrong way. Maybe you do nothing at all. But if you
donated $10 to a cause the media don’t like â€" or even if
you didn’t â€" you could be the mark for the next great hate
hoax.
I write this reluctantly. Many of us become white advocates kicking and screaming, afraid to
see the truth. We all get here through experience
, usually painful.
However, no matter how far you run, how earnestly you plead, what you say, or even whom you
marry, you will always be white to those with power. That means many despise you. At some
point, you must decide to stand or kneel, and a society that kneels before the memory of a
George Floyd is not one worth serving or saving.
Whites created this country. They sustain it. Without whites, there is no America. America
is an extension of Western Civilization, white civilization, on this continent. Whites
pay to support
people who hate, curse, and sometimes kill us. We gain nothing. They owe everything. What they
have, we gave them, through weakness, folly, and good
intensions .
We deserve reparations for trillions wasted in a 60-year effort to babysit a population that
pays us back with violence and hatred. Most importantly, we deserve liberation from this
albatross that prevents any kind of real national life. Almost any price would be worth paying
if we could be sovereign and free, something our ancestors took for granted.
All the quasi-theological abstractions about “privilege†and
“critical theory†melt away before one immutable truth: They
need us; we don’t need them. Until we have the will to say so, all of us
â€" including you â€" are just one “viralâ€
incident away from ruin.
Don’t know who Gregory Hood is but I do know after reading all of his
essays, that he is the most erudite writer on race issues. I find him fair and balanced
basically sticking to the relevant issue of what ever he is writing about.
“Almost any price would be worth paying if we could be sovereign and
free…â€
This essay is superb…but worryingly, only as far as it goes. What,
very specifically, is the separation plan, and what is the price that might have to be paid
and IS worth paying, and what is the price that is NOT worth paying? The action-plan cannot
be safely specified, because we have already come too far for one to safely specify it.
Already. And worse is to come.
Besides individual ramifications, there is this. In Trump vs. Hawaii, Justice Roberts
declined to overrule Korematsu (the Japanese-internment case). He wrote that Korematsu had
been “overruled by history.†Group internment remains the law
of the land.
And yes, I am too cowardly to speak-out. Again. I was an undergraduate at an elite
University exactly when (late 60s) and where this all started. I (and my friends, and
like-minded faculty members and administrators) were all too cowardly to speak out, and take
action, then. Too much to lose. I apologize to the younger generations.
American Renaissance is a joke. No mention of the (((real problem))) at all. Until we can
discuss and point to the (((instigators))) of our present day horror, we will achieve
nothing. The funny and ironic thing about all of this is, (((they))) will suffer as much as
any White at the hands of the Frankenstein’s monster they created. I guess
Whites can take some small comfort in those just desserts.
The U.S. had a good run while it lasted. My plan is to move on. Whites really should
consider leaving. Problem is when we establish a new area they will just come to move in on
us all over again.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, author of The Bible of Unspeakable Truths and The Joy of
Hate, said that even if Derek Chauvin wasn’t guilty of all charges, he
thought the verdict was a good thing. “I want a verdict that keeps this
country from going up in flames,†he explained. That’s the
bravery of American conservatives for you.
This is how greed-driven “Jews†(Gutfeld is a partially
Hebrew, greed-driven Globalist and stooge for Conservatism Inc) have destroyed the neoconned
American right, and ultimately the nation. Having no soul or backbone, brushing it all under
the carpet in deference to the Golden Calf markets, Satanic Hebrews like Gutfeld will appease
the irrational mob all day long, and then just prior to collapse, invoke their
“Jewish†heritage and flee to Israel.
This us why they are known as Judenrats , and have always been.
And “liberal†Judenrats are even worse, but had
trouble penetrating the GOP until the ((neocons)) came along and sold it on easy-money
wars.
Anything for a buck, no matter how Satanic. Morality never enters into the equation.
They’re only destroying animal goyim nations, after all.
Whites don’t need blacks, browns or Jewish parasites.
The day we refuse to be intimidated and believe the lies is the day we get our countries
back.
Demand that Congress exercise their constitutional power over money creation.
National strike.
Something.
We need to turn this cancer around rather than waiting for the ship to hit the iceberg. That
will be the financial collapse lurking. It is the perfect opportunity for radical reform
including constitutional admendments. It will be a blessing in disguise: angry masses looking
for soneone to blame. Tptb will try to throw US to the angry masses but we throw them.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
y intractable endemic racial frictions in the USA are being systematically nurtured and
nourished by malign agents embedded in the American governmental and media frameworks.
The behaviour and loyalties of your Senator Maxine Waters makes this abundantly clear,
beyond any ambiguity or doubt.
So there is a cancer, for sure, eating away at the American Republic.
To extend the analogy, the danger with any cancer is permitting it to get past the point
of no return, after which the host cannot possibly recover and is inevitably consumed.
So you better find a cure soon, preferably something holistic which feeds the healthy
constituents and promotes healing at the same time as extinguishing the poisonous
infections.
Otherwise Team America may suffer a tragic and permanent demise.
Don’t forget that Jews own the media and the politicians. The culture
of vicitmhood, cancel culture, “wokeness,†race-baiting and
multi-racialism all either originate in the Jewish community or are strongly supported by
Jews. Jews brought down white, Christian Russia in 1917 and they are in the process of doing
that here. Jews hate us Christian whites and that fact is reflected in their media.
“All the quasi-theological abstractions about
“privilege†and “critical
theory†melt away before one immutable truth: They need us; we
don’t need them. Until we have the will to say so, all of
us…â€
Us who? White liberals don’t want you & don’t
need you & never will accept you, let alone agree any hare-brained scheme to
‘separate’ or have a racial homeland. And
they’re using Blacks to tell you that.
And until we have the will to say so, nothing will result from DOA dreams about a separate
state for “usâ€. A separate quasi-theological state abstraction
based on race will melt away in immutable reality as quickly as the communist belief in a
dictatorship of the proletariat abstraction. You have to make it here; there is no
“us†anymore. Get ready for 2022 or civil war as you will, but
there’s no escape to la-la land.
In the 1960 census, Minnesota was 98.8% white. In 1973, Time magazine ran an article on
the “Good Life in Minnesota.†It really was. We led the nation
in education. In 1960, there were 1,400 violent crimes in the State. Now, it is 13,000 to
14,000. What happened? We had mass migration from Chicago. Our Minnesota socialists offered
generous welfare benefits that attracted Chicago’s blacks and resettled
many refugees from failed countries, like Somalia, to the State. The State went from low
crime, highly educated, to much crime, much disorder, and a feeling we now live in a 3rd
world country. Today, we have armed soldiers with machine guns on the corners of the streets
in Minneapolis. You’d think the woke monsters that censure our news and
who form the Chauvin jury would awake from their idiocy, but instead, they censure the facts,
portray cops as the bad guys, portray drug abusing criminal degenerates like George Floyd as
saints.
It looks like blacks are now untouchable. This can only cause them to increase their
savage ways.
Realistically, wouldn’t it be better if every white person that wanted
to be armed could do so, and do so without a gov’t permission slip? The
reason we can’t pack a piece is because the gov’t says
the police will protect us. I know that’s a lie, do you?
Get rid of street cops like Chauvin because they are the ones that
aren’t there to protect us and end up in Floyd type situations. We should
be demanding our Constitutional rights to carry a weapon if we want to AND have the laws
changed so if we take out some POS there’s nothing to worry about.
Just think if a shop keepers in Portland put a shotgun round through their window through
the same hole made by the brick some antifa or blm POS threw. All the rioting and destruction
would have been cut off in seconds as these miscreants scatter. That’s the
only way to handle the low life trash that currently has immunity via a justice system that
is broken.
Eliminate street cops. Demand our Constitutional rights. Tell the gov’t
to change the laws that allow for deadly force when attacked by some miscreant.
No, Whites cannot police them, just like we cannot educate them. That’s
why the only acceptable solution is to expel them from White countries. Any other course of
action will mean the end of civilization because their presence is incompatible with
civilized life. Fuck them all and their cuckservative fans.
"It's quite stupid to jump in the middle of a highly controversial issue," he told
reporters.
The colorful language from the typically reserved Republican leader shows the dilemma ahead
for the party in the post-Trump era. Many Trump-styled lawmakers are bucking big business and
leaning more heavily into the populist, working-class themes championed by the former president
â€" even as they rely on deep-pocketed business donors to fuel their political
campaigns.
By wading into the debate, McConnell is situating himself in the emerging culture wars on
the opposite side of progressive groups that are pressuring business not to sit by silently on
voting rights, gun violence and other big issues before Congress.
This is sort of like how Chelsea Clinton is thumping for the removal of Tucker Carlson from
Twitter; she doesn't like the back talk, something captured succinctly in this response to her
effrontery:
'Mocking Clinton, journalist Glenn Greenwald simply wrote: "Please remove from the internet
any content that displeases or otherwise causes any discomfort for Chelsea Clinton."'
So, yeah, the same principle applies here. Screw these "whited sepulchres". How I conceive
of them is as follows; those who wish these sepulchres to be venerated take great pains that
they be thickly slathered with an oh so respectable, dissimulating coating of whitewash, but in
reality, as tombs, their genuine function is as repositories for corrupt, rotting meat.
BIDEN-PUTIN. At the US request, a phone call:
White
House take
,
Kremlin
take
. Biden talked tough (Ukraine, “cyber intrusions and election interferenceâ€), Putin mentioned Minsk agreement. No
mention of Navalniy; I guess he’s passed his best-before date. Biden proposed a face-to-face meeting in a third country; I can’t
believe that he will dare meet with Putin: look at his
carefully
scripted press conference
. Probably won’t happen any way after this “national emergency†stuff.
ARCTIC. CNN excitedly discovers “
huge
Russian military buildup in the Arctic
“; amusingly says “The Russian build-up has been matched by NATO and US troop and
equipment movements.†Nope: Russia is far, far ahead of all the others: other than nuclear submarines,
none
has anything to compare
.
SILENCE. Will be the sound that we
hear
in response to Lavrov’s call
for a treaty banning weapons in space. (Not presumably to include the many communications and
geo-locating satellites Russia and others already have up there. Bit of hypocrisy there: not weapons as such but necessary for
many.)
COVID. The EU’s vaccine rollout has been a
dud
and
many countries are trying to obtain the Russian vaccine. CNN, for once, covers the
issue
reasonably evenly
: reactions range from a welcome solution to the problem to those pesky Russians trying to divide us again.
A
German
news outlet says Washington is trying to pressure Berlin
and
Korybko
speculates
that the tension in Ukraine may be related. One watches, somewhat dumbfounded â€" more evidence of things falling
apart.
RUSSIA-TURKEY. I guess it’s time to teach Ankara another lesson: flights to Turkey have been
severely
restricted
. Because of COVID; nothing to do with Ankara’s fiddling around in Syria or Ukraine. They say. Russian tourism is
a big part of Turkey’s GDP. Moscow’s last
shutdown
brought results
.
UKRAINE/USA. Foreign interventions have
a
nasty habit of coming home
. “Far-right extremists see the war zone there as a laboratory where they can gain actual combat
experience to bring back home.â€
Department of State
@StateDept, United States government organization, @SecBlinken: Standing for people’s freedoms and dignity honors America’s
most sacred values. At our best, we stand for freedom and justice for all. Not just here at home, but around the world.
Standing for Freedom and Justice for All?
Setting the Scene for Global Destruction. Now It’s the Arctic, Brian Cloughley, April 13, 2021, Strategic Culture
The
scene-setting by Washington’s military-industrial complex and in the Pentagon’s sub-office in Brussels includes warnings
about a Russian “buildup†in the Arctic, as reported by CNN which quoted a Pentagon representative as saying “Russia is
refurbishing Soviet-era airfields and radar installations, constructing new ports and search-and-rescue centres, and
building up its fleet of nuclear and conventionally-powered icebreakers.†This activity is indeed taking place, and is
happening in Russian sovereign territory, which has nothing to do with the Pentagon or anyone else. It’s not in any way
similar to the U.S. military’s overseas “forward military presence†of some 200,000 troops in over 800 bases around the
world.
USA Today
states that Trump “opened additional bases in Afghanistan, Estonia, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Niger, Norway, Palau, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Somalia, Syria and
Tunisiaâ€, which seems pretty impressive, but in reality-land is entirely counter-productive. And it seems that Uncle Joe
isn’t going to close down any of them.
“SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS
As a result of today’s designations, all property and interests in property of these targets that are subject to
U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.
Additionally, any entities 50 percent or more owned by one or more designated persons are also blocked. In addition,
financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned
entities and individuals may expose themselves to secondary sanctions or be subject to an enforcement actions.â€
All credit cards we use in “the Westâ€, presently, are issued are American institutions, basically. PayPal is American too.
Can’t be that difficult to order institutions, who are within US jurisdiction, to collect whatever James et al. tries to
give to whoever.
Technically all they needed to do is an algorithm that automatically collects everything going to a some person or
institution.
That wouldn’t be the first time US laws are meant to apply extraterritoriality. Maybe based on US law the money didn’t even
need to be returned to the sender? Extraterritorial forfeiture?
Putin promises 'asymmetrical' response to any threats made against Russia, promises those
provoking Moscow will come to regret it
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a stern warning to anyone threatening the
national security of Russia, telling officials that those responsible will "regret their
actions like they have never regretted anything before."
IMHO NATO and D.C. need to pull their heads out of their arses, for mankind's sake.
The danger posed by the Deep State is that it wields immense power but is unelected and
unaccountable, Phil Giraldi writes.
As a former intelligence officer, I find it amusing to read articles in the mainstream media
that blithely report how the latest international outrages are undoubtedly the work of CIA and
the rest of the U.S. government’s national security alphabet soup. The
recurring claim that the CIA is somehow running the world by virtue of a vast conspiracy that
includes the secret intelligence agencies of a number of countries, using blackmail and other
inducements to corrupt vulnerable politicians and opinion makers, has entered into the DNA of
journalists worldwide, frequently without any evidence that the current crop of spies is
capable to doing anything more complicated than getting out of bed in the morning.
One problem with the theory about total global dominance through espionage is the sheer
logistics of it all. Directing political and economic developments in two hundred nations
simultaneously must require a lot of space and a large staff. Is there a huge office hidden in
Langley? Or the Pentagon? Or in the White House West Wing itself? Or is it in one of the secure
facilities that have been popping up like mushrooms just off of the Dulles Toll Road in Herndon
Virginia?
To provide evidence that intelligence agencies extend their tentacles just about everywhere,
the other claim that is nearly always made is that all former spooks are part of the
conspiracy, as once you learn the secret handshake to join CIA, NSA or the FBI you never stop
being “one of them.†Well, that might be true in some cases but
the majority of former spooks are quite happy to be “former,â€
and one might also observe that many voices in the anti-war movement, such as it is, come from
intelligence, law enforcement or military backgrounds. Of course, the conspiracy theorists will
explain that away by claiming that it is a conspiracy within a conspiracy, making the
dissidents little better than double agents or gatekeepers who are put in place to make sure
that the opposition doesn’t become too effective.
Given the fact that how the so-called American “Deep Stateâ€
actually gets together and plots is unknown, one would have to concede that it is an
organization without much structure, unlike the original Turkish Deep State (Derin Devlet),
which coined the phrase, that actually met and had centralized planning. I would suggest that
the problem is one of definitions and it also helps to know how the national security state is
structured and what its legitimate mission is. The CIA, for example, employs about 20,000
people, nearly all of whom work in various divisions that collect information (spying),
analysis, technology and also are divided into staffs that work transnationally on issues like
terrorism, narcotics, and nuclear proliferation. The overwhelming majority of those employees
have political views and vote but there is a consensus that what their work entails is
apolitical. The actual politics of how policy comes out the other end is confined to a very
small group at the top, some of whom are themselves political appointees.
To be sure, one can and probably should oppose the policies of regime change that the Agency
is engaged in worldwide but there is one important consideration that has to be understood.
Those policies are set by the country’s civilian leadership (president,
secretary of state and national security council) and they are imposed on CIA by its own
political leadership. The Agency does not hold referenda among its employees to determine which
foreign policy option is preferable any more than soldiers in the 101 st Airborne
are consulted when they receive orders to deploy.
Nearly all current and former intelligence officers that I know are, in fact, opposed to the
politics of U.S. global dominance that have been pretty much in place since 9/11, most
particularly as evidenced by the continued conflict with Russia, the ramping up of aggression
with China, and the regime change policies relating to Syria, Iran and Venezuela. Those
officers often consider the invasions and exercise of “maximum
pressure†to have been failures. Those policies were supported by truculent
language, sanctions and displays of military readiness by the Trump Administration but it now
appears clear that they will all be continued in one form or another under President Joe Biden,
likely to include even more aggression against Russia through proxies in Ukraine and
Georgia.
The officers engaged in such operations also observe that regime change has basically come
out of the closet since 2001. George W. Bush announced that there was a “new
sheriff in town†and the gloves would be coming off. Things that the intelligence
agencies used to do are now done right out in the open, using military resources against
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria while the biggest change of all, in Ukraine in 2014, was
largely engineered by Victoria Nuland at the State Department. The National Endowment for
Democracy (NED) was also active in Russia supporting opposition parties until the Kremlin
forced them to leave the country.
So, it is fair to say that the Deep State is not a function of either the CIA or the FBI,
but at the same time the involvement of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey in the plot
to destroy Donald Trump is disturbing, as the three men headed the Agency, the Office of
National Intelligence and Bureau. They appear to have played critical leadership roles in
carrying out this conspiracy and they may not have operated on their own. Almost certainly what
they may have done would have been either explicitly or implicitly authorized by the former
President of the United States, Barack Obama, and others in his national security team.
It is
now known that President Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan
created a secret interagency Trump Task Force in early 2016. Rather than working against
genuine foreign threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the
meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of President Vladimir Putin, a
claim that still surfaces regularly to this day. Working with Clapper, Brennan fabricated the
narrative that “Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.â€
Brennan and Clapper promoted that tale even though they knew very well that Russia and the
United States have carried out a broad array of covert actions against each other, including
information operations, for the past seventy years, but they pretended that what happened in
2016 was qualitatively and substantively different even though the
“evidence†produced to support that claim is weak to
nonexistent.
I would, nevertheless, argue that their behavior, though it exploited intelligence
resources, was not intrinsic to the organizations that they led, that the three of them were
part and parcel of the real Deep State, which consists of a consensus view on running the
country that is held by nearly all of the elements that together make up the American
Establishment, with its political power focused in Washington and its financial center in New
York City. It should come as no surprise that those government officials who are complicit in
the process are often personally rewarded with highly paid sinecure jobs in financial services,
which they know nothing about, when they “retire.â€
The danger posed by the Deep State, or, if you choose, the Establishment, is that it wields
immense power but is unelected and unaccountable. Even though it does not actually meet in
secret, it does operate through relationships that are not transparent and as the media is part
of it, there is little chance that its activity will be exposed. One notes that while the Deep
State is mentioned frequently in the national media there has been little effort to identify
its components and how it operates.
Viewed in that fashion, the argument that there exists a cohesive group of power brokers who
really run the country and are even able to coopt those who are ostensibly dedicated to keeping
the country safe becomes much more plausible without denigrating the many honest people who are
employed by the national security agencies. The Deep State conspirators
don’t have to meet to plot as they all understand very well what has to be
done to maintain their supremacy. That is the real danger. The Biden Administration will surely
demonstrate over the next several months that the Deep State is still with us and more powerful
than ever as it operates both inside and outside the government itself. And the real danger
comes from the Democrats now in charge, who are if anything more given to playing with
consensus politics that involve phony threats than were the Republicans.
Recent events in the world have given me great hope that we might finally emerge from the
century of permanent war. The Great Reset agenda seems to be losing steam and those in charge
of implementing it are losing conviction (with the exception, perhaps, of the very top echelon
in power). At the same time, the ranks of people who are opposed to it and are willing to take
a stand, appear to be swelling.
Since the very start of the great pandemic of 2020, something about the public health
response didn't feel right. It was clear from the measures that were enacted and from measures
that were not enacted that their purpose had little to do with public health. Instead, they
seemed to further a different agenda. Soon we learned that this was all connected to World
Economic Forum's hugely ambitious "Fourth Industrial Revolution" or the Great Reset. But the
agenda and the steps taken seemed rushed, panicked and frankly, hopeless.
Many of the solutions and technologies that would have to be rolled out and ready to use
turned out to be non-existent or only in conceptual stages of development. As months went on,
the events proved this impression correct as we saw the authorities muddle through, destroying
their own credibility in the process. In a very
recent interview, Dr. Rainer Fullmich sated as follows: "We have a whistleblower and she
told us that the original plan was to roll this out in 2050. But then those who are involved
with this got greedy and pulled things forward to 2030 and then to 2020 and that's why so many
mistakes are happening."
I do not believe that the people involved with this got greedy – I believe they
understand the fragility and imminent demise of the financial system which is their key
mechanism of control over all the levers of influence in society. The implosion of that system
would also jeopardize their position of power. So they rushed the Great Reset right off the
back of the 2020 pandemic to try to front-run the collapse and take an iron-fisted control of
things ahead of the unfolding crisis. From their various documents and white papers, it is also
evident that they had anticipated the public pushback.
Conjuring a big new war
As I wrote
last August , they have "surely planned diversions to misdirect our grievances One of the
greatest means of diversion are wars. We must therefore guard against believing that our
enemies are the Russians, the Chinese or whomever the logic of divide-and-rule would pit us
against." Over the last few weeks we've seen a sharp escalation of hostilities in Ukraine
between the Kiev government and the Donbas region. The situation became so tense that many
learned observers saw a military conflagration as inevitable. On 6th April, SouthFront.org
published an article, titled, " War Between
Russia and Ukraine is Inevitable. " Over the weekend I had the pleasure of listening to
Tom
Luongo's podcast with Alexander Mercouris – two among the most learned geopolitical
analysts. While Mercouris was more optimistic about the situation, Tom Luongo expected that the
war would break out.
If we judged by historical precedents, I would entirely agree with Luongo. However, I think
we are living in a different era today. In the run-up to the previous two world wars, leaders
of the key powers (Russia, France, Germany, etc.) were quite naive about the scheming of the
British diplomacy and intelligence services which led the way to both those wars. Wittingly and
unwittingly, they played along and sleepwalked into those conflicts (OK, Hitler didn't quite
'sleepwalk' into war but he had clearly badly misunderstood the British game and thought he
could sue for peace after only limited military engagements).
Today, it is clear that the leaders in Russia, China and certain other nations are
remarkably sophisticated, that their understanding of the great geopolitical chessboard is
crystal clear, and that they know exactly who their true enemies are. They have also understood
that giving their adversaries a war would mean giving them a lifeline. It seems to me that they
have made it an imperative priority not to give them that war.
Russia's build-up of an overwhelming military force on its border with Ukraine was therefore
not a preparation for war. To the contrary, it was a move to prevent one from erupting. As
Victor
David Hanson recently wrote , " Wars often arise from uncertainty. When strong countries
appear weak, truly weaker ones take risks they otherwise would not ." Thus for now, the Ukraine
tensions have abated - but had they faced a weak and indecisive Russia, the leadership in Kiev
and their Western backers might have made a very different gamble and today the war might
already have started. The cabal that's been dominating the western world for the past two
centuries is rapidly running out of time and out of options.
Their plans for the one world government are now in tatters and without a new world war, the
best they can hope to achieve is to carve out a geopolitical block and erect a new iron curtain
around it. The most likely candidate for that block is Western Europe consisting of the old
colonial powers and their satellites. However, even this consolation prize will not be viable.
As the Soviet experience has taught us, even with an iron fist and heavy-handed repression, the
edifice can sustain itself at best for a few decades. But as populations awaken, and awakening
they are, the sun will finally set on their system, probably for good.
The new world
dawning
What's left for the awakened masses to do is to build a better world on the ruins of the old
system. Here is what I wrote last March in an earlier blog post :
"We are witnessing the manifestations of old systems collapsing. And while some of those
manifestations appear fearsome, keep in mind Confucius ' counsel:
A seed grows with no sound. But a tree falls with huge noise. Destruction has noise but
creation is quiet. This is the power of silence grow silently .
Destruction is all around us creating great noise, but you carry a seed that grows silently
within you. Things that emerge from seeds are worthy of our reverence. If we cultivate them
with attention and love, they can grow beautiful and majestic. Dostoevsky said that beauty
would save the world. That beauty is us – you and I – our children, our parents,
our friends, all of us. We can't see what all these seeds will become, but it should be easy to
believe – nature's creations are always so beautiful."
Just the other day while on a hike, I came across a scene that captured this idea
metaphorically:
As we know, the better the seeds are nourished, the more beautiful, more robust and more
fruitful they become. The most important nutrient we need to build a better tomorrow is
knowledge and today we have that nutrient in greater abundance than we have ever had before. It
is incumbent upon us to use it, digest it, learn and apply ourselves to create the best version
of the future that we can muster.
It may just be that this crisis we are living through is a precious gift and that we who are
privileged to witness humanity at this juncture are fortunate in ways we can't yet fully grasp.
We must embrace this and do our very best with it and pass it on to our children and their
children.
Speaking of "hygiene theater," think of all the billions of dollars of hand sanitizer that
has been sold to prevent people from contracting the virus on surfaces. Which the recent
study shows happens in only 1-in-10,000 cases!
Ah, "never mind" .... but the makers of hand-sanitizer are a thankin' you.
Give Me Some Truth 39 minutes ago
My wife is a high school teacher. It's surprising her elbow hasn't fallen off by now from
all the scrubbing she's done of classroom desks. I guess it was good exercise for her.
Demologos 15 minutes ago
Would have been better to repurpose the alcohol as vodka.
The Tsunami of COVID-19 Bullsh!t and disinformation has Fauci's face on it. Looks like
Anthony "surprise outbreak" Fauci took just 13 months to go full circle from no masks needed
outside https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI to
everyone should wear two masks, to no mask needed outside. The man is a national
embarrassment...
Didn't this twat say just 2 months ago we should be wearing TWO masks?
Krink26 2 hours ago
Unfortunately yes. So wear three masks...
cpt. carptastic 1 hour ago remove link
Have you been outside of your basement lately? There are idiots driving in their car alone
wearing a mask. I see people riding their bikes with masks on, and people walking around my
block wearing a mask.
So yes, plenty of morons still listen to him.
LetThemEatRand 2 hours ago
And the smug Karens who confronted people for failing to wear masks outdoors will go along
without the slightest twinge of regret for having been wrong the whole time. And they will
still be the first to be vocal and certain of the correctness of their next baseless
Karanical instructions to the rest of us.
in4mayshun 1 hour ago
Dictionary Term
KAREN , noun (karanical, karanny, karenish): to direct exacerbation, frustration, or
criticism at a person or persons while in a heightened state of illogical virtue signaling
panic; the disphoria exhibited when victimizing ones self, while projecting unrealistic fears
onto otherwise innocent bystanders, often fueled by the leftard media. 2. a person who is
Gullible; will accept any and all propaganda delivered from "official" channels. 3. An
insult, often labeling a person who overreacts. 4. A form of entertainment for politically
right-leaning persons
beekeeper 2 hours ago remove link
The highest paid employee in the federal government is an idiot. That explains a lot.
Global Hunter 1 hour ago
All the brainwashed Karens in Canada will pretend they didn't see this as it doesn't fit
their agenda. The masks have become part of their identity.
Suzy Q 1 hour ago
Do Canadian Karens have face masks made to match their outfits like Fancy Nancy does?
The U.S. isn't driven by manufacturing like it once was. Services, which accounted for about
40% of GDP in the 1950s, now account for about 60% of it. Many of the effects of the
Covid-crisis were also unique, such as the way it hammered services like travel and restaurant
spending while touching manufacturing far more lightly.
That makes it easy to spin plausible stories where things go well or poorly. For example,
the work-from-home revolution the crisis helped spark might help businesses run more
efficiently, boosting productivity, raising potential GDP and allowing the economy to run
faster over the long run without overheating. Or,
the thicket of supply-chain problems the crisis caused , and difficulties scaling up
services to meet demand, could cause a more serious bout of inflation than most economists
expect. Other uncertainties abound, including how successful President Biden will be getting
his remaining spending and tax plans passed.
exactly what does the US gain by constantly smacking down russia? better jobs, higher
education, better health maybe? less debt/smaller deficits for US citizens?
why is it in the interest of the US to have open southern borders with tens of millions of
the poor, sick and stupid seeking to join the free **** army of entitled karens - and yet -
antagonize, vilify and belittle fellow white christians of russia?
the US is being invaded as we speak, its tax dollars are being siphoned off to pay for the
poor, sick and stupid flooding in.
it is not russia that is doing the invading.
it is economic migrants answering the siren call of the GOON squad and a criminal cabal
that is building a political base that cannot be defeated.
it is not russia that is bankrupting the US by forcing it to blow out spending beyond its
tax base to defend its citizens.
it is socialist policies like the "green new deal" and the response to a (yet to be
isolated) virus that are bankrupting the nation.
the enemy of the US is within and is ripping the country apart.
the enemy is socialism and the pursuit of the lowest common economic and educational
denominator by mentally challenged morons like the illlegal POTUS (POXONUS) and his illegal
immigrant VPOTUS (VPOXONUS).
looks so real 10 hours ago (Edited)
Colonize Russia and China the elites get off Scott free from persecution of international
crimes committed by them. Their rise is terrifying to the elites soon if not stopped will
impose international law on them, like going after the NazI's after WW2. They must feel the
noose tightening judging by the paranoid attacks. That said recent moves by the west looks
like they are ahead they are attacking on all fronts.
jusstpassinthru 9 hours ago (Edited)
Once again, it seems we're mistaking a corporation for a country. The United States
government and America are two totally different things. At present the US corporate
government is operating totally as a criminal organization.
cui bono? The corporation.
9 Corpus Juris Secundum, § 883
"The United States government is a foreign corporation with respect to a state." 19C.J.S.
Corporations § 883 citing In re Merriam's Estate, 36 N.Y. 505, 141 N.Y. 479(1894), and
affirmed in United States v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625, 41 L.Ed. 287 (1896).
Putin remarked how to "attack Russia" has become "a sport, a new sport, who makes the
loudest statements." And then he went full Kipling: "Russia is attacked here and there for no
reason. And of course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis [jackals] are running around like Tabaqui
ran around Shere Khan [the tiger] – everything is like in Kipling's book – howling
along and ready to serve their sovereign. Kipling was a great writer".
The – layered – metaphor is even more startling as it echoes the late 19th
century geopolitical Great Game between the British and Russian empires, of which Kipling was a
protagonist.
Once again Putin had to stress that "we really don't want to burn any bridges. But if
someone perceives our good intentions as indifference or weakness and intends to burn those
bridges completely or even blow them up, he should know that Russia's response will be
asymmetric, swift and harsh".
"Tensions skirting wartime levels"
Now compare all of the above with the
White House Executive Order (EO) declaring a "national emergency" to "deal with the Russian
threat".
This is directly connected to President Biden – actually the combo telling him what to
do, complete with earpiece and teleprompter – promising Ukraine's President Zelensky that
Washington would "take measures" to support Kiev's wishful thinking of retaking Donbass and
Crimea.
There are several eyebrow-raising issues with this EO. It denies, de facto, to any Russian
national the full rights to their US property. Any US resident may be accused of being a
Russian agent engaged in undermining US security. A sub-sub paragraph (C), detailing "actions
or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the United States or
abroad", is vague enough to be used to eliminate any journalism that supports Russia's
positions in international affairs.
Purchases of Russian OFZ bonds have been sanctioned, as well as one of the companies
involved in the production of the Sputnik V vaccine. Yet the icing on this sanction cake may
well be that from now on all Russian citizens, including dual citizens, may be barred from
entering US territory except via a rare special authorization on top of the ordinary visa.
The Russian paper Vedomosti has noted that in such paranoid atmosphere the risks for large
companies such as Yandex or Kaspersky Lab are significantly increasing. Still, these sanctions
have not been met with surprise in Moscow. The worst is yet to come, according to Beltway
insiders: two packages of sanctions against Nord Stream 2 already approved by the US Department
of Justice.
The crucial point is that this EO de facto places anyone reporting on Russia's political
positions as potentially threatening "American democracy". As top political analyst Alastair
Crooke has remarked, this is a "procedure usually reserved for citizens of enemy states during
times of war". Crooke adds, "US hawks are upping the ante fiercely against Moscow. Tensions and
rhetoric are skirting wartime levels."
It's an open question whether Putin's State of the Nation will be seriously examined by the
toxic lunatic combo of neocons and humanitarian imperialists bent on simultaneously harassing
Russia and China.
But the fact is something extraordinary has already started to happen: a "de-escalation" of
sorts.
Even before Putin's address, Kiev, NATO and the Pentagon apparently got the message implicit
in Russia moving two armies, massive artillery batteries and airborne divisions to the borders
of Donbass and to Crimea – not to mention top naval assets moved from the Caspian to the
Black Sea. NATO could not even dream of matching that.
Facts on different grounds speak volumes. Both Paris and Berlin were terrified of a possible
Kiev clash directly against Russia, and lobbied furiously against it, bypassing the EU and
NATO.
Then someone – it might have been Jake Sullivan – must have whispered on Crash
Test Dummy's earpiece that you don't go around insulting the head of a nuclear state and expect
to keep your global "credibility". So after that by now famous "Biden" phone call to Putin came
the invitation to the climate change summit, in which any lofty promises are largely
rhetorical, as the Pentagon will continue to be the largest polluting entity on planet
Earth.
... ... ...
Whatever happens next, for all practical purposes Iron Curtain 2.0 is now on, and it simply
won't go away. There will be more sanctions. Everything was thrown at the Bear short of a hot
war. It will be immensely entertaining to watch how, and via which steps, Washington will
engage on a "de-escalation and diplomatic process" with Russia.
The Hegemon may always find a way to deploy a massive P.R. campaign and ultimately claim a
diplomatic success in "dissolving" the impasse. Well, that certainly beats a hot war.
Otherwise, lowly Jungle Book adventurers have been advised: try anything funny and be ready to
meet "asymmetric, swift and harsh".
Lordflin 10 hours ago
Very true...
Also true... Kipling was a great writer... loved him as a kid... Still remember Rikki
Tikki Tavi... who couldn't...
War is coming... and Putin will get dragged to the party kicking and screaming... but he
has no choice but to show up...
zoghead 16 hours ago
Amazing how calm and composed Putin is when he talks of the West. I admire him for this
phenomenal restraint. No one knows more than him, how the West (politicos and press) bandy
him personally and his country around for absoutely no reason. The Russians are peaceloving
folks, and just want to be left alone.
wootendw PREMIUM 16 hours ago
Putin remarked how to "attack Russia" has become "a sport, a new sport, who makes the
loudest statements." And then he went full Kipling: "Russia is attacked here and there for
no reason. And of course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis [jackals] are running around like
Tabaqui ran around Shere Khan [the tiger] – everything is like in Kipling's book
– howling along and ready to serve their sovereign. Kipling was a great writer".
For those who haven't read The Jungle Book , Shere Khan is US - and the story doesn't end
well for him.
"... THIS is why the U.S. maintains a rotating cast of "evil" countries to demonize. Whether its Russia, China, the DPRK, Iran, Cuba, or Venezuela, Americans will always find a way to externalize and blame the internal violence of their capitalist imperialist system on foreign foes. ..."
"... When will Americans get it through their head that the U.S. is NOT a "democracy" that needs to be "defended" because it was NEVER a democracy to begin with. The problem isn't other countries that you've been brainwashed to hate. It is YOUR capitalist imperialist system country. ..."
"... The definition of insanity is watching your colonial, capitalist, imperialist country time and time again inflict mass murder and violence both domestically and abroad and still thinking your country is a "democracy" that must be defended from "authoritarian" countries abroad. ..."
"The danger for American elites is not that the U.S. may become less able to accomplish geopolitical objectives. Rather, it is
that more Americans might begin to question the logic of U.S. global hegemony," writes
@RichardHanania :
THIS is why the U.S. maintains a rotating cast of "evil" countries to demonize. Whether its Russia, China, the DPRK, Iran,
Cuba, or Venezuela, Americans will always find a way to externalize and blame the internal violence of their capitalist imperialist
system on foreign foes.
When will Americans get it through their head that the U.S. is NOT a "democracy" that needs to be "defended" because it
was NEVER a democracy to begin with. The problem isn't other countries that you've been brainwashed to hate. It is YOUR capitalist
imperialist system country.
The definition of insanity is watching your colonial, capitalist, imperialist country time and time again inflict mass
murder and violence both domestically and abroad and still thinking your country is a "democracy" that must be defended from "authoritarian"
countries abroad.
"... "Pro-Kremlin" and "pro-China" are labels which have literally lost all meaning in face of an almost totally unified global response to Covid19, and yet, if Nick has his way, they will be used to destroy any semblance of alternative media in Western society ..."
"... At one point in his incoherent diatribe he even cites "conspiracy theorists" alleged "antisemitism" (without any evidence to back it up). A beautiful example of what Huey Long called "fascism coming in the name of anti-fascism". ..."
"... Nick doesn't care about that. He's just here to promote authoritarianism and chew gum, and he's all out of gum. He's a massive hypocrite. Nothing more needs to be said. ..."
Nick Cohen has an "
op ed on the same subject, urging action against free speech so that "Russian meddling"
doesn't persuade us all to break quarantine and rush outside like lunatics.
He spent the last four years comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Stalin, and now he's arguing that
Facebook and YouTube should do some Stalinist censoring of their platforms in line with
government policy.
Has no one at Graun HQ even noticed that the Kremlin (as well as China) is actually in
lockstep with the West on the issue of covid19? Or does no whisper of reality percolate through
their glassy walls any more?
"Pro-Kremlin" and "pro-China" are labels which have literally lost all meaning in face
of an almost totally unified global response to Covid19, and yet, if Nick has his way, they
will be used to destroy any semblance of alternative media in Western society
His article's headline " Social media no longer tolerates toxic lies? Don't believe a word
of it ", makes the intent plain. He is returning to the theme that big tech companies have to
do their part to make sure Russians and "conspiracy theorists" don't harm our society.
But this time he is overtly demanding wrong-thinking people (specifically David Icke in this
instance) should be un-personed and barred from social media to "protect public health".
At one point in his incoherent diatribe he even cites "conspiracy theorists" alleged
"antisemitism" (without any evidence to back it up). A beautiful example of what Huey Long
called "fascism coming in the name of anti-fascism".
Nick doesn't care about that. He's just here to promote authoritarianism and chew gum,
and he's all out of gum. He's a massive hypocrite. Nothing more needs to be said.
"... "Russia feels threatened by the quality of our alliances and, even in the current environment, the quality of our democratic institutions. It sets out to denigrate them, and it uses intelligence services to that end. It is a serious problem, and we should organize to prevent it," the British spook told the actress. ..."
"... To some, the pairing of a Hollywood star and a veteran spymaster might seem strange. But, in reality, the silver screen and the national security state have always been intimately intertwined. ..."
"... Jolie herself has slowly become a leading member of the U.S. national security apparatus, joining the influential and well-endowed Council on Foreign Relations think tank in 2007, and penning a joint op-ed in The New York Times ..."
"... "We talked to a lot of the women in the CIA," said Jolie of her experiences preparing for her role. She appeared to have nothing but admiration for the organization; "One after the other, they are just these lovely, sweet women that you can‟t imagine being put in a dangerous situation, but they really are," she added. Salt ..."
"... The level of state involvement in Salt ..."
"... In 2014, former Deputy Counsel or Acting General Counsel of the CIA, John Rizzo, wrote that his organization "has long had a special relationship with the entertainment industry, devoting considerable attention to fostering relationships with Hollywood movers and shakers -- studio executives, producers, directors, big-name actors." Many of America's most familiar faces have visited the organization's headquarters in Langley, VA, including Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Bryan Cranston, and Tom Cruise. ..."
"... "Probably Hollywood is full of CIA agents and we just don't know it. And I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover that this was extremely common," said "Batman" star Ben Affleck in 2012, before going to describe himself, perhaps jokingly, as a CIA agent himself. ..."
"... Democrat-aligned voters' opinion of the FBI has been steadily rising over the last decade, to the point that 77% hold a favorable view of the institution (and almost two-thirds of the country supports the CIA). ..."
With election fever still gripping the U.S., talk of rigging or interference in the democratic process is reaching new levels,
high enough that even Hollywood legend Angelina Jolie is talking about it. In an
extraordinary interview in Time magazine, the star of "Wanted, Maleficent, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," sat down with
the former head of the UK's MI6 spy network, Sir Alex Younger, to ask how worrying the threat from Russia or China really is.
"Russia feels threatened by the quality of our alliances and, even in the current environment, the quality of our democratic
institutions. It sets out to denigrate them, and it uses intelligence services to that end. It is a serious problem, and we should
organize to prevent it," the British spook told the actress.
Younger also went on to discuss the rise of China, and how the West must act to challenge the supposed threat Beijing poses. "We
are going to have two sharply different value systems in operation on the same planet for the foreseeable future. We mustn't be naïve.
We need to retain the capacity to defend ourselves," he told Jolie.
Never challenging him, Jolie even asked the head of perhaps the world's most notorious spying agency how we can protect ourselves
from fake information.
To some, the pairing of a Hollywood star and a veteran spymaster might seem strange. But, in reality, the silver screen and
the national security state have always been intimately intertwined. And as much as Jolie presents herself as a leading humanitarian,
even being appointed as a Special Envoy for the UN Commission for Refugees, she has spent an inordinate amount of her free time rubbing
shoulders with some of the world's worst human rights abuses.
At World Refugee Day in 2005, Jolie shared a stage with then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice was a key player in
the Bush administration, responsible for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, two of the world's worst humanitarian and refugee crises
that continue to plague the planet to this day.
Jolie herself has slowly become a leading member of the U.S. national security apparatus, joining the influential and well-endowed
Council on Foreign Relations think tank in 2007, and penning a
joint op-ed in The New
York Times with John McCain two years ago calling for U.S. intervention in Syria and Myanmar. "Around the world, there
is profound concern that America is giving up the mantle of global leadership," they
questionably
asserted, decrying America's "steady retreat over the past decade" that has, "dangerously eroded the rule of law," and condemned
the Trump administration's inaction in Syria that could have "deterred mass atrocities," and reduced the refugee crisis.
Salt
Jolie's collaboration with high-level government officials is not limited to her personal life, however. The 45-year-old Californian
has also worked closely, and openly, with CIA officials as part of her movies. A case in point is the 2010 blockbuster Salt
, where Jolie plays a CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy. The movie was released at the same time as the real-life Anna Chapman
scandal, where the Russian national was caught spying for her country inside the U.S., and marked the beginning of hardening American
relations with Moscow, ending up at the point where some
have declared the beginning of a new Cold War.
" Salt was the first big cultural product reflecting this geopolitical change, for most of the 2000s Hollywood had
no interest in evil Russians," Tom Secker, an investigative journalist with
SpyCulture.com told MintPress . "If you watch the film the Russian politicians are clearly based on Vladimir Putin and
Dmitry Medvedev."
Jolie, playing an evil Russian spy in Salt, chokes out an NYPD officer
"We talked to a lot of the women in the CIA," said Jolie of her experiences preparing for her role. She appeared to have nothing
but admiration for the organization; "One after the other, they are just these lovely, sweet women that you can‟t imagine being put
in a dangerous situation, but they really are," she added. Salt even hired a former CIA officer to be an on-set technical
advisor.
A CIA document Secker shared with MintPress highlights the extent of CIA involvement in Hollywood and their reasons for
doing so. "In an effort to ensure an accurate portrayal of the men and women of the CIA," it reads. "For years the Agency has worked
with creative artists from across the entertainment industry. [The CIA Office of Public Affairs] interacts with directors, producers,
screenwriters, authors, documentarians, actors and others to help debunk myths and provide authenticity, and of course to protect
Agency equities," it adds. But perhaps the most important reason stated is, "to help prevent inappropriate negative depictions of
the Agency," in mass media.
Propaganda on an enormous scale
The level of state involvement in Salt is far from abnormal. In fact, Alford and Secker's book "
National Security
Cinema " details how, since 2005, documents they obtained showed that the Department of Defense alone had closely collaborated
in the production of over 1,000 movies or TV shows. This includes many of the largest film franchises, such as "Iron Man," "Transformers,"
"James Bond," and "Mission: Impossible," and hit TV shows like "The Biggest Loser," "Grey's Anatomy," "Master Chef" and "The Price
is Right."
In general, the military or the CIA will offer free services to productions, such as the use of prohibitively expensive military
equipment, or technical direction, in exchange for editorial control over scripts. This allows the agencies to make sure the power,
prestige, and integrity of these organizations are not challenged. Sometimes entire movies are radically rewritten.
"The Department of Defense actually apologized in their covering letter to the producers of "Hulk" (2003), since the changes they
required were so extensive," Dr. Matthew Alford of the University of Bath told MintPress .
But really the disturbing thing here is the pattern and the scale What I suggest is that we focus on the deliberate, major,
secretive pressures that rewrite scripts -- and we find they're all on the side of the national security state. Systematically
scrubbed from the screen is an unsavoury century of military history including war crimes, illegal arms sales, racism and sexual
assault, torture, coups, assassinations, and weapons of mass destruction. It amounts to the airbrushing of an entire mediated
culture."
Thus, the large majority of big-budget productions featuring military or intelligence services have been greenlighted by the national
security state, who have negotiated for control over the message in order to better propagandize both Americans and the global public.
However, serious antiwar content rarely makes it to network TV or Hollywood drawing boards, so wholescale interference is usually
unnecessary.
In 2014, former Deputy Counsel or Acting General Counsel of the CIA, John Rizzo, wrote that his organization "has long had
a special relationship with the entertainment industry, devoting considerable attention to fostering relationships with Hollywood
movers and shakers -- studio executives, producers, directors, big-name actors." Many of America's most familiar faces have visited
the organization's headquarters in Langley, VA, including Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Bryan Cranston, and Tom Cruise.
In recent years, collaboration has become even more overt. The Department of Defense even
tweeted out during the Oscars how
proud it is to work so closely with Hollywood to further its own image.
Meanwhile, the latest series of the hit spy show "Jack Ryan," for instance, has the eponymous CIA hero travel to Venezuela to
help overthrow tyrannical dictator Nicolas Reyes (a clear allusion to current president Nicolas Maduro). John Krasinski, who plays
Ryan, said that he worked closely with the Agency in order to make the show more realistic. Krasinski also
described the CIA as amazingly
"apolitical." "They're always trying to do the right thing," he said of them, claiming they "care about the country in a bigger,
more idealistic way."
Last month, a real CIA agent, Matthew John Heath, was
arrested
outside Venezuela's largest oil refinery carrying explosives, a grenade launcher, a submachine gun, and stacks of U.S. dollars.
"Probably Hollywood is full of CIA agents and we just don't know it. And I wouldn't be surprised at all to discover that this
was extremely common," said "Batman" star Ben Affleck in
2012, before going to describe himself, perhaps jokingly, as a CIA agent himself.
https://cdn.iframe.ly/VKxIpdm?iframe=card-small&v=1&app=1 Propaganda works
The effect of years of propaganda has been to improve the standing of the deep state and make the American public more conducive
to supporting the tactics of the CIA and the military. One
academic study found that showing torture
scenes from the hit spy series "24" to liberal college students made them far more likely to support the use of it against anyone
deemed an enemy of the state.
Democrat-aligned voters' opinion of the FBI has been
steadily rising over the last decade, to the point that 77% hold a favorable view of the institution (and almost two-thirds of
the country supports the CIA).
Thus, while the entertainment industry might be liberal in that it largely opposes Trump and donates to the Democratic Party,
it works closely to support and uphold the national security state, promotes ultra-patriotism and American aggression throughout
the world. While Jolie might present herself as a champion of human rights, working with the very institutions responsible for destroying
those rights around the globe undermines this assertion.
Feature photo | Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie addresses a press conference at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh,
Feb. 5, 2019. Photo | AP
"Brussels and D.C. started to suspect that Russia doesn't 'want' Ukraine. What Russia
wants is for this country to rot and implode without excrement from this implosion hitting
Russia. West's paying for the clean up of this clusterf**k is also in Russian plans for
Ukrainian Bantustan"
I hate to admit it, but it sounds like Putin's got a plan.
Volkodav 15 hours ago
"The Russians saddle their horses slowly but ride fast".
- Otto von Bismarck
Malkavian 13 hours ago
"God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America." - also
Otto von Bismarck
jusstpassinthru 10 hours ago (Edited)
"The division of the United States into two federations of equal force was decided long
before the civil war by the high financial power of Europe. These bankers were afraid that
the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economical
and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The
voice of the Rothschilds predominated. They foresaw the tremendous booty if they could
substitute two feeble democracies, indebted to the financiers, to the vigorous Republic,
confident and self-providing. Therefore they started their emissaries in order to exploit the
question of slavery and thus dig an abyss between the two parts of the Republic." -- Otto von
Bismarck, 1876
Somehow the US public school system left that part out.
" Time flies like an arrow ; fruit flies like a banana" Groucho Marx
Dragon HAwk 19 minutes ago remove link
Takes a long time to sort thru documents deciding which ones are useless and can be
released. come on man give the FBI a break they are on Our Side. /s
uhland62 9 hours ago
Maybe Ghislaine knows?
And why did the sketches of two 'wanted' in Madeleine McCann case resemble the Podesta
brothers?
novictim 10 hours ago
So the FBI determined that the assassin was Jeffrinovich Epsteinokova, who, according to
signal intelligence and bar chatter, subsequently hung himself, destroying all the evidence
with him.
Which was a real shame because they really wanted to get to the bottom of it.
uhland62 9 hours ago
Good idea, but -ovich is the ending for a make and -kova for a female. Nothing is
impossible these days, but it still reads bizarre, even though the direction is
excellent.
The FBI has produced 68
pages relating to a Democrat National Committee (DNC) worker who was shot dead in 2016 in
Washington, including an investigative summary that appears to suggest someone could have paid
for his death.
... The newly
released files show top Department of Justice officials met in 2018 and discussed Rich's
murder. They reviewed Rich's financial records and did not identify any unusual deposits or
withdrawals.
...One witness saw an individual walking away from the location where Rich was killed but
thought Rich was merely drunk so did not alert authorities . They realized something bad had
happened when they saw a bloodstain on the ground in the same place the following day, as well
as police tape surrounding the scene.
A person whose name was redacted took Rich's personal laptop to his house , according to one
of the newly released documents. The page also indicates that authorities were not aware if the
person deleted or changed anything on Rich's personal laptop.
The FBI came into possession of Rich's work laptop, the bureau
previously revealed .
On another page, it was said that "given [redacted] it is conceivable that an individual or
group would want to pay for his death."
"That doesn't sound like a random street robbery," Ty Clevenger, a lawyer, told The Epoch
Times.
... ... ...
The files were released this week in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Texas resident Brian
Huddleston, who Clevenger represents.
Huddleston sued the FBI after it told him it would take 8 to 10 months in June 2020 to
respond to his Freedom of Information Act request. Huddleston asked the FBI to produce all
data, documents, records, or communications that reference Seth Rich or his brother, Aaron
Rich.
A federal judge earlier this year ordered the FBI to produce documents concerning Rich by
April 23. The FBI identified 576 relevant documents but only produced 68 of them to
Huddleston.
The FBI has declined to speak about the lawsuit. Attorneys for Rich's parents did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
The documents show that some reporting on Rich's death was wrong, such as an ABC News
report
that claimed the FBI was not involved in investigating the murder.
Clevenger said he found concerning how the government apparently does not know whether
anything was deleted from Rich's personal laptop.
The documents were largely redacted but the information that did get through "shows that
their whole narrative is falling apart," he added. "It's a step in the right direction."
The attorney plans to ask U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant, an Obama nominee, to produce
unredacted copies for his perusal. The judge could rule that some redactions were improper.
Defendants could also face repercussions for not producing all of the documents they have
concerning Rich, including fines.
U.S. Attorney Andrea Parker, who is representing the FBI, told the judge in a court filing
this week that the bureau can only process 500 pages per month for each Freedom of Information
Act request. She asked the court to give the bureau additional time to produce all of the
relevant records.
Clevenger told the judge in a court filing this week that the private sector routinely
processes 500 pages or more per day and that the government should be afforded no more than two
weeks to produce the remaining 1,063 pages.
RiverRoad 1 hour ago
Was a reward offered for solving his murder? A robbery murder with a nice reward attached
in DC gets solved pretty quickly. Is it correct that his parents were given a million dollars
by the FBI to agree that questions re his murder are only conspiracy theory?
Buzz-Kill 11 hours ago (Edited)
WoW! The FBI does exist. Wonder when they're gonna get on the Hunter Biden investigation.
Waiting with anticipation! /s
Brazillionaire 2 hours ago
I think Chris has that scheduled for 2025 early/mid summer. But, then again, no reasonable
prosecutor...
Nelbev 12 hours ago
And PETER STRZOK was the FBI agent handling the investigation? Not an important detail to
mention in article, guess he was familiar with Seth case after his work burying the Clinton
investigation, and obvious match, best FBI agent to pick for the investigation.;
Art link https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20690299-fbi-documents-on-seth-rich
He seems to be everywhere doesn't he?
Hillary.....Seth....Trump.....and covering up for dems and attacking repubs 100% of the
time.
LetThemEatRand 12 hours ago
Crazy conspiracy theories for f's sake. It is totally common in a robbery not to take the
guy's wallet.
williambanzai7 PREMIUM 12 hours ago
They solve all the cases involving known terrorist suspects with connections to the FBI.
But everything else is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma.
hackjealousy 12 hours ago
If only the attacker had dropped his passport at the scene.
LetThemEatRand 12 hours ago
"A person whose name was redacted took Rich's personal laptop to his house, according to
one of the newly released documents. The page also indicates that authorities were not aware
if the person deleted or changed anything on Rich's personal laptop."
Happens all the time. Wear your mask, take your jab, 9/11, WMDs.
r0mulus 11 hours ago
Yes- why exactly would anybody be handling Rich's personal laptop after he died? And why
would they need to have their name redacted?
Seth Rich's murder was a political assassination. Did John Podesta have Seth Rich
murdered?
Soloamber 12 hours ago
Are the Kennedy's gun shy ?
Podesta wanted an example .
DNC ordered hit .
Seasmoke 12 hours ago remove link
Lost all respect for the FBI.
Tinfoil Masker 12 hours ago
You mean like 58 years ago right?
r0mulus 11 hours ago
At this point, it's been at least 75 years since they deserved any respect. Probably
longer.
lwilland1012 11 hours ago
Durham? What the Hell is a John Durham?
Dr Phuckit 11 hours ago
Summed up in three words
Russia Russia Russia
Redactions don't protect the Innocent, they protect the Guilty.
And it's obvious some people at the FBI were deeply involved.
sbin 11 hours ago
Epoch times
Surprised they didn't blame China.
Almost as believable as Bellingcat Gatestone White helmets or CNN.
DNC scum had Seth Rich murdered.
messystateofaffairs 10 hours ago
FBI released? Thats for disinformation purposes not part of a search for truth.
uhland62 9 hours ago
I thought NSA saves every keystroke people make. So when Seth's keystrokes happened, there
was a computer glitch?
ClamJammer 7 hours ago
Right, but they only use that for evidence to lock up the likes of you and me, not to
expose the crimes they themselves commit. Despite being funded by the tax-payer, i dont think
a FOI request works there.
El Chapo Read 12 hours ago
About as truthful as the 9/11 Commission Report.
Spare me.
NightWriter 12 hours ago
Just like the 2020 Election verdict:
The Deep State finds the Deep State not guilty.
Mzhen 12 hours ago
The Rich murder was a subject of discussion for FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa
Page.
Gringo Viejo 10 hours ago
5 years after the fact. What's the FBI's motive in releasing this information at this
time?
... ... ...
Soloamber 10 hours ago
The FBI motive ...They were told to .
Kanzen Saimin 9 hours ago
It's a clever tactic used by professional liars. If you can distract people for long
enough they will forget about what happened in the first place.
... ... ...
uhland62 9 hours ago
Same thing happened in Australia. What made Australia has been privatized, deregulated,
and digitized. And now we are payment slaves to a handful of global billionaires.
But today we celebrate national militarism day, Anzac Day and we get softened up by the
politicians to accept a war against China.
Rich family representative, Brad Bauman, responding to the conspiracy theorists' claim
that the FBI was investigating the case said, " The FBI is not now and has never been a party
to this investigation. "
" The FBI has indirectly denied investigating the case , which Washington police consider
a robbery gone wrong."
" Snopes.com looked
into the matter and stated: "We were able to confirm the FBI is not investigating Rich's
murder "
Kanzen Saimin 9 hours ago
Wikipedia wasn't allowed to be referenced when I attended university years ago. The
co-founder disavows it now.
Half a decade later, they still can't find their own ***.
That's the way it will stay.
sbin 12 hours ago
Barr and Dunham are looking into it.
gcjohns1971 1 hour ago
Given the sordid, lawless, partisan, and seditious history of the FBI since its founding,
why should anyone suspect their actions here are benign?
ThanksIwillHaveAnother 3 hours ago
Seth Rich supported Bernie Sanders. He saw how Hillary and Dems piped in cheers for
Hillary and detuned the real cheers for Bernie. He saw how the powers behind the curtain
manipulated Hillary into being the nominee. He sent the files to WikiLeaks. Now ask
yourself...would someone want him killed???
Chief Joesph 3 hours ago remove link
Really can't help to think Hillary Clinton had a hand in Rich's murder. Afterall, Rich
knew about her financial affairs, along with the rest of the Democratic party, and was
passing it on to Wikileaks. It also stands to reason why the Democrats would like to see
Julian Assange murdered too. Needless to say, Assange will never see any prospects for Biden
to pardon him.
But what doesn't make sense is if this murder was at the hands of someone wanting to rob
Rich, then why didn't they take his computer along with his wallet? (Neither was taken). The
Police invented that story for public consumption.
Dragon Breath 3 hours ago (Edited)
We're certain that Director Wray at the FIB is burning the midnight oil trying to solve
Seth Rich's murder, Wiener's laptop crimes, Clinton's computer server crimes, and any day now
Hunter Biden's crimes with evidence on his laptop that he "lost" at the computer repair shop.
Wray and the FIB have it all under control...
It's all under control...
DayWear 3 hours ago
"the bureau can only process 500 pages per month"
that is so laughable I can't believe the fbi attorney even agreed to say it.
MaF 33 minutes ago
500/month = 25 pages/day = 3 pages/hr.
Sounds like only 1 govidiot is doing all the "work."
fleur de lis 2 hours ago remove link
As if the FBI would even dare issue parking tickets to the DNC psychopaths whom they know
very well to be the plotters.
The FBI ain't what it used to be.
Only listen to Comey for one minute.
The FBI is just a security guard agency for whomever has the biggest checks and best
benefits.
TheySayIAmOkay 3 hours ago
Smartest criminal in DC. No traffic cams. No store cams. No gunshots. No witnesses. He
even stole stuff that wasn't there.
Vandal 2 hours ago
Yep...and the American Gestapo(FBI) is complicit in the coverup. True Deepstate kind of
stuff.
Blurb 3 hours ago
Let's see here...
The FBI would have benefited from this guy getting killed, and they're the ones
investigating the murder...
The media reports that the FBI are not investigating, which turns out to be a lie.
The FBI somehow ends up with Seth Rich's laptop, even admitting that 'someone might have
deleted something'.
The FBI won't turn over documents, many of which had redacted content.
These are the people we got glimpses of from 2016 to 2020. Now, they are back in the
shadows.
I'll just leave this here, for anyone interested in a level of detail to this case that
most people aren't aware of.
tl;dr: The FBI may have provided the guns used to kill Rich. An FBI agent's car was broken
into the night of Rich's murder, and guns were stolen. Then the FBI ****** with the
timestamps of the event to make it look like it took place after the murder, when in fact, it
took place before.
Suzy Q 3 hours ago remove link
I remember that incident of the stolen guns. Very odd circumstances surrounding that
"theft" of FBI weapons.
TheRealBilboBaggins 4 hours ago
With all the obvious wrong-doing at the FBI, did any FBI agents come forward to denounce
it? Anyone? Anyone?
True Ferris Buehler moment looking for an FBI agent to testify against criminality.
Jung 5 hours ago
It was already a long while back when Julian Assange spoke about Rich and the so-called
Clinton email scandal: justice in the USA is worse than many a banana republic (more
sophisticated). Of course it was not Russia, it was proven to be no hack at all, but a
person, likely Seth Rich. At the end of time we'll know more.
US Banana Republic 4 hours ago
Guaranteed the Deep State (and that includes the FBI), the Clintons and the DNC all had
their fingers in it. But especially Hillary.
JOHNLGALT. 5 hours ago
Never mind. JOHN DURHAM is on the job. SARC.🆗
Fat Beaver 12 hours ago (Edited)
Never anything about the female fbi officer's duty weapon stolen off the front seat of her
suv 2 blocks away from the murder site 2 hours before the murder...she was apparently
shagging up with another agent and parked in his driveway and left the gun on the front seat
with passenger side window completely open...she reported it to police 2 hours before the
murder...this was found by a private investigator about a week after the murder and
published, never to be brought up again.
Nelbev 11 hours ago
It was a .40 caliber Glock and a rifle stolen out of the FBI vehicle, but no casings found
on ground at murder site, thus it is assumed that the murder weapon was a revolver (unless
someone picked up the casings).
Nelbev 11 hours ago remove link
Some informed person at the scene could have cleaned up, but doubt it. Rich was only
wounded at scene, not dead. As I remember there was funny business at the hospital too before
he died. I do not see reporting of the bullet's caliber.
JustSayNo 10 minutes ago
I don't need to read it. I won't believe a thing the FBI says and I also don't believe
that ANY US attorney actually does the job the American taxpayer pays them to do. I've got no
faith in any US attorney and the FBI has been a joke for longer ago than they shot that guys
wife and kid out west. FBI=coverup, period. And everyone knows it.
When I want to know what really happned to Seth Rich, the ZH comments section is actually
my best source
The federal bureaucracy, including the FBI, is now part of the democrat fascist regime in
TOTAL control in washington. Long ago these bureaucrats stopped working for the public and
began focusing on their own agenda where they don't have to answer to anyone. Reality is that
washington is a national Mafioso operation demanding extortion (protection) money from the
public, they serve themselves. The scary part is they don't just demand the protection money,
they demand everyone adhere to politically correct thoughts, speech, and actions, or you'll
be destroyed by the state.
Downhill from here 4 hours ago
What is the FBI's jurisdiction to conduct the investigation? He was not a state law
enforcement officer, he was not an interstate traveler, and was not a federal employee.
TheFederalistPapers 5 hours ago
The FBI is a brand and not a law enforcement agency.
rag_house 5 hours ago
Our government has a long history of having those that commit the crime then perform an
investigation on themselves. Wouldn't be surprised one bit if that is true here.
notfeelinthebern 12 hours ago remove link
All rats lead to Rome, is what they are not saying.
El Chapo Read 11 hours ago
All roads lead to Tel Aviv.
FIFY.
Dumpster Elite 23 minutes ago remove link
The FBI....they make the KGB look like a boy scout organization. Seriously...do you TRUST
the FBI, or do you view them as an enforcement tool of the Globalists.
DeeDeeTwo 25 minutes ago
Whew, it's a good thing Trump drained the swamp and declassified everything.
Totally_Disillusioned 26 minutes ago
The FBI has released their "findings" which we all know from previous "findings" released,
they are a mix of half-truth, manufactured evidence and outright lies. With our Federal law
enforcement, we will NEVER know the truth about matters they "investigate". Several quickly
come to mind such as Russiagate, Kennedy assassination, MLK assassination, explosion Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City, 9/11, Justice Anton Scalia's murder, Ruby Ridge, Dividian
Compound, as well as so many more to list.
PT 5 hours ago
Only five years late. Who knows what progress they might make in another five years?
fishpoem 16 minutes ago
A person whose name was redacted took Rich's personal laptop to his house If one follows
the bread crumbs through the forest, it will certainly lead straight to the Witch's
house.
Angelo Misterioso 19 minutes ago
Strange that not a single house on that street had any video or ring doorbell or stuff
like that...
The Ukraine Crisis Recedes - But A False Narrative Of It Leads To Bad Conclusions
Some two month ago we discussed how the
U.S. focus on narratives will let it collide with reality . It is certainly not only the
U.S. government that creates narratives, comes to believe in them, and then fails when it is
confronted with reality. Carried by think tanks and media the narrative mold has grown
throughout the wider 'western' world.
On the danger of this development the above piece quoted Alastair Crooke who wrote
:
[B]eing so invested, so immersed, in one particular 'reality', others' 'truths' then will
not – cannot – be heard. They do not stand out proud above the endless flat plain
of consensual discourse. They cannot penetrate the hardened shell of a prevailing narrative
bubble, or claim the attention of élites so invested in managing their
own version of reality .
The 'Big Weakness'? The élites come to believe their own narratives –
forgetting that the narrative was conceived as an illusion, one among others, created to
capture the imagination within their society (not others').
They lose the ability to stand apart, and see themselves – as others see them. They
become so enraptured by the virtue of their version of the world, that they lose all ability
to empathise or accept others' truths. They cannot hear the signals. The point here, is that
in that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the latters' motives and intentions
will be mis-construed – sometimes tragically so.
Over the last weeks we passed through a crisis that easily could have had a tragic
ending.
Since February the Ukraine built up a force to retake the renegade Donbas region in
east-Ukraine by military force. After waiting several week to see the situation more clearly
Russia started to assemble a counterforce backed up by statements that were sufficiently strong
to deter the Ukraine from continuing its plans. The danger of a Ukrainian assault has now
receded.
Today the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave orders for the troops to return to their bases.
Much of the equipment though will stay on training grounds near Ukraine until the regular fall
maneuvers later this year take place. That minimizes transport costs and gives a little time
advantage should someone in the Ukraine again have silly ideas.
Russia has clearly won this round.
But that is not how it looks when seen from the 'western' narrative. In that version the
Ukrainian plans and its assembling of heavy weapons and troops near the Donbas border never
happened. The narrative says that the whole incident started as a 'Russian aggression' when
Russia very publicly showed its potential force.
Only a few
analysts on the 'western' side have rejected that narrative and stuck to reality. Dmitri
Trenin of Carnegie's Moscow Center is one who got it right :
In February, Zelensky ordered troops (as part of the rotation process) and heavy weapons (as
a show of force) to go near to the conflict zone in Donbas. He did not venture out as far as
Poroshenko, who dispatched small Ukrainian naval vessels through the Russian-controlled
waters near the Kerch Strait in late 2018, but it was enough to get him noticed in Moscow.
The fact of the matter is that even if Ukraine cannot seriously hope to win the war in
Donbas, it can successfully provoke Russia into action. This, in turn, would produce a
knee-jerk reaction from Ukraine's Western supporters and further aggravate Moscow's
relations, particularly with Europe. One way or another, the fate of Nord Stream II will
directly affect Ukraine's interests. Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression and
presenting itself as a frontline state checking Russia's further advance toward Europe is a
major asset of Kyiv's foreign policy.
Russia intentionally over reacted to Kiev's opening move. It demonstrated its overkill
capability and made it clear to Zelensky's western sponsors that any further provocations would
have extremely harsh consequences.
Those behind provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what
they have done in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time.
Zelensky's plan did not work out. While he did get verbal statements of support from Biden
and NATO everyone knew that those were empty promises.
But for people who have fallen for the false narrative the situation looks different.
Consider this reaction to Shoigu's return-to-barracks order today from a member of the
European Council On Foreign Relations (a U.S. lobby shop in Europe):
I have to congratulate (Flag of United States) @JoeBiden to deterence success and crisis
management. The right warnings were sent to Moscow, the right intelligence to Ukraine. (Flag
of Russia) could not extort concessions, could not provoke. Let's see w. these forces aren't
just redeployed to (Flag of Belarus).
Indeed Biden's order last week to
pull back two war ships that were supposed to go into the Black Sea to support Ukraine was
really great deterrence. But that was not a warning to Moscow. It did not deter Russia from
doing anything. But it did end Zelensky's illusions of U.S. support.
But for Gressel, who like others is stuck to the 'western' narrative, the sense is
different. He really seems to believe that the U.S. deterred Russia from some nefarious plans
which it never had. He ignores that Russia reacted to a Ukrainian provocation in a way that, in
the end, has made NATO and the U.S. look weak.
The danger is that Gressel, and other 'political scientists' like him, may once take up
government positions and use their learned illusions to handle the next crisis. Stuck in the
idea that Russia will retreat if only 'deterred' enough they will lean to measures that are
outright hostile to Russia and may have indeed very tragic consequences. To repeat Crooke's
warning
:
The point here, is that in that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the
latters' motives and intentions will be mis-construed – sometimes tragically so.
Posted by b on April 22, 2021 at 17:25 UTC |
Permalink
The Russians have only partly gone. Heavy weapons will remain in place which can be
reactivated easily. (Particularly in Crimea). However the Russian "Threat" to Zelnsky is
still there. Logically he should now have more difficulty in stirring up the EU and US for
cash and weapons as the "obvious and visble" threat is diminished. I don't think his troops
can stay indefinitely where they are. How can he continue to pay for all his new mercenaries,
new arms?
So how is the MSM going to react? They have a lot of "journalists" around there, waiting
for something to happen.
One obvious factor is that the supply lines of both are within their own countries
(Ukraine for Ukrainians, and Russia for the Russians). Those that have the longest supply
lines are NATO, the UK and US.
An earlier ploy (Attempted violent assasination of Lukashenko and most of the Belarussian
parliament), with Georgia and other close by countries getting involved too, is now unlikely.
BUT the US is desperate to cut the Russian-Chinese access to Europe by any means. What's
next? Plan ....F?
The Western narrative was also very clearly visible in the latest printed "Der Spiegel"
16/2021 (News magazine in Germany). They had a 4 page article about Ukraine with the title
"On the edge of war". They reported at length about russian troops near the border.
Explicitely they wrote about sabre rattling from russia and generally gave the impression
that all action is solely on the russian side and must be seen negatively or with grave
concerns.
But they failed completely to mention Ukrainian troop movements, bellicose rhetoric or even
the Zelensky's decrete 117/2021 from march 23rd with the translated title "Strategy of
de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol".
b... thanks.. yes - narrative and controlling the narrative is what so much of this is
about.... people in the west are not told of ukraines role in any of this or how they are
encouraged by the west... instead what they are told is how russia is building up along the
ukraine border.... in other words only one side of the story is told, and not both..nor is
the timing of all of it shared either... people are literally given a script or narrative
tailor made for brainwashing.. and indeed it works on most...
for an example of this today - i was listening to cbc radio - national news show ''the
currenct''.. the host matt galloway discusses the situation with Mark MacKinnon, senior
international correspondent for the Globe and Mail; Nina Khrushcheva, professor of
international affairs at the New School in New York; and Michael Bociurkiw, global affairs
analyst, formerly with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
I am not so sure that this is over. The Belarus coup was intended to be around May 9.
Zelensky has called up the reserves who ever they might be. He just floated the idea of
banning Russia from the SWIFT so that it is on everyone's mind when Ukraine claims they were
attacked. The NS2 will likely be initially complete in May. The USS Cook and Roosevelt are
waiting for the British boats and will likely enter together. They have not yet given notice
that I have seen. Two frigates are transiting the Suez to join their fellow yanks. I see a
perfect storm yet coming. Shoigu is bright and knows that it looks good to announce the
return to barracks, but he has access to my data plus a ton more. He knows that the situation
is still fluid and volatile.
... But for Gressel, who like others is stuck to the 'western' narrative, the sense is
different. He really seems to believe that the U.S. deterred Russia from some nefarious plans
which it never had. He ignores that Russia reacted to a Ukrainian provocation in a way that,
in the end, has made NATO and the U.S. look weak.
This delusion reminded me of a retort, from an astute observer, to a dopey remark made by
Bush II soon after the start if the Iraq Fake War. Bush said "We're gonna turn EyeRack into
fly-paper for ter'rists! To which the observer responded...
"If Iraq was fly-paper then the only bug that got stuck to it was Bush."
I'm one of the most ardent proponents of the "imbecilization of the West" hypothesis, but
this is clearly a diplomatic style face-saving plausible deniability exit by the West.
The West knows time is not on its side in the Ukrainian issue, and its puppet president
threw a Hail Mary. Russia correctly didn't swallow the bait, and the West fell back as it
knew it would have to, since this was a long shot.
NS-2 is now getting finished, and the Ukraine will consolidate itself more than ever as a
black hole of American resources. The West, however, has one last ace in the hole: the German
Green Party, which is well positioned to form the next government after the December national
elections. The NS-2 certainly won't be finished by then, if the American diplomacy is to do
its job properly, and the Greens will have all the tools at hand to implode the project, thus
giving the Ukraine some more years to ride on American finance by its gas leverage (over
which all its sovereign T-bonds rest at this point).
The key to Ukrainian success is in Germany, not in Russia.
Thank you b.
More and more interesting links for a great nightshift!
Every body must read in UNZ an interview of Israel Shamir (posted it in the afternoon)
Who cares their narrative? Dummkopft
On the decision level a lot of people know the facts.
And Putin and al. ability to build fact is impressive. A lot more than "1962 Cuba missile
crisis".
And Russia got good countermeasures with RT, VK...
One advantage that Ukraine has in military terms is the number of people who willingly and
enthusiastically want to join the army for the sake of de-occupation (interesting why they
invented a replacement of "liberation" that has at least two equivalents with Slavic roots,
perhaps they do not like their current occupations). The best proof is that through their
democratically elected representatives they voted for a huge increase of punishments for
avoiding conscription.
The other proof is that, temporarily at least, Ukrainians abolished the system of rotation
in which units were staying on the fortified lines literally dying of boredom and related
risk (alcohol poisoning, explosions of stills making moonshine, drug overdoses, suicide,
stepping over their own mines, to mention a few), instead the troops to be rotated stayed in
place and the other units joined them nearby.
However, Russian conscripts without the advantage of Ukrainian enthusiasm have better
weapons. Modernizing Ukrainian military is a tall order. The budget barely supports the
troops without modernization, the domestic industry in its better years relied to selling
parts to Russia and buying other parts, remnants of industrial integration of Soviet times.
Supplying them with NATO weapons would require huge gifts that (a) could be unpopular in the
West (b) raise risk of getting the best toys of NATO to Russian in exchange for non-toxic
alcohol, fresh Afghan heroin etc. Did I mention mind-killing military service? And with not
so best toys, like missile boats that are about to be de-commissioned, say, in Canada, they
do not really change the strategic balance.
Thus Zelensky had to be saved from his own rhetoric and gestures -- the aforementioned
change in "rotation". Kiev authorities have a good practice in "never mind". For example,
they utilize fascist radicals to intimidate opposition, but they are what I call "pet
cobras", biting the hand that feeds them is what is programmed into their reptilian minds
that do not have circuits for "friends" and "gratitude". And because of some grievances they
trashed the Presidential place of work, insulting graffiti, broken windows, a broken and
burned door, so three ringleaders got arrested, Parliament spent a few hours being appalled
(after thinking for a week what to say), and now one ringleader was let free, with the
remainder probably joining him soon (one at the time, I think). See folks: nothing
happened.
It is possible that Napoleonic rhetoric and gestures were planned to get a "street cred"
with those hoodlums, or that they were discreetly encouraged by an embassy (some people think
that UK is the leader here, USA having mental problems and distractions). Or some
combination.
Imagine a drunken red nosed music hall comedian having to be taken so seriously. It really
grates that the West has been reduced to this; a Spam headed sham, so pilled up he rattles,
as a President of the FSOA. This obvious, self professed clown, Zelensky as head of an SS
Totenkopf militia. A tiny appendage of Russia called Europe being a colony of a country based
on genocide and slavery, that is reputedly anti-colonial. and a parcel of rogues spanning
three continents and two oceans that gobble up lies like dung beetles on excrement lean back
on their laurels, ill gotten gains, genocide and lies, and feel themselves morally superior
to the victims, actual and future.
Our problem here in the U$A is still the same as always. Mr. Z's announcement on 3/24 about
his nation's intentions to take back the Crimea, were NEVER mentioned on our MSM. It's always
Russian aggression, or China's aggression. It's NEVER our fault.
listen from 22:48" for a good example of script writing and narrative control here... CBC The
Current for April 22, 2021
Posted by: james | Apr 22 2021 18:19 utc | 4
Do you care to take responsibility for our mental health? I did provide a summary of a
"narrative control" article once, I can do it once in few months, should we also have some
rotation here?
@ 14 piotr.... for your mental health i recommend unplugging from all western news outlets
especially with regard to topics like russia, china, venezuala, syria, ukraine and etc.
etc... free! no charge for you piotr! and okay - you're on next shift!
Just a couple of notes:
-The Greens, if they "win" will not win with a majority. That means they will need coalition
partners. Neither the CDU or the SPD is going to go along with their plan to stop NS2. The
Greens, in order to form a govt. will cave in on NS2 and probably other things.
-The Ukies are still fleeing the country to avoid going to the front. The Ukie brass says
as much. These are not soldiers. They are farm kids. At the 1st sign of serious war, they
will all head for the russians with hands in the air.
-V. Putin handled the western MSM narrative quite well, imo, when he said "Those behind
provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what they have done
in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time." It can't be clearer than that.
And that tells me that the ussa is in the crosshairs. This may be the 1st time in history
that the oceans will offer no protection for the warmongers that have been at war for 222
years of 237 years of their existence
The comedian is still flaying about and now trying to play the SWIFT card (last week it
was nuclear weapons, before that it was...). Which, of course, the west will not honor
because it would cripple the west as much or more than RU. I would imagine he needs to change
his undershorts on an hourly basis these days. He is literally caught between a rock and a
hard spot. No more support from DE, FR, US, NATO, TR except good wishes. And demands from his
brain-dead Banderites are only growing more shrill. What's a poor comic to do?
The west is basically done with him and with the show of force by the russians they are
more done with him than before. For his sake, i hope his khazarian passport app has been
approved.
Another failed state compliments of the khazarians in DC.
And the beat goes on.
Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression and presenting itself as a frontline state
checking Russia's further advance toward Europe is a major asset of Kyiv's foreign
policy.
Wait...what?
I think B takes the "administration" too literally -
We know they are lying, they know they are lying, everyone knows they are lying but they are
creating a virtual world in which their behavior is rational and justified. I am not sure why
exactly such an artificial construct is seen as helpful. I suppose you could blame it on the
voting public in the democratic west but we all realize by this point that the west is in no
way democratic in a literal, functional sense - they less than do not give a damn what the
little people think in fact they could well do with a lot fewer of them and really without
the need of actual vote counting.
Possibly to their dog at night under the covers and after many martinis to help them
forget what they are, they admit something like their best attempt at the truth.
Eighthman @10 North Stream 2 will be the last mayor cooperation between Russia and Europe for
the next 10, 20 years. If you had to choose where to put your money, would you put it in a
gas pipeline to China (Power of Siberia) or a gas pipeline to Europe (North Stream2)?
Putin will be the last Russian president who looked west, to Europe; the next president
will look east, to Asia. It's where the money is.
The militias with their supposed morale -- These are the grandkids and great grandkids of
WWII collaborators. Middle class and hipsters. In a country where there basically is no
middle class. Ukraine's economy is at African level. Only source of funds for anything is the
US embassy. There is no agenda but the agenda of 1945. Any from the 2014 crop who had
anything on the ball whatsoever is now my neighbor. What is left in Uke is the dregs.
Hipsters do not hang around in failed states.
Entire political landscape is now centered on US Embassy. Oligarchs might have some input
still, their wealth is out of country and so are they most of time.
Pure political vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. CIA and their hired actors will fill the
stage, journalists will report their antics. They are playing to an empty house. Ukraine
could exist in same zone as Libya or Iraq for a long time. In end nothing fills the vacuum
but Russian Federation.
The Russian military's policy is not to use conscripts on the front lines, that role is
far too important to trust to what are partially trained soldiers, they are used in support
functions. The frontline is manned by professional soldiers.
Zelenski has got $300M of 'stuff' out of Congress this week so that was a result for
him.
Russia might be pulling back but the Ukrainians haven't got the message. My understanding
is there are 50,000 Ukrainian army and 20,000 Ukrainian security forces normally in the
Donbass on the frontlines against 30,000 or so NAF. This crisis came when another 30,000
troops plus heavy weapons were moved into the area. Two days ago OSCE reported that two
artillery battalions of self propelled 122mm and 152 guns have been moved up to the front.
Then apparently earlier this week, two battalions of the Azov were moved up from Mariupol
(their normal area) to the front lines facing Donetsk City. Most of these 20,000 security
forces would be your Nazi wannabe's with the Azov unit being the largest. For those of you
not watching in 2014/5 Azov are the evil bastards that make the Red Army in WW2 Germany look
like angels.
So Kiev is still building an overpowering strike force with a probable objective of a
thrust through the center to the Russian border, splitting the two 'rebel' states. Both US
and UK and no doubt other advisors are on site. The Global Hawk is sucking up data overhead
most days. There is NATO pride on the line here planning and directing. We await a false
flag.
I think b is being a bit too optimistic. Somehow they have to stop NS2, in many ways their
futures depend on transit gas and, as before, they won't care how many have to die to save
their skins and wallets.
@ vk | Apr 22 2021 19:14 utc | 7
I agree Once again Deutschland :
أم كل المعارك
"The Mother of all Battles"
Germany, the biggest Tabaqui, surrounded by many petty tabaquies...
But
Germany, playing the two side...
Germany, so stark and so weak...
Germany, "So jung und doch so alt"
How long can Germany resist the narrative?
How long before the end of the show?
Scroll up on that to the original Aslund post. He is talking about his friends getting
ready to flee to Western Ukraine (or further). Sounds likely enough. Maybe they know
something. And if it is just a routine panic in a failed state amongst a nervous elite, it
only repeats so many times before they all do get out of town.
LOL The greens will not win in Germany. Wait to September and tons of pedophilia scandals to
appear on the media about Robert Habeck, and they will be toast
There's no question that if and when push comes to shove, and the first hints of defeat waft
from the frontlines despite all attempts to spin it otherwise, the Ukrainian people will drop
any sense of unity, fold like a wet napkin, and demand peace. Only a small sector of the
population is highly motivated to fight or turn out the vote for bellicose policy against
Russia.
Do the Greens have vote in Bavaria, Nordrhein-Westfalen and Eastern Germany? I don't think
so. Greens are popular Baden-Württemberg due Kretschmann charisma. If they haven't vote
in Bavaria, Nordrhein-Westfalen and Eastern Germany , so they aren't going to win..
I'm seeing a lot of anglo and america media trying to boost these guys. But I have a bad
feeling that the child book writer Robert Habeck will get a 'Sebastian Edathy'
treatament.
1) Germany has a proportional representative system. You don't have to win it all to
compose the government. The Greens are going to compose the next government; Germany, as a
First World country, is socially stable enough so that we can already consider this a fait
accompli .
2) Laschet's choice as Merkel's successor
apparently backfired . The CSU-CDU will probably lose some 10% more on top of what
they're already projected to lose in these next general elections, mostly to the Greens.
I know how the German system works. Yet I am not seeing the Greens win or compose the next
government if they threaten to cancel NS2. The NS2 is not about the CDU/CSU but about the
German elite interest. No way they are going to give green light to the Greens. Speaking of
someone which city is on the border.
"One advantage that Ukraine has in military terms is the number of people who willingly
and enthusiastically want to join the army for the sake of de-occupation "
Not nearly as motivated as Russians who have dealt with Nazi Fascists once before. What
happened last time is seared into their heads.
Russia has closed the Kerch Strait.
It is reported that the two US destroyers which were to have transited the Bosphorus are
awaiting a pair of Britsh destroyers intended to join them with the flotilla of 4 ships to
enter the Black Sea.
What happens if the UK and US decide on a FONOP which involves a transit of the Kerch Strait
to make a port visit to Ukraine on the Sea of Azov?
Does Putin keep the Kerch closed?
If he stops the flotilla does this become "interference with international right of
navigation?"
Does this asserted interference then result in Ukraine attack? Or a combined NATO / Ukraine
action?
President Putin consulted with Minster of Defense Shoigu and asks if the troops can be scaled
back from the lines of contact without significantly reducing tactical capability. Shoigu
runs the numbers and delivers the answer that Putin was looking for.
Putin is offering an olive branch to Zelensky knowing full well his military can roll over
the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine with impunity.
Does Zelensky do the same? No, instead he calls up reserve boys to make himself look
tough.
A Russian proverb that is most appropriate in this case is this:
Дурна́я
голова́ нога́м
поко́я не даёт.
Translation: The stupid head doesn't leave feet in rest or in other words, no rest for the
wicked.
Sushi @32
How does Putin close the Kerch strait?
The same way as last time, park a largish ship or two in it.
FONOPS don't work so well as battering rams, and the straight is very narrow.
If all of this sound and fury is just to cancel North Stream 2, then it strikes me as a
demonstration of terrible impotence, using a lot of leverage to achieve a fairly small end.
Maybe it is exactly this. But I prefer Rostislav Ischenko's
outline of several actions in several neighboring theaters as a concerted attack on
Russia - with the objective of levering EU away from Russia. And the note here is that this
is not over yet, the game is still afoot.
This larger ploy seems like a far more desirable objective for the US, given the
expenditure of resources, rather than simply the NS2. But it still reeks of impotence, given
how decisively Russia has countered each move (of the ones that are visible - no telling
about the ones beneath the surface).
I have read somewhere, probably here, that if Germany were to cancel NS2 she would owe
Russian billions of dollars in penalties. This project is after all, a matter of contract.
And Germany must abide by its contracts if it is to remain in the business world. Or so it
seems to me. Is Germany going to flout contract obligations with Russia, which supplies it
with fuel for its industry and to stay warm in winter? It seems unlikely.
So, while the US acts to try to split Europe away from Russia, Germany is actually taking
the least divisive path if it finishes NS2. Because if it is forced to cancel, and then to
pay the billions in penalties, surely this causes a far greater split from the US and toward
Russia than otherwise? Simply a split that plays out over a longer time, but much more
finally.
If the US were capable of thinking all this through, it might understand how it pushes
away everything it attempts to grasp. But we have watched for years, with some gladness, to
see that this is exactly the fatal weakness of the US now. It simply doesn't understand
reality, and simply cannot learn from it. Which I guess is b's point. Agreed.
For whomever may be under any illusion whatsoever,
Please,
Do not decieve yourselves,
The truth and the fact of the matter is very readily apparent.
All one must do is look objectively upon the reality of the situation in an honest
manner.
Please do so.
Thank you.
The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world and has a maximum depth of 45 feet. An
Arleigh Burke destroyer has a draft of 30 feet. Even if somehow NATO ships entered the Sea of
Azov, there are not many places that they can go unless they are very small ships.
The situation around these unplanned military drills reminded me of 8 unplanned military
drills by Iran during the last few months of Mr. Trump's government.
A likely preemptive responses, in both cases, to planned acts of aggression, nullifying
them. Someone might have alerted them too.
b, thanks for this post and thanks for the link to the excellent Alister Crook SCF article. I
am sick of being told what to think and what opinions I should hold by the corporate and
public MSM.
Narrative control is even more pervasive these days and the disconnect with the actual
reality is more obvious.
How can the Anglo/Zionist captive nations talk about 'our values' while the grotesque
horror show and slow motion genocide continues in occupied Palestine?
How can the Anglo/Zionist captive nations politicians talk about 'free trade' and
'liberalised trade'
while enforcing illegal trade embargoes on sovereign nations?
We were told by President Nixon that trade with China was good. Now the BRI railroad is
portrayed as a 'threat' and 'controversial.' Ditto the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia
to Europe.
What is threatened is the cushioned pashas position to dictate hegemonic power throughout
the world.
Australia is among the worst offenders of this moronic groupthink as shown by
distinguished veteran correspondent Hamish McDonald:
During the Siege War against Iran, as well as during the hard times of the pandemic,
Germany established herself to be of no consequence in the political arena or in the
humanitarian one.
If Ukrainian government has indeed mobilized or otherwise has planned a war against
Russia, then her life expectancy in her current format or within her current borders will be
measured in years and not decades.
Russia will not tolerate an armed camp of enemy soldiers in Ukraine, she will be
neutralized as an independent actor shortly.
The 3 Westernmost oblasts might survive as a rump Ukraine but she is finished now.
Yes Fyi, it is shameful. What is not so well known is Australia and the US have a long
history of bullying New Zealand with loud megaphone diplomacy on cherished policy issues. One
example was when the Muldoon [NZ] government recognised the PLO as the legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people many decades ago. Muldoon told them to F off,
diplomatically, of course.
The NZ superannuation fund recently decided to divest from Israeli banks citing
'repetitional damage.' among other relevant things. Another win for BDS but ignored by the
MSM. How could they spin that together with the prevailing narrative? So they ignored it.
At least NZ has some self respect intact. In business it is a good idea to speak the
language of the buyer. I prefer NZ white wine and Australian red wine, particularly Barossa
Valley reds. Now Australia complains about coal fired power stations in China, forgetting it
is Australia selling the coal. NZ can sell the wine.
My guess is that the Russians will create the conditions whereby the US/UK flotilla will
be forced to get stuck in the shallow waters of the Azov Sea. Thus they will achieve their
objective without firing a shot. The Russians know the spots with shallow waters. US/UK not
so much.
I have known, during my life, one single individual from New Zealand. He was the only
English-speaker who could pronounce my name at first try. Very fine chap.
I do not know much about that country except that it is populated by serious Anglicans and
is currently being led by a real statesman, unlike so many other countries.
I wish that country well, they are trying to do the right thing where larger more powerful
countries, such as Germany, UK, or Italy, sold themselves for the proverbial 30 pieces of
silver.
Agreed, your proposition for an immediate fast rush to the Russian border to split the
region is just as likely as a stand down. I would never be trusting NATO or FUKUS.
I am actually an Australian living in New Zealand. Lucky me. The two countries used to
have a deal. Now that deal is observed by NZ but not observed by Australia. I tell some
Kiwis, sometimes young in cheek, 'I am an Australian refugee boat person, fleeing from an
oppressive government.'
As for the population, someone told me years ago ' it doesn't matter which party is in
power, the country is always governed by Scottish Presbyterians so it always has some money
put away'.
Most people can pick my Australian accent.
Race relations is far better in NZ than Australia. Australia is dysfunctional and utterly
corrupt at all three levels of government. My American friend says that is like America. He
moved to NZ. Both countries have rotten bureaucracy, perhaps a British hangover.
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 23 2021 1:48 utc | 37
(Germany will not walk away from NS 2)
Thanks for fleshing out the NS 2 'controversy' with additional "inconvenient truths". My
confidence that NS 2 will proceed as planned is based 90% on Sarah Kelly's 2020 DW Conflict
Zone interview with Niels Annen, Heiko Maas's 2IC. Annen pointed out to (deaf-in-one-ear,
can't-hear-with-the-other) Sarah that Germany's trade relationship with Russia is
"complicated" but works for both. By the end of the interview it looked as though he felt a
bit sorry for Sarah being stuck in the awkward position of being obliged to argue that black
is white.
I thought Zelensky was the Real Deal, a kind of Trump echo. But he ran into the same problem
as Trump - a painful collision with the reality that the President is just a figurehead with
very little Leadership autonomy, if any.
There's a new post-Trump 3-part BBC documentary series called Trump Takes On The World.
Last night, ABC.net.au broadcast the first 1-hour Episode. It begins with Theresa May's visit
to Trump's Washington. There's a formal meeting to discuss UK-US attitude to NATO. Before the
meeting gets into stride, someone in Team Trump mentions that Putin phoned the White House
and Team Trump is working out a schedule for the conversation to take place. Trump hits the
roof.
"What!!?? Are you telling me that Putin, the only man who can destroy the United States,
phoned the White House and you didn't tell me about it!!??"
Trump let's it slide, in deference to the presence of Ms May, but as the implications sink in
he can't leave it alone and delves deeper into this weird event, Ms May's presence
notwithstanding...
I think Zelensky ran into exactly the same problem - believing that the Prez is in charge
of something important but realising that's just theatrical window-dressing. 'Democratic'
window-dressing.
And with the Biden family having influence in Regime-changed Ukraine, it's probably safe to
assume that the same Swamp Creatures which keep POTUS in check also 'manage' Zelenski's
Presidential daydreams.
.. why ..artificial construct ... Passerby @ 18 < deep state reprograms what people
remember about events. planting
misinformation 30 year study
Reprogamming what you remember about an event is technology embedded deep in MSM propaganda.
Passerby goes on to say "we all realize ...the west is in no way democratic in a
literal,
functional sense - they .. do not give a damn what the little people think .. ..fewer of them
.." <=is desirable.
Not true, the west is ~2.6 billion people [+ .010 billion can understand what you posted],
but
<1,000,000 people are in the group you classify as the West. The governed masses are
victim to
Oligarch owned nation states. The nation states are 1) tools, Oligarch's use, to compete in
the
national and international markets (Article II), 2) each nation states includes a
political
system (basically a consumer complaint department) to control the behaviors of the
domestic
flocks and to keep the flocks distributed into their respective pastures.
Basically, the legislative and law making nation states are open air prisons that oversee
the
domestic masses, but in foreign affairs, the nation states are economic weapons used by
Oligarch
to engage in national and international profit making competition.
In other words,the only benefactors of the nation state system are the Oligarchs.
The 21st Century problem humans must resolve: "How to impose democratic principles,
human rights, and self-determination on the nation state system?"
It does not matter if we are talking East or West.
The nation state is the structure that confines the sheep so Oligarch can shear the wool.
A comment elsewhere alleged Lukashenko, of Belarus revealed how the world bank coerced
sovereign nations to engage Corona virus lock down and vaccine scenarios; the same comment
alleged Lukashenko fined the Soros foundation in Belarus 3.0 million for currency violations,
and that the foundation left Belarus?
I am not sure about those claims. Can anyone authenticate those facts or elaborate on them .
?
Biswapriya Purkayast: if the comment isn't the recent one you wrote in the "Kipling" Russia
thread it has probably been snagged by the link-checker and will appear later. It happens to
everyone once in a while, a good idea to write and save any comment in a text editor before
copying and posting it, unless it's short like this one :)
All this fuss around Crimea and Donbass was simply meant to distract attention from
Belarus. (Did the Americans inform Zelensky or did they just manipulate him?)
The destabilization, collapse, invasion of Belarus failed (When did the Russians
understand?), so the players disengage from this point of confrontation to find another one
(Where?).
A key aspect of propaganda is reversing the actual order of cause and effect to make the
enemy falsely look like the aggressor. We see this in the recent case of Ukraine. The western
pressitutes cynically ignored, and failed to report, the unprovoked Ukrainian military build
up on the border, to which the Russian build was a defensive reaction. So that now, as far as
the average western consumer of this propaganda is concerned, the Russian 'aggressor' 'bad
guys' have been forced to back down. All BS of course.
The anti-imperialist movement needs to establish popular online hubs that
aggregate/syndicate the writings of small blogs like this. It is beyond the abilities of any
single blogger to keep up with news events to counter imperialist lies in real time but
collectively they can do it if their work is made available at bigger hubs.
Searched for some info on that fine but that's an old story, the Soros Fund was fined and
expelled from Belarus in '97. But recently there was a debate about the influence in
education by the Soros foundations in the former soviet countries. Probably this has a lot to
do with the comments made by Putin in his address to the Federal Assembly, he remarked that
some history text books do not even mention the Stalingrad Battle while at the same time
enhancing the second front influence in WWII outcome. In other words, the foundations might
be out, there influence is not, money buys wills, and if anything else is missing in those
influence institutions money is not one of them.
UK was hoping to provoke an incident with its ships in Black Sea.
Russia has unilaterally withdrawn, leaving the British ships to cruise about at their
leisure. Pardon me, but might you have any Grey Poupon?
@43 Fyi
To my knowledge Germany has several times delivered medical equipment to Iran during the
ongoing pandemic. I`m not familiar with the details, though. Germany is also heavily involved
with COVAX which is one of the main sources of vaccines for Iran.
It bugs me how even well-informed critics of North Atlanticist regimes and their foreign
policies write and talk of them as "western demoracies". The "Founding Fathers" of the USA
feared nothing more than 'democracy' -- by which they thought of ancient Athens, or the
ancient republic of San Marino or some Swiss Cantons. What they wanted was a republic in the
mold of Ancient Rome, Venice, or like the Netherlands before Wilhelm of Orange, i.e. roled by
rich men's clubs and throuh inherited wealth, be that from land ownership, slave-holding or
from commercial gains and prate privatering -- plus of course exploiting colonies and
controlled marketing opium and its derivats (plus cocaine).
None of the present-day Atlanticist nations call themselves "demomracies" in their name or
constitutions. Only Greece does -- and only because they don't have the romance word
"republic" in their language.
In observation of these linguistic and political facts, the governments of Central Europe
east of Nato, China, Viet-Nâm and Chosôn ("North Korea") all called themselves
"people's republics" -- as opposed the the states further west that were ruled by the elected
representatives of Capital and Big Banking.
@7 vk
I don't know how you come to that conclusion:
he West, however, has one last ace in the hole: the German Green Party, which is well
positioned to form the next government after the December national elections. The NS-2
certainly won't be finished by then ..
In fact, the elections will take place Sep 26. The newly elected parliament will gather
fist time ("constituting") 3-4 weeks after that date, so end of October. After that,
coalition agreement has to be negotiated, usually taking 6 weeks or more (last time, it was
nearly 5 months). If the outcome is as the polls indicate at the moment, with the Greens as
the strongest faction, they will get the task to strike a coalition deal, negotioting
probably with CDU, and SPD plus FDP, for a couple of weeks. A new government, elected by the
Bundestag, is not to be expected before end of December.
Before anybody could act upon NS2, it will be 2022. If the project is not stopped at the
last kilometres, it will be finished by May, 2021. Once operational, the government does not
have much leverage to shut it down.
Yes, I can confirm reports of Australian racism against Indians, Iranians, Lebanese,
Chinese, and Greeks.
One person told me that she was reluctant to travel to the United States because she had
feared similar treatment there.
On the other hand, I know of a case of an abandoned Sikh mother & child (by her
husband) in New Zealand - the social services stepped right in and helped stabilize their
lives.
I think all of these evils start from the top.
The late General MacArthur tolerated racism and the African-Americans under his command
suffered.
Some other Flag Rank officers did not tolerate racism and that made a huge difference to
the experience of the African-American soldiers and sailors under their commands.
Addenda to Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 23 2021 8:11 utc | 53
(BBC doco Trump takes On The World)
Episode 1 spans events from Ms May's Trump White House visit, to Helsinki and Trump's
'betrayal' of AmeriKKKa in his private meeting with Putin.
During the closing moments of the doco (minute 55 - no ads on ABC) a bloke who looks like
Mitch McConnell (R) Kentucky/Tel Aviv, says "That'll be the lar-yest time we ever have a
President meet a foreign leader in private."
Russia has not been idle as the US and allies have been pumping plane loads of weaponry to
the ukropa army, this 'training deployment' was an opportunity for Russia to check, train and
equip the Donbass militia. I would assume that an operation room is already setup, with
spetnaz remaining in place to monitor the lines.
Nato is stumped at both the heavy response and language used by Russia, they are a paper
tiger, and many of their members, would have opted out. The 'Belarus attempted coup' is
another Red line for Russia, thus VVP stressed that Russia has the resources to put a stop to
it.
The Czech hyenas have started walking-back(US State department word) accusations about the
2014 explosions https://www.rt.com/russia/521514-czech-blast-not-state-terrorism/
@B could you look into the issue of the Damona explosion, I believe a poster somewhere
mention a retaliatory attack by Iran on missile factories in Jerusalem, I also doubt it was a
stray AA missile.
All the open source evidence does indeed point to it being an S-200/SA-5 missile.
The Israeli Defense Minister Beni Gantz has officially acknowledged that the attempt to
shoot down the S-200PMT missile failed. Saying that 4 US and 6 Israeli Patriot SAMs & 2
Israeli SAMs "David Sling" missed the S-200 at 17 km.
So, not just IAF but US operated systems as well by the look of it.
This is now a huge problem for the US. At least when the Yeminis hit Saudi the US can
mutter about the quality of the Saudi AD crews but here, in Israel they will be skilled and
well trained crews from both countries i.e. the 'best'. This is very embarrassing for the US
MIC. Their SAMs couldn't even down a Soviet era errant SAM.
No doubt today many countries will be re-evaluating their Patriot AD systems. Indeed,
should existing customers be demanding their money back as the system is clearly shown to be
faulty (it has to be a fault, it can't possibly be a design error)? Turkey and India must be
feeling pleased.
I meant to say that for a while now the Syrian rules of engagement have changed and they are
now able to 'chase the launcher aircraft' home. Before that they were only targeting the
incoming munitions. Putin confirmed the change.
The radars attached to the Syrian S-300s, plus freestanding units, give them a very good
view of where the IAF aircraft are. Even better if they are plugged into the Russians
IAD.
In a way this was a very good warning shot. It did no real damage so no excuse for Israel
to seek revenge yet it must be giving the IAF second thoughts about their current attack
strategy.
I think along with Pres Putin address credit is also due to Lavrov's statement that Ukraine
would cease to exist....a real dose of blunt sober reality.
Here come the englanders turn Zelensky into David the Goliath killer. He will be all fired up
by the British Embassy squad. Black Sea battle next week.
Speaking of dangerous narratives... this is what scares the hell out of me...
"the plan which had been first described publicly in America's two most prestigious
international relations journals, as being a suitable replacement for "M.A.D.": "Nuclear
Primacy". That's the goal for America to blitz-nuclear attack Russia so quickly that Russia
won't have enough time to launch a retaliatory response."
... that there are people who are so deluded they actually believe a nuclear war can be
"won."
Biden's Western Hemisphere foreign policy is not much different from that of Obama's,
Wayne Madsen writes.
Like proverbial bad pennies, the neocon imperialists who plagued the Barack Obama
administration have turned up in force in Joe Biden's State Department. Secretary of State
Antony Blinken has given more than winks and nods to the dastardly duo of Victoria Nuland,
slated to become Blinken's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the number three
position at the State Department, and Samantha Power, nominated to become the Administrator of
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Nuland and Power both have problematic spouses who do not fail to offer their imperialistic
opinions regardless of the appearance of conflicts-of-interest. Nuland's husband is the
claptrappy neocon warmonger Robert Kagan, someone who has never failed to urge to prod the
United States into wars that only benefit Israel. Power's husband is the totally creepy Cass
Sunstein, who served as Obama's White House "information czar" and advocated government
infiltration of non-governmental organizations and news media outlets to wage psychological
warfare campaigns.
True to form, Blinken's State Department has already come to the aid of Venezuela's
right-wing self-appointed "opposition leader" Juan Guaido, whose actual constituency is found
in the wealthy gated communities of Venezuelan and Cuban expatriates in south Florida and not
in the barrios of Caracas or Maracaibo.
Blinken and his team of old school yanqui imperialists have also criticized the
constitutional and judicially-warranted detention of former interim president Jeanine
Áñez, who became president in 2019 after the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS)
government of President Evo Morales was overthrown in a Central Intelligence Agency-inspired
and -directed military coup. The far-right forces backing Áñez were roundly
defeated in the October 2020 election that swept MAS and Morales's chosen presidential
candidate, Luis Arce, back into power. It seems that for Blinken and his ilk, a decisive
victory in an election only applies to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, not to Arce and MAS in
Bolivia.
It should be recalled that while Blinken was national security adviser to then-Vice
President Biden in the Obama administration, every sort of deception and trickery was used by
the CIA to depose Morales in Bolivia and President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. In fact, the
Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, claimed its first Latin
American political victim when a CIA coup was launched against progressive President Manuel
Zelaya of Honduras. Today, Honduras is ruled by a right-wing kleptocratic narco-president, Juan
Orlando Hernández, whose brother, Tony Hernández, is currently serving life in
federal prison in the United States for drug trafficking. For the likes of Blinken, Power,
Nuland, and former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, who currently serves as
"domestic policy adviser" to Biden, suppression of progressive governments and support for
right-wing dictators and autocrats have always been the preferred foreign policy, particularly
for the Western Hemisphere. For example, while the Biden administration remains quiet on
right-wing regimes in Central America that are responsible for the outflow of thousands of
beleaguered Mayan Indians to the southern U.S. border with Mexico, it has announced that Trump
era sanctions on 24 Nicaraguan government officials, including President Daniel Ortega's wife
and Nicaragua's vice president, Rosario Murillo, as well as three of their sons –
Laureano, Rafael, and Juan Carlos – will continue.
Biden's Western Hemisphere foreign policy is not much different from that of Obama's. Biden
and Brazilian far-right, Adolf Hitler-loving, and Covid pandemic-denying President Jair
Bolsonaro are said to have struck a deal on environmental protection of the Amazon Basin ahead
of an April 22 global climate change virtual summit called by the White House. A coalition of
198 Brazilian NGOs, representing environmental, indigenous rights, and other groups, has
appealed to Biden not to engage in any rain forest protection agreement with the untrustworthy
Bolsonaro. The Brazilian president has repeatedly advocated the wholesale deforestation of the
Amazon region. Meanwhile, while Biden urges Americans to maintain Covid public health measures,
Bolsonaro continues to downplay the virus threat as Brazil's overall death count approaches
that of the United States.
Blinken's State Department has been relatively quiet on the Northern Triangle of Central
America fascist troika of Presidents Orlando of Honduras, Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala,
and Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. Instead of pressuring these fascistas to democratize and stop
their genocidal policies toward the indigenous peoples of their nations, Biden told Mexican
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that he would pump $4 billion into supposed
"assistance" to those countries to stop the flow of migrants. Biden is repeating the same old
American gambits of the past. Any U.S. assistance to kleptocratic countries like those of the
Northern Triangle has and will line the pockets of their corrupt leaders. Flush with U.S. aid
cash, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador will be sure to grant contracts to greedy Israeli
counter-insurgency contractors always at the ready to commit more human rights abuses against
the workers, students, and indigenous peoples of Central America.
Biden is also in no hurry to reverse the freeze imposed by Donald Trump on U.S.-Cuban
relations. Biden, whose policy toward Cuba represents a fossilized relic of the Cold War,
intends to maintain Trump's freeze on U.S. commercial, trade, and tourism relations with Cuba.
Biden's Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, a Jewish Cuban-American expatriate, is
expected to reach out to right-wing Cuban-Americans in south Florida in order to ensure
Democratic Party inroads in the 2022 and 2024 U.S. elections. Therefore, even restoring the
status quo ante established by Barack Obama is off-the-table for Biden, Blinken, and Mayorkas.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Cuban-American and
ethically-challenged Democrat Bob Menendez, has stated there will be no normalization of
pre-Trump relations with Cuba until his "regime change" whims are satisfied. Regurgitating
typical right-wing Cuban-American drivel, Mayorkas has proclaimed after he was announced as the
new Homeland Security Secretary, "I have been nominated to be the DHS Secretary and oversee the
protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for
themselves and their loved ones." The last part of that statement was directed toward the
solidly Republican bloc of moneyed Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Bolivian interests in
south Florida.
While Blinken hurls his neocon invectives at Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba, he
remains silent on the repeated foot-dragging by embattled and highly unpopular right-wing
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on implementing a new Constitution to replace that put into
place in 1973 by the fascist military dictator General Augusto Pinochet. The current Chilean
Constitution is courtesy of Richard Nixon's foreign policy "Svengali," the duplicitous Henry
Kissinger, an individual who obviously shares Blinken's taste for "realpolitik" adventurism on
a global scale.
While Blinken has weighed in on the domestic politics of Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and
Cuba, he has had no comment on the anti-constitutional moves by Colombian far-right
authoritarian President Ivan Duque, the front man for that nation's Medellin narcotics cartel.
It would also come as no surprise if Blinken, Nuland, and Power have quietly buttressed the
candidacy of right-wing banker, Guillermo Lasso, who is running against the progressive
socialist candidate Andrés Arauz, the protegé of former president Rafael Correa.
Blinken can be expected to question the results of the April 11 if Lasso cries fraud in the
event of an Arauz victory. Conversely, Blinken will remain silent if Lasso wins and Arauz cries
foul. That has always been the nature of U.S. Western Hemisphere policy, regardless of what
party controls the White House.
Yet after Floyd was cuffed and placed prone on the street, as he himself had requested, and
the officers had called for an ambulance owing to his obvious medical distress, the arrest went
haywire and Chauvin exposed himself to Manslaughter 2, at least, for no plausible or
justifiable reason.
That's because Floyd had been unarmed throughout the incident, was hand-cuffed and incapable
of flight or harming others and was surrounded by four armed officers. Accordingly, he was no
threat to them, nor anyone else, and he therefore presented no policing reason for the extended
knee-hold on the back of his neck -- especially after the surrounding crowd had warned the
police that Floyd was in self-evident dire distress.
So as we see it, Chauvin's conviction on second degree manslaughter does indeed comport with
the Minnesota statute, which reads as follows:
..by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk ,
and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;
But here's also where the Woke/Progressive Left narrative goes even more haywire. Floyd's
death was due to an arrest which shouldn't have happened and bad police behavior that has
nothing to do with race .
As to the former point, what should have been on trial in this case was not "systemic
racism", but the Nanny State for grotesquely excessive use of force to enforce a petty
counterfeiting complaint that should not be police business in the first place. It's the job of
retail store owners to handle petty counterfeiters or people who unknowingly pass bad
greenbacks and to absorb the cost of self-protection just like they do in the case of refusing
charges on bad credit cards.
So there is zero reason why George Floyd should ever have been arrested.
As to bad police behavior, you do not have to look too hard to see that it's essentially
color-blind and that being non-black is no guarantee against the same unjust fate.
During the same five-year period in which 104 black lives were lost, a total of 127 unarmed
white lives were wasted by the police, as well. That included 32 white killings in 2015
followed by 22, 31, 23 and 19 in 2016 through 2019, respectively.
Overall, 302 unarmed citizens were killed by the police during those five years, with the
balance accounted for by 71 deaths among Hispanic and other victims. That is, the real issue is
illegal and excessive police violence, not racial victimization.
Indeed, the fact that 34% of these police killings involved black citizens compared to their
13% share of the population is not primarily a sign of racism among police forces, although it
is continuously construed to be.
It's actually evidence that the Nanny State, and especially the misbegotten War on Drugs, is
designed to unnecessarily ensnare a distinct demographic -- young, poor, often unemployed urban
citizens -- in confrontations with the cops, too many of which become fatal.
Alas, young black males are disproportionately represented among this particular
inharms'-way demographic, and that's the reason they are "disproportionately" represented in
the 302 cases cited above.
Stated differently, the Nanny State results in too many black victims of plain old
injustice, even if that is not necessarily the intent of the crusaders and zealots who have
launched the state into anti-liberty wars on drugs, vice and victimless iniquities and
peccadillos.
That is to say, statism in the sphere of law and order is every bit as dysfunctional as it
is in the realm of economics, yet neither conservatives nor progressives recognize it.
Conservatives want way too much law and police empowerment in the service of cultural norms
that are none of the state's damn business in the first place; and progressives confuse the
often brutal and unjust over-reach of law enforcement agencies as a manifestation of racism,
when it is actually just policing expectorations in behalf of inappropriate missions such as
the enforcement of drug laws.
Indeed, the main trouble in America today is not overt racism or even simmering racial
animosity. The real evil is the relentless aggrandizement of state power in the form of the
Nanny State -- a conflation of too many laws, crimes, cops, arrests and thereby opportunities
for frictions between the state and its citizenry and for abuse by the gendarmes vested with
legal use of violence.
In a word, some citizens sometimes can't breathe their last breath because in far too many
instances liberty can't breathe in today's unhinged Nanny State, either.
Among the most recent notorious cases, of course, are George Floyd's fatal arrest for
allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill; Eric Garner (NYC 2014), subdual for selling untaxed
cigarettes; Rayshard Brooks for falling asleep drunk in his car at a subsequently incinerated
Wendy's in Atlanta; and Breonna Taylor of Louisville for being awake in her own apartment at
1:30 AM when police barged in with guns blaring in a drug enforcement raid.
These are anecdotal cases, of course, but the big picture statistics tell the same story. In
the most recent year of complete data (2018), there were 9.3 million arrests in the US
excluding traffic enforcement charges of DUI. Yet among this massive number of arrests, those
involving serious crimes against persons and property accounted for just 521,000 or 5.6%. These
included:
Negligent murder and manslaughter: 11,970;
Rape: 25,205;
Armed robbery: 88,128;
Aggravated assault: 395,800;
That's it. That's the contribution to core public safety delivered by the 850,000 sworn law
enforcement officers in the USA -- about 0.6 arrests per year for serious crimes per law
enforcement officer.
As for what they were doing the rest of the time and the other 8,777,000 arrests that
occurred in 2018, we can say this: They clearly provided more occasion for conflict between
citizens and the gendarmes and for policing actions to go haywire, as in the George Floyd case,
than any additional increments of public safety.
After all, the single largest category of arrests in 2018 was for drug abuse violations,
which totaled 1,654,282.
In fact, while total arrests for all crimes in 2018 were no higher than they were in 1977
despite a 100 million/50% growth in the US population, and had actually dropped from a peak of
nearly 13 million in 2006, the opposite trend was extant in the case of the nation's
misbegotten War on Drugs arrests.
As shown by the chart below, drug arrests in 2018 were nearly at peak levels and were up by
more than 171% since 1977 -- the vast majority of which are made for drug possession generally,
and marijuana possession most often.
War on Drugs Arrests, 1980-2016
Not surprisingly, the next largest arrest category after drugs is one called "other
assaults" for which 1,063,535 arrests were made in 2018. Yet the FBI's own definitions raise
considerable doubts as to why these are even a proper matter for law enforcement by the
state:
Other assaults (simple) - Assaults and attempted assaults where no weapon was used or no
serious or aggravated injury resulted to the victim. Stalking, intimidation, coercion, and
hazing are included.
Then, of course, we have all the victimless and vice crimes, including the following number
of arrests:
Prostitution and commercialized vice: 31,147;
Sex offenses excluding rape and prostitution: 46,937;
Gambling: 3,323;
Liquor law offenses: 173,152;
Curfew and loitering law violations: 22,031;
Vagrancy: 23,546;
Public drunkenness: 328,772;
Disorderly conduct: 329,152;
Forgery and counterfeiting: 50,072;
Weapons carrying and possession: 168,403;
All other offenses: 3,231,700.
The latter huge number tells you all you need to know. The UCR lists 27 enumerated
categories of crime including all of those itemized above–plus the usual suspects like
fraud and embezzlement for which there were about 135,000 arrests in 2018. Yet when the whole
lists is exhausted, 32% of arrests occurred for crimes that are so minor even the FBI is
embarrassed to enumerate them!
So, yes, we do think there are way, way too many crimes and cops, and that decriminalizing
and de-funding law enforcement are the only route to reducing police violence.
But by the same token, the unwarranted and often mendacious racializing of police
malfeasance, which the George Floyd case has brought to a fever pitch, will only insure
retrogression. That is, it will unleash a blind rallying to the defense of law enforcement by
conservative Republicans, blue collar whites and the Foxified Right, thereby insuring a
continuing failure to attack and drastically curtail the Nanny State regime, which is the real
source of policing injustice.
Of course, don't expect Nancy Pelosi or Sleepy Joe to be any more enlightened on the matter
than Sean Hannity. These doddering old fools are now enthrall to the wokedom of the
progressive-Left; and, as Maxine Water's blatant performance as agent provocateur in
Minneapolis the night before the verdict makes clear, these people want the problem to fester
and metastasize, not be alleviated.
Indeed, it is probably not too far fetched to say that Congresswoman Waters' call for a
guilty verdict or else a new round of violent uprisings amounted to an insurance policy. Three
guilty verdicts could not trigger the latter, but a judicial appeal resulting in a mistrial
order surely would.
In other words, the Democratic Party has fallen into the grip of vicious leftist zealots and
power-hungry authoritarians. And the events of the last two days suggest that two dangerously
wrong-headed and ugly narratives -- -race-baiting and climate hysteria -- now stand at the
center of the Dem agenda because the party's two supreme leaders are too weak and too senile to
resist the mob.
So we'd say to the feverish punters of Wall Street, yes, embrace the putative Economic Boom
impending and buy the Greatest Financial Bubble in history, if you must.
But, really, if the events which culminated in Tuesday's triumph of mob justice do not scare
the living bejesus out of you, then, well, you probably deserve to suffer the thundering
financial gotterdammerung which is surely coming your way. 60,006 194 NEVER MISS THE NEWS
THAT MATT
Events of the last few days have made one thing crystal clear: The Democratic Party (and
therefore the nation) is being led by two doddering old fools who should be domiciled in a rest
home, not the Oval Office and the Speaker's Chamber.
How that baleful reality coexists with Wall Street's expectation of an awesome economic
future and stock prices which never stop rising to the sky is one of the great enigmas of our
times. Or maybe it's just because $10 trillion of fiscal and monetary "stimulus" in the past
year can turn the proverbial sow's ear into a silk purse. For a time.
By now, of course, we expect idiocy from Sleepy Joe, especially on the economic front.
Accordingly, at his virtual global summit he will be reading-out from the White House
teleprompter the demented agenda of the Climate Change Howlers. Therein he will promise to cut
greenhouse gases by 50% by the end of this decade, which calamity we can also promise would cut
America's debt-entombed economy to its knees.
That comes after Tuesday's White House contretemps when he first prayed for a guilty verdict
in the Chauvin trial even as the jury was sitting in its deliberations, and then, afterwards,
made the risible claim that this tragedy was the spawn of systemic racism.
In fact, Nanny State over-reach was the underlying cause of George Floyd's arrest and unjust
death -- just as it is the source of most of America's unfortunate violence between police and
unarmed citizens, back, white and otherwise.
In both cases, of course, we find Sleepy Joe fronting for the hideous core agenda -- race
baiting and climate hysteria -- of a Democratic Party which has lost its way and has been taken
over by a camarilla of woke zealots.
Indeed, if there were any doubt about the latter, Nancy Pelosi's truly venal deification of
George Floyd should remove it once and for all.
Yes, the man was a victim, but he was also a drug-addicted criminal lout and grifter, who
deserves no place of honor anywhere; and who's estranged family deserves sympathy and support,
but not a $27 million gift of blood money from a woke city council that takes Minneapolis one
step closer to its demise every time it meets.
"And thank God, the jury validated what we saw, what we saw," Pelosi said in front of the
U.S. Capitol Building as she delivered remarks with the Congressional Black Caucus. "So,
again, thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call
out to your mom. How heart-breaking was that? To call out to your mom, 'I can't breathe.' But
because of you – and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came
out for justice – your name will always be synonymous with justice."
For crying out loud. George Floyd didn't sacrifice himself in the cause of justice. He got
hopped up on a lethal dose of fentanyl and then foolishly resisted arrest when the original
officers on the scene attempted to place him in the backseat of a squad car.
That is to say, the entire narrative culminating in Nancy Pelosi's hideous idolization of
George Floyd has been blatantly wrong from the get go. This case is not about racial justice at
all, to say nothing of striking a blow against so called "white privilege".
For want of doubt, we need to repeat the facts. That's because they show that episodes like
the George Floyd case do not fit the stereotypes of either the BLM and its race-card playing
progressive/Dem allies or, for that matter, the Foxified Right's knee-jerk defense of the
nation's over-empowered, over-budgeted, over-militarized police.
Needless to say, the George Floyd case was not an aberration. During the recent past there
were 38 such police killings of unarmed black citizens in 2015, and then 19, 21, 17 and 9
during 2016 through 2019, respectively. That's 104 black lives lost to the ultimate abuse of
police powers.
Of course, the number should be zero police killings of unarmed citizens. There is no
conceivable excuse for heavily armed cops -- -usually working in pairs or groups -- to cause
the death of lone, unarmed civilians, regardless of race or anything else.
And in this case that was especially so, and not withstanding several mitigating
factors.
For instance, the Minneapolis police officers originally attempted to put George Floyd
safely in the back seat of a squad car after his arrest for the petty crime of attempting to
pass a counterfeit $20 bill, but he resisted them intensely for up to five minutes. That's
plain as day in the other videos -- those from the cops' body-cams.
The trial evidence from these body-cams also showed that during this struggle around the
squad car Floyd said he couldn't breath six times owing to a severe medical reaction to the
fatal level of fentanyl in his blood and the methamphetamines that he had ingested shortly
before the incident. These reactions were surely compounded by the man's "severe" and
"multifocal" arteriosclerotic heart disease and clinical history of hypertension, which the
Minneapolis medical examiner said was the underlying cause of his death.
Yet after Floyd was cuffed and placed prone on the street, as he himself had requested, and
the officers had called for an ambulance owing to his obvious medical distress, the arrest went
haywire and Chauvin exposed himself to Manslaughter 2, at least, for no plausible or
justifiable reason.
That's because Floyd had been unarmed throughout the incident, was hand-cuffed and incapable
of flight or harming others and was surrounded by four armed officers. Accordingly, he was no
threat to them, nor anyone else, and he therefore presented no policing reason for the extended
knee-hold on the back of his neck -- especially after the surrounding crowd had warned the
police that Floyd was in self-evident dire distress.
So as we see it, Chauvin's conviction on second degree manslaughter does indeed comport with
the Minnesota statute, which reads as follows:
..by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk ,
and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;
But here's also where the Woke/Progressive Left narrative goes even more haywire. Floyd's
death was due to an arrest which shouldn't have happened and bad police behavior that has
nothing to do with race .
As to the former point, what should have been on trial in this case was not "systemic
racism", but the Nanny State for grotesquely excessive use of force to enforce a petty
counterfeiting complaint that should not be police business in the first place. It's the job of
retail store owners to handle petty counterfeiters or people who unknowingly pass bad
greenbacks and to absorb the cost of self-protection just like they do in the case of refusing
charges on bad credit cards.
So there is zero reason why George Floyd should ever have been arrested.
As to bad police behavior, you do not have to look too hard to see that it's essentially
color-blind and that being non-black is no guarantee against the same unjust fate.
During the same five-year period in which 104 black lives were lost, a total of 127 unarmed
white lives were wasted by the police, as well. That included 32 white killings in 2015
followed by 22, 31, 23 and 19 in 2016 through 2019, respectively.
Overall, 302 unarmed citizens were killed by the police during those five years, with the
balance accounted for by 71 deaths among Hispanic and other victims. That is, the real issue is
illegal and excessive police violence, not racial victimization.
Indeed, the fact that 34% of these police killings involved black citizens compared to their
13% share of the population is not primarily a sign of racism among police forces, although it
is continuously construed to be.
It's actually evidence that the Nanny State, and especially the misbegotten War on Drugs, is
designed to unnecessarily ensnare a distinct demographic -- young, poor, often unemployed urban
citizens -- in confrontations with the cops, too many of which become fatal.
Alas, young black males are disproportionately represented among this particular
inharms'-way demographic, and that's the reason they are "disproportionately" represented in
the 302 cases cited above.
Stated differently, the Nanny State results in too many black victims of plain old
injustice, even if that is not necessarily the intent of the crusaders and zealots who have
launched the state into anti-liberty wars on drugs, vice and victimless iniquities and
peccadillos.
That is to say, statism in the sphere of law and order is every bit as dysfunctional as it
is in the realm of economics, yet neither conservatives nor progressives recognize it.
Conservatives want way too much law and police empowerment in the service of cultural norms
that are none of the state's damn business in the first place; and progressives confuse the
often brutal and unjust over-reach of law enforcement agencies as a manifestation of racism,
when it is actually just policing expectorations in behalf of inappropriate missions such as
the enforcement of drug laws.
Indeed, the main trouble in America today is not overt racism or even simmering racial
animosity. The real evil is the relentless aggrandizement of state power in the form of the
Nanny State -- a conflation of too many laws, crimes, cops, arrests and thereby opportunities
for frictions between the state and its citizenry and for abuse by the gendarmes vested with
legal use of violence.
In a word, some citizens sometimes can't breathe their last breath because in far too many
instances liberty can't breathe in today's unhinged Nanny State, either.
Among the most recent notorious cases, of course, are George Floyd's fatal arrest for
allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill; Eric Garner (NYC 2014), subdual for selling untaxed
cigarettes; Rayshard Brooks for falling asleep drunk in his car at a subsequently incinerated
Wendy's in Atlanta; and Breonna Taylor of Louisville for being awake in her own apartment at
1:30 AM when police barged in with guns blaring in a drug enforcement raid.
These are anecdotal cases, of course, but the big picture statistics tell the same story. In
the most recent year of complete data (2018), there were 9.3 million arrests in the US
excluding traffic enforcement charges of DUI. Yet among this massive number of arrests, those
involving serious crimes against persons and property accounted for just 521,000 or 5.6%. These
included:
Negligent murder and manslaughter: 11,970;
Rape: 25,205;
Armed robbery: 88,128;
Aggravated assault: 395,800;
That's it. That's the contribution to core public safety delivered by the 850,000 sworn law
enforcement officers in the USA -- about 0.6 arrests per year for serious crimes per law
enforcement officer.
As for what they were doing the rest of the time and the other 8,777,000 arrests that
occurred in 2018, we can say this: They clearly provided more occasion for conflict between
citizens and the gendarmes and for policing actions to go haywire, as in the George Floyd case,
than any additional increments of public safety.
After all, the single largest category of arrests in 2018 was for drug abuse violations,
which totaled 1,654,282.
In fact, while total arrests for all crimes in 2018 were no higher than they were in 1977
despite a 100 million/50% growth in the US population, and had actually dropped from a peak of
nearly 13 million in 2006, the opposite trend was extant in the case of the nation's
misbegotten War on Drugs arrests.
As shown by the chart below, drug arrests in 2018 were nearly at peak levels and were up by
more than 171% since 1977 -- the vast majority of which are made for drug possession generally,
and marijuana possession most often.
War on Drugs Arrests, 1980-2016
Not surprisingly, the next largest arrest category after drugs is one called "other
assaults" for which 1,063,535 arrests were made in 2018. Yet the FBI's own definitions raise
considerable doubts as to why these are even a proper matter for law enforcement by the
state:
Other assaults (simple) - Assaults and attempted assaults where no weapon was used or no
serious or aggravated injury resulted to the victim. Stalking, intimidation, coercion, and
hazing are included.
Then, of course, we have all the victimless and vice crimes, including the following number
of arrests:
Prostitution and commercialized vice: 31,147;
Sex offenses excluding rape and prostitution: 46,937;
Gambling: 3,323;
Liquor law offenses: 173,152;
Curfew and loitering law violations: 22,031;
Vagrancy: 23,546;
Public drunkenness: 328,772;
Disorderly conduct: 329,152;
Forgery and counterfeiting: 50,072;
Weapons carrying and possession: 168,403;
All other offenses: 3,231,700.
The latter huge number tells you all you need to know. The UCR lists 27 enumerated
categories of crime including all of those itemized above–plus the usual suspects like
fraud and embezzlement for which there were about 135,000 arrests in 2018. Yet when the whole
lists is exhausted, 32% of arrests occurred for crimes that are so minor even the FBI is
embarrassed to enumerate them!
So, yes, we do think there are way, way too many crimes and cops, and that decriminalizing
and de-funding law enforcement are the only route to reducing police violence.
But by the same token, the unwarranted and often mendacious racializing of police
malfeasance, which the George Floyd case has brought to a fever pitch, will only insure
retrogression. That is, it will unleash a blind rallying to the defense of law enforcement by
conservative Republicans, blue collar whites and the Foxified Right, thereby insuring a
continuing failure to attack and drastically curtail the Nanny State regime, which is the real
source of policing injustice.
Of course, don't expect Nancy Pelosi or Sleepy Joe to be any more enlightened on the matter
than Sean Hannity. These doddering old fools are now enthrall to the wokedom of the
progressive-Left; and, as Maxine Water's blatant performance as agent provocateur in
Minneapolis the night before the verdict makes clear, these people want the problem to fester
and metastasize, not be alleviated.
Indeed, it is probably not too far fetched to say that Congresswoman Waters' call for a
guilty verdict or else a new round of violent uprisings amounted to an insurance policy. Three
guilty verdicts could not trigger the latter, but a judicial appeal resulting in a mistrial
order surely would.
In other words, the Democratic Party has fallen into the grip of vicious leftist zealots and
power-hungry authoritarians. And the events of the last two days suggest that two dangerously
wrong-headed and ugly narratives -- -race-baiting and climate hysteria -- now stand at the
center of the Dem agenda because the party's two supreme leaders are too weak and too senile to
resist the mob.
So we'd say to the feverish punters of Wall Street, yes, embrace the putative Economic Boom
impending and buy the Greatest Financial Bubble in history, if you must.
But, really, if the events which culminated in Tuesday's triumph of mob justice do not scare
the living bejesus out of you, then, well, you probably deserve to suffer the thundering
financial gotterdammerung which is surely coming your way. 60,006 194 NEVER MISS THE NEWS
THAT MATT
"... The élites come to believe their narrative – forgetting that it was conceived as an illusion created to capture the imagination within their society. ..."
"... Harvard Business School ..."
"... "Over the last two decades, I've observed the consequences of our surprising metamorphosis into surveillance empires powered by global architectures of behavioural monitoring, analysis, targeting and prediction – that I have called surveillance capitalism. On the strength of their surveillance capabilities and for the sake of their surveillance profits, the new empires engineered a fundamentally anti-democratic epistemic coup, marked by unprecedented concentrations of knowledge about us and the unaccountable power that accrues to such knowledge." ..."
"... "This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows [and] which now vies with democracy over the fundamental rights and principles that will define our social order in this century. Will the growing recognition of this other coup finally force us to reckon with the inconvenient truth that has loomed over the last two decades? We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. " (Emphasis added). ..."
The élites come to believe their narrative – forgetting that it was
conceived as an illusion created to capture the imagination within their society.
Pat Buchanan is absolutely right – that when it comes to insurrections, history
depends on who writes
the narrative. Usually that falls to the oligarchic class; (should they ultimately prevail.)
Yet, I recall quite a few 'terrorists' who subsequently to were become widely-courted
'statesmen'. So the wheel of passing time turns – and turns about, again.
Of course, fixing a narrative – an unchallengeable reality, that is perceived to be
too secure, too highly invested to fail – does not mean it will not go unchallenged.
There is an old British expression that well describes its' colonial experience of (silent)
challenge to its then dominant 'narrative' (both in Ireland and India inter alia ). It
was known as 'dumb insolence'. That is, when the performance of individual acts of rebellion
are both too costly personally and pointless, that the silent, sourly expression of dumb
contempt for their 'overlords' says it all. It infuriated the British commanding class by its
daily reminder of their legitimacy deficit. Gandhi took it to the heights. And it his narrative
ultimately, that is the one better remembered in history.
With global Big Tech's control of narrative, however, we have entered into an entirely
different order of things, to those early British efforts at keeping down dissidence – as
Harvard Business School Professor Shoshana Zuboff succinctly
notes :
"Over the last two decades, I've observed the consequences of our surprising
metamorphosis into surveillance empires powered by global architectures of behavioural
monitoring, analysis, targeting and prediction – that I have called surveillance
capitalism. On the strength of their surveillance capabilities and for the sake of their
surveillance profits, the new empires engineered a fundamentally anti-democratic epistemic
coup, marked by unprecedented concentrations of knowledge about us and the unaccountable power
that accrues to such knowledge."
Narrative control has now jumped the shark:
"This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows
[and] which now vies with democracy over the fundamental rights and principles that will define
our social order in this century. Will the growing recognition of this other coup finally force
us to reckon with the inconvenient truth that has loomed over the last two decades? We may
have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. " (Emphasis
added).
This clearly represents a quite different magnitude of 'control' – and when allied
with the West's counter-insurgency techniques of 'terrorist' narrative disruption, honed during
the 'Great War on Terrorism' – is a formidable tool for curbing dissent domestically, as
well as externally.
Yet it has a fundamental weakness.
Quite simply, that being so invested, so immersed, in one particular 'reality', others'
'truths' then will not – cannot – be heard. They do not stand out proud above the
endless flat plain of consensual discourse. They cannot penetrate the hardened shell of a
prevailing narrative bubble, or claim the attention of élites so invested in managing
their
own version of reality .
The 'Big Weakness'? The élites come to believe their own narratives –
forgetting that the narrative was conceived as an illusion, one among others, created to
capture the imagination within their society (not others').
They lose the ability to stand apart, and see themselves – as others see them. They
become so enraptured by the virtue of their version of the world, that they lose all ability to
empathise or accept others' truths. They cannot hear the signals. The point here, is that in
that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the latters' motives and intentions will
be mis-construed – sometimes tragically so.
Examples are legion, but the Biden Administration's perception that time was frozen –
from the moment of Obama's departure from office – and somehow defrosted on 20 January,
just in time for Biden to pick up on that earlier era (as if time was uninterrupted), marks one
example of a belief in one's own meme. Whilst the EU's unfeigned amazement – and anger
– at being described 'as an unreliable partner' by FM Lavrov in Moscow, is just another
example of how élites have become remote from the real world and captive to their own
self-perception.
"America is back" to lead, and 'to set the rules of the road' for the rest of the world, may
be intended to radiate U.S. strength, but rather, it suggests a tenuous grasp of the realities
facing the U.S.: America's relations with Europe and Asia were growing increasingly distant
well before Biden entered the White House – and, therefore, from before Trump's
(purposefully disruptive) term, too.
Why then is the U.S. so consistently in denial about this?
On the one hand, after seven decades of global primacy, there is inevitably a certain inertia
that would hinder any dominant power from registering and assimilating the significant changes
of the recent past. However, for the U.S., another factor helps explain its' 'tin ear': It is
the wider Establishment's fixation on preventing the 2020 presidential election from validating
the previous one's results. That really overrode all else. Nothing else mattered. The focus was
so all-consuming it obscured notice of the world changing – right there – outside
of their windows.
This is not unique to America. It is easy to understand why the EU was so blind-sided by FM
Lavrov's labelling of the EU as 'unreliable partner' (which it patently has been). As former
Greek FM, Yanis Varoufakis has written from his own experience of trying to get the EU to
listen to his detailed summaries and proposals in respect to his country's financial crisis:
'They (the Euro Group) just sat grim-faced, taking not one jot of notice: I might as well have
sung the Swedish national anthem, for all the attention they gave to my contributions',
Varoufakis later related. His experience was standard EU modus operandi. The EU does not do
'negotiation'. Supplicants, whether Greece or Britain, must accept EU values – and its
'club house-rules'.
The High Representative Borrell, arrived with his long list of complaints, culled from 27
states (some of which have a historical list of complaints against Russia). He read the
demands, and no doubt, expected Lavrov, like Varoufakis, to sit quietly, as he accepted the
reprimands – and the 'club rules' appropriate to any aspirant contemplating some sort of
working relationship with the worlds' 'biggest consumer market'. This is the EU culture.
And then, the following infamous press conference at which the EU was called 'unreliable'.
Anyone who has attended a EU decision-making making body, knows the protocol – but let a
former EU high official describe it: The
Council handles Chefsachen – the stuff of high politics, not low regulation
– in closed sessions. At these, van Middelaar can report, all 28 heads of government
(pre-Brexit) call each other by their first names, and may find themselves agreeing to
decisions they had never even imagined beforehand – before emerging together for a
beaming 'family photograph' in front of the cameras of the one thousand reporters assembled to
hear their tidings, whose presence makes 'failure impossible', since every summit (with just
one upsetting exception) ends with a message of common hope and resolve.
Lavrov, like some 'rough-diamond' distant family relative, didn't know to behave in polite
EU society; you don't call the EU names. Oh no!
Varoufakis
explains : "Unlike nation states that emerge as stabilisers of conflicts between social
classes and groups, the EU was created as a cartel with a remit to stabilise the profit margins
of the large, central European corporations. (It began life as the European Coal and Steel
Community). "Seen through this prism, the EU's stubborn faithfulness to failed practices begins
to make sense. Cartels are reasonably good at distributing monopoly profits between oligarchs,
but terrible at distributing losses". We also know that, unlike proper states, cartels will
resist any democratisation or outside input into their tight circle of decision-making.
This incident in Moscow might all be faintly amusing, except for the fact that it underlines
how Brussels' navel-gazing (in a separate way to that of Team Biden), produces a similar
result: It becomes out of touch with the world beyond. It 'listens', but does not hear. The
West's hostile strategy to Russia, as Pepe Escobar has observed in his
strategic analysis of Russia's position, is conditioned on the notion that Russia has nowhere
else to go – and therefore must feel pleased and honoured by the notion of the EU
condescending to push-out an 'octopus tentacle' towards Eurasia. Whereas, now, with the centre
of geo-economic gravity shifting to China and East Asia, it is realistically more a question of
whether the Greater Eurasian heartland, with its 2.2 billion population, feels it worthwhile to
extend its tentacle out towards the rule-bound EU.
This is no small matter: The EU having a hissy-fit over Lavrov's put-down of the EU in
Moscow is one thing. The potential however, for the U.S. to listen, but not hear, on Russia and
China, is quite another. Mis-hearing, mis-conceiving these two states, touches on matters of
war and peace.
...The view from Moscow is very different, fueled by a sense of grievance that the West is
determined to weaken Russia and stoke a pro-democracy "color" revolution to topple Putin. By
this reading, the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies have repeatedly
betrayed Russia, abandoning missile treaties and expanding ever closer to its borders, since
Putin became the first foreign leader to offer help to Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks in the U.S.
"The Kremlin feels in a fortress, under sustained pressure from the U.S. and the West in
general. With its aggressive actions, Russia is trying to deter the U.S., but Washington is
just responding with stronger measures," said Oksana Antonenko, a director at Control Risks in
London. "We are certainly at the most dangerous point since the Soviet Union collapsed."
... ... ...
On Wednesday, the day before Russia announced its troop withdrawal, Putin warned rival
nations not to cross Russia's "red line" in his annual state-of-the-nation speech, saying
pressure on his country had become "a new form of sport." But he also held out an olive branch
of talks on strategic security.
... ... ...
Prosecutors this month asked a Moscow court to declare Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation
and his campaign offices to be extremist organizations, which could subject staff and
volunteers to criminal prosecution and imprisonment. They accused them of plotting to stage a
"color" revolution in Russia on the instructions of unnamed foreign states.
A top Putin ally, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament,
described Navalny as a "tool of American policy" that allowed himself to be used for
interfering in Russia's domestic affairs.
... ... ...
In his call with Biden, Putin raised an alleged plot to stage a coup against Belarusian
President Alexander Lukashenko hatched in consultation with the U.S., according to the Kremlin.
Lukashenko, who's ruled Russia's neighbor and closest ally since 1994, has faced months of
pro-democracy opposition protests since disputed elections last August.
"The practice of organizing coups and planning political assassinations, including of top
officials, that's going too far," Putin said in his annual address. "They've overstepped all
boundaries."
In talks with Lukashenko in Moscow next day, Putin said Russia is tightening military and
security cooperation with Belarus.
... ... ...
Putin insisted in Wednesday's address that "we really don't want to burn bridges" with the
West, before adding that anyone who mistakes Russian intentions for weakness "must know that
Russia's response will be asymmetrical, swift and tough."
The enrollment of corporations in the scheme to vaccinate the population and to require such
vaccinations for social participation should not be considered in terms of the prerogatives of
private organizations but as part of the incursions of the state into private industry. What we
are witnessing, and should be resisting, is a merger into a corporate-government complex,
wherein government can bypass the legislative branch and enforce unpopular mandates by
colluding with corporations and other organizations to make "policy."
Perhaps the most egregious element of this corporate-state stranglehold on the population is
the participation of Big Digital and the mainstream media. Big Digital conglomerates eliminate
media outlets and voices that challenge the official covid narrative, including information
about lockdowns, masking, and vaccinations, although the official narrative has not only
changed willy-nilly but also has been proven factually wrong, as well as socially devastating.
Big Digital and the media serve both the state and Big Pharma by eliminating oppositional views
regarding the lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, and by pushing fear-inducing propaganda about the
virus and its ever-proliferating variants.
As I have written in Google
Archipelago , Big Digital must be considered an agent of a leftist authoritarian state --
as a " governmentality " or state
apparatus functioning on behalf and as part of the state itself. "Governmentality" is a term
that should become well known in the coming days and weeks. I adopted the term from Michel
Foucault and have emended it to refer to corporations and other nonstate actors who actively
undertake state functions. These actors will be doing this in droves with vaccine passports,
which will vastly augment state power under a state-corporate alliance.
Similarly, other major corporations perform state-sanctioned roles by echoing and enforcing
state-approved ideologies, policies, and politics: indoctrinating employees, issuing woke
advertisements, policing the opinions of workers, firing dissidents, and soon demanding vaccine
passports from employees and customers.
The overall tendency, then, is toward corporate-state monopolization over all aspects of
life, with increasing control by approved principals over information and opinion, economic
production, and the political sphere. As the consolidation accelerates, the broad global state
will require the elimination of noncompliant, disaffected, and "untrustworthy" economic and
political actors. In the United States, with the elimination of political opposition, the
tendency is toward uniparty rule, and with it, the merging of the party and state into a
singular organ.
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PGR88 2 hours ago (Edited)
The only way the fascist deep state ends is with a currency collapse. That could be
effected immediately - arrest the members of the Federal Reserve. Without a printed, fiat
dollar, and the illusion that $30 Trillion in debt will repaid - the leftist, DC deep state
collapses immediately.
BDB 13 hours ago remove link
The US govt is a corporation.
We as a central banking nation have an economic and political monopoly that is trying
really hard to maintain fascist control.All the big multinationals are owned by the banksters
too.
Psyop covID19 and man's co2 emissions causes climate change are both lies pushing a
political agenda
" Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state
and corporate power." Benito Mussolini
HonorSeeker 11 hours ago (Edited)
Under Fascism, the government wrote the rules. Under our corporatist system, it's the
corporations. At least that's what I would say the difference is.
DesertEagle 9 hours ago
We're under the boot heel of billionaire oligarchs and big corporations that are their
handmaidens. They are toxic and will never take their boot off of our neck unless they are
forced to.
Several US banks have employed AI surveillance systems as a big-brother-type instrument to
analyze customer preferences, monitor workers, and even detect nefarious activities near/at
ATMs, according to a dozen banking and technology sources who spoke with
Reuters .
Sources said City National Bank of Florida, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Wells Fargo &
Co are conducting trials of AI surveillance systems which offers a rare view into what could
soon become standard for corporate America.
Bobby Dominguez, the chief information security officer at City National, told Reuters the
bank would begin to "leverage" facial recognition technology to identify customers at teller
machines and employees at branches. The trial will be conducted at 31 sites and include
high-tech software that could spot people on government watch lists.
In Ohio, JPMorgan is already conducting AI surveillance trials at a small number of
branches. Wells Fargo wouldn't discuss its use of AI technology to monitor customers and
employees.
The corporate world is quickly embracing the effectiveness and sophistication of these
systems after governments such as China, the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US have used AI
surveillance to track their citizens and non-nationals for years.
"We're never going to compromise our clients' privacy," Dominguez said. "We're getting off
to an early start on technology already used in other parts of the world and that is rapidly
coming to the American banking network."
As early as 2019, JPMorgan began evaluating the potential of AI surveillance systems to
analyze archived footage from Chase branches in New York and Ohio.
"Testing facial recognition to identify clients as they walk into a Chase bank, if they
consented to it, has been another possibility considered to enhance their experience," a
current employee involved in the project told Reuters.
Another source said a Midwestern credit union last year tested facial recognition for client
identification at four locations before terminating the program over cost concerns.
City National's Dominguez said the bank's branches use computer vision to detect suspicious
activity outside.
Given the current state of AI surveillance and the speed of development, top banks are
already testing these surveillance tools in various forms. Despite a potential backlash from
the public, an Orwellian dystopia via AI surveillance will be fully embraced by corporate
America in the coming years.
It was the virus pandemic that allowed the
surveillance state to expand across the government and corporations rapidly. We're being
tracked more than ever.
Comedian Ryan Long released a now viral video with Danny Polishchuk called "When Wokes and
Racists Actually Agree on Everything," poking fun at the nation's unfolding debates on
race.
The video depicts two friends, Brad and Chad, one "woke" and one "racist," agreeing on very
fundamental parts of their ideologies.
"Your racial identity is the most important thing. Everything should be looked at through
the lens of race," the men say before one of them jinxes another.
Whether it's about privilege, interracial dating, discrimination, segregation of cultures
and arts, appropriation, the two men appear to agree on pretty much everything.
"We both have a lot of opinions about people of color," one of the men quips while the other
nods in agreement.
The end of the video shows the "woke" character claiming that the only disagreement between
the two is that one believes "white people are the root of all evil." The two eventually
resolve the tension by agreeing that Jews should be the subject of their wrath.
"Technically I don't consider Jewish people white," the "woke" character says.
"Neither do I!" the "racist" character interrupts.
... ... ...
Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University
where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.
The Bidet Administration Goes Haywire 3 hours ago (Edited)
We are ruled by wicked, immoral and un-intellectual idiots who are getting far too high on
their own supply
I Write Code 2 hours ago
So Russia claims Donbas, China invades Taiwan, US annexes Greenland, Idaho claims half of
Oregon, and Mexico reclaims California. And Quebec just sits there and stews.
williambanzai7 PREMIUM 2 hours ago
And BLM claims Manhattan...
Jade_Dragon 1 hour ago
My 77 year old mom is as upset as anyone but is also still optimistic. I have other
reasons for spending May and possibly the summer in Mexico (if I get an English teaching job)
but I see little if any reason to come back if things are going well down there. America has
gone psycho. At the very least, I'm afraid the entire country will be run like California
before long
dead hobo 1 hour ago (Edited)
Agree. I'm old and set. My home is paid for and I've lived in it for over 20 years. It's
set up just like I want and a new place would have less going for it. Moving would be highly
disruptive, not to mention expensive.
Yet, I am still considering possibilities. Mexico cartels vs Democrat incited BLM mobs?
Hmm, which is better? Free states in the US offer alternatives. I live in Illinois, soon to
be a California level mess. Belize is English speaking.
The next 2 years or so will tell the tale.
2thelastman 1 hour ago
In two years you could easily see a wall built to keep people IN.
Anyway, somewhere that powerful leaders are not being seen and powerful --dare I say
revolutionary?-- forces are sweeping in, is football. The European Super League, so derided in
this Daily for the past two days, has crumbled . All six English clubs have pulled out, with
one or two even apologizing to "legacy" fans, and the vice-chair of Manchester United
resigning. Victory for the people's game! Victory for localism over globalism! Well, yes,
except it's far from certain the British government will now act as promised to deliver real
power back into fans' hands via partial ownership of the clubs they worship to stop this
happening again. Moreover, the pre-existing football structure we revert to includes an
expanded gilt-edged Champions League format, and a game that is still more about money than it
is about anything else.
So does this portend the end of Build Back Better globalism? Or the end of neoliberal
idiocy? Or the entrenchment of nasty neoliberalism as the savior from an even stupider version
of neoliberalism? Well, in markets, every time our system fails we swear we are changing it in
response – and then the same old faces do the same old things, but worse, under a new
badge.
The primary way this now happens of course is that central banks pretend that not only do
they not see the asset inflation they are deliberately stoking, they also don't see the
supply-side cost-push inflation . Instead, they talk about the wage inflation they can never
stoke alone – and which even fiscal policy in tandem can't either without people power
'football' policy. As we have just seen, this will also have to involve decoupling and
(peaceful) redrawing of economic borders around a local, national, or limited international
perimeter. On which note, the US push for a new liberal world fiscal order is reportedly
already in trouble ( no! ) because Amazon doesn't want to join the party: ' Taxation Dies in
Darkness ', it seems.
So to conclude my own epic here, which way are the powerful forces of history leading us?
And what are powerful leaders going to do to either resist or accelerate this momentum? It
seems odd for a global financial market with the attention span of a bowl of borscht to have to
consider, but that kind of Tolstoyan question is still one for the ages . Today particularly
so.
Lordflin 3 hours ago remove link
This is not idiocy...
It is desperation on the part of a group of ruthless, heartless psychopaths who are
currently gazing over the balconies in watchful fear... on the lookout for that far off glow
of midnight torches...
dead hobo 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
I was going to say the same thing, only less tactfully.
The mass media depends on terrorist stories and the acts that make people want to read or
watch them. That's what they want to Build Back Better. Inciting riots and worse is good for
business.
Globalists only want control and power so they can make profit. They want low costs for
goods, labor, and open borders to facilitate both. Globalists only care about BLM and the
like if they affect customer traffic. Their logical end result of Globalism is feudalism for
the 99%.
Democrats crave endless power. Racial politics is their stock in trade. Playing groups
against each other while doling out benefits is what being a Democrat means. Establishment
Republicans are parasites, for the most part.
People of good conscience are terrified of ending on the wrong side of the mob or as a
means to sell newspapers or attract eyeballs by the media. This creates useless law
enforcement at the local and federal levels, a milquetoast Supreme Court, and general apathy
all around. Simply saying 'No' could be a career ending or even a life threatening act.
To make my point, there's no reason for any of this to end. Over 1/2 of the 99% are proven
dimwits. Life is undoubtedly too complicated for them so the above groups appear to be
leaders and / or saviors. Perhaps 30% of the population is smart enough to cope with everyday
life. They are the minority.
Hence, I suspect we are only at the start of the decline and it will not end. There simply
aren't enough people to want it to end. The vast majority are either controlled by self
interest or too stupid to cope otherwise.
To Hell In A Handbasket 3 hours ago (Edited) remove link
So does this portend the end of Build Back Better globalism? Or the end of neoliberal
idiocy? Or the entrenchment of nasty neoliberalism as the savior from an even stupider
version of neoliberalism? Well, in markets, every time our system fails we swear we are
changing it in response – and then the same old faces do the same old things, but
worse, under a new badge.
Only 2 nations are the driving forces behind this ideology (UK & USSA) the rest merely
follow, and toe the line. The European Super League, was a stark reminder to most of these
American owners, that not only are they outted as greedy b@st@rds, but their version of
franchise sports, where no relegation, or promotion can be achieved, is not a model we'd ever
swallow.
As for the future? It's all about deluding the average IQ western dunce, that we are
blessed with resources, and wealth, when in reality we don't have any resources of note, nor
a pot to pl$$ in, and somehow manipulate an outcome where we control finance, and the value
of money for another 270+ years, like we have in the last epoch.
The dunces have no f##king idea of the predicament we'll be in, when we lose the scam of
deciding the fake value of each respective countries currency. If they did, as we say in
England "They'd top themselves" Alas, 75% of ZH, are economic retards, so the reality hit
will be even greater when they realise our entire economic model, and illusion of wealth is
one of the greatest lies ever perpetrated. Just as bad a lie as the Holocaust death
numbers.
Sound of the Suburbs 1 hour ago (Edited)
Neoclassical economics.
It's a crock of ****, but we've rigged it in our favour so we like it.
The rentiers at the top of society had been identified by classical economists.
This wouldn't do at all; they needed a new economics to hide this, neoclassical
economics.
The early neoclassical economists hid the problems of rentier activity in the economy by
removing the difference between "earned" and "unearned" income and they conflated "land" with
"capital".
They took the focus off the cost of living that had been so important to the Classical
Economists as this is where rentier activity in the economy shows up.
It confuses making money and creating wealth so all rich people look good.
If you know what real wealth creation is, you will realise many at the top don't create
any wealth.
It was a complete disaster last time we used it, but it is rigged in our favour.
How do we get this crock of **** back into the mainstream again?
If you wrap it in a fluffy new ideology, no one will notice.
OK, we'll call it neoliberalism.
What about the economists?
Surely they will notice.
You'll be fine, they won't notice.
Stuck on Zero 3 hours ago
Well, in markets, every time our system fails we swear we are changing it in response
– and then the same old faces do the same old things, but worse, under a new
badge.
Could be stated more generally:
Well, in markets, every time our system fails we swear we are changing it in response
– and then the same old faces do the same old things, but worse, under a new badge.
eatthebanksters 38 minutes ago
Right now the most dangerous thing in our country is the Cancel Culture, being driven by
Big Media. Big Media needs to be brought to its knees, faced with two choices: 1. Provide
fair and unbiased true journalism, or 2. Elimination. The number of people driving cancel
culture are actually few in number. The real number of activist Antifa/BLM is relatively
small, however their violent actions reverberate far and wide. They too must be shut down.
Until this happens, our country will continue to divide. I am of the opinion that Democrats
WANT Maga people to revolt so Dems can call in the military and crush the rebellion once and
for all. As a country we are not in a good place right now.
Sound of the Suburbs 2 hours ago
Neoliberalism – Little more than ideological nonsense held together by pseudo
economics.
As Townhall.com's Spencer Brown details , Chauvin's lawyers pointed out that jurors were
not sequestered during the case and therefore may not be free from outside influence in the
form of news updates they may have inadvertently or purposefully seen along with ongoing
violence in the community surrounding the Chauvin trial and approaching verdict.
Among their concerns, Chauvin's defense team pointed to Waters and her appearance with
demonstrators in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, over the weekend.
Even though the judge denied the defense's motion for mistrial, he highlighted the damage
her rhetoric may have done, saying "Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal
that may result in this whole trial being overturned."
Five million people in this country die of natural causes every year. Some of them happened
to have Covid when they passed. You might just as well say they died of tooth decay.
With
rioting continuing in Brooklyn Center , Minn. and around the country, Rep. Maxine Waters,
D-CA, went to Minnesota and told the protesters that they "gotta stay on the street" and "
get more confrontational ." The statement is ironic since Waters is one of the House
members currently suing former President Donald Trump and others for inciting violence on
January 6th with his words on the Mall. Waters insists that Trump telling his supporters to go
to the Capitol to make their voice heard and "fight" for their votes was actual criminal
incitement. Conversely, Waters was speaking after multiple nights of rioting and looting and
telling protesters to stay on the streets and get even more confrontational. There was violence
after the remarks, including a shooting incident where two National Guard members were
injured.
... ... ...
After Waters remarks,
protesters confronted reporters in a tense scene. Also protesters descended upon the home
of the prosecutor responsible for the second degree manslaughter charge against the officer who
killed Daunte Wright. Also the
Minnesota National Guard was fired upon , injuring at least two Guardsman. That is not to
say that Water incited such actions but that the same claimed nexus could be raised in making
such an allegation as was done in the Trump impeachment.
Carl Jung once said that "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an
understanding of ourselves". That certainly seems to be the case with Waters and Trump. It is
also why Waters could prove the only witness that Trump needs to call to defeat her own
lawsuit.
Browder's grandfather is Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA. Now
freely admitted that he held that post on the payroll of FBI and Office of Naval
Intelligence. Bill merely continues the family business of damaging Russia by any means
possible.
Interesting that the CNN producer on the Veritas video said that global
warming will be the next big fear-inducing corporate greenwashing campaign.
Would love to know where all these "narratives" are coordinated from and
by whom.
"... The USA has striven to obtain full spectrum dominance and they appear to have gotten close in terms of public political imagination, western political elites almost entirely in the 'hate russia' camp, useful idiots snapping at the Russian and Chinese heels, permanent state of conflict awareness and uncertainty in the public mind, perfection of colour revolution technique and its social infrastructure development mechanism. ..."
I think Scott Ritter is engaging in an imaginative future if he thinks the 'hate russia'
team has no successors. The academy will be full of them just itching for an interns job with
a congresscritter.
Speaking of warmongers, where is Tony Blair these days? Could he be the USA useful idiot
egging Boris on to sail a warship or two to the Black Sea? He never met a war he didn't like,
did the 'hard man' act for Bush the fool, and has been traipsing about any warzone
pontificating for a fat fee and would be right at home being the bumper-upper for Boris. It
would all be hush hush as he is hated in UK.
In 2018 Boris appointed the previous UK ambassador to Turkey, Richard Moore, to the Chief
of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He was formerly the Director General, Political, at
the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Moore attended St George's College,
Weybridge. Batchelor's degree at Worcester College, Oxford. He then won a Kennedy Scholarship
to study at the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University. In 2007, he attended the
Stanford Executive Programme.
Excellent article, B highlights that change won't come from the new administration BECAUSE
money flows to the congressional-industrial-military cabal only if the existing regime is in
power AND USA remains a 2 party system - one 'better' than China.
This principal was echoed in November 2020 by ex US Army Danny Sjursen
"...it's obvious that the Biden bunch has no desire to slow down, no less halt, the
"revolving door" that connects national security work in the government and jobs or
security consulting positions in the defense industry. The same goes for the think tanks
that the arms producers amply fund to justify the whole circus...
Or consider retired Marine Corps major general turned defense consultant Arnold Punaro
who recently said of Biden's coming tenure, "I think the industry will have, when it comes
to national security, a very positive view."
Given the evidence that business-as-usual will continue in the Biden years, perhaps it's
time to take that advice from Cornel West, absorb the truth about Biden's future national
security squad, and act accordingly. There's no top-down salvation on the agenda -- not
from Joe or his crew of consummate insiders. Pressure and change will flow from the
grassroots or it won't come at all."
Salvation can only COME FROM the good people of America
But the very voting system prevents other voices being heard. There is no proportional
representation, therefore no other views than the highly paid military-industrial
consultants, the merchants of violence.
The Tweedledum and Tweedledee American political system is ossified, inflexible,
suppressive.
A giant echo chamber.
Hello! Hello! anyone with a brain in there?
The echos bounce and fade. No reply.
American foreign policy is brain dead.
Until compulsory military service is Brought back to USA, all children of the highest
earning bracket straight to the front line, no soft touch deployments, no bone-spur
deferment.
Then, and only then, will foreign policy change under the US 2 party self-enrichment
system.
"...For four years, both "choices" were hammered by the Democrats into the supine brains
of the US masses. which has given rise to "automatic" and forceful unthinking
attitudes..."
This is not true, and pardon me for saying so because indeed there are elements of truth
in what you are saying. It is NOT the US masses that are grabbing guns and ammunition and
commiting mayhem on their fellow citizens. It is the gullible and the weak and the mentally
disturbed, who are present in any large and stressed society. They probably match the one
percenters at the top and cohorts in the ten percent - (just a guess on my part) but they are
NOT the 'masses'.
The masses have bucked the mainstream mantras of the past O-T and now B years. We don't
have power - power is as you say with the rich, with the party demagogues, with the leeches,
and as b points out, their rule is coming to an end but they still hold the reins of power.
Whether or not Biden saw, or Trump saw, or even Obama saw, that this is not the way it ought
to be - they have each been powerless to do anything about it in a meaningful way so far.
Don't give up. It's a long haul but here's where I agree with the TINA principle. There is
no alternative. We just have to keep on keeping on. The Dems will lose power in Congress come
next elections. There will be inroads made, and if Republicans get elected, so be it. A few
more will have better souls, and inch by inch the oldies will have to yield. It's gonna
happen. And, in answer to a post above:
What has Putinist regime "restraint " achieved so far except brazen falsehood and enmity?
Putin and his cohorts have achieved the reinstatement of the Russian Federation with
alignment with China and the tipping of the balance of world understanding in their favor.
This is a force mightier than the US and western allies neoliberal, oligarchic agenda, and
with patience and firm commitment it will prevail.
Thank you for that incisive statement. One only has to watch those 5 minute utoob by Steve
Pieczenic I posted to get a sense of the totality of USA dominance and imagined dominance and
the malign drivers of its reach. I know he is a blowhard but he was at the apex of the dirty
game. He is a rigid anticommunist, he talks as if Putin is one of their successes, he hates
Xi so he must be alarmed that they have been brought into anti empire unity.
The USA has striven to obtain full spectrum dominance and they appear to have gotten
close in terms of public political imagination, western political elites almost entirely in
the 'hate russia' camp, useful idiots snapping at the Russian and Chinese heels, permanent
state of conflict awareness and uncertainty in the public mind, perfection of colour
revolution technique and its social infrastructure development mechanism.
Conventional weaponry has slipped their grasp. But that is matched by an alternative that
they won't hesitate to use.
Putin and his cohorts have achieved the reinstatement of the Russian Federation with
alignment with China and the tipping of the balance of world understanding in their favor.
This is a force mightier than the US and western allies neoliberal, oligarchic agenda, and
with patience and firm commitment it will prevail.
Thank you, that is the essence of diplomacy and the avoidance of conflict and even
war.
War must end. It is an ignorant reversal of human progress, it poisons minds and the earth
itself. Its legacy is one of tears and material loss. It give no one person of good will any
benefit. It slaughters the innocent!! children, women and men and our environment. It is the
game of ignorance asserting superiority over thought and imagination.
It is the daring imagination of betterment that motivates the development of OBOR and the
east to west transit corridor in Russia. It is imagination of betterment to build trade and
access to economy and elevation from poverty that is of the utmost benefit to us humans
sharing and caring for this beautiful planet.
If the west cast off its parasitic mentality toward the other and embraced the same daring
imagination for its people's betterment they might come close to the achievements we have
seen in Russia and China and elsewhere that the philosophy is paramount. There is always hope
and the chance that might come about.
Intensifying anti Russian policies will result in the same outcomes the USA achieved in
their anti Iranian policies.
EJ Magnier reports on the recent JCPOA members meeting:
"The Islamic Republic proved to be a shark with sharp teeth during its negotiation with the
signatories (Russia, China, France, Great Britain and Germany) of the nuclear deal in
Vienna, leaving few choices to the negotiators. Iran showed how complex and inflexible its
position is with the most powerful county in the world, forbidding the US envoy to join the
mediators in the same room because Donald Trump revoked its 2015 nuclear deal agreement.
Moreover, Iran used the Israeli sabotage actions against the Natanz nuclear facility as an
excuse to hit Israel, the US and all European negotiators who side with the Americans...
...Iran did not ask for a guarantee against another Trump-like decision – which
revoked the nuclear deal – in the future because its nuclear capability is the
guarantee. Iran is not asking for a guarantee from China and Russia, which are under US
sanctions. Iran exhausted its patience in 2018 when it waited for an entire year without
using its right to gradually withdraw from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
Iran then believed Europe might come forward and hold to its commitments even if the US
pulled back. That was not the case, and Tehran is now aware that Europe and the US have the
same objectives hidden behind different behaviours.
Today it is known that Iran is enriching uranium up to 60% and can reach 90% in several
months. This does not mean Iran is necessarily producing nuclear weapons, but it is enough
to cross the West's red lines. If the US sanctions are not lifted or partially lifted, if
the deal is revoked or other sanctions are imposed in the future, Iran will fall back into
its complete nuclear cycle without any warning."
round-color: rgb(222, 227, 233); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">
Then, and only then, will foreign policy change under the US 2 party self-enrichment system.
"...For four years, both "choices" were hammered by the Democrats into the supine brains of the US masses. which has given rise to
"automatic" and forceful unthinking attitudes..."
This is not true, and pardon me for saying so because indeed there are elements of truth in what you are saying. It is NOT the US
masses that are grabbing guns and ammunition and commiting mayhem on their fellow citizens. It is the gullible and the weak and the
mentally disturbed, who are present in any large and stressed society. They probably match the one percenters at the top and cohorts
in the ten percent - (just a guess on my part) but they are NOT the 'masses'.
The masses have bucked the mainstream mantras of the past O-T and now B years. We don't have power - power is as you say with the
rich, with the party demagogues, with the leeches, and as b points out, their rule is coming to an end but they still hold the reins
of power. Whether or not Biden saw, or Trump saw, or even Obama saw, that this is not the way it ought to be - they have each been
powerless to do anything about it in a meaningful way so far.
Don't give up. It's a long haul but here's where I agree with the TINA principle. There is no alternative. We just have to keep on
keeping on. The Dems will lose power in Congress come next elections. There will be inroads made, and if Republicans get elected, so
be it. A few more will have better souls, and inch by inch the oldies will have to yield. It's gonna happen. And, in answer to a
post above:
What has Putinist regime "restraint " achieved so far except brazen falsehood and enmity?
Putin and his cohorts have achieved the reinstatement of the Russian Federation with alignment with China and the tipping of the
balance of world understanding in their favor. This is a force mightier than the US and western allies neoliberal, oligarchic
agenda, and with patience and firm commitment it will prevail.
Thank you for that incisive statement. One only has to watch those 5 minute utoob by Steve Pieczenic I posted to get a sense of the
totality of USA dominance and imagined dominance and the malign drivers of its reach. I know he is a blowhard but he was at the apex
of the dirty game. He is a rigid anticommunist, he talks as if Putin is one of their successes, he hates Xi so he must be alarmed
that they have been brought into anti empire unity.
The USA has striven to obtain full spectrum dominance and they appear to have gotten close in terms of public political
imagination, western political elites almost entirely in the 'hate russia' camp, useful idiots snapping at the Russian and Chinese
heels, permanent state of conflict awareness and uncertainty in the public mind, perfection of colour revolution technique and its
social infrastructure development mechanism.
Conventional weaponry has slipped their grasp. But that is matched by an alternative that they won't hesitate to use.
Putin and his cohorts have achieved the reinstatement of the Russian Federation with alignment with China and the tipping of the
balance of world understanding in their favor. This is a force mightier than the US and western allies neoliberal, oligarchic
agenda, and with patience and firm commitment it will prevail.
Thank you, that is the essence of diplomacy and the avoidance of conflict and even war.
War must end. It is an ignorant reversal of human progress, it poisons minds and the earth itself. Its legacy is one of tears and
material loss. It give no one person of good will any benefit. It slaughters the innocent!! children, women and men and our
environment. It is the game of ignorance asserting superiority over thought and imagination.
It is the daring imagination of betterment that motivates the development of OBOR and the east to west transit corridor in Russia.
It is imagination of betterment to build trade and access to economy and elevation from poverty that is of the utmost benefit to us
humans sharing and caring for this beautiful planet.
If the west cast off its parasitic mentality toward the other and embraced the same daring imagination for its people's betterment
they might come close to the achievements we have seen in Russia and China and elsewhere that the philosophy is paramount. There is
always hope and the chance that might come about.
Intensifying anti Russian policies will result in the same outcomes the USA achieved in their anti Iranian policies.
EJ Magnier reports on the recent JCPOA members meeting:
"The Islamic Republic proved to be a shark with sharp teeth during its negotiation with the signatories (Russia, China, France,
Great Britain and Germany) of the nuclear deal in Vienna, leaving few choices to the negotiators. Iran showed how complex and
inflexible its position is with the most powerful county in the world, forbidding the US envoy to join the mediators in the same
room because Donald Trump revoked its 2015 nuclear deal agreement. Moreover, Iran used the Israeli sabotage actions against the
Natanz nuclear facility as an excuse to hit Israel, the US and all European negotiators who side with the Americans...
...Iran did not ask for a guarantee against another Trump-like decision – which revoked the nuclear deal – in the future because
its nuclear capability is the guarantee. Iran is not asking for a guarantee from China and Russia, which are under US sanctions.
Iran exhausted its patience in 2018 when it waited for an entire year without using its right to gradually withdraw from the
JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Iran then believed Europe might come forward and hold to its commitments even if the
US pulled back. That was not the case, and Tehran is now aware that Europe and the US have the same objectives hidden behind
different behaviours.
Today it is known that Iran is enriching uranium up to 60% and can reach 90% in several months. This does not mean Iran is
necessarily producing nuclear weapons, but it is enough to cross the West's red lines. If the US sanctions are not lifted or
partially lifted, if the deal is revoked or other sanctions are imposed in the future, Iran will fall back into its complete
nuclear cycle without any warning."
sset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4689067">
https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4689067
Tom , Apr 17 2021 22:07 utc |
40
Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 17 2021 21:21 utc | 38
I suspect Sullivan and Blinken's next gig will be something like that. "We came here to
forget", but instead of the French Legion, it will be PMC Wagner.
Personally what I would do would be a Operation Bagration 2.0 at the slightest misstep by
Ukraine. There is may too much on the table here. Bio labs, nests of NATO rats, nuclear power
plants, NATO missiles on the Ukrainian and Belarus borders with Russia. Time to clear out the
rats including Lviv. After disinfecting this part of eastern Europe (again) of that other far
more dangerous virus, Nazism, life will be much more peaceful in that part of the world, and
likely by the domino effect (yes I actually said that!) to other places in the world plagued
by US exceptionalism.
... two decades a coordinated anti-Russia propaganda originating from the U.K. [MI-6
– its former spies – Khodorkovsky - The Interpreter - Henry Jackson Society] and
Washington DC a nest of anti-Russia lobbyists [Atlantic Council – BellingCat, etc]. In
fact it's the vast majority with groundless and poor reasoning, these folks despise
everything left, Socialist and Communist. Too many years and too much wealth have pushed the
anti-Russia agenda. The new generation with social media lack comprehension what information
is published and with what political agenda.
Due to the 9/11 attacks on America. the US and UK gave new life and purpose to NATO. From
Afghanistan the expeditionary force was sent to Libya and Syria. The colour revolutions gave
blood to anti-Putin rhetoric. US politics of both parties tried to divide the EU into Old and
New Europe. The criminal acts of CIA torture, rendition and black sites made a number of
states accomplishes in war crimes. No issue a decade later with drone assassinations. Calling
out "Putin" as killer is ridiculous looking in the mirror how many tens and hundreds of
thousands have died on the battlefield at the hands of the UK/US and allies. And the sales of
arms, munitions and lethal weapons reach new heights in the Middle East and warring
parties.
OCCRP Report: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2 Billion on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian
Rebels
The Czech Republic is responsible for arms and munitions delivery to Bulgarian arms
dealers working with Pentagon contracts. These ended up in the Ukraine, Syria, Libya and
Yemen. The bomb blast in Vrbetice most likely saved many (innocent) lives.
Some repentants
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Op-Ed of Dec. 2017 - 'NATO should not have committed to
membership of Ukraine and Georgia'
In the recent past I have written about Legatum at a time Anne Applebaum found her employ
at the think tank. The red alert signs and alarm bells were up at the time and I gave some
background information. The first lady of Poland (almost) and her hubby former UK citizen and
CIA agent Radek Sikorski of Afghan and Angola fame.
Anne Applebaum's Confession
Anne Applebaum: how my old friends paved the way for Trump and Brexit | The Guardian
– July 2020 |
We are to believe this cabal of humanity hating zealots will fade into the
background??
Because facts will matter???
Facts have never mattered. In this post-modern illusion our leaders call a reset, facts
actually have negative value...sorta like negative interest rates.
Expect insanity to multiply at the same rate as the money supply expands
Adam Curtis' new documentary series ("I Just Can't Get You out of my Head") deals (in
part) with the way the West's entire worldview sees everything in simplistic Manichean terms,
like Star Wars. The West is always good (even when they act immorally) and the baddies are
always lone rogues, like a spaghetti Western. WW2 shaped the West's entire thinking about its
role in the world: the Allies are on the side of decency and freedom while the enemy is
simply evil through and through, beyond redemption. A parade of baddies from Hitler to
Castro, Uncle Ho, Khomeini, Gaddafi, Hussein, Assad, Putin and Xi. Bond movies and Hollywood
write the scripts, the MSM pumps out the pulp. No one wants to hear that history is a tad
more complicated than bogeymen vs. Marvel superheroes, but then history does have a lovely
way of biting people on the ass...
Why Washington's Anti-Russian Policies Are Likely To IntensifyMina , Apr 19
2021 16:49 utc |
1
Thanks to a monoculture of anti-Russia hawks in U.S. policy institutions relations between
the U.S. and Russia are likely to further decline. But some hope might be seen at the
horizon.
Scott Ritter predicts the end of a
generation of anti-Russian influencers in Washington DC who depict Russia and is policies as
being run by just one man:
These "Putin whisperers" infiltrated every aspect of American culture and politics, their
writings achieving near-scripture-like reception in the pages of American newspapers and
political journals, and the authors of this intellectual dreck being offered prime seats at
the table of national security policymaking, either on the National Security Council, or as
a National Intelligence Officer.
...
These "Putin Whisperers" thrived during the administration of President Barack Obama, led
by the likes of Michael McFaul, and achieved near-critical mass during the Trump
administration, empowered by overly politicized claims of collusion with Russia by people
in the Trump circle. They continue to play an important role today, filling the airwaves
and pages with anti-Putin propaganda whose cumulative effect is to dumb down the American
public by demonizing Russia and its president to the point that any accusation will be
accepted at face value , regardless of the lack of corroborating evidence or the improbable
veracity of its claim; the recent scandal over allegations that
Russia paid the Taliban bounties to kill Americans in Afghanistan serves as an apt
illustration of this phenomenon.
Unfortunately the constant demonization of Russia's president by the 'Putin-whisperers'
has already led to some
tragic consequences :
A children's author and parish councillor died after a neighbour with mental health issues
shot him in the face and stamped on his head, believing he worked for Vladimir Putin and
was to blame for the spread of Covid-19, an inquest heard.
But the danger of seeing everything caused by just one man is much greater. It explains
the
confused policies of the Biden administration which may lead towards war.
Biden is a prisoner of his own anti-Russian rhetoric, influenced in large part by the need
to be seen as responding to a domestic political prerogative founded on decades of Russia -
and Putin-bashing at the hands of the "Putin whisperers" and their ilk. It is one thing to
spout off as a candidate for president; it is an altogether different reality to be serving
as president, where words and actions have life-or-death consequences.
As the realities set in the people and their policies will have to change:
These are policies pushed and promoted by the "Putin whisperers." For the moment, their
will continues to prevail. But their days are numbered, as realpolitik pragmatists in the
White House, Pentagon and Intelligence Community are recognizing the reality that the days
of taking for granted US global hegemony are over, and that for the United States to remain
relevant, it must adapt to the reality of a multi-polar world, and Russia's rightful role
therein. This will not happen overnight, but it is in the process of happening. In
promoting and supporting Biden's latest round of sanctions, the "Putin whisperers" have
reached their high-water mark. From here on out, their influence will begin to ebb as the
national security demand for fact-based assessments outstrips the domestic political need
for fact-free propaganda.
I am not that optimistic. The Blob is resistant to change because those who are inside it
tend to bite away anyone with even a slightly different view.
Consider the case of Matthew Rojansky, Director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is known as a middle-of-the-road expert of U.S.
and Soviet/Russian relations - not a hawk, but also not an appeaser.
Rojansky was supposed to chair the Russia desk in Biden's National Security Council. As
soon as that became know the 'Putin Whisperers' came out in force to fight the nomination.
Axios
led the charge :
Posted by b at 16:38
UTC |
Comments (54)
I am surprised that the Russians did not "leak" a few videos from the EU-sponsored refugee
camps in Greece. People becoming mad, violence, suicide attempts, it would be enough to close
for good the debate on Russian prisons.
1) Conflict is a career opportunity. Peace is a bad way to get the grants, bribe money,
and stature that the DC sociopaths want. No one whose career depends on conflict gets
promoted without conflict.
2) They believe (possibly correctly) that they can attack Russia indirectly, or directly via
proxy, and that Russia will only defend, rather than going on a counteroffensive.
3) Sociopaths have a psychological attachment to doing bad things. If a sociopath were given
a choice between scamming a client out of $1000 and earning that amount by selling a good
product, the sociopath would choose the former option every time, even if the profit and
effort were the same.
And, by the way, Washington (even american people) isn't the unique policy maker.
As James wrote
@ james | Apr 19 2021 4:19 utc | 62
[...]
russia leadership under putin and company have played their hand exceedingly well and have
not got sucked into playing the game the way the west has wanted them to[...]
I posted it in the morning
Putin, as a leader of a country with 180 millions citizens and a huge history (and the
wounds of USSR collapsus) must consider "Overton window". He done it very well.
As a "Commander in Chief", he must consider first, not to be defeated.
Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of
defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. #
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating
the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
We must stay focuse have at some facts (not fake) news. As b. focused, Russia weaponized...a lot
Russian new weapons/military doctrine since 2010, even not Russian propaganda.
Sanity will never set in without a massive defeat for Amerikastani interests. The most
obvious two, which are not mutually exclusive, are Occupied Syria (including the Muhaysinic
Emirate of Idlibistan and the Kyrd zionistan) and Ukranazistan. Russia needs to move on both
immediately and Brook no further delay. What has Putinist regime "restraint " achieved so far
except brazen falsehood and enmity?
It is possible that Biden is acting tough with symbolic sanctions to divert the attention
from the reality that the Nord Stream 2 is well and soon alive. He also gets praise from the
anti-russia
elements in his government.
Yet Ritter is right in a way. The tit-for-tat that Russia has decided to start will escalate
to the point of a serious accident that may shake the USA. That Biden qualify Russia's
response to the sanctions as "escalatory" shows that he took note that Russia will not stop
retaliating. He is starting to worry that this path will lead to a paralysis of the
diplomatic exchange on several important issues and to violent consequences detrimental to
the USA and its allies.
Is Biden still mentally capable of an independent opinion?
There are complex historical reasons for Central and Eastern European countries to tilt
toward the US and become "anti-Russia," which is difficult for outsiders to comment on. It
is a pity that internal disintegration rather than coercion from the US had directly led to
the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation was one of the main promoters of
the disintegration, and the original agreement to replace the Soviet Union with the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was signed by Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian
leaders who had destroyed the Soviet Union had no idea what would happen to their country
afterward.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has brought about geopolitical changes globally, and
the evaluation of the event is destined to vary from country to country and from time to
time. But it has become increasingly clear that Russia has been the biggest loser from that
collapse.
Many Russians once believed that when the Communist Party stepped down and the Soviet
Union collapsed, the US and the West would embrace Russia and respect them who had taken
the initiative to end the Cold War. The reality, however, is harsh. Moscow has received no
gratitude or kindness from the West. From the moment the Soviet Union collapsed, the US has
arrogantly treated Russia as a defeated country in the Cold War, engaging in all possible
moves to suppress Russia at will.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster for Russia. As the dominant
power in the Soviet Union, if it chose to support reforms to solve problems at the
beginning, Russia could pay a much smaller price than the geopolitical price it would pay
in the following 30 years. Back then, Moscow had a broad sphere of influence and powerful
control capability that it could act independently and defiantly against Washington. But it
has ceded those geopolitical resources, giving up its advantages.
The US' vicious attitude toward Russia offers a glimpse into the brutality of great
power competition and helps people see through Washington's geopolitical manipulation
measures. The US portrayed its Cold War with the Soviet Union as an ideological
confrontation to conceal its intention to dominate the world alone. Many people, including
Russians, believed that a political change of course would fundamentally change their
relationship with the US, and that Russia could thus integrate into the West and become a
dignified member of the Group of Eight.
However, if the foreign policy establishment learned nothing and suffered neither personal
nor professional consequences from the War on Iraq, what makes Ritter so sure that anything
will be different this time?
This attitude was not uncommon among others, such as the Eastern Europeans.
Before 1991, they were vassals of USSR, now they are vassals of vassals - a notch down the
pecking order.
In Iran, there have been several million people - largely inhabiting the Greater Tehran
area and rather influential - who shared an analogous attitude as the Russians did before
1991.
Fortunately for Iran, Judeo-Christians tried to destroy her by trying to destroy her
economy.
Now, that population, has no leg to stand on - they are discredited domestically as their
programme of productive engagement with the West turned out to be a fool's errand.
Russians, in 1991, did not expect USSR to break-up, they did not understand that USSR was
unified in the corpus of the Red Tsar - just like the Russian Empire was unified (like the
United Kingdom) in the person of the Emperor of Russia.
In an analogous manner, the "Secularist Liberals" in Iran, denizens of Tehran - should
they get to power, will preside over the disintegration of Iran, since she is unified in the
Shia Religion.
It is indeed necessary for the US to recognize the reality of a multi-polar world.
However, let us be accurate, the West is one and only one empire of the Five Eyes alliance
and not just the US.
Ultimately the question is this: Will the Western empire accept it has failed and will never
control the entire world or will it use the nuclear weapons it used twice to become a global
empire to ruin the world for anyone else?
Browder's grandfather is Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA. Now
freely admitted that he held that post on the payroll of FBI and Office of Naval
Intelligence. Bill merely continues the family business of damaging Russia by any means
possible.
" The CIA/Establishment/Neocon/liberal doctrine of a unitary imperial superpower that must
assimilate all of creation into its usurious, profit making empire, or else, is challenged
seriously by few."
There is NOTHING "liberal" in how our latest empire persues it's prerogatives of global
corporate hegemony.
... two decades a coordinated anti-Russia propaganda originating from the U.K. [MI-6
– its former spies – Khodorkovsky - The Interpreter - Henry Jackson Society] and
Washington DC a nest of anti-Russia lobbyists [Atlantic Council – BellingCat, etc]. In
fact it's the vast majority with groundless and poor reasoning, these folks despise
everything left, Socialist and Communist. Too many years and too much wealth have pushed the
anti-Russia agenda. The new generation with social media lack comprehension what information
is published and with what political agenda.
Due to the 9/11 attacks on America. the US and UK gave new life and purpose to NATO. From
Afghanistan the expeditionary force was sent to Libya and Syria. The colour revolutions gave
blood to anti-Putin rhetoric. US politics of both parties tried to divide the EU into Old and
New Europe. The criminal acts of CIA torture, rendition and black sites made a number of
states accomplishes in war crimes. No issue a decade later with drone assassinations. Calling
out "Putin" as killer is ridiculous looking in the mirror how many tens and hundreds of
thousands have died on the battlefield at the hands of the UK/US and allies. And the sales of
arms, munitions and lethal weapons reach new heights in the Middle East and warring
parties.
OCCRP Report: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2 Billion on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian
Rebels
The Czech Republic is responsible for arms and munitions delivery to Bulgarian arms
dealers working with Pentagon contracts. These ended up in the Ukraine, Syria, Libya and
Yemen. The bomb blast in Vrbetice most likely saved many (innocent) lives.
Some repentants
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Op-Ed of Dec. 2017 - 'NATO should not have committed to
membership of Ukraine and Georgia'
In the recent past I have written about Legatum at a time Anne Applebaum found her employ
at the think tank. The red alert signs and alarm bells were up at the time and I gave some
background information. The first lady of Poland (almost) and her hubby former UK citizen and
CIA agent Radek Sikorski of Afghan and Angola fame.
Anne Applebaum's Confession
Anne Applebaum: how my old friends paved the way for Trump and Brexit | The Guardian
– July 2020 |
We are to believe this cabal of humanity hating zealots will fade into the
background??
Because facts will matter???
Facts have never mattered. In this post-modern illusion our leaders call a reset, facts
actually have negative value...sorta like negative interest rates.
Expect insanity to multiply at the same rate as the money supply expands
Adam Curtis' new documentary series ("I Just Can't Get You out of my Head") deals (in
part) with the way the West's entire worldview sees everything in simplistic Manichean terms,
like Star Wars. The West is always good (even when they act immorally) and the baddies are
always lone rogues, like a spaghetti Western. WW2 shaped the West's entire thinking about its
role in the world: the Allies are on the side of decency and freedom while the enemy is
simply evil through and through, beyond redemption. A parade of baddies from Hitler to
Castro, Uncle Ho, Khomeini, Gaddafi, Hussein, Assad, Putin and Xi. Bond movies and Hollywood
write the scripts, the MSM pumps out the pulp. No one wants to hear that history is a tad
more complicated than bogeymen vs. Marvel superheroes, but then history does have a lovely
way of biting people on the ass...
No one fact check's the claims made by the intelligent agencies. Bernie was told the
Russians wanted him to win the election and he jump right in the laps of the liars. Trump
knew more before he was president than he did once he was elected. That is why General Flynn
was removed under false charges. He knew what was what. I remember the head of the CIA told
Trump that the Russian has killed ducks and poison children. Trump fell for the lie hook line
and casino
Now we have a president that has mental issues and already believes the Russian are dirty
What could go wrong?
Don't make simple things complicated the irony of starting this way for this post lol :D
(of course everything is complicated as well as simple, language betrays us all).
· The people of the Warsaw pact and then the Russians did what they did for
themselves and not for others, and they did it by themselves. It went well as long as the
people were in charge (ie. the initial actions) but the politicians then soon messed it up as
politicians anywhere are bound to do.
Gorbachev and Yeltsin didn't want or wish for disasters due to the results they got (and
maybe their tasks were impossible in their context). Clear mistakes were made and crimes
"allowed", far too much was rushed and ill thought out. The politicians had no way of being
prepared any more than they would be in the US right now.
· The US is out-competed, dysfunctional, and trapped in a cycle of excuses
in order to shoehorn their labyrinth of lies into their current reality. All people lie
despite this clear lesson as to why no one should, it is the lies one tells without realizing
they are lies that are the worst. This is much like the USSR was but easily even worse.
Will people in Europe and the US manage to duplicate the fall of the Warsaw pact and the
USSR? Right now it looks unlikely but remember or be aware that no one predicted the fall of
the Iron Curtain or the Politburo and most if not all outsiders in "the west" had trouble
believing it and understanding it when it happened or even now (and especially people
on both/all sides that are running on ideological biases as fuel).
(Our systems and models do not capture reality and can not, not even theoretically, a
different bigger discussion which boils down to the Shannon limit in the end (but I notice
thermodynamics is contentious among some so why would I invite that much work?)).
A repeat of history is not necessary nor automatic; the US isn't doing anything to stop
its own ongoing fall, at least not anything that I have noticed.
Because b is right.
(I really hope the CPC has a better grasp on this than that article vk posted hints at
because I want a stable prosperous China and that includes/demands the continuation of the
CPC and the way they have shaped and structured the Chinese system which is noticeable for
not taking the USSR approach that worked itself into a blind alley despite decades of
repeated attempts at reform (hell even Stalin tried)).
This was Bush racket. Invasion on false pretenses to establish a foothold
and get to former USSR republic. This move was initially a big success (and
Putin helped by using his influence on Northern Alliance) but later
backfire. In other words this was typical imperial policy.
I would guess 2 things, 1. He's hoping if he ends the war then none
of the terrorists that just snuck in won't attack. 2. He plans on
starting a war elsewhere.
"Obama may have gotten (U.S. soldiers) out wrong, but going in is,
to me, the biggest single mistake made in the history of our
country." -- Donald J. Trump
The policies of the Biden administration towards Russia and China are delusional. It
thinks that it can squeeze these countries but still successfully ask them for cooperation.
It believes that the U.S. position is stronger than it really is and that China and Russia
are much weaker than they are.
It is also full of projection. The U.S. accuses both countries of striving for empire, of
wanting to annex more land and of human rights violations. But is only the U.S. that has
expanding aspirations. Neither China nor Russia are interested in running an empire. They
have no interest in planting military bases all over the world. Though both have marginal
border conflicts they do not want to acquire more land. And while the U.S. bashes both
countries for alleged human rights issues it is starving whole populations (Yemen, Syria,
Venezuela) through violence and economic sanctions.
The U.S. power structures in the Pentagon and CIA use the false accusations against Russia
and China as pretense for cold military and hot economic wars against both countries. They
use color revolution schemes (Ukraine, Myanmar) to create U.S. controlled proxy forces near
their borders.
At the same time as it tries to press these countries the U.S. is seeking their
cooperation in selected fields. It falsely believes that it has some magical leverage.
Consider this exchange from yesterday's White House
press briefing about Biden asking for a summit with Putin while, at the same time,
implementing more sanctions against Russia:
Q What if [Putin] says "no," though? Wouldn't that indicate some weakness on the part of
the American administration here?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I think the President's view is that Russia is on the outside of the
global community in many respects, at this point in time. It's the G7, not the G8. They
have -- obviously, we've put sanctions in place in order to send a clear message that there
should be consequences for the actions; the Europeans have also done that.
What the President is offering is a bridge back. And so, certainly, he believes it's in
their interests to take him up on that offer.
The G7 are not the 'global community'. They have altogether some 500 million inhabitants
out of 7.9 billion strong global population. Neither China nor India are members of the G7
nor is any South American or African country. Moreover Russia has
rejected a Russian return into the G7/8 format:
"Russia is focused on other formats, apart from the G7," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
said in a brief statement ..
Russia has no interest in a summit which would only be used by the U.S. to further bash
Russia. Why should it give Biden that pleasure when there is nothing that Russia would gain
from it. Russia does not need a 'bridge back'. There will be no summit.
... ... ...
If Biden wants cooperation with Russia or China he needs to reign in the hawks and stop
his attacks on those countries. As he is not willing or capable of doing that any further
cooperation attempts will fall flat.
The U.S. has to learn that it is no longer the top dog. It can not work ceaselessly to
impact Russia's and China's military and economic security and still expect them to
cooperate. If it wants something it will first have to cease the attacks and to accept
multilateral relationships.
Posted by b on April 17, 2021 at 17:53 UTC |
Permalink
"It can not work ceaselessly to impact Russia's and China's military and economic security
and still expect them to cooperate"
You have to understand the USA. They're doing it against Europe on a daily basis, and it
actually works... Get them confused why it doesn't always work against others.
It's interesting what's happening right now (in the past hour or so).
First: Russian and Belorussian news about the arrest of leaders (or key participants) of
an attempted military coup in Belarus, planned by the US security services.
Then, 30 minutes later: the Czechs expel 18 Russian diplomats, accusing them of spying and
of connection to some explosion back in 2014.
I could've been skeptical about the details of the first story, but the second one seems
to confirm it. The second story appears to be an obvious attempt to squeeze the first one out
of the news. And who else could order the Czech government to do this with a 30 minute
notice?
Wouldn't Oceania rulers love to print more of their own currency to buy up all the paper
rights to industrial output without having to invest in the factories or anything else! They
love this kind of business model.
"The secret of success is to own nothing but control everything."
Because of what's at stake and how little I trust Oceania, I confess I no longer have an
opinion about global warming. Even if many of its scientists are *earnest*, who obtained,
processed, and stored the data before they started building models? Those institutions are
capable of anything.
"... The guy with the badge didn't kill Floyd, he committed suicide by ingesting an overdose of Fentanyl. The Autopsy showed he had a level of 11ng/ml and 3 ng/ml is a Lethal Level. I don't see how the Medical Examiner didn't rule cause of death was Fentanyl. ..."
Didn't the life of the 7 year old Chicago girl shot in the head while in line at a McDonalds
by a gang member "matter"?
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 14 minutes ago
Unfortunately not
If she had been shot by a Caucasian cop than it would matter
Yes I am sure - is shot or Caucasian the offending word of the day
EDWARD HINES SUBSCRIBER 6 minutes ago
Exploitation value is all that "matters" to these people.
Chloe Kelley SUBSCRIBER 10 minutes ago
Will that gang member go to jail? Will hundreds of people try to justify the murder as just.
Was the little girl somewhere she shouldn't have been? Was she breaking the law? Was it past
curfew?
These are questions no one asks when a little girl gets shot. Its obvious that murder is
wrong. Her killer is caught and tried and goes to jail.
When I cop kills someone in cold blood in front of your eyes, you are still willing to and
actually search for reasons other than the obvious. It isn't the murder but the reaction to
it that people protest.
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 5 minutes ago (Edited)
so its less new worthy and therefore better for a gang member to shoot a little girl than for
a felon to die while resisting arrest
Interesting way to view things
Andrew T SUBSCRIBER 16 minutes ago (Edited)
Get ready for more Democrat riots. Remember Maxine Waters' "get more confrontational" call to
protesters.
Jerome Ogden SUBSCRIBER 17 minutes ago
The daily threats and attacks on Chauvin defenders must be having a deep psychological impact
on the unsequestered jury.
A guilty verdict for even the least serious charge of manslaughter will surely trigger an
appeal of the decision not to allow a change of venue. And I believe it will have a good
chance of success. Here's why:
Jack Ruby's conviction by a Dallas jury in 1964 for killing Oswald was overturned on
appeal because Ruby's motion for a change of venue was denied. The appeals court judges
recognized that holding the trial in Dallas denied Ruby an impartial jury, because jurors
residing in that city would feel a unique duty to remove the stain that the Kennedy and
Oswald assassinations had left on their city. (google)
Jurors residing in Minneapolis are human. They cannot be impartial under constant mob
intimidation.
I'm betting the appeals court will grant Chauvin a new trial if found guity.
Anything less would mean our judicial system itself is bowing to mob rule.
RICHARD MARTIN SUBSCRIBER 21 minutes ago
"Beyond a reasonable doubt," is the legal bench mark, and it hasn't been met no matter how
frustrated you are about the restraint technique used the police in this instance. Mr.
Floyd's drug use was a contributing factor to his death whether Maxine Waters thinks so or
not.
A. James Tagg SUBSCRIBER 22 minutes ago
Watching politicians gas light minorities is so funny to watch, just wait to see the results
of the power vacuum created by the lack of a police presence in these communities. The
result..... one of the worst crime waves that is just gonna SHRED they're community for
years.
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 16 minutes ago
crime in Minneapolis has been on the rise all year. At one point I remember an article in
which the MInneapolis police chief asked for assistance from other law enforcement agencies
because of all the retirements and lack of funding did not have enough cops to handle the
crime ridden city
Jerome Abernathy SUBSCRIBER 29 minutes ago
At the point Floyd lost consciousness, Chauvin's partner checked Floyd and said he couldn't
find a pulse, yet Chauvin stayed on his neck for over 3 minutes more. He knew Floyd was
unconscious, he knew he had no pulse, yet he stayed on his neck. He didn't administer aid, he
continued grind his neck into his neck. None of the other evidence matters for 2nd degree
murder.
Violet Liskey SUBSCRIBER 25 minutes ago
Sufficient in my mind for a second degree manslaughter conviction.
Mac Moore SUBSCRIBER 23 minutes ago
Abernathy writes, "At the point Floyd lost consciousness, Chauvin's partner checked Floyd and
said he couldn't find a pulse, yet Chauvin stayed on his neck for over 3 minutes more."
So, what? Are you looking for evidence to support your hate? How is that helpful? They
jury has all of the facts. The Prosecutors and Defense delivered excellent arguments and
supported them with facts. It seems all of your evidence is of only one perspective. The Jury
has both. I will await their decision, not yours.
Rick Krieger SUBSCRIBER 23 minutes ago
And the Floyd family will skip town with $27 million from the citizens of Minnesota.
Bruce Rado SUBSCRIBER 11 minutes ago
Thank Chauvin for that. The city settled because the bar for a civil award is only "the
preponderance of evidence," and anyone with two functioning eyes could see that Floyd's death
was "wrongful," and that Chauvin's actions were the proximate cause of Floyd's death.
Ellyn Oys SUBSCRIBER 2 minutes ago (Edited)
That is the fascinating part. I awaiting news as to how they spend it. Will they start with a
row of pink Cadillacs?
D REYNOLDS SUBSCRIBER 19 minutes ago
People who don't make a habit of getting high, committing crimes, then resisting arrest have
nothing to worry about.
John Bartlett SUBSCRIBER 9 minutes ago
Especially after ingesting a lethal dose of Fentanyl, Floyd's blood showed 11 ng/ml and
3ng/ml is considered a lethal level.
BRUCE MONTGOMERY SUBSCRIBER 32 minutes ago
Interesting final arguments by the prosecution which just wrapped up.
Next up, the Defense, then rebuttal by the State before the case concludes and jury begins
its deliberations.
The prosecution highlighted the pain suffered by Floyd under Chauvin's knee. Floyd
complained that he couldn't breath and about the pain in his stomach and neck.
According to the Mayo Clinic website, symptoms relating to an "enlarged heart," often
include shortness of breath and may also include chest pain, discomfort in other areas of the
upper body (one or both arms, neck, back, stomach and severe shortness of breath which may
indicate a heart attack), and fainting.
It is inexplicable, however, why Chauvin did not take his knee off Floyd when he had no
pulse. . .
EDWARD HINES SUBSCRIBER 44 minutes ago
National Guard in DC are playing video games on their phones.
As Minneapolis is largely unprotected, sacrificed for a political agenda.
Violet Liskey SUBSCRIBER 45 minutes ago
Bad closing prosecutor argument is going to justify a stronger reaction if the decision does
not go in the direction of the mob - we needed Steve to do a better job for all concerned
ted williams SUBSCRIBER 41 minutes ago
Which mob? The Jan 6 mob?? I'm confused
Kevin Burke SUBSCRIBER 37 minutes ago
The summer of love mob.
Richard Acuti SUBSCRIBER 52 minutes ago
The verdict and the sentence are irrelevant.
More rioting and violence will occur no matter the output of the trial.
This is a tragic tale of a lousy human being being killed by another lousy human being
with a badge. Neither of these guys are any good.
John Bartlett SUBSCRIBER 45 minutes ago
The guy with the badge didn't kill Floyd, he committed suicide by ingesting an overdose
of Fentanyl. The Autopsy showed he had a level of 11ng/ml and 3 ng/ml is a Lethal Level. I
don't see how the Medical Examiner didn't rule cause of death was Fentanyl.
John Bartlett SUBSCRIBER 9 minutes ago
The Medical Examiner is at fault for not listing Fentanyl as the cause of death, Floyd's
Autopsy showed he had 11 ng/ml and 3 is considered Lethal. An overdose of Fentanyl causes the
persons respiration to slow and even stop and that's what happened to Floyd.
Jerome Abernathy SUBSCRIBER 28 minutes ago
"This is a tragic tale of a lousy human being being killed by another lousy human being with
a badge."
Floyd was addicted to opioids like millions of other Americans. That didn't make him a
lousy human. But, I do question what type of person would accuse him of such.
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 26 minutes ago
he was also a felon who was in the process of committing a crime -
does that qualify as a lousy human?
Maria Thompson SUBSCRIBER 20 minutes ago
... Conviction for first degree home-invasion robbery where he pointed a gun at a pregnant
woman's abdomen
the Media doesn't mention it much
EDWARD HINES SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Looting And burning Footlocker basketball shoe stores will make everything better.
paul grunder SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Maxine Waters was despicable in what she did by encouraging rioters. Then I also think Chris
Cuomo of CNN should be fired for basically saying, unless white children are shot there will
be no justice Why would anyone encourage the deaths of any children? We have a sicko nation.
p's wife
Albert Griffith SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
The prosecution's closing argument is way too long. He's playing to the cameras.
EDWARD HINES SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
He wants a CNN show when this is all over.
mitch wilkerson SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
how much pressure was the knee on his back? That's the 64 dollar question. I see not enough
to kill him but merely to restrain as he was high
Violet Liskey SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
I don't think there is any way to know - only the best guess of experts who may nor may not
be influenced by other factors
Keith Dowling SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
I wonder, did the defense point out that G. Floyd said he couldn't breath before he was put
on the ground? That seems to be proof that the restraining hold had nothing to do with his
breathing issues.
The other factor is, what impact did the crowd have on delaying the paramedics in
accessing and treating Mr. Floyd? They said they did a "load and scoot" due to the unruly
crowd.
Mac Moore SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Dowling writes, "I wonder, did the defense point out that G. Floyd said he couldn't breath
before he was put on the ground?"
Yes. The Defense has been excellent. Both desks, Defense / Prosecutors, presented their
positions very well. The Jury has a good balance of facts and arguments to work with. I don't
know how they will find, but my guess is that at least one or more jurors will not be able to
conclude murder / manslaughter by the police.
EDWARD HINES SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
A 7 year girl in Chicagoland was shot in the head yesterday by a gang member and killed.
She was not fighting with police or under the influence of fentanyl.
Was in line at a McDonalds.
No media coverage.
D REYNOLDS SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
I read about it on Fox News. Didn't see it mentioned on CNN however.
karen graham SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
It's on CNN.
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
so where are the "peaceful protests"
Thomas Fowler SUBSCRIBER 46 minutes ago
There won't be any because if a black is killed by another black, there's no political gain
to be had. This just proves that black lives don't matter unless a white (or maybe Asian) is
involved.
Gregory Weinman SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Based on the evidence I would acquit murder charges. Murder requires an intent the
prosecution has not proven. Involuntary manslaughter in Minnesota is called manslaughter in
the second degree. That seems the appropriate charge. Based on Officer Chauvin's negligence
in the death of Mr Floyd I would convict.
Representative Waters was filmed inciting riot if the jury acquits on murder. She did this in
Brooklyn Center MN, a city already in flames If Minneapolis erupts in riot will she face
sanction or dismissal? I wouldn't bet on it.
Jerome Feldman SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago (Edited)
Is anything going to be done to protect the anonymity of the jurors...as is done in mob
trials?
Not that anything can be done in this day and age. It is likely that the identity of each
juror is already public knowledge.
(Mrs. JF)
M Ruri SUBSCRIBER 47 minutes ago
That is a major issue as to an appeal of the verdict I believe.... because many selected
jurors did say they were worried about their safety in being selected.
John Harris SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Q: Why were those "9 minutes" necessary?
A: Because he had been successful in forcibly resisting arrest (involving the entire police
force available) during the earlier 20 minutes ... just BEFORE!
...... Summary: It's that SIMPLE!
Violet Liskey SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago (Edited)
I think Floyd passed out at 20:24-5 and was not resisting for the last 3 mins of the 9 mins.
And that is the best prosecutors case for at least second degree manslaughter.
Violet Liskey SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
So far prosecutor's closing argument has been disappointing - playing the jury -- by
misleading claims 9:24, 9:24, 9: 24 or superhumans do not exist in real life or (I know, not
the defense, what Chauvin knows) he knew, he knew, he knew, mock, mock, mock -- guess Steve
figures the jury has the intelligence of 8 year-olds and he is willing to yank their strings
.. although not saying he is wrong
Joseph Areeda SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
I can't help but think the reaction of the mob will hang over jury deliberations.
Imagine the press reaction if Trump had used language similar to Maxine Water's on Jan
5
We've got to stay on the street and we've got to get more active, we've got to get more
confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business.
I pray Mr. Chauvin gets a fair verdict than depends on his actions and the law
not on expected mob reactions, but I don't see how that's possible.
Girish Kotwal SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Will police officer Derek Chauvin get proper justice from a jury that is being ferociously
intimidated to give a guilty verdict by an organized mob and filthy politicians like Maxine
Watters? It will be the responsibility of the judge and the justice department to assure that
the intimidation should have no influence on the verdict and the jury will be protected from
any repercussions of their verdict no matter what it is. Jury protection measures should be
in place until the mob calms down. I don't think that some of the organizations that were
rioting which are the poodles of the Dems are going to be rioting no matter what the decision
is because after the summer riots they got what they wanted which is the installation of
Biden in the white house. So now they have their puppy in the white house and he is doing
exactly what they want him to do.
The Dems have sowed the seeds of race wars and mass shootings that they cannot blame
Trump. Crime is a crime and deserves to be punished.
karen graham SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago (Edited)
Do you know who the jurors are? This is obviously a high profile case, but who do you think
is intimidating them?
And how did you get Trump into this?
D REYNOLDS SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Perhaps the mob gathering outside the courthouse?
Randall Digby SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
and a US Representative from the state of California that the moderators will not allow to be
named.
Alan Pronesti SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago (Edited)
A couple of years ago I watched a documentary on PBS on African American voters, and it said
that if Black participation rates in elections drops just a tiny % (don't remember the
number) Democrats would get killed in elections. If it wasn't for that we wouldn't know who
George Floyd is.
Once that changes the Democrats, Media, and Liberals will throw African Americans under
the bus.
This is not about race it's all about elections for Democrats.
Michael Dulaney SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
No. It was if the death of Floyd was caused only by the action of the police officer or if
there were other factors that, had they not existed, would not have resulted in death.
Floyd's body was full of drugs.
We will see if, in the United States today, Justice is Blind or Justice is now Mob
Rule.
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
Let the
"peaceful protests" begin
ALAN SEWELL SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
They already have. Somebody left a severed head of a porcine animal in the driveway of a
defense witness last night.
Scott Manson CPA JD SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
did it have an apple in its mouth?
Michael Dulaney SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Our democratic cousins.
Jason Miller SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
Chauvin was already convicted in the media before stepping into court. The majority of the
public also convicted him before knowing all of the facts. So I hope the jury is doing their
job, not judging him from a biased media perspective that has plagued our nation for years.
Either way, there will be riots, whether he's found guilty or not guilty.
Michael Dulaney SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Retail outlets need to board up before "shopping" begins when the verdict is read.
Michael Schmitt SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago (Edited)
Chicago stores (in all neighborhoods) started boarding up last week. Who wants to go shopping
in person any more? Between rioting, carjackings, personal attacks, homeless on every corner,
it's dangerous and not pleasant. Online shopping will take over. Retail, real estate and
insurance industries need to step up and call out this destruction.
K R HANINGTON SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
I would hope that everyone would be willing to accept the verdict of the jury, no
matter what the outcome.
This is foundational for our justice system and indeed for our country. People who have
not you been in the courtroom to hear all the testimony, to see all the evidence should
accept the Judgment of the jury. You don't have to be happy with it but you should accept it.
Outside agitators, such as Representative Maxine Waters, should be held in contempt.
Michael Dulaney SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Maxine Waters is calling for protests against the government. Don't know about Minneapolis,
but in Washington DC she called this an "insurrection".
Maybe she should be tried for treason.
Rachel Glyn SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
I'm not sure whether anybody can be unbiased enough to judge to what extent Chauvin, as
opposed to George Floyd's drug use and heart condition, caused Mr Floyd's death. Radical
supporters of BLM are convinced that Chauvin murdered Floyd and it was racially motivated.
Some on the Right discount any involvement from Chauvin and blame it all on Mr Floyd. Even if
I were on the jury to hear all the scientific evidence, I might not feel qualified to
decide.
I also am unsure whether any jurors can really make an unbiased decision. Even in a worst
case scenario, if Chauvin is racist and evil and deliberately cause Mr Floyd's death, the
jury should decide based on evidence and not mob threats. I'd like to know if the jurors have
heard outside news and if they fear for their own safety.
karen graham SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
Jurors are instructed not to listen to outside news. Juries tend to take their
responsibilities very seriously.
AM Losee SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
I think a lot of people are convinced this was murder. People were screaming at Chauvin to
get his knee off his neck. How much more blatant can it get?
Because you and other right wingers hate Floyd, you are making excuses for a bad cop, a
really bad cop, who already had 17 marks against his record, some for excessive
punishment.
The guy should have been thrown off the force.
Mac Moore SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Losee writes, "I think a lot of people are convinced this was murder."
That is the sad truth. When your lens is blinded by hate, one has difficulty seeing it any
other way.
Michael Dulaney SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
The broad generalization you make against "right wingers"...."hating Floyd" shows that racism
is indeed alive and well in your neck of the woods.
Bruce Anderson SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
AM - how do you know who hates Floyd?
you are a mind reader with a crystal ball?
what a dum statement.
no one heard of Floyd before and now they hate him ?
Charles McGill SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
yes AM and leftists are mind readers and not only that but are righteous, always correct, and
think all sheep should stand quietly and get fleeced.
Joseph Rosenberger SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
What a sad mess.
Mac Moore SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
The flame throwers, Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, James, BLM, and, their enablers in the MSM ....
have poisoned the waters of rational thought in America. They have far too many citizens
viewing this event through a racist lens that they created for political malfeasance to gain
power. It is sick.
Floyd was there as a culminations of hundreds, if not thousands, of bad choices of his own
making. The police were there as a request. If Floyd had chosen to comply with the police,
the outcome would have been completely different. How the police acted to gain submission is
in question, but it is political theatrics to call it murder.
For an acquittal, the defense must similarly convince all 12 jurors that the prosecution
failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But it takes only one juror to "hang" the
jury. That means that if 11 jurors want to vote to convict on at least one of the charges
against Chauvin, but one juror doesn't believe the government has met its burden of proof,
there won't be a verdict. Instead, there will be a mistrial, and although the government can
retry the case down the road, a hung jury involves delay and the risk that as the evidence
ages, the prosecution's case may become weaker.
OMG. I just watched 2 strong young black men have a conversation
without screaming RACISM. All they talked about was our freedoms and
our rights. I love watching Lawrence, he is a breath of fresh air in
the media. We need more people like these 2 men to keep the
conversation going about protecting everyone's rights.
It's sad that money was used to help people not for her to buy four
houses I don't understand I work in Brooklyn a lot of people would
need those donations. Sad 🥺
A foreign military bloc of nations is inching closer to Moscow, Vladimir Putin reacts in
kind, and somehow Russia is the aggressor. And learned Ph.D.'s scribble on, defying pure logic
from Washington's Think Tank Row. Here's the latest sensational proof that the world will
never, ever be at peace.
Dr. Mamuka Tsereteli and James Carafano have a new plan for defeating Russia for good. Now
get this, in America, we have institutions like The Heritage Foundation that fund supposed
research to perpetuate wars. No, really. The latest report of the foundation "Putin Threatens
Ukraine -- Here's the Danger and What US, Allies Should Do About It" is a blueprint for
continuing friction between west and east. Let's examine the three takeaways Heritage
Foundation puts forward.
According to Tsereteli and Carafano, Putin is about to attack Ukraine. These well-paid
foreign policy geniuses say a military buildup inside Russian territory, which was in response
to threats from Kyiv, proves beyond a doubt the dastardly Putin is about to overrun Russia's
neighbor. To quote the report, "Putin plans to use Russian forces in a full-blown military
engagement with that country [Ukraine]." Well, let's find out why Russia's president alerted
his military.
Didn't I just read how Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that his country's
National Security and Defense Council had approved a strategy aimed at retaking Crimea and
reintegrating the strategically important peninsula? Yes, I am sure of it. Another Washington
think tank has already outlined something called the
Crimean Platform Initiative , another genius plan hatched in the bowels of CIA
headquarters, to make Crimea an expensive proposition for Russia.
This came into being the instant Joe Biden took the oath of office as president, and it's
only part of an overall strategy to engage Russia in a winner take all confrontation that many
experts say, is long overdue. And the has taken unilateral aggressive steps toward the Donbass
region and any pocket of the pro-Russia sentiment inside Ukraine. A statement by Russia's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova on this issue bears repeating
here:
"All efforts by Kyiv to reclaim Crimea are illegitimate and cannot be interpreted in any
other way but a threat of aggression against two Russian [federal] subjects. We reiterate
that we will consider the participation of any states or organizations in such activities,
including the Crimean Platform initiative, as a hostile act against Russia and direct
encroachment on its territorial integrity."
Now that we've established who the aggressor is, let's take a look at Tsereteli's and
Carafano's next brilliant takeaway point. The dynamic duo of war strategies says cosmetic
measures against Russia will not do! The "west" (meaning NATO), they say, needs a more clear
strategy. Which certainly means a massive arms buildup west of the Siverskyi Donets River. The
Zelensky government is being pushed from Washington to take even more drastic measures to force
Russia into a war stance. The editorial board of the Washington Post recently advised
Zelensky:
"Mr. Zelensky now has the opportunity to forge a partnership with Mr. Biden that could
decisively advance Ukraine's attempt to break free from Russia and join the democratic West.
He should seize on it."
So, now that we've shown who is doing the pushing here, let's turn to the final takeaway
from Heritage Foundation master strategists. Tsereteli and Carafano come right out and say
"countries left outside of NATO will remain targets of Russian aggression and manipulations."
So, the purpose of all this supposed spread of militaristic-based democracy is to expand NATO
to? I mean, seriously. Washington is not reaching out with the Peace Corps to shore up a
budding Eastern European democracy. The United States is kidnapping another former Soviet
republic on the way to the big score. My country has military bases in almost every country in
the world, has had more wars than the Mongols, and spends more on weapons than everybody else
combined – but Russia is being aggressive! Who believes this bullshit?
Let's be real here. First, please understand who is doing the "thinking" there in
Washington. Take James Carafano, the former Lt. Colonel who wrote speeches for the head of the
U.S. Army Chief of Staff. Carafano teaches at West Point, what the hell else can he advise, of
war with Russia does not come about? The man's life is about justifying war. Then there's
Mamuka Tsereteli, who's also the Founding Executive Director at the America-Georgia Business
Council. America-Georgia business, hmm? I wonder if there is an America-Ukraine business
council in the works soon? But, you can see where this new strategy from Heritage Foundation is
headed, can't you? Taking advice on foreign policy from these so-called experts is putting the
foxes in charge of the hen house. Only they're not as smart as foxes. They don't need to be.
The public is just that numbed and misinformed these days.
Is heavily involved in helping promote the EU's Three Seas Initiative (3SI), which is an
asymmetrical warfare economic platform to cut Russia off from the EU, and install the U.S. and
central European powers in her place in East Europe. This report from Mamuka Tsereteli at
Emerging Europe lays out the plan. To learn more about Tsereteli's role, readers should
research the so-called Frontier Europe Initiative, currently propagandizing for greater
Georgia-Ukraine strategies against Russia. Make no mistake, the narrative and strategies these
people are discussing are the precursors to including not only Ukraine in NATO but Georgia as
well. Retired Air Force General Phillip Breedlove and former CENTCOM Commander General Joseph
Votel are two of the "experts" helping to draft these strategies. And The Heritage Foundation
stands center stage of the move for NATO to force Putin and Russia into an inescapable
corner.
And there, is your true geopolitical Eurasia picture. The "west" will run on to Moscow,
start World War III, and then blame Putin for the holocaust.
retrocop 1 day ago
We protect other countries borders, but not our own. The Pentagon lists military personnel
in 514 "outposts" in 45 countries, and the DOD "acknowledges" personnel in more than 160
countries. Not bad for a nation that is essentially bankrupt.
TheABaum 23 hours ago
Did you mean entirely bankrupt?
The Count 20 hours ago (Edited)
Well, the border to Mexico is not really a border. It's just a never ending supply of
cheap labor.
Village-idiot 22 hours ago (Edited)
The Globalists really don't like Putin; they don't like anyone who fights them and
wins.
Putin already took their Russian central bank away from them.
He is also protecting the Russian culture, and is quickly turning Russia into the most
Christian country in the world (around 85% Christian so far).
Putin reputably hates paedophiles as much as Trump does.
They must destroy Putin before his ideas start to spread.
.
gro_dfd 21 hours ago (Edited)
From reading comments on ZH, Putin's ideas have already spread. His pro-capitalist,
anti-globalist, fiscally-conservative, nationalist, and culturally conservative views are
noticed. He has many admirers in the US.
jldpc 22 hours ago
It has been 209 years (1812) since Napoleon's complete defeat in Russia.
It has been 99 years (1917-1922) since the end of the Russian Revolution discarding
hundreds of years of Czarist rule, and the control/corruption of the elitist classes.
It has been 79 years (1942-1945) since the Germans were routed and destroyed by the
Russians.
Think the Russians are going to cave-in to Joe B. and his band of wishful thinkers?
Threatening the well armed, and very experienced Russians is a fool's game.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. – Alexander Pope
REDinFL 17 hours ago remove link
All of the angels are in heaven,
And few of the fools are dead.
-James Thurber, from "Further Fables for Our Time"
PatriotSurge 17 hours ago remove link
I guarantee neither PedoJoe, nor any of his advisors have ever heard of the folly of
attacking Russia. They don't read history.
Hell, most of them don't even read, clearly.
philbutler 11 hours ago
You are right. The only difference is, the Euromaidan put the Fourth Reich 250 miles from
Moscow. It's a helluva head start over where Hitler finished. Nukes will be the endgame on
this one I think.
@ pnyx -- It's not only that USians are unaware of much of what's happening in other
countries, it's the fact they are misinformed and misled about current events by propaganda.
This is also the case in Europe because their MSM also have been co-opted by the coordinated
Intelligence Apparatus (CIA - MI6 - FiveEyes) that controls the flow of information in the
U.S. MSM. We are witnessing censorship/control of Social Media, Search Engines, and formerly
independent websites as well.
This is an all-out effort of Class War. One aspect of this is to broadcast a hidden
personal message that if I feel oppressed, "it must be my own fault" because "success"
supposedly is within everyone's grasp (note the emphasis on celebrity 'culture').
Apologize will come flowing thru today..... You're out of your mind
if you think any of them will apologize for this cause they knew
what they were doing
i got to say i love how when Kayley isn't talking, she has that very
intense look on her face of listening and paying attention of what
others are saying that is so dang cute. Got to love the most beast
press secretary of all times! Im glad to see her on fox semi
regularly now.
Kaley is articulated and concise, on point, because what she says is
the product of her own intellect, not a script well studied (Psaki).
That the core of the difference in my opinion.
The politician most responsible for pitting ordinary men and women
against each other, ruining marriage among ordinary people, then
accusing someone else of "having no soul" is ironic.
It's the Orwellian narrative: "We have enemies overseas." Enemies
that aren't real enemies because we really don't actually want to
start a war with them but we need to put on a show to keep the
people distracted from looking at who are the real enemies inside
their own country.
...The current political class running the US loathes the average American, and it matters
not what side of the isle you sit on. They hate us. They also have their assets squirreled
away offshore. One question to ask is our demise something the international financial class
wants for their reset or one world?
One question to ask is our demise something the international financial class wants for
their reset or one world?
Posted by: Old and Grumpy | Apr 17 2021 22:25 utc | 44
I guess we should just see when there's large movement of patents and technologies
transfers to the next capital finance powerhouse. As it is right now i can see US financial
elite are doing everything it can to keep their monopolies and current order as is trying to
sabotage emerging China+Russia led new economic initiatives.
The US moneyed elites would like it very much at home where they don't have to fear forceful
government crackdown on themselves and having their wealth seized.
Just remind you that Venezuelan gold are swiped by it's local British government as soon as
they have the pretext. It can happen to them too in China and Russia where local prominent
houses already emplaced in position of power.
My guess is they got too used to game the Democratic process in the US that they do not
want it to come back functional anytime soon without minding too much of the long term
effects of dumbed down populaces.
The USA certainly seems to be in some sort of self-destructive spiral. The MSM has been
the key to holding things together through all the deceptions and false flags maintaining the
public belief that the establishment are somehow the good guys. This must be approaching an
end point soon as thousands of conservative Americans know they were cheated on in the
elections and with each new false flag another portion of the population become more
skeptical of the official line and less gullible regarding the lies disseminated by CNN BBC
etc.
As the Covid19 situation unfolds into an endless train-wreak, with the Vaccines not providing
a solution and non promotion of the real solutions by TPTB more and more people will become
skeptical that their governments are acting in their interests. (The real solution to Covid19
is the use of Ivermectin, protectively and at all stages of infection and a focus on
increasing Vitamin D levels throughout the population)
The attempts by the West to destabilise Russia and China in Ukraine and Xinjiang will
hopefully eventually add to the public disbelief of the official narrative.
The world should be extremely grateful for Vladimir Putin and his team for their
unflappable restraint. I know I am.
The confronting of Biden by Putin, with the US attempt to assassinate the President of
Belarus, a few days after Biden called Putin a killer, must go down in history as one of the
greatest ironies of all time. Will the greater public ever get to hear about it from our
overhyped news services. No!
This could be described as the "Banality of Evil". The MSM reporters just reporting the
official line with no real debate, while the world teeters at a few minutes in midnight on
the Nuclear Clock.
Russia and China need to up their game regarding the news media. Provide western audiences
with genuinely truth seeking interviewers of politicians and public figures and hold them to
account. Public debates between the opposing viewpoints so we are not just subject to the
official propaganda that is all the MSM gives us now. Maybe they would say, why should we
bother we have more important things to spend money on, and I would understand that.
Finally, MOA has my undying gratitude for providing what should be provided by the News
Media. Intelligent commentary and debate about world events as the old empire disintegrates
and other powers arise with a more truly humanitarian outlook...
Now that we've established who the aggressor is, let's take a look at Tsereteli's and
Carafano's next brilliant takeaway point. The dynamic duo of war strategies says cosmetic
measures against Russia will not do! The "west" (meaning NATO), they say, needs a more
clear strategy. Which certainly means a massive arms buildup west of the Siverskyi Donets
River. The Zelensky government is being pushed from Washington to take even more drastic
measures to force Russia into a war stance. The editorial board of the Washington Post
recently advised Zelensky:
"Mr. Zelensky now has the opportunity to forge a partnership with Mr. Biden that could
decisively advance Ukraine's attempt to break free from Russia and join the democratic
West. He should seize on it."
So, now that we've shown who is doing the pushing here, let's turn to the final takeaway
from Heritage Foundation master strategists. Tsereteli and Carafano come right out and say
"countries left outside of NATO will remain targets of Russian aggression and
manipulations." So, the purpose of all this supposed spread of militaristic-based democracy
is to expand NATO to? I mean, seriously. Washington is not reaching out with the Peace
Corps to shore up a budding Eastern European democracy. The United States is kidnapping
another former Soviet republic on the way to the big score. My country has military bases
in almost every country in the world, has had more wars than the Mongols, and spends more
on weapons than everybody else combined – but Russia is being aggressive!
"I'd like to know how Zelensky and the Kiev authorities are supposed to get out of
this situation without falling apart."
Well, if I were Zelensky I might imagine getting myself out of this mess by the
following steps:
1. Keep raising the ante. Scream about an imminent Russian invasion, keep your population
panicked (by concocting a list of "bomb shelters" in Kiev, for example). Keep actual violence
against the Donbass republics at just low enough a level to not be enough provocation for a
Russisn intervention, for now .
2. Keep acquiring missiles from NATO, and trainers in how to use them. Negotiate with
Sultan Erdoğan for headchopper mercenaries (especially Chechens and other Russian
speakers).
3. Arrange for NATO exercises in Ukranazistan this summer.
4. Under cover of those exercises, using the NATOstanis as human shields in fact, attack
the Donbass Republics, and only the Donbass Republics. Use the headchoppers as shock
troops to minimise own losses. Capture the Donetsk and Lugansk main urban areas, leave slices
right on the Russian border. Do not touch Crimea.
5. Present this as a huge victory, like Ilham Aliyev did in Nagorno Karabakh.
As I said, this would be my plan if I were Zelensky. Whether it would work depends on how
much "restraint " Putin is willing to give up on, and how much risk he's willing to take.
The present stand-off cannot last forever, so it is a question of time before something
falls apart.
Russia used the aggressive move by NATO/Ukraine to perform a judo-like move
The speed of execution of the manoeuvre also calls for admiration when NATO can't even
move an armoured division in Poland (inadequate road infrastructure)
But Evil is in the details. And as the greatest french dialogue writer: "Les conneries
c'est comme les impôts, on finit toujours par les payer."
[Bullshit is like taxes, you always end up paying them.]
"The British training program, Operation Orbital, has trained over 17,500 Ukrainian
service members since its inception in 2015. Last year British Defence Secretary Ben
Wallace confirmed that the training mission would be extended until 2023. It is explicitly
designed to transform the Ukrainian military in order to meet NATO standards: to be a NATO
proxy army on Russia's western border."
To which my own response was:
"I strongly agree with Igor Strelkov: war now is preferable for Russia than (inevitable)
war later. I also completely agree with him that the Ukranazi cancer should have been
eliminated in 2014, or, failing that, the Donbass armies should have been permitted by the
Putinist regime to liberate Slovyansk and Mariupol, or, even better, liberate Odessa and
advance to the Dneiper. If that had been done then, there would have been no problem now.
The Empire is trying to surround and castrate Russia. Russian interests are being hit
every day. Sanctions for ever, more and more.
Putin has to come up with something exceptionally crazy and unexpected. another level of
asymmetry. Russian stockpile is "officially" of about 6.400 nuclear heads of which 1600
operational, probably more than that. This Nuclear Capital should be "invested ". Putin
should convince Iran to change policy and accept donation or lease of 200-300 nuclear heads.
Siria,Venezuela and maybe Korea should be given a number of tactical nuclear weapons for self
defence. China,as well,with Russian help,should double the Nuclear Potential. A political
Earthquake would shake the Empire. Russia survival
is the Stake.
USA givesall its manufacturing to then moans about China carbon emissions. Chine is worlds
largest solar panel manufacturer, us moans about China carbon. USA blocks Nord Stream 2 gas
supply to Germany then moans about Russian carbon emissions. USA hasthe poorest house
insulation regulationa and moans about others carbon emissions.
China achieves major reafforestation targets and reclaims huge tracts of desert and USA
ignores it, continues to strip forests at home and everwhere else.
USA needs to build a bridge to its future and to common sense.
@ pnyx -- It's not only that USians are unaware of much of what's happening in other
countries, it's the fact they are misinformed and misled about current events by propaganda.
This is also the case in Europe because their MSM also have been co-opted by the coordinated
Intelligence Apparatus (CIA - MI6 - FiveEyes) that controls the flow of information in the
U.S. MSM. We are witnessing censorship/control of Social Media, Search Engines, and formerly
independent websites as well.
This is an all-out effort of Class War. One aspect of this is to broadcast a hidden
personal message that if I feel oppressed, "it must be my own fault" because "success"
supposedly is within everyone's grasp (note the emphasis on celebrity 'culture').
Russia has shown an astonishing amount of 'strategic patience' in the face of racism,
lies, insults, seizure of diplomatic property, obstruction of officials coming to the UN,
possibly a hand in the murder of their high rank military landing in Syria, perhaps the
downing of their choir, US silence of US radar data 'highly likely' showing Ukraine downing
the Malaysian aircraft, fabrications everywhere, and so very much more.
Well, the cup of patience runneth over.
"These steps represent just a fraction of the capabilities at our disposal. Unfortunately,
US statements threatening to introduce new forms of punishment show that Washington is not
willing to listen and does not appreciate the restraint that we have displayed despite the
tensions that have been purposefully fuelled since the presidency of Barack Obama.
Recall that after a large-scale expulsion of Russian diplomats in December 2016 and the
seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the US, we did not take any response measures for
seven months. We responded only when Russia was declared a US adversary legislatively in
August 2017.
In general, compared to the Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, the US
Embassy in Moscow operates in better conditions, enjoying a numerical advantage and
actively benefitting from the work of Russian citizens hired in-country. This form of
disparity frees up "titular" diplomats to interfere in our domestic affairs, which is one
of the main tenets of Washington's foreign policy doctrine.
...the reality is that we hear one thing from Washington but see something completely
different in practice... a proposed Russian-US summit. When this offer was made, it was
received positively and is now being considered in the context of concrete
developments. "/BLOCKQUOTE>
The last bit is deliberately ambiguous. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 17 2021 21:21 utc | 38
I suspect Sullivan and Blinken's next gig will be something like that. "We came here to
forget", but instead of the French Legion, it will be PMC Wagner.
Personally what I would do would be a Operation Bagration 2.0 at the slightest misstep by
Ukraine. There is may too much on the table here. Bio labs, nests of NATO rats, nuclear power
plants, NATO missiles on the Ukrainian and Belarus borders with Russia. Time to clear out the
rats including Lviv. After disinfecting this part of eastern Europe (again) of that other far
more dangerous virus, Nazism, life will be much more peaceful in that part of the world, and
likely by the domino effect (yes I actually said that!) to other places in the world plagued
by US exceptionalism.
The U.S. has leveled sanctions on Russia over election interference and cyberattacks,
including barring U.S. financial institutions from buying new domestically issued Russian
government debt.
The Biden Administration went where Presidents Obama and Trump had not, barring U.S.
financial institutions from buying new domestically issued Russian sovereign bonds. The move
excluded the secondary market, though. Anyone can still trade the so-called OFZs already in
circulation. And it was matched by a substantial carrot: a dovish speech on Russia by Biden,
floating a potential summit with Putin this summer.
The market had feared worse, says Vladimir Tikhomirov, chief economist at BCS Global Markets
in Moscow. The ruble is still down 4%, and stocks 3%, since Russia stoked tensions a month ago
by massing troops on Ukraine's border. That is despite buoyant oil prices that should benefit
Russia. "Everyone was discussing direct punishment of Russian companies or a cutoff from
SWIFT," he says, referring to the backbone for global financial transactions. "The actual
sanctions turned out to be relatively mild."
Global investors have been fleeing the OFZ market without any push from the White House.
Foreigners' share of outstanding bond holdings have fallen to 20% from about a third last
summer, notes Aaron Hurd, senior currency portfolio manager at State Street Global
Advisors.
Political risk still depresses the value of Russian assets by 15%, Tikhomirov
estimates. That is reasonable considering Biden's options for escalating sanctions, says
Daniel Fried, an Atlantic Council fellow who was the State Department's sanctions coordinator
under Obama. "He could move into the secondary debt market, restrict state-owned energy
companies' ability to raise capital, or go after the money hidden by Putin and his cronies," he
says. "It could get to be a pretty tight squeeze."
To close the political risk gap, Putin needs to at least restore calm with Ukraine, risking
domestic political face after a month of hyping the alleged threat from Russia's southern
neighbor. The coming week offers two opportunities for Putin to move toward Biden's proffered
stable relationship, Tikhomirov says. He could sound friendly in an annual state of the nation
address scheduled for April 21, and he could turn up (virtually) for the global climate summit
Biden has called on April 23-24.
These may be far overshadowed by Alexei Navalny, the
Russian opposition leader who is on hunger strike in a maximum-security prison outside
Moscow. Navalny-allied doctors said April 17 he could "die within days" without outside medical
intervention. Backing off from its merciless treatment of Navalny would also look like an
embarrassing climb-down from the Kremlin's point of view.
Hurd expects a stalemate where Russian assets could nudge higher as oil prices remain firm
and the Central Bank of Russia raises interest rates. Putin will make few concessions with his
party facing parliamentary elections in September, he predicts. Washington will be constrained
by the European Union's reluctance to stiffen anti-Russian measures. "The ruble could still go
higher from here, but we remain tentative over the next six months," he says.
Putin has essentially accomplished the goal he set after his 2014 invasions of Ukraine, a
self-sufficient Russia that can pursue its perceived security interests without worrying what
the rest of the world thinks, says Yong Zhu, portfolio manager for emerging markets debt at
DuPont Capital Management.
Government debt amounts to a mere 18% of gross domestic product, and in a pinch can be
serviced domestically. That keeps yields too low to pay for the country's geopolitical
turbulence, he concludes: 10-year Russian domestic bonds pay about 7% annually, compared with
9% for Brazil or South Africa. "Russia doesn't really need anything beside the iPhone," Zhu
quips.
Self-reliance has also spelled isolation from the capital and talent that could lift Russia
to its proper place in global innovation and growth. But Putin and his regime seem to like it
that way.
While I agree with 99% of your post, there is one point that I think needs to be keeping
in mind. While the populace of this particular manure-hole certainly has its equal share of
dumb creatures, the people running things cannot be so easily dismissed. The problem as I see
it is they have a great deal of a certain kind of intelligence, as someone said "smart, but
not wise". They are educated, but insane. The cream of the crop that has gone sour. In my
travels I would often ask people what they actually thought of "Americans". An Indonesian man
responded " soft, but cunning. You have to be careful around them."
If these cunning, insane, power hungry creatures were simply dumb and not truly evil, we
might be in less of a shit show (nod to psychohistorian) than we are.
After 20 years of regular interaction with Amerikastanis online and in real life, I have
realised that they live in a parallel universe in which Hollywood is the arbiter of truth.
They genuinely believe that anything they choose to imagine is the truth just because they
imagine it.
A couple of days ago when the Imperialist States admitted its "Russia Bounty" story was
concocted, the people who had shrieked to the skies about it last year had a chance to
apologise. Did they? They ignored it. It did not happen because they chose to believe it
didn't.
More than most companies today, Google understands that information is power. But how much
does Google know about you? Here, we'll unpack Google's privacy policy, so that you know what
data gets tracked, how Google uses your data, and how to manage your online privacy.
If you use a Google service or product (and you probably do), it's important to educate
yourself about how Google uses your data so you can make smart, informed decisions that keep
you in control of your privacy. Every step you take, every purchase you make -- Google could be
watching you.
The simple answer is yes: Google collects data about how you use its devices, apps, and
services. This ranges from your browsing behavior, Gmail and YouTube activity, location
history, Google searches, online purchases, and more. Basically, anything that's connected to
Google is likely used to collect data on your activity and preferences.
Many people have questions about Google collecting data and how it gathers information. In
particular, people worry about voice-activated products like Google Home and Google Assistant
being used to listen to more than just requests to buy toilet paper or play music in the living
room.
Nearly every company you interact with online uses web tracking technology to mine data about
your online habits and preferences to personalize your experiences and the content you see.
While the security
risks of smart home devices are real, Google using your home assistant to record your
private conversations isn't one of them. You might feel like you're being spied on, but the
reality is that Google sees only the information you have voluntarily entered or allowed them
to access .
It's tempting to cast Google as a villain in this scenario, but Google data collection isn't
unique. Nearly every company you interact with online uses web tracking technology to mine data
about your online habits and preferences to personalize your experiences and the content you
see. Still, it might surprise you how much data Google actually tracks and the less obvious
ways it keeps tabs on you.
Why does Google want my data?
You might be thinking, "Fine, Google knows a lot about me. But what does Google
do with my data?" According to Google, they use all this data to deliver better
services, make improvements, and customize your experience . In other words, all this
information helps Google make its services more useful for you.
Google uses data about your behavior and preferences to deliver better or more
personalized services.
Of course, there's a very thin line between useful and creepy -- and sometimes businesses
make the mistake of taking it too far by hoovering up excessive amounts of data. For many
companies, more data collection means more profit. Here are a few ways in which Google data
collection can impact your digital lifestyle.
Targeted advertising
With all the data Google gathers about you -- across all of its platforms, services,
products, and devices -- it can build a detailed advertising profile, including your gender,
age range, job industry, and interests. This helps them use targeted advertising to serve you
Google ads that align with your personal tastes.
Let's say you search for a place to rent skis. Afterward, you start seeing ads for related
products like ski jackets on other websites you visit around the web -- these are targeted ads
. If you want to see what Google thinks it knows about you, you can go to your Google account settings , click on Data &
personalization in the left navigation panel, and view your advertising profile.
Location
tracking
Where you go, Google goes. Whether you're looking for the quickest way to get to a meeting,
searching for a nearby cafe, or trying to find the closest bus stop, Google uses your location
to offer personalized suggestions that are more relevant to your situation. For instance, maybe
you'd like to see a movie after work. If you search Google for listings, you might see the
showtimes for movies playing at theaters close to your office.
Improving usability
The more data, the better the quality of the service. Google uses all the data it collects
to improve usability -- and your information alone can't do all the work. Google also analyzes
billions of other people's data across different apps to make its services more useful for
everyone.
For example, when you use Google Maps (or Waze -- yes, it's also part of the Google family),
your location is anonymously sent back to Google and combined with data from people around you
to create a picture of current traffic patterns. Have you ever been rerouted around an accident
or a traffic jam while driving? You can thank your data and all the data from the people
driving around you.
Tweaking algorithms
Google's search algorithms -- the rules that determine the results you see and the order
they're listed in -- are continually changing. In 2019, the company reported more than 3,500 improvements
to Google search -- that's an average of nearly 10 every day.
Google uses data about what people search for, what results are relevant, and the quality of
the content and sources to determine the results you see. And their engineers adjust and refine
Google's search algorithms to make searching on Google more useful ,
such as generating useful featured content snippets from relevant third-party websites to
provide quick answers to questions right at the top of the search results
page.
Trendspotting and analysis
Your search results also power Google Trends , a Google website that tracks and
analyzes the top search queries across services like Google Search, YouTube, and more. You can
see the most popular search terms from multiple countries and languages, helping you discover
the latest trends, topics, and stories across different regions and over different time
periods.
To be clear, no one outside of Google (and maybe even no one inside) truly knows how this
data is processed and used. But they don't hide what they collect and how they do
it. Google's privacy
policy is written clearly and easy to understand.
Hundreds of corporations, including Starbucks, Amazon, and Netflix, have signed a letter signaling their opposition to election
integrity efforts in numerous states, promising to oppose any related legislation they deem "discriminatory."
The effort, led by former American Express chief executive Kenneth Chenault and Merck chief executive Kenneth Frazier, both of
whom recently
led
a
group of black business leaders urging corporations to take a stand against election integrity efforts, has corporations vowing
to stand against "any discriminatory legislation," representing what the
New
York Times
deemed
"the
broadest coalition yet to weigh in on the issue."
"We stand for democracy," the statement
reads
.
"A beautifully American idea, but a reality denied to many for much of this nation's history. As Americans, we know that in our
democracy we should not expect to agree on everything":
However, regardless of our political affiliations, we believe the very foundation of our electoral process rests upon the
ability of each of us to cast our ballots for the candidates of our choice. For American democracy to work for any of us, we
must ensure the right to vote for all of us. We all should feel a responsibility to defend the right to vote and to oppose any
discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity
to cast a ballot.
"Voting is the lifeblood of our democracy," the statement continues, calling on Americans to take a "nonpartisan stand for this
most basic and fundamental right of all Americans."
Signers include Bank of America, Amazon,
Estée
Lauder
, Eventbrite, General Motors, Netflix, Starbucks, Synchrony, Nordstrom, PayPal, Peloton, Pinterest, United Airlines,
Twitter, Under Armour, and more.
Some, such as Coca-Cola and Delta, which spoke out after Georgia passed its election integrity law, did not add their names to
the list, nor did Home Depot
, as the
Times
reported:
Coca-Cola and Delta, which condemned the Georgia law after it was passed, declined to add their names, according to people
familiar with the matter. Home Depot also declined, even though its co-founder Arthur Blank said in a call with other business
executives on Saturday that he supported voting rights. Another Home Depot co-founder, Ken Langone, is a vocal supporter of
Mr. Trump.
Coca-Cola and Delta declined to comment. Home Depot said in a statement on Tuesday that "the most appropriate approach for us
to take is to continue to underscore our belief that all elections should be accessible, fair and secure."
JPMorgan Chase also declined to sign the statement despite a personal request from senior Black business leaders to the
chief executive, Jamie Dimon, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Dimon has publicly declared that he supports
Black Lives Matter and made a statement on voting rights before many other companies, saying, "We believe voting must be
accessible and equitable."
"It should be clear that there is overwhelming support in corporate America for the principle of voting rights," Chenault said.
While the statement does not list specific state election efforts, it follows the debate over Georgia's recently signed election
integrity law, which the left has
inundated
with
misinformation, including the false claims it eliminates "Souls to the Polls," thereby suppressing minority votes. In reality,
the law expands ballot access in several ways, including by
increasing
the
mandatory days for early weekend voting.
"The nuts and bolts of [the law] are this, it makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat," Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R)
said
during
a March appearance on
Breitbart
News Daily
:
The biggest -- probably the top four things to me -- is it replaces a signature match with a voter ID on absentee ballots. It
secures ballot drop boxes around the clock It also requires poll workers to continue tabulating ballots until all votes are
counted and then it actually -- contrary to what the national media and those that are profiting off of this whole exercise of
not being truthful with people -- expands voting access, especially on the weekends.
A Rasmussen Reports survey
released
last
this week revealed a majority of likely voters, or 60 percent, believe it is more important to make sure there is no cheating in
elections rather than prioritizing making it "easier for everybody to vote." Additionally, a majority of likely voters, including
a majority of black voters,
reject
the
notion that voter ID laws are discriminatory against some voters.
Dementia Joe and his coterie of enablers have embarked on a foreign policy that is likely to result in a new war that will
endanger America and further a growing perception that the United States is weak and divided. There are three troublesome
flashpoints (Ukraine, China and Iran) that could explode at any time and catapult our nation into a costly, deadly military
confrontation. Topping the list is the Ukraine.
The corrupt dealings in Ukraine over the last four years by Joe and Hunter Biden leaves them completely compromised and
subject to coercion, even blackmail. With this as a backdrop the decade long effort by the United States to weaken Russia's
influence in eastern Ukraine has been revived with Biden's arrival in the White House.
Let me first introduce you to some essential facts:
Larry Johnson,
If the Ukraine blows so will Syria! Then the situation might transition from nemesis to tisis in short order. Here is a
strangely appropriate analysis with just one word blanked out.
In the
years ahead, _____________ will assuredly find itself in new international crises involving nations or groups that have
powerful leaders. In some cases, these leaders may have a special, dangerous mindset that is the result of a
"hubris-nemesis complex." This complex involves a combination of hubris (a pretension toward an arrogant form of
godliness) and nemesis (a vengeful desire to confront, defeat, humiliate, and punish an adversary, especially one that
can be accused of hubris). The combination has strange dynamics that may lead to destructive, high-risk behavior.
Attempts to deter, compel, or negotiate with a leader who has a hubris-nemesis complex can be ineffectual or even
disastrously counterproductive when those attempts are based on concepts better suited to dealing with more normal
leaders.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR461.pdf
We, too, pray for sanity.
Ishmael Zechariah
Reply
Larry, I unfortunately agree with your observations and conclusion.
I would add that in my opinion, the Russians are a lot more determined, as are the Chinese and Iranians, then the
generally self absorbed younger generations in the West. "Woke" culture has no answer to sunken warships, downed
aircraft and body bags. Do the SJWs want to die for LBGTIQ rights in Russia or another of their pet obsessions de jour?
I don't think so.
My concern for President Biden and America is that, if Ukraine attacks, unless President Putin succeeds in delivering a
very short, sharp and successful lesson to Ukraine there is not going to be a clear path forward to a negotiated
armistice. If that doesn't happen through bad luck, the fog of war, etc. Then I don't think Biden has the intelligence
to get us out of the mess.
If you add to that the possibility that Zelensky may demand American support "or else" when he starts to lose then we
are in very very dangerous territory. If I were the Chinese, I would just stand back and watch. Taiwanese independence
is a meaningless concept without American military backing and I'm sure the Taiwanese know it.
The wild card to me is what is Israel's attitude? Is it possible that they might be a moderating influence for a change?
Reply
Oh, yeah .!!!!!! The country that shoots women and children who get too close to the fence they have constructed in
PALESTINE on other people"s land will be the moderating party. Or maybe Mad Dog Bolton.
Try getting real, and come up with real world situations. Not some fantasy of killers acting like kittens. The
Russians seem more balanced in responding to such provocations than the U.S. & it's gang of follower- puppets. How
long would any of the these follower-puppets be able to go toe to toe with Russia in all-out-war situation. I'd bet
less than 24 hours, probably far less. Or as a Chinese General once asked: would you want to give up Los Angeles to
save Tiwan? The U.S. doesn't seem to have any sort of reliable anti-missile defence system. Would Ole Uncle Joe
really like to get into such pissing contest so early on in his term of presidency? Maybe I am wrong, but from what I
have seen so far, he just seems to be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. In this game, if one
blunders, the walls vanish, an the lights go out.
Reply
Russia moves cannon boats and amphibious vessels from Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, but in reality these combatants are
perfect for operations in shallow waters and that means Azov Sea and Ukraine's South-Western flank. These ships can form
both a surface group capable of dispatching anything Ukraine may have on Azov Sea, plus form excellent tactical
amphibious group which can land a battalion or two of marines and support them with fire from the sea, both artillery
and MLRS. Of course, there are other forces Russia has there but it is a good way to give Caspian Flotilla a chance for
yet another combat deployment, after its missile ships spearheaded first salvos of 3M14 cruise missiles at ISIS targets
in Syria in 2015. Here are some of those ships:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Caspian_Corvette_Astrakhan_2.jpg
Russia has an overwhelming firepower in the Black Sea proper and whatever the US is sending there is primarily for ISR
purposes in case Ukies go bananas and decide to attack Donbass in death by cop scenario. The US will not interfere in
any meaningful way other than supplying Ukies with recon data.
Reply
It is bigger than Biden or even the Military Industrial Complex. The establishment foreign policy apparatus transcends
political parties and has a continuity that survives changes in administrations. It is obsessed with Russia. It opposed
not just communism but Russia itself so when the Berlin wall fell for it the Cold War never ended and it successfully
pursued the the break up and looting of the Russian Empire and the relentless eastward march of NATO. Putin pushed back
on this resulting in him being demonized by the orchestrated Western media. Trump for all his faults had at least a
halfway rational view of these matters but now the Borg is back and spoiling for a fight. I never cease to be amazed by
the stupidity of these people, their apparent lack of understanding of the importance of Ukraine and Sevastopol in
Russian history and their inability to read a map or know the basics of military operations to see the obvious
indefensibility of Ukraine's eastern border. The danger now is that Ukraine's leaders will overestimate the support they
think they have from the United States and start something they can't stop. This has the feel of 1914.
Reply
Or the Georgian/Russian of 2008 when Georgia attacked on Russian territory. President Bush was talking tough, saying
he would send aid to Georgia on warships. But the rules governing ships entering the Bosferus proscribed such stuff,
aND Bush ended doing nothing. The Russians quickly neutralized the Georgian forces and pushed deeper into Georgia
where they currently remain. The odiot who started the mess was forced out of Georgia & was afterwards appointed a
governor or some such in Ukraine. But I think that too went bad. Such is the level of governance in Ukraine.
Reply
The last 5 Ukros killed were killed by mines. The contact line has many zones where minefields are employed by both
sides. It appears some were killed in their own minefield according to local reports. Civilians in the LPR and DPR have
been killed by incoming fire, most recently a 5 year old boy. Of course OSCE is worthless except as a "bean counter";
who fired what and where is too much to record..
Reply
US defence attache with a group was up at the front yesterday as well as the comic.
Ukraine really has its back up against the wall financially. This year with big interest payments due and no way to get
the funds as the IMF seems to hit its limit on their 'we're never getting it back' budget. Their only steady source of
funds is ironically Russia with the gas transit fees guaranteed at $7B total over the next four years, much of which
will go to the EU and IMF as interest payments. After that the gas fees will drop to zero as the gas transits move to
TurkStream and NS2. With nothing to pay Russia, apart from the little mentioned oil transit fees, Russia may stop
shipping gas/coal/electricity for local consumption as well. At that point either Ukraine crashes or someone else has to
pick up the bill.
Although Kiev will lose dramatically there are very good reasons why Kiev would push the button. Will they ever again
have this PR opportunity to play the innocent victim?
Reply
Earlier this morning I saw a pic of Zelenskiy visiting the front, behind him was a makeshift field tent with a sign on
it, the sign is in Ukrainian but translates as "Vietnam". Is Biden serious about backing Zelenskiy, I guess we'll find
out soon enough.
Reply
wondering if anyone can point me to a fairly, anyway, reliable, (assuming one exists) 'war games scenario' document on
an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China. Intuitively, it would seem a difficult challenge, especially given China's
lack of any appreciable experience in seaborne invasion. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide, and my
apologies upfront LJ if you deem this offtopic.
Reply
Not meaning to be a smart-alec about it, but why assume that an invasion has to be "seaborne"?
In WW2 the Royal Navy had total control of the waters around Crete. So the Germans simply went over the top of them
and invaded the island from the air.
It was very definitely touch and go for a while until German paratroopers managed to capture an airfield, and from
that point it was all over.
No idea how well defended Taiwanese airfields are, but the PLA would only need to capture one and, again, the final
result will not be in doubt.
Reply
well, the quick answer to your question would be 'fine, alter my initial question to include war games scenarios
on airborne attacks on Taiwan. The glib answer might be, Taiwan is not Crete. And the Chinese PLA are not the
Wehrmacht. Who, by the time of the Crete attack had built up a record that included many successful airborne
attacks. I see no such history with the PLA. That, by no means rules it out. But, in any event, I can't imagine
the PLA would role the dice, SOLELY, on an airborne attack. They would have to have a seaborne plan of attack, in
case Plan A failed. So, in any event, I would be still be in search of that war games scenario.
Reply
Absent any new evidence, I am going to continue to assume that this is really about Nordstream II. The Biden Junta are
probably planning on having their Ukrainian cat's paw make a lunge at DNR/LNR, forcing the Russians to intervene
directly. Ukraine, of course, is not actually a full NATO member, so no Article 5 will be triggered. Instead, Washington
just self-righteously hollers 'Russian aggression!' and demands that Merkel immediately shut down Nordstream II -- the
Russian pipeline into Germany -- just before it's ready to go online.
And then, as a lush reward for their undying loyalty, the Germans get to import frack-gas and oil all the way from the
US at four or five times the market rate. Problem solved!
Reply
you are correct – the Ukraine state does not really want the return of the Donbass region let alone Crimea as it
would result in a complete change in the balance of power in the Ukraine with the Russian-speaking population being
able to form the government, as it had done pre 2014. They really want to push the Germans into stopping Nord Stream
2 by provoking Russia
Reply
Struggling to understand how a Ukraine with such supposedly strong ties to National Socialists of a century ago managed
to end up with a Jewish comedian as President.
Reply
Here's the viewpoint of Ukraine Army's snipers who are primarily composed of volunteer housewives. While to D.C. and
Moscow, it's part of their sphere of political chess, however to those on the front lines, it is survival and protection
of their loved ones.
Almost half a century ago, I took a course in the German language as a refresher during the summer session at my local
junior college. The woman who taught the course was a native Ukrainian. She told the class a little about her
background.
When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, she was in her mid- to late-teens. She had an intense dislike (hatred) of the
Russians and took a job working for the German military government of occupation as an interpreter. She said they had
welcomed the Germans as liberators from the oppression of the Soviet Communists.
Later, when the Red Army juggernaut was rolling west through Ukraine, she realized that it would not be good for her
long-term prospects to remain at home. She chose to move west with the retreating German army. Subsequent to the end of
the war in Europe, she rattled around for awhile in displaced person camps, and ultimately made her way to the United
States.
I have no reason to doubt the veracity of her story. This was my first introduction to the enmity between the Russians
and the Ukrainians.
Reply
Biden is a tin-hat emperor moving tin soldiers in his bathtub at play time. Surrounded by self-selected idiots who make
him dangerous as hell. This is what his "return to decency" looks like? May he be struck down deaf and dumb.
Reply
Two front war – Russia moving into Ukraine at the same time China moves on Taiwan. They put their wet fingers up to the
wind to see which way the Biden operation blows.
And they could not escape the conclusion this was the time to strike if there is any fortuitous time to strike. Biden
and his new team muddle deeply into reckless ineptitude. And Kamala Harris doesn't have anything to wear.
Reply
An odd thesis. The Russians are signally very, very strongly that they do not want the Ukraine to start a war by
attacking the rebels in Donbass.
They could not be more explicit if they sent a hypersonic cruise missile through Zelensky's office window with a sign
on it that reads "Don't start something you won't even live to regret".
They very clearly do not think that this is "the time to strike", nor even that they think there is a "fortuitous
time" for them to go to war with Ukraine.
If Ukraine strikes first then, sure, they'll strike back. But I fail to see how anyone can come to the conclusion
that the Russians are provoking this when it is very clearly the Ukies and their promoters in the White House who are
pushing these buttons.
Similarly with Taiwan.
The Chinese are not provoking this. They made their red lines clear to everyone as far back as Nixon's trip to China
i.e. if the USA sticks to a one-China-policy then the mainland will refrain from using force against Taiwan.
But the USA is not sticking to the one-China-policy. Recent US diplomatic moves look exactly like what it is:
maneuverings to prepare for when the Taipei government declares independence.
Which is crazy.
But in both cases the USA may well provoke a conflict and then dump their patsies like a discarded toy.
Which would be beyond crazy. It would be an outcome so loopy that there isn't even a word to describe it.
Reply
Thank you for setting it straight.. it seems pretty evident Russia does not want a war but is sure as hell ready
to finish this business if a war is pushed on to them and pushed on to them by the Americans. Ukraine has been
armed by the U.S , funded by the IMF, and cheered by NATO. They will not do a single thing without their owners
permission.
Reply
Back in December 2020 Putin had an expanded meeting with his Defense Ministry Board. In it he laid out several items and
agendas to be carried out by the Military Staff.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64684
March 24th saw Ukraine's Zelensky virtually declaring war against the Russian Federation. One can not rule out Zelensky
using the trade deals with Doha and use the direct flights between Kiev and Doha to smuggle in Jihad's from Syria and
Libya to fight in Donbas. Zelensky on March 3rd in a joint press conference with the European Council President in Kiev
stated that the retaking of Crimea from Russia was now Ukraine Official Policy.
https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/ukraine-redux-war-russophobia-and-pipelineistan/
Reply
Speaking of 'foreign policy', question is who will win out -- D.C. or Tel Aviv?
'The model' is headed to D.C. to try and convince our IC's head-cheeses that the Iran JCPOA isn't such a good deal, and
Tel Aviv is trying to get him an audience with his high-arsed the 'King', China Joe. If D.C. swallows 'the model's'
spiel, then they're bigger suckers than they already appear to be.
Assume this Mossad meeting will take place between Kackling Kamala who will be channeling Obama-Jarrett; or will it
be Stinking Liar Susan Rose channeling Obama-Jarrett? But the Big Guy will be out to lunch.
Reply
" voters still overwhelmingly support laws requiring that voters show identification before casting a ballot.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be
required to show photo identification such as a driver's license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% are opposed to such a
requirement. (To see survey question wording,
click
here
.)
"Support for voter ID laws has actually
increased
since 2018
, when 67% said voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver's license before being
allowed to vote.
Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans support voter ID requirements, as do 60% of Democrats and 77% of voters not affiliated
with either major party."
Comment: In Virginia it was not necessary to present identification at a polling place untl about 20 years ago. This was a relic
of an older time when most Virginia communities were quite small and it was expected that one or more people would recognize
acitizen at the polling station,
IMO the time has come when national ID cards would be a good thing. The trick would be to make it as tamper proof as possible. pl
I recently got a new driver's license, the kind that complies with airport security in order to be able to fly. And boy, my
county Department of Motor Vehicles office was absolutely TOUGH, real hard asses, when it came to the documentation required to
qualify for such a license. I had to go back THREE TIMES with various documents in order to satisfy them and meet their criteria
EXACTLY, with no exceptions. So did my husband. I would hope that any national ID, if ever mandated, would be obtained by
fulfilling similarly rigorous standards and conscientious processing. I bet it would set off leftists and libertarian-leaning
rightists BIG TIME though, for different reasons: leftists would want lax standards and libertarians would oppose the notion
per
se
.
In the United States, the use of force by police accounts for 0.05% of male deaths, and
0.003% of female deaths, and a low overall share.
The ratio correlates with age and race and is unequal across racial groups.
Police use of force is responsible for 1.6% of all deaths involving black men between the
ages of 20 and 24 years. At the same age range, police are responsible for 1.2% of American
Indian/Alaska Native male deaths, 0.5% of Asian/Pacific Islander male deaths, 1.2% of Latino
male deaths, and 0.5% of white male deaths.
18 replies on "Risk of Being Killed by Police
Varies by Your Ethnicity"
I read this article with high hopes. Sadly, my hopes were dashed by an intellectually
dishonest use of statistics.
The article opens by claiming blacks have about 2.5 times the risk of dying at the hands of
the police over their lifetimes as whites. It then quantifies this lifetime risk of dying from
police violence for blacks as 1 in 1000. It provides no context for understanding these
numbers.
Heart disease 1 in 6
Cancer 1 in 7
All preventable causes of death 1 in 24
Chronic lower respiratory disease 1 in 27
Suicide 1 in 88
Opioid overdose 1 in 92
Falls 1 in 106
Motor-vehicle crash 1 in 107
Gun assault 1 in 289
Pedestrian incident 1 in 543
Motorcyclist 1 in 899
Drowning 1 in 1,128
Apparently a black's lifetime risk of dying at the hands of the police is close to anyone's
risk from drowning, and about a tenth as great as dying in a motor vehicle crash. Very few
people obsess over those risks -- why the media frenzy about dying at the hands of the
police?
By far the most significant finding from the author's analysis is that far more men die at
the hands of the police than do women across all races. ("A women's lifetime risk of being
killed by police is about 20 times lower than men's risk.") The difference between male and
female outcomes is an order of magnitude greater than the largest difference in outcomes among
men of different races, or among women of different races.
It is intellectually dishonest to focus attention on racial disparities when obvious sexual
disparities dominate the statistics.
It also seems odd to discuss racial disparities in women's overall lifetime risk of dying
from police violence, when a black woman's risk is only about 1 in 20,000 in the first place.
For perspective, the National Safety Council reported that 1 in 2,535 people will die of
choking on food, and 1 in 8,248 will die from sunstroke. It seems that a back woman's chance of
dying at the hands of the police is much lower than the media suggests.
Unfortunately the author chose to show death rates per 100,000 from police encounters
without providing a contextual comparison with other causes of death. How do these death rates
compare to well-known public health problems like heart diseases, cancer, or opiate overdose
deaths for example?
The author's reported death rate from police violence of 3 per 100,000 among 20-year-old
blacks is lower than the overall rate of death from suicide, homicide, cancer, and heart
disease at the same age. Are the 3.5 deaths per 100,000 among 30-year-old blacks more
unusual?
As before, the death rate for everyone from suicide, homicide, cancer, and heart disease
greatly exceeds the death rate for blacks from police violence. Note that neither heart disease
nor cancer is usually considered a major public health threat to 20-30 year-olds of any
ethnicity. Note too that death rates from suicide at ages 20 and 30 surpass death rates from
heart disease and cancer, and are six times higher than the author's stated rate of death from
police violence. A rational concern about premature death should probably focus on suicide and
assaults rather than police violence.
The author's conclusion that "Various races and ages face a higher risk of death or injury
when confronted by police intervention" is simply not supported by the data presented. That
conclusion would require an analysis of death rates per 100,000 encounters with police, rather
than death rates per 100,000 people.
Sadly, the author left out any estimate of how many police encounters occur over a lifetime
within each segment studied, and how many of those encounters do NOT end in death. This
information is crucial for calculating how frequently an encounter with police officers ends in
death. If, for example, one group has ten times as many lifetime encounters with the police, it
would be reasonable to expect ten times as many deaths in that group. This may well be the
situation with men versus women. If the high encounter group had more or less than ten times as
many deaths, that would be cause for investigation into possible discrimination.
Obviously if certain ethnic groups have more encounters with the police than others, that
difference should be a matter for concern and further investigation. It might be a consequence
of some form of racial inequality. However, it helps no one to simply assume that differences
in death rates per 100,000 are evidence of racial injustice.
If racial discrimination in policing exists, it seems likely to show up in the frequency or
number of lifetime encounters with the police. But even knowing numbers of encounters is not
enough to evaluate possible discrimination because the nature of a police encounter influences
how much force is likely to be used by the police. For example, someone robbing a gas station
or store with a gun seems far more likely to face police violence than a shoplifter. Someone
drunk or high on drugs seems more likely to face police violence than a sober person. It seems
reasonable to ask whether factors that increase risk during police encounters occur more
frequently in certain ethnic groups, and if so why.
The author's observation about the lower rates of death among Asians and Pacific Islanders
is important and warrants serious study. Do people of this ethnicity have fewer encounters with
the police? If so, why? Are the encounters of a different kind than black encounters with the
police? Do Asians behave differently than blacks when encountering the police? What actual
factors lead to the seemingly different results across ethnicities?
Answering these questions with "structural racism" or a something similar provides no
actionable way to help improve results for any ethnicity. Calling police violence a health
problem also does nothing to improve outcomes.
The author seems to have assumed from the beginning that policing is the problem. As a
result he completely ignored at least two important questions:
1. Why do most encounters with the police across all ethnicities NOT end in death?
2. Are there behaviors in these many non-deadly encounters that can be taught to people and
police to reduce the chance of police violence?
It seems worth reflecting on these questions and seeking answers to them.
As a final note, it took me less than five minutes to find data to put this author's
statistics in context. I can only wonder why the author did not take the time to do the
same.
Well yeah, "demos" are running all this having robbed any meaning from that traditional
labor/common man viewpoint (think FDR) thus in full cahoots with the global cabal which is
gates and all the other devils, which must be stopped. Too long to list, here is astonishing
summary big food/pharma/chemical/oil/$
"Why was all of this allowed to happen in the first place?"
The apparent change in stance is unlikely a ruse because a ruse presumes that Russia would
take the bait.
The change is unlikely due to a miscalculation on Ukraine's part because Ukraine was well
aware of the strength of the juggernaut just to the east before Ukraine sent men and materiel
that way.
The change is unlikely due to a miscalculation on Washington's part because a likely
drubbing of Ukraine with Washington sitting on the sidelines would result in a loss of
prestige vis a vis Russia and China.
I'd suggest the change -- if there really is such a change -- is more likely the result of
Germany, and maybe France, exerting simultaneous pressure on Washington and Kiev, coupled
with leading sectors of the bureaucracy in both Washington and Kiev agreeing with Merkel
(Washington for its own reasons and Kiev because of Washington's instructions) that a war
does not advance their interests.
Washington is in a position similar to that of Britain prior to the Suez Crisis: one loss
away from losing its preeminence on the world stage. Losing that position over a conflict
involving, essentially, a gas pipeline to Germany is not worth the risk.
It's likely that Washington's apparent stance is symptomatic of significant discord
between the Neocons and the less belligerent of the foreign policy establishment. It appears
that the Neocons may have lost this round. One can expect the schism to continue to play out
over the coming years
vk@29 writes "[My comment@24] is nonsense: if Ukraine takes back the Donbas basin, it will
have full control over Crimea. The option of
'trading' the Donbas for Crimea doesn't exist."
It's hard to know how seriously this is meant. Luhansk and Donetsk are not *the* Donbas.
Kharkiv is culturally and economically as much Donbas, for a start. And Odessa is a major
center of Russian population, too, even if not part of the Donbas. At any rate, insofar as
the "Donbas" is essential to control Crimea, though, it is Kherson and Zaporizhye provinces
that control the water supply. And it is Mariupol's port that contests the Sea of Azov.
That's the part of Donbas that vk implies to be essential for full control of Crimea. But if
Mariupol is essential for full control, then Putin neither has full control now, nor does he
want it, because it is apparently Putin who pressured the rebels into leaving Mariupol in
Ukrainian hands. By the criteria vk uses here, Putin doesn't have full control of Crimea now.
This could be understood to show that in the long run Luhansk/Donetsk are untenable too,
trapped in a race to collapse with Kyiv. And it would show too that Putin needs a genuine
peace in Crimea, needs to do something, because in the long run, time is not on his/Russia's
side. The thing is of course, is that either vk doesn't mean what is actually written, or vk
won't draw the conclusions vk's own premises require.
Ukraine's leadership doesn't care about their civilians and soldiers. US and NATO
leadership care even less for them. In the current context actions speak far louder than
words.
Even the dimmest and most senile leaders can figure out some of the following:
• Russia is not bluffing. Bluffing is not their style.
• Neither the US nor NATO will put boots on the ground of Donbass or Crimea.
• Against Russia the US surface ships in the Black Sea are floating targets, as they are
anywhere else in the world.
• There won't be a Minsk3 agreement.
• Nord Stream 2 will be completed no matter what. For the respect, Russia doesn't need
the revenue so much.
If in fact Ukraine backs down, it will be a Biden continuation of Trump's off-repeated
stunt of walking to the edge and then backing off. You can't expect innovation from senile
players.
Crimea needs water badly with summer coming on.
Any Ukrainian or Russian advance cannot happen across bogs and mud. Wait until the rain
stops, or sink.
I saw somewhere that Zelensky actually thought of opening the canal sometime ago but was
"stopped". It was never made clear WHO ordered him not to, or who ordered him to start an
anti-Russian drive, or.....etc.
b's post undelines that the previous lines of cultural/liguistic division have not gone
away, and have probably hardened. The Nasty brigade are actually in lands that probably do
not appreciate them being there. (ie, the Russian speaking areas under Ukie control are
probably not overjoyed to become "permanent collateral damage")
*
Anyone else notice the large movement of Chinese ships in the South China Sea?
Doubled trouble for the Empire? They hardly get the time to concentrate on claiming "rights
of passage" through Indian territoral waters, or in the Black sea, or in the Artic, without
someone stirring the pot. Whatever next?
A diversion or just taking advantage of the limited scope of the attention span of whoever
is in command in the US ?
@vk "And that's the objective truth: if the Ukraine conquers the DPR and LPR, it will
essentially cut off Crimea from Russia."
How so? It doesn't seem to me that a hypothetical merger of DPR, LPR, and Ukraine would
have any effect on Crimea.
In fact, if DPR and LPR join according to the Minsk2 conditions, it could help, as they
would (theoretically) become a significant political factor on the national level. Which is
why Kiev is not interested in a peaceful unification.
And even a military conquest (which is what you're talking about) would create problems
for Kiev, as disenfranchising (or expelling) most of the population there might be somewhat
problematic.
"One should therefore consider that the sudden call for a renewed ceasefire might be a
ruse." --our host
Precisely. The US prefers to start its conflicts with a sucker punch, but that is only
possible if the target is unprepared and looking the other way. Russia only needs to let its
guard down and look away for a moment for the empire to take advantage of it. Notice how the
ukrops are not moving their attack forces back? They will attack while the US ships are in
the Black Sea to monitor the fighting and provide direction.
Donbass does not have strategic depth. The plan is to hit the republics with a suicide
bum-rush. America doesn't care how many of the ukrop aggressors are exterminated in the
attack so long as some units survive to take up positions in the city centers. The empire's
strategists figure that with a sudden enough and massive enough assault, and given at least
some element of surprise, this can be accomplished overnight. The ukrop cannon fodder will be
given orders to not bother securing any areas they overrun and instead continue to charge
forward.
Suicidal? Absolutely, because any Novorossiya troops that are overrun will regroup behind
the ukrop aggressors and pull back, cutting off the units that penetrated into the cities.
That's when those advance ukrop units will go all "Shock & Awe™" on the
urban civilians to draw the Novorossiya units away from their established positions and
demoralize them.
So long as the Russians are not caught with their pants down they should be able to easily
repel the ukrop assault. If they are thinking this through clearly then the Novorossiya
troops, with the Russians at their backs, should push for the Dniper in order to acquire that
much needed strategic depth. At the same time the Black Sea should be completely cleared of
any hostile vessels, and obviously that means the American ships.
I disagree about DNR and LNR are of importance for Russia to keep hold on Crimea. Crimea
secession was prior to the insurrection in eastern Ukraine, they tried to copy Crimean
secession (even held referenda in 2014) To the frustration of DNR/LNR activists as well as
many russian nationalists, the russian government has rejected all pleas to incorporate the
breakaway regions or Ukraine into Russia. On contrary, it has repeatedly tried to broker a
compromise, and the Minsk accords are part of. Putin even ostensibly bound his hands by
forcing a Duma decree in 2015, revoking the "Medvedyev doctrine" from 2008 Georgian conflict
which authorized use of force when ethnic Russians were threatened, Anyway, the russian
government could not abandon the insurgency in Donbas without risking to be toppled by
nationalists.
One should keep this in mind: Russia does not want the ethnically russian parts of Ukraine
which would comprise of most of it. It was not Russia who escalated the inner ukrainian
divide. And militarily, LNR and DNR are in no way helpful for Crimea. Normal relations
between the RF and Ukraine would be in Russia's interest, would belp both countries. But that
is what the West prevents at any cost, to the last Ukrainian. Only the dumb ukronazis don't
realize that.
@53 vk Ukraine will never get back DNR and LNR by military means, but, if at all, only via
a compromise alongside the Minsk accords. And if you speak to realistic Ukrainians (there are
not few, even in the nazi infested galicia and volyn), they all realize that Crimea is gone,
and that it always only grudgingly agreed to be an autonomous republic inside Ukraine until
2014.
Its not just the Fortuna laying pipe now, the Akadamik Cherskiy has been on the job for
about 10 day and she can lay pipe faster. According to the plans submitted to the Danes, in
whose waters they are laying, Fortuna is expected to finish in May whilst the AC has
permission until September but is expected to finish early.
As to the USN ships (Black sea regular USS Ross passed Gib inbound Med today) are not due in
until the start of next week and will leave early May. What their role, apart from being a
gesture of support for Ukraine, is is not clear. An obvious job of one, if not both, could be
to be tied up at a berth in Odessa harbour as a poison pill to try to make sure that Russia
does not attack that part of the coast. Were there to be an attack of course.
Seems to be a big mistake by the US to me. I can understand what they are trying to do
but, given the option above, if they stay at sea it will be a clear statement that they don't
want to get that involved. I'm sure it is not their intention to be so open in showing their
true objective.
Another possible reason for a delay until May is that the Orthodox Church celebrates its
Eater Sunday on the 2nd May.
William R Henry 52
There is no need to go to the Dneiper to gain sufficient strategic depth, not only would
that be a political nightmare but just stopping at the oblast borders should be sufficient.
Included in that would be Mariupol, the only Ukrainian port on the Sea of Azov. That would
make Donbass economically viable.
No need to clear the Black Sea, Russia totally dominates over, on and under it.
Wouldnt this be the second time that Zelinski used thread of conflict to help himself in
election?
It seems an important point. Why would B over look it, I wonder.
Declaring war and then declaring peace. I guess one cannot chose ones neighbors.
I thought Russia stood to benefit from war. They should keep pressure on Zelinski -
training, preparations and support of Donbass. Seems Russia is very measured with
assistance.
b. :
"It seems that order has come from Washington to stand down - at least for now."
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Bloomberg:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to return to Brussels next week for more meetings
with NATO and European officials, according to people familiar with the matter, as the U.S.
grows increasingly concerned about Russian troop movements near Ukraine.
The meetings will take up most of the week,[...]
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be in Brussels at the same time, for a meeting with
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
"Frank muses that just as the postman always rings a second time to make sure people
receive their mail, fate has made sure that he and Cora have both finally paid the price for
their crime.
"Schöne Wochenende". Next week will be interesting as last 3 were.
Maybe I missed it but there were elections in Ukraine last Sunday and
"The new Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of the Ukraine, elected on Sunday, will have an
overwhelming national mandate to negotiate peace terms to end the five-year civil
war.
You misssed it....
Those elections were in 2019....
Zelenski has been compromised since then... most notably via loss of his plutocrat
mentor...
The CIA/NSA/RightSector are firmly in charge, because Zelenski did not use his mandate to
throttle them.
The best he could have done, was to invite Russia in for the purpose of "stabilizing"
ukraine.
Western nations chided Russia for failing to turn up at talks in Vienna on Saturday aimed
at defusing tension over Ukraine, where a Russian troop buildup close to the border between
the two countries has sparked fears of renewed conflict.
MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference
Friday following talks with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Josep Borrell.
"Therefore, we organize our life coming from the premise that the EU is not a reliable
partner, at least at this stage,"
"I hope that the strategic review which is coming will finally pay attention to vital
interests of the European Union in its closest vicinity " Lavrov stressed.
"I hope that today's talks will help us reach a more constructive trajectory. We are
ready for it."
@b - "...why was all of this allowed to happen in the first place?"
J Swift offered a good clue in his
comment in the previous thread:
"the Nuland crowd have played right into Russia's hands, because the Ukraine is definitely
a place where Russia has escalation dominance. I suspect that when some of those famous
military channels began chatting, the Russians were not so friendly, and made it clear that
an offensive by the Ukies would not only free Russia's hand toward the Nazis and provide a
perfect excuse to rid the East and South of them, but that Russia would be specifically
targeting US/NATO "advisers," command centers, resupply aircraft or any aircraft entering
Ukrainian airspace, and would be just waiting for any US ship in the Black Sea to do
something remotely involving it in the conflict, such that it would be on the bottom in
minutes."
We know from Pepe Escobar's latest article ,
presenting highlights from the recent important interview with Nikolai Patrushev (Secretary
of the RF Security Council), that Patrushev, a very dangerous and serious man, enjoys
undiminished communications with Washington, including a March phone discussion with Jake
Sullivan, White House security advisor. If his interview is anything to go by, his candid
discussions with US leadership could have scared them totally awake.
Once again, it could well be that the neocons talked up a blazing firestorm that the
generals and security professionals ultimately had to pour water on.
Patrick Armstrong in his
latest article gives us ample evidence that Victoria Nuland, back in power and riding
high, is also vastly ignorant and imperceptive, incapable of learning or reflection, and
mediocre in her intelligence. The neocons, as Armstrong points out, have always failed. And
they have led the US down a path of loss.
If in fact this Ukraine adventure is over for the moment (if in fact it ever was real in
the first place), then it bears total resemblance to every other neocon stupid idea, that
goes as far down the path to ruin as it can, sometimes being stopped by wiser heads,
sometimes simply charging over the edge, into the abyss.
If Russia gets to choose, one assumes Russia would prefer no military activity in Ukraine.
And if Russia is forced into military action, one also assumes as best guess that Russia will
reshape the map to a better end for all. It could just be that Russia managed to communicate
this to the US, and that the US managed to hear.
@74 Yes but that doesn't really address b's question. Why was this allowed to happen in
the first place? We know all about Nuland and her cookies and encouragement from Washington.
But why was the Minsk agreement broken? Why do the Ukies keep lobbing shells into
Donbass?
Those troops are bored. I'm sticking with my vodka theory.
Just to clarify: Russia has already officially stated (many years ago) that it doesn't
want any other piece of the Ukraine (i.e. any other piece beyond Crimea). It wants the
Ukraine to survive in the form of a federalized State with the DPR and LPR enjoying high
levels of autonomy (a la Spain).
Ukraine is not profitable to Russia. It would drain its coffers were it to have to conquer
and absorb it entirely.
Time is in Russia's favor: let the Ukraine continue to serve as a financial black hole to
the IMF. Let the Western Ukrainians continue to emigrate en masse to Poland and then to the
rest of the EU and the UK. Russia has already received some 1 million Eastern Ukrainian;
those are probably the more well-educated, more productive Ukrainians, and they gave it some
relief from its chronic negative population problem - all of that without having to advance
one inch over continental Ukraine.
Germany vetoed any more provocations by the US or nato against the Donbass/Crimea that
would clearly call in massive Russian support. Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation;
an end of that part of the story - and there are several hundred thousand people in the
Donbass that now have Russian passports. Russia won't stand for any of it. No matter how much
the dumb Ukrainians or the lackey Poles or their US/nato masters huff and puff and
bellow.....
it is also not in the slightest German interests for a war to break out right in the
middle of Europe that might escalate into a nuclear confrontation, nor is it in their
national interest to lose the Nord Stream 2 project... at all.
I don't know about France's position in all this but either France or Germany could/would
exercise veto over any nato troops/intervention in the Ukraine.
time to return to the Minsk agreements. in spite of the incredible stupidity of the US
foreign policy Establishment and those jackass war-mongers Blinken, Nuland and Austin et.
al.
Do you really expect the Amerikastani Empire's puppet Ukranazi coup regime to say "we will
attack"? Instead it will attack and then claim Russia attacked it. Just like Hitler's
Gleiwitz radio station false flag attack that started WWII.
Zelensky in Istanbul. Erdogan to refuse to recognize Crimea as Russian territory..
Saw a tweet today saying something along the lines of Russia preventing flights to Turkey
this summer for "Covid" reasons, read between the lines..
Time is in Russia's favor: let the Ukraine continue to serve as a financial black hole to
the IMF. Let the Western Ukrainians continue to emigrate en masse to Poland and then to the
rest of the EU and the UK. Russia has already received some 1 million Eastern Ukrainian;
those are probably the more well-educated, more productive Ukrainians, ...
Posted by: vk | Apr 11 2021 1:20 utc | 77
This is rather sketchily related to reality.
1. Ukraine is not a "black hole for the IMF". They got a smallish credit, and now they are
being denied extensions on rather preposterous grounds, and Ukraine is charged for the unused
credit line. Contrary to Nulands boasting, the West keeps Ukraine on a leash with a rather
skimpy budget.
2. There is no clear distinction between migration patterns. The one time I was in Russia,
the tourist guide on a one-day bus trip was from Rivne -- in Poland in years 1918-39. And as
Polish medical workers go to Spain etc., Ukrainian once fill the vacant positions, and they
may come from any place. Ditto with the "quality of workers". Poland has more of seasonal
jobs in picking crops (while Poles do it further West) than Russia, Russia perennially seeks
workers ready to accept extra pay in less than benign climes. The closest to truth is
scooping engineers and highly qualified workers from factories that before worked for Russian
market, including military, replaced with Russian factories and, when needed, Ukrainian
know-how. That is pretty much accomplished -- predominantly from the Eastern Ukraine. As a
result, the remaining workforce is so-so from east to west.
It's been made clear that a Ukrainian attack on the D & L republics would be met with
a direct Russian intervention into the conflict and likely would result in the loss of the
whole of the disputed oblasts to the separatist republics. Russia has no intention of
eliminating Ukraine or occupying Kyiv, but that kind of defeat in the east would spell the
end of what political stability remains in Ukraine and likely lead to a new Maidan against
Zelensky and possibly further secessions. That's the real downside of this for Russia.
Ukraine is threatening to immolate itself as a form of brinksmanship.
Failing that death wish, only if Moscow somehow agrees to stay out of the war does this
have the remotest possibility of achieving what the Kyiv government needs. Otherwise it will
not attack.
@ Lozion | Apr 11 2021 2:18 utc | 81 with the link about the Ukraine/Turkey meeting
today..thanks
Interesting position by Erdogan and I would think it would effect Turkey's purchase of
Russian defense equipment but who knows where the complexity balance resides in the ME.
Lots of tinder just waiting for a spark to point the blame at for world conflagration. I
will believe this situation is cooling when I read about the US ships turning around and not
going into the Black Sea.
Erdoğan has several goals in Ukraine. Show Russia that he is strong and important for
Russia as he has influence on Ukraine. Show the USA that he is an active participant of NATo.
Sell his military drones to whoever wants them as well as other turkish products.
He appears as a king maker and gets business and approval from russia,the EU and the Usa to
avoid a war. A very successful move needed to rehabilitate Erdoğan seriously in trouble
with both the usa and the EU...
The western press is portraying the events of the past few weeks as representing an
unmotivated unilateral Russian troop buildup.
Canada's Globe and Mail yet again deliberately deceives its readers with omission-plagued
reporting which the author must know is wrong. This includes describing the Minsk agreements
as "the Kremlin's version of how to make peace" which are being utilized in an "enforcement
operation" featuring a "coercive use of force" meant to "induce Kyiv, Berlin and Paris" to
accept "Moscow's terms." Awful reporting by any objective measure.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-ukrainian-commander-sees-parallels-with-2014-as-russian-military-build/
Meanwhile, a Heritage Foundation flunky describes "spontaneous" Russian deployments
designed to "keep Ukraine out of organizations such as the EU or NATO".
Russia should be opposed because: "Modern Ukraine represents the idea in Europe that each
country has the sovereign ability to determine its own path, to decide with whom it has
relations, and how and by whom it is governed." https://www.arabnews.com/node/1840341
Both reporters make the same observation in opening paragraphs, supporting the notion that
these pieces are derived from a distributed script or collection of talking points:
1) "For weeks, Russian social media accounts have been flooded with videos showing long
convoys of tanks, troop trucks and artillery pieces "
2) "Dozens of videos in social media posts show hundreds of Russian tanks and armored
vehicles pouring into the region."
I have a feeling, it's only a feeling right now, that the looted black hole that's
Ukranazistan after 7 years of "freedom " is such a drain that the EUNATO gangsters behind the
Maidan would love to palm the ruins off to Russia. "Here, you broke it, you own it."
"
MOSCOW, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Russia does not seek a war with Ukraine but is concerned for the
Russian-speaking population in the country's eastern Donbass region, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said Sunday.
"No one is going to move towards a war, and no one at all accepts any possibility of such
a war," Peskov told a Russian TV program.
"Russia has never been a party to this conflict (between Kiev and insurgents in Donbass).
But Russia has always said that it will not remain indifferent to the fate of Russian
speakers who live in the southeast of Ukraine," he added.
According to the spokesman, Kiev refuses to fulfill its responsibilities under the Minsk
agreements on a Donbass settlement, with government forces intensifying "provocative actions"
in the region.
Russia, Germany and France are "bewildered" by Kiev's recent claims that the Minsk
agreements are useless, Peskov said, adding that there are no alternatives to the pacts for a
peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Political advisers of the Russian, German, French and Ukrainian leaders are working
towards holding a summit on eastern Ukraine, he said.
"
but I do see this situation more as having put the Maidan-coalition on the back-foot and
having to disentangle themselves, rather than a carefully pre-planned and coordinated
operation.
Thank you and I humourously appreciated your allusions to the asylum that has captured
Ukraine. The Maidan Murder Coalition has discovered its karma that was always lying in wait.
These villainous rsoles will seriously collapse under the weight of it all, particularly the
sniper trick shooters on the Maidan crowds.
I loved this line: "Everyone can recall a wide-spread (spread most likely by some overly
zealous, but not very literate, Russian "patriots") rumor about DDG-75 USS Donald Cook having
her electronics "burned" by a couple of intrepid Russian Su-24s in April of 2014, who
allegedly forced this American ship to fast return to Constanta, where, allegedly some of her
crew expressed a desire to abandon the ship. NYT and other US media, not without
justification, called those rumors to be Russian "propaganda". They have a point."
Which seems as good a moment as any to plug my new product (!!). Since that picture of
Col. Brittany visiting Donbass in uniform of 72th mechanized division with a prominent skull
badge reminded me so of the sketch 'Are we the Baddies' it is time to market my new velcro
badges with rainbows and BLM logos. Stick them anywhere to show you're part of the right
camp! If you shoulder badges may offend leftist softies, just stick these badges on top of
them for the perfect photo op! HTS already ordered a large batch. Now 20% off and buy two get
one free!
Turkey wants to build on its successes in Nagorno Karabach to sell its weapon systems to
Ukraine. Whether they also explicitly wish the conflict to explode is less clear.
Erdogan needs money, cash. The same seems to be true of most if not all Western
politicians. But some, like Erdogan and Bibi, need lots of money.
Putin on the other hand, does not need cash. He has a healthy fiat currency at his
disposal and sells a lot of food, oil, lumber, weapons etc. internationally.
I don't think Ukraine is going to be a good source of cash for Erdogan, or Bibi. They need
a lot of cash too.
So there is a massive build-up on both sides in Ukraine? ( The following comment was
provoked by info from a tweet that the Ukrainians have "found" a secret plan by the Kremlin
for a union with Donbas .. unconfirmed )
What if......?
... The Russians and the Dondbas/Luhansk actually DO declare a union with Russia? There is no
"need" for the Russians to physically "invade" the area. They can just sit there and wait for
the Ukrainians to do something. Then IF Zelensky decides, it is he who has to "start"
the conflict. As a plan it is the perfect reversal of the usual Russian "aggression".
Zelensky's bluff called?
A "union" is just another way of saying "it is ours EVEN IF the title is nominally someone
elses, stuff you".
The massive forces on the "frontlines" are there to remind the Ukes and their backers what
"might" happen, IF they "invade" Donbas/Luhansk. What can they do about it? Make rude noises
in the background?
The US, Israel and Turkey are all examples of one country simply "taking over" parts of
another country - without any legality whatsoever. US in NE Syria, Turkey with it's advance
of 32km all along a new frontline, with a wall between itself and Syria. Israel with the
Golan. None of them have the slightest legal reason to be there. (Chinese claim the
Spratleys, which is a legal fig-leaf).
Lateral thinking by Putin? Would he even need a legal fig-leaf?
It is an interesting idea, and I would not want to say it will not happen, but it seems
un-Putin-like to me based on past performance. He's been very comfortable with frozen
conflicts in the past. And I think he probably still wants Ukraine as a buffer, friendly but
not Russia, and to keep it whole minus Crimea.
This way he would still "keep" Ukraine on a tether, and avoid being accused of
aggression.
OK, it may go that way but the silence (from Putin) and the refusal of the Russians to
give more than vague reasons for their actions, does mean that the west's MSM have nothing to
froth at the mouth about- Let Zelensky stew in his own juice.
As well as the regular Army and volunteers, He is going to end up with seven thousand
ex-jihadists employees, multiple "mercenaries" from the US and the other parts of the world,
orders for Drones, arms etc. BUT he is losing $3 billion revenue from gas (the transit of
which has been "slowing down") since the 1st April. I don't know what he has contracted to
supply to those futher along the pipeline. Plus the debts to the WB and IMF.
So how long can he keep up the expense of having a standing army of 105'000 or more at the
ready?
The Russians can wait them out. If they just don't "talk" or give any PR leeway to the
west, then with the attention span of the goldfish in the EU and US citizens, it will drop
once again from view. (20 seconds for a goldfish otherwise they would get bored going round
and round in a bowl ?)
Diesen in his book, Russia's Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia , provides
the rationale for the Outlaw US Empire's actions in Ukraine, that are actually aimed at NATO
members, which it fears will be enticed by Russia and fracture the alliance:
"This susceptibility to outside sabotage of regional unity [NATO] can be mitigated by
centralizing power by, for example, instigating more overt military tensions to strengthen
alliance unity." [Pg. 22]
This also serves to provide additional energy to the Russophobic Narrative and the
unfounded rationale for anti-Russian sanctions. The Empire must at all costs continue NATO's
viability for that ensures the Empire's geoeconomic and geopolitical control of the EU. The
same is true in East Asia where the anti-China narrative must be continued to keep Japan and
South Korea under the Empire's thumb, although South Korea is slowly slipping away.
Time is in Russia's favor: let the Ukraine continue to serve as a financial black hole to
the IMF. Let the Western Ukrainians continue to emigrate en masse to Poland and then to the
rest of the EU and the UK. Russia has already received some 1 million Eastern Ukrainian;
those are probably the more well-educated, more productive Ukrainians, ...
Posted by: vk | Apr 11 2021 1:20 utc | 77
This is rather sketchily related to reality.
1. Ukraine is not a "black hole for the IMF". They got a smallish credit, and now they are
being denied extensions on rather preposterous grounds, and Ukraine is charged for the unused
credit line. Contrary to Nulands boasting, the West keeps Ukraine on a leash with a rather
skimpy budget.
2. There is no clear distinction between migration patterns. The one time I was in Russia,
the tourist guide on a one-day bus trip was from Rivne -- in Poland in years 1918-39. And as
Polish medical workers go to Spain etc., Ukrainian once fill the vacant positions, and they
may come from any place. Ditto with the "quality of workers". Poland has more of seasonal
jobs in picking crops (while Poles do it further West) than Russia, Russia perennially seeks
workers ready to accept extra pay in less than benign climes. The closest to truth is
scooping engineers and highly qualified workers from factories that before worked for Russian
market, including military, replaced with Russian factories and, when needed, Ukrainian
know-how. That is pretty much accomplished -- predominantly from the Eastern Ukraine. As a
result, the remaining workforce is so-so from east to west.
Interesting interview. Apparently, Yuri Andropov had a contingency plan on the event of
the disintegration of the USSR - and yes, it included the partition of the Ukraine into two
("east bank Ukraine" and "west bank Ukraine" - probably West of the Dnieper, East of the
Dnieper). It's in Russian, so maybe inconsistencies with automatic translation may exist:
The interview is with Russian neoliberal banker (of the circle of Yeltsin and Gaidar, St.
Petersburg intelligentsia) Viktor Loshak, from "Alfa-Bank group" (machine translation). He
was a working under Shatalin in the 1980s, so he's allegedly an eye witness (primary source)
of the alleged plans.
He also claims that the St. Petersburg neoliberals never intended to end the Union, and
that what really happened in the 1990s wasn't intended. Smells like revisionism to me, but
ok, the St. Petersburg circle was never known for their intellectual prowess, so it's
possible.
--//--
@ Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Apr 10 2021 21:07 utc | 51
It has in the sense that the Ukraine wants to restore its entire territory, not just some
part of it. There is no scenario where, it being able to reconquer LPR-DPR, it would leave
Crimea with Russia.
High profile attorney means possible troubles for Dominion and its lobbyists. such layers ten
not leave a single stone unturned, which is not in Dominion best interest. Emails will definitely
be subpoenaed and judging from the behaviour of one Dominion executive they were not too
careful.
I kel the joke "Are their lawyers also going to argue that no reasonable person would believe
Fox news?"
Fox News has hired two high-profile defense attorneys to combat a $1.6 billion lawsuit filed
against it by voting technology company Dominion.
The media outlet disclosed in a court filing that it had Charles Babcock and Scott Keller
for its defense. Fox News confirmed the hirings to The Hill.
... ... ...
Fox News Media told The Hill after Dominion filed its suit that it is "proud of our 2020
election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will
vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court."
And yet discovery will be very interesting, and Fox News is now pitted against Dominion,
and their best way to defend themselves is to show that the criticisms were legitimate...
Fox can now subpoena anything relevant from Dominion, and Dominion has to comply or be
criminally prosecuted...
There is not much to discover with Dominion. It mainly functions like a windows 10
computer. so it is hackable. It is very easy to install fraudulent software on these
machines
See Harryi Hursti KILL CHAIN: THE CYBERWAR ON AMERICA'S ELECTIONS and look at his
affidavit See "Investigators for Attorney DePernoReportedly Discover Modem Chips Embedded in
Michigan Voting System Computer Motherboards" via today on theGatewayPundit
When testifying before the MI legislature, the Dominion CEO recommended that a full
forensic audit be ordered if voters suspect that these machines were connected to the
internet.
On Dec 1 election officials deleted the electronic voting data in violation of state
la
Sidney Powell lit a fuse. She woke the Republicans and others who want election integrity,
so the Democrats won't be able to steal any more. At least not with the same tactics
Lou Dobbs might have gotten confused once. I believe he said that an affidavit that
criticized Smartmatic had instead criticized Dominion. However, there are so many problems
with Dominion, I would consider it to be an immaterial mistake. After all these machines
appear to be unusable:
[Vote counting machines] "presents serious system security vulnerability and
operational issues that may place plaintiffs and other voters at risk of
deprivation of their fundamental right to cast an effective vote that is
accurately counted," U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg wrote in a Oct 2020
Electionic vote counting machines were banned in France, Ireland and the in
the Netherlands via Gateway Pundit because they were unreliable.
The Gateway pundit could be sued if they make false statements.
via Twitter:
Elections Canada @ElectionsCan_E
· Nov 16
Elections Canada does not use Dominion Voting Systems. We use paper ballots counted by
hand in front of scrutineers and have never used voting machines or electronic tabulators to
count votes in our
100-year history. #CdnPoli
It is very easy to install fraudulent software on these machines See Harryi Hursti on
seeKILL CHAIN: THE CYBERWAR ON AMERICA'S
ELECTIONS and look at his affidavit
The actual claim is here (400+ pages):
www DOT documentcloud DOT org/documents/20527880-dominion-v-fox-news-complaint
These lawyers have their work cut out for them. As explained in the claim, Dominion
contacted Fox multiple times after the first accusations. They provided Fox with independent
assessments and other evidence that their systems were sound. Fox ignored it, never mentioned
this and continued presenting that Dominion systems were fraudulent (and stated that as a
fact, not as an opinion).
Once again, FOX News will likely claim that they are an entertainment network, not a
news agency ... and therefore they should not be expected to propagate facts on their
broadcasts.
Dominion fights as its image was damaged and it has deep pockets. But how valid are their
claim is for the court to decide. In no way they are as clean as they pretend. Their connection
Dem party operatives is probably provable beyond reasonable doubt. The whole story with Dominion
replacing Diebold on this business is murky to the extreme.
Roger Parloff · Contributor Tue, April
13, 2021, 5:06 AM · 22 min read
... "Instantly," said Steven
Bellovin , a professor of computer science at Columbia University with almost 40 years of
experience in computer networking and security. That's how long it took him to realize, he said
in an interview, that a certain purported spreadsheet that I showed him was "not just fake, but
a badly generated fake by someone who didn't know what they were doing."
The spreadsheet, together with an animated film that was said to illustrate its data, formed
the crux of a nearly two-hour "docu-movie," called "Absolute Proof," which aired at least 13
times last February on the One America News Network. The movie, presented in a news magazine
format, was hosted, co-produced, and relentlessly flacked by Mike Lindell, the irrepressible
CEO of MyPillow, Inc. It purported to furnish absolute proof that the 2020 presidential
election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump in an international cyberattack exploiting
vulnerabilities in voting-machine software that had been intentionally designed to rig
elections.
Dominion Voting Systems, which makes voting technology, filed a $1.3 billion defamation suit
against Lindell and his company in late February -- the third of four massive cases it has
filed since the election -- in part because of "Absolute Proof," which referenced Dominion more
than 40 times. (An in-depth analysis of Dominion's suits over bogus election-fraud claims, as
well as one brought by a rival voting-device company, Smartmatic, is provided in an earlier
story I wrote
here .)
I have just finished reading a couple of weighty tomes with similar themes: Dark Money by Jane
Mayer is about how some nominally right-wing libertarian sociopaths, (i.e. the Kochs and their
coterie) seek to control American politics through various 'charitable' think tanks and stealth
infiltration of top ranked universities; and
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, which is about how some nominally
left-wing(ish) libertarian whiz kid sociopaths seek to control the whole world through social
media.
My main take away is that libertarian ideology is just shorthand for narcissistic
entitlement and psychopathic greed.
...Some Republicans the past few years have talked of breaking from the two-party system and
starting a third. But that's not the way to go. Better to strengthen the system that for more
than a century and a half has seen us through a lot of mess. In its rough way the two-party
system, even without meaning to, functions as a unifying force: At the end of the day, for all
our differences and arguments, you have to decide if you were a constituency of Team A or Team
B. The parties, in their rough and inadequate way, had to be alive to your interests. Things
proceeded with a sense, an air, of majority rule. With a third party you can win the presidency
with 34%. That won't help national unity. And this being America, once we have a third party
we'll have a fourth and a fifth, and everything will be chaos, with a loss of any feeling of
general consensus.
Two parties are better for the country, and better for the Democrats. A strong Republican
party keeps them on their toes. As Oscar Hammerstein once said, liberals need conservatives to
hold them back and conservatives need liberals to pull them forward. One side should stop the
other when it goes too far, or boost it when it fails to move. Hammerstein was a cockeyed
optimist, but this isn't a bad time for that.
... ... ...
...I left the Republican Party at some point in the 2000s. I didn't like a lot of what I was
seeing. I began to say, honestly, that I was a political conservative but not a Republican.
Readers could see it in my work, and I heard from them a lot. I reregistered to vote in a
Republican primary in New York City, and have kept it that way, maybe for reasons of
orneriness.
But I've done a lot of mourning over it the past 15 years, shed literal tears over the GOP.
There were a lot of break points. Iraq was one: If that wasn't the country club at work, what
was? People to whom nothing much bad had ever happened, so they expected good fortune to follow
their decisions. Immigration was another, with the elite decision makers of the party not
caring at all how the unprotected see and experience life. It was a total detachment from their
concerns accompanied by a claim of higher compassion. Sarah Palin was another. I felt her
choice as a vice presidential candidate degraded a good insight, that an ability to do the show
business of politics is important -- FDR, JFK and Reagan knew that -- but you can't let
politics degrade into only showbiz; you need the ability to think seriously about
issues. It is wrong to reduce politics to a subset of entertainment. There were more.
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P
Patrick Jan SUBSCRIBER 12 minutes ago
Conservatives dominate the state governments and federal judiciary, and Republicans hold 50%
of the Senate and 49% of the House. Despite his many flaws, Trump lost the presidential
election by a mere 43,000 votes spread across 3 states. The GOP is hardly "shattered". On the
contrary, the country hasn't been this evenly divided in a long time.
Trump's populist conservative platform and fighting energy have made net gains for the
GOP. Trump's checkered personal life and lack of self-discipline have had the opposite
effect. So let's find a leader who maintains the Trump platform without the Trump
self-sabotage. How about Ron DeSantis?
Joan Lardin SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
My late father used to say:
"oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive."
All Republicans have to do to rehabilitate themselves and people's faith in
their party is speak truth about the Big Lie.
The truth will set them free.
But they can't or won't do it. They are held in the thrall of a six time bankrupt, lying
NY City conman. They are consummate cowards and panderers.
Jesse G SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
The "Big Lie" is being perpetrated by the Biden Administration and Democrats right in front
of your face. Lying about the border, lying about jobs, lying about infrastructure, lying
about voting laws. Everything's a lie. I'm curious what your father would think about this
new level of deception.
Gregory Caswell SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
Money, Media Hacks and Socialist Union Educators have succeeded, over the years, and more
completely recently, to brainwash our youth, and our ever more naive, less thoughtful, more
fearful, overly occupied, and wee witted population, into believing they would far better
off, under a Socialist Dictatorship than a Democratic Republic! I do believe that will change
over the next four years, when the new 'woke" will have thoughtfully awakened from the
nightmare that is growing daily, through lies and disinformation from our Left-Wing Pelosian
Politician's and the Administration, bolstered by our Majority Media Outlet Hacks, each and
every day! We are, and appear to be to other Nations, quite naive in our Foreign affairs! We
have more illegals gaining entrance and more citizen jobless than ever, and the Government
handouts will of necessity cease, with many opportunities having failed, and employment and
pay less than before! They are greasing the slope, and making it much steeper!
The column is extremely week and fragments are republished here for the sole purpose to
critique/
I think Dean Baker is very superficial here. Dominion is a corporation business model of
which is based on lobbying Congress and states. It is definitely closely connected to the
Democratic Party apparatchiks. This is a very questionable model. So now it tried to present
being White Knight defending itself again absurd claims like Hugo Chaves claim. This does not
change the nature of their business. In reality this is two dirty persons struggling in a mud
peat.
Also the key question remains unanswered: are Dominion machines do any good to the USA voting
system? If yes, then defending itself makes some positive sense. If not, why bother?
...Hugo Chavez, the former president of Venezuela who has been dead for eight years, figures
prominently in many of the stories. Nonetheless, many Fox News viewers believe them.
For a voting machine manufacturer, the claim that your machines are rigged is pretty much a
textbook definition of a damaging statement. Therefore, Dominion should have a pretty solid
case.
Sullivan doesn't dispute any of this, instead, she points out that libel or defamation suits
can also be used against news outlets doing serious reporting. She highlights the case of
Reveal, a nonprofit news outfit that is dedicated to investigative reporting. Reveal was nearly
forced out of business due to the cost of defending itself against a charity that it exposed as
being run by a cult. Sullivan's takeaway is that defamation lawsuits can be used as a weapon
against legitimate news organizations doing serious reporting.
Sullivan is right on this point, but wrong in understanding the implications. Every
civil course of action can be abused by those with money to harm people without substantial
resources. There are tens of thousands of frivolous tort cases filed every year, but would
anyone argue that we should deny people the right to sue a contractor that mistakenly sets
their customer's house on fire? The same applies to suits for breach of contract. If I pay
someone $10,000 in advance to paint my house and they don't do it, should I not be able to sue
to get my money back?
... ... ...
The reality is that our legal system can be abused by the powerful to harm those with
less power. That is the result of the enormous disparities of income and power in this country,
and the inadequate shields against abuse in the legal system...
By
Jeff Horwitz
and
Keach Hagey
Updated April 11, 2021 11:41 am ET
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Google for years operated a secret program that used data from past bids in the company's digital advertising exchange to
allegedly give its own ad-buying system an advantage over competitors, according to court documents filed in a Texas antitrust
lawsuit.
The program, known as "Project Bernanke," wasn't disclosed to publishers who sold ads through Google's ad-buying systems. It
generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the company annually, the documents show. In its lawsuit, Texas alleges
that the project gave Google, a unit of
Alphabet
Inc.,
GOOG
0.90%
an
unfair competitive advantage over rivals.
Google's Ad Machine
Online ads are typically sold in auctions that happen in an instant, when a user's webpage is loading. Google
dominates at virtually every step of the process. In an antitrust lawsuit, Texas alleges that Google's secret
"Project Bernanke" allowed the company to use knowledge it gained running its ad exchange to unfairly compete against
rivals. Here's how the digital advertising machine works:
THE SELL SIDE: PUBLISHERS
AD SPACE
FOR SALE
When a
user
visits
a large online
publisher's
website
or app, the publisher uses an
ad
server
to sell ad space on its pages.
The publisher also gives the exchange information about the reader -- their age, income, browsing history and
interests, for example.
In this example, the publisher uses Google's DoubleClick for Publishers, the leading ad-serving tool.
The tool puts the publisher's ad space up for sale on
exchanges
,
marketplaces where transactions happen in real-time between sellers (
publishers
)
and buyers (
advertisers
).
REAL-TIME
AUCTION HOUSES
Google has the largest such marketplace, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, or AdX.
THE BUY SIDE: ADVERTISERS
An advertiser, representing its clients' products, uses sophisticated buying tools to purchase ads.
In this example, an advertiser uses Google's buying tool, DV360, the industry leader.
The advertiser can specify the types of audiences it wants to target -- such as location, gender or age of
user -- and the price of their offer.
To get its ad in front of the user, the advertiser places bids in the auction marketplace -- the highest bidder
wins.
Once a match is made on the exchange, an ad pops up on users' screens.
The documents filed this week were part of Google's initial response to
the
Texas-led antitrust lawsuit
, which was filed in December and accused the search company of running a digital-ad monopoly
that harmed both ad-industry competitors and publishers. This week's filing, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, wasn't
properly redacted when uploaded to the court's public docket. A federal judge let Google refile it under seal.
Some of the unredacted contents of the document were earlier disclosed by MLex, an antitrust-focused news outlet.
The document sheds further light on the state's case against Google, along with the search company's defense.
Much of the lawsuit involves the interplay of Google's roles as both the operator of a major ad exchange -- which Google likens
to the New York Stock Exchange in marketing documents -- and a representative of buyers and sellers on the exchange. Google also
acts as an ad buyer in its own right, selling ads on its own properties such as search and YouTube through these same systems.
Texas alleges that Google used its access to data from publishers' ad servers -- where more than 90% of large publishers use
Google to sell their digital ad space -- to guide advertisers toward the price they would have to bid to secure an ad placement.
Google's use of bidding information, Texas alleges, amounted to insider trading in digital-ad markets. Because Google had
exclusive information about what other ad buyers were willing to pay, the state says, it could unfairly compete against rival
ad-buying tools and pay publishers less on
its
winning bids for ad inventory
.
The unredacted documents show that Texas claims Project Bernanke is a critical part of that effort.
How tech giants are both cooperating while competing in hardware, software and technology services
Google acknowledged the existence of Project Bernanke in its response and said in the filing that "the details of Project
Bernanke's operations are not disclosed to publishers."
Google denied in the documents that there was anything inappropriate about using the exclusive information it possessed to
inform bids, calling it "comparable to data maintained by other buying tools."
Peter Schottenfels, a Google spokesman, said the complaint "misrepresents many aspects of our ad tech business. We look
forward to making our case in court." He referred the Journal to an analysis conducted by a U.K. regulator that concluded that
Google didn't appear to have had an advantage.
The Texas attorney general's office didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Google's outsize role in the digital-ad market is both controversial and at times murky.
In some instances, "we're on both the buy side and the sell side," Google Chief Economist Hal Varian said at a 2019 antitrust
conference held by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Asked how the company managed those roles, Mr. Varian
said the topic was "too detailed for the audience, and me."
bshirley1968 3 minutes ago
bshirley1968 3 minutes ago
"Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cares so much about the environment that he
decided to ride a bicycle to work at least the last two blocks.
He was caught unloading a bicycle from a black SUV a short distance from the White House
so he could finish his ride to the cabinet meeting on bike. Such a great photo
opportunity.
Security followed in the SUV.
Perfect example of everything coming out of DC. Everything is a narrative supported by some
kabuki theater.
The Jewish Anti-defamation league is after Tucker Carlson. That's as bad as it gets. They
have more money than God.
Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt "Tucker must go"...."white supremacist
tenet that the white race is in danger by a rising tide of non-whites" that is "anti-Semitic,
racist and toxic."
"" Lord, if it be your will, harden my heart. Stop me from striving to see the best in
people. Stop me from being hopeful that White people can do and be better."
I wonder if this sick woman has any idea, how many good people trapped in the violence of
hoods...could feel exactly the same way about blacks?
Justifiably...
Liesel 24 minutes ago
Dear God, please help me to stop spending money on Amazon and doing Google searches...
Liesel 27 minutes ago (Edited)
If we refuse to spend money at all these businesses that are "woke", there would literally
be no place left to shop. It's really getting that bad. However, please remember the powers
that be want people divided and hating each other. In their eyes, people who are united are
the most dangerous them.
Darth-Budice 34 minutes ago
Been 7 years since I stepped foot into a Target.
If they think 13% of the population + the soy-infused can support them...
I have a different take on this. The US should move to take back Cuba. Let Russia have
Ukraine, we take back Cuba. After Cuba take back Venezuela. Then Russia and China have no
ports in the Americas. Much bigger win for the US.
permanent victim 1 hour ago
Take back?
libfrog88 56 minutes ago
That is the usual word for Americans for stealing.
NATO commissars chase Ukrainian conscripts into RU artillery and machinegun fire until
they lose control over their units, which immediately flee the battlefield (as usual).
If V.V. Putin feels merciful, there's no Buratino rocket barrages on troop concentration
points, as happened during Ilovaisk debacle.
Now, hopefully NATO will puff up and use their vaunted Israeli drones during the attack,
so RU can study the remains.
You never, ever attack entrenched, prepared and boresighted Russians in tank country, without
air superiority, because if you do you get Kursk.
In the best case.
In worst, and most probable case, NATO will get another Saur Mogila disaster.
@Zarathustra urriculum. The Russians must stop protecting the Jews who control the
narrative everywhere. Jews must no longer control more than 10% of the media. They are only
1-2% of the population.
Like the Jews, Galician Ukrainians are always victims. What they did to the Poles during
the German occupation is forgotten.
The zionists are in control in the Ukraine and if they start a war with Russia the Ukraine
is going to be destroyed, Russia has warned Ukraine over and over but being the typical
zionists that they are, they will accept nothing but destruction and bloodshed as long as it
is someone elses blood and destruction.
The zionists have destroyed Iraq and Syria and Libya and Yemen and America.
@alwayswrite ous Regions/Republics had the legal right to secede from the given SSR they
were attached to. Furthermore, once USSR dissolved, any legal basis for a given (former) SSR
to have sway on the given Autonomous Soviet Republic ended.
@Miro23 Germans are surely going to become tired of all this CIA/Neo-con BS.
Merkel and Macron know just what the US is playing at. If the Ukraine does get the deserved
thrashing, that it is literally begging for, then of course there will be German and French
knee jerk condemnations along with the ritual imposition of token sanctions. However this
dangerous episode, will likely harden the resolve of both countries to escape the grip of the
flailing hegemon, which is now in its death throes. So perhaps in the slightly longer term, the
whole episode will backfire on the US and big time at that.
Russia might feel that war in Ukraine is inevitable and perhaps it would be better now,
rather than later.
@Levtraro ganovich, henchman to Stalin, but with an agenda of his own, had his troops and
secret-police agents seize essentially ALL the food stocks from perhaps 2 million peasant
families, resulting in death by starvation for multi-millions.
Thirdly, the heaviest battles in the Second World War were mostly fought in Ukraine. Again,
the death totals of the civilian population were huge. The land was ravaged. Essentially the
entire population were deeply traumatized.
Consequently one should not wonder that to the average Russian Ukrainians appear to be dazed
and dumbed-down. So next time you see your Russian friends, kindly remind them that their
brethren to the south and west should be regarded and treated with considerable compassion.
Good comment. Basically what I have been saying since Maidan. I understand why it has not
happened but the time has definitely come. I think the demarcation would be Odessa, Kherson,
Mykolaev and then north along the Dnipro including Khortiskia and up to East Sumy. I know it
sounds warmongerish but I hope this happens. Get this shit over with. There is so much
happening in this country that discriminates against ethnic Russians more each day.
No, it isn't; it's worse. The Ukrainian army suffers huge non-combat losses every day:
accidents from drinking or narcotics, desertion, suicides. Their commanders are incompetent and
super-dumb as well as first-rate scumbags.
They well remember the Russian reconquest after the revolution and Holodomor.
That they do not remember, for that never happened, at least, not as described. What they do
remember, however, are the caldrons in 2014-2015 and their horrendous losses.
"They well remember the Russian reconquest after the revolution and Holodomor. Ukraine will
not be easily swallowed again."
Ummmmm . it would appear that the grandchildren of the architects of the Holodomor are the
ones currently in power in Ukraine. Pretty amazing level of cucking and submission if you ask
me.
@Levtraro vernment of Ukraine and that the current regime is nothing more than a puppet
state which does NOT represent the best interests of the Ukrainian people and particularly of
those particularly Russian speaking folks in Crimea and the Donbass region.
The illegitimate regime in Kiev is almost entirely Khazarian Talmudist dominated and in
cahoots with the fascistic Uniates in Galicia. That group should be entirely divorced from any
future Ukrainian state as their history has a long involvement with Western Roman Catholic
cultures and consequently is an alien entity within the body politick of Ukraine, Belarus or
Russia. Let them go their own way and not infect their neighbors to the south and east with
their culturally indigestible attitudes.
Turkey Confirms 2 US Warships To Enter Black Sea As Ukraine Posturing Grows
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, APR 09, 2021 - 10:29 AM
Turkey's foreign ministry on Friday confirmed
that it's granted permission for US warships to use the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to enter the Black Sea at a moment
tensions with Russia over Ukraine are spiraling higher with tit-for-tat threats. Given it revealed the initial notification
was two weeks ago, a pair of American warships are
expected imminently to enter the
Black Sea
.
The foreign ministry
said
in a statement
while referencing the treaty that regulates passage through the straits: "A notice was sent to us 15 days
ago via diplomatic channels that two U.S. warships would pass to the Black Sea in line with the Montreux Convention.
The
ships will remain in the Black Sea until May 4.
"
Typically the US gives 14-days notice prior
to sending warships into the Black Sea, according to the long established treaty with Turkey regarding use of the Bosporus to
enter the waters.
And Reuters notes the significance of the
timing
as follows
: "The United States has informed Turkey that two of its warships will pass through Turkish straits to be
deployed in the Black Sea until May 4, Ankara said on Friday, as Russia has bulked up its military forces on Ukraine's eastern
border."
Late Thursday an unnamed US defense official
had told CNN the warships would be deployed
"in the next few weeks in
a
show of support for Ukraine
,"
and further the deployment would "send a specific message to Moscow that the US is
closely watching," according to the
report
.
Importantly, all of this comes just days
after Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky personally urged NATO to
immediately
expand its Black Sea presence.
He had said in a phone call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg,
"Such
a permanent presence
should be a
powerful
deterrent to Russia
, which continues the large-scale militarization of the region and hinders merchant
shipping," the
president's
press service
indicated in a readout.
Zelensky had also traveled to the site of frontline renewed fighting in the Donbas region on Thursday in a show of support to
Ukrainian national forces who are clashing with Russia-backed separatists.
While American vessels have long operated in the Black Sea, even semi-regularly conducting drills there, this time the US
ships are being sent there
specifically as a "warning" to Moscow
.
But Russia's Defense Ministry on Thursday announced naval maneuvers of its own,
confirming
that it's
moving more than 10 navy vessels from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea
in
order to conduct naval exercises.
With the rival naval build-up on the Kremlin and Ukraine's doorstep, and with the mutual amassing of troops on either side of
the border...
what could go wrong?
Bdubs
49 minutes ago
And Trump
was the bloodthirsty war monger?
Is there
ANYTHING the left disparages the right for that is not a psychological projection?
These f-ers
need therapy.
Misesmissesme
1 hour ago
(Edited)
Man, we're doing everything we can to turn Ukraine into Poland circa 1939.
Maybe we can find an Archduke to assassinate so we can turn the clock all the way back to 1914.
USAllDay
1 hour ago
remove
link
Joe
sent his kid to Ukraine to blow lines. He'll send yours to blow up.
GreatCaesar'sGhost
1 hour ago
No nato troops will ever set foot in Ukraine. They're trying to pressure Russia into doing something
so they can force the Germans to stop nordstream. The Ukrainians can't win here and they're being used.
Not good.
BeePee
1 hour ago
There
were NATO advisors in Ukraine. Even that should be stopped.
Selling arms to Ukraine, most likely will continue. That's what companies do.
GreatCaesar'sGhost
58 minutes ago
The
Ukrainians are being pushed to make a move against Donbass and even Crimea. It is a poor country buying
expensive weapons, doesn't end well.
I don't know what weed you're smoking but it has really scrambled your brains. The ability
to show up on the parade grounds and go around the world showing fancy overpriced toys does
not equate to fighting ability. The US hasn't faced a real army in a conventional war since
Vietnam. The US is great at fighting banana republics, but if facing a real military like
Russia (who believe me have all the drones that the US has and the ability to neutralize
those of the enemy) would run for their safe spaces and hide.
It is difficult to find a black cat in the empty dark room, but neoliberal MSM jump over
their head screaming Cat! Evil Russian cat!
Notable quotes:
"... Looking for something in wikipedia, I discover that in 1961, the first manned spaceflight was..."a propaganda victory". There's no hope! ..."
"... I think Russians have weaponized word 'weaponized' because presence in headlines represents most useful mechanism to map current extent of Mockingbird 2 operations. ..."
"... It was an interesting demonstration of the circularity of belief mechanisms at work when people adopted ideas like: "Putin did not really intervene in our elections, he was much more devious. He made us think he did intervene and that way caused us to undermine ourselves! That is how devilish he is and we were even more right than we thought about that!" ..."
"... It is beyond question that such a "system" is overly hysterical, to say the least ..."
With the US/UK press in full Russia hysteria mode, right now, it's time for a thread on
things the Anglo-American media has accused Moscow of "weaponising."
We shall start with Charlie Sheen.
Yes. Really. Not a joke.
Take a bow, @ak_mack & @ForeignPolicy
Bryan MacDonald's thread is a good opportunity to update our list of all the issues, ideas
and things Russia has weaponized.
Even while the list below now includes 111 entries - like robotic cockroaches, postmodernism
and 14.legged squids - it is likely far from being complete.
Some people, crazed extremists no doubt, might regard all that as a way of softening up
public opinion for conflict. Reading through the list, it seems more like the ravings of
paranoid schizophrenics then it does journalists.
This demonizing of Russia is an attempt to portray it as a threat: there is certainly a clash
of interests between Russia and the West. But the confrontation being pursued will not lead
to the conclusion NATO predicts. Failure to heed the warnings of history is leading us to the
nuclear apocalypse. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Even for Reuters their center headline, photo and subtext are over the top.
They no longer make any effort to disguise political opinion as facts
(their sheeple readers won't catch on).
As of this writing the headline is: Half of Republicans believe false accounts of Capitol riot: Reuters/Ipsos poll
and the subtext is: Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump
and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event
that left five dead and scores of others wounded. His supporters appear to have
listened.
He tread water wearing a blissful smile as the organism approached him (14 armed
killer squid). Obviously the "vampire Squid" Goldman Sachs has been submersively trying to
disrupt Russia.
Why would the CIA be so interested in the ability of North Korea to modify weather? Most
probably because the CIA's efforts to pull off a repeat of the flooding in North Korea in
1994-1995 failed and they want to know why.
Aside: Research the CIA's "Operation Popeye" in 1967 Vietnam if you are doubtful of
how evil and crazy the CIA is.
Most likely the party involved in foiling the CIA's plot to flood North Korea again and
trigger another famine was China and not Russia. Not only does China have extensive
experience with cloud seeding, but they are in the proper location to accomplish the task.
Cloud seeding is how the Chinese provided clear weather over Beijing for the Olympics in
2008... they seeded air masses farther upwind to make it rain there and dry out the air
heading to Beijing. If the air heading towards North Korea (relatively consistent west to
east flow there) has already been seeded and much of the moisture in it already precipitated
out, then when the CIA's spook planes seed it nearer to the Korean peninsula it will be too
dry to squeeze much more rain out of. The CIA would be cockblocked and frustrated and they
will naturally want to know why their attempts at genocide failed.
Our Mission
At Collateral Global, we believe that there is an urgent need to study the consequences of
public health measures implemented in response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, including the
second and third-order effects.
Through commitment to the enduring principles of scientific inquiry, we aim to provide
scholarship and research, building an evidence-based understanding of mitigation measures
that is both accessible and actionable.
How long until the above site is compromised or McCarthyism-smeared?
Maybe these count. I looked for variations of weaponize in title. These were stories I
remember reading and did quick search to retrieve something about them. Great list.
I am deeply troubled that you conveniently neglected to include another fearsome Russian
Super-Dooper Weapon: the children's cartoon Masha and the Bear .
It's obvious that Masha and the Bear is a nefarious Russian plot to steal the precious
bodily fluids of our children!
We must be constantly vigilant. The CIA, FBI, MI6, NSA, and Homeland Security must be
notified about the Masha Threat. YouTube must censor Masha. And blue check-marked Twitter
police must condemn anyone who watches Masha.
This one didn't have the word 'weaponize', close though: "opening a new front in its spy
battles".
accusing the Kremlin of opening a new front in its spy battles with the West amid the
worldwide competition to contain the pandemic.
...
American intelligence officials said the Russians were aiming to steal research to
develop their own vaccine more quickly, not to sabotage other countries' efforts. There was
likely little immediate damage to global public health, cybersecurity experts said.
Russia's weaponized Zersetzung
...
And although economic sanctions might hurt Russia's economy, they won't easily heal the
divisions that weaponized decomposition has deepened in America. Putin's assault on the
national soul is working.
The U.S. media is weaponizing ignorance.
The more one absorbs their reporting, the more the brain is reduced to mush.
I can only manage a few hundred works and I become irritated and disoriented.
My hat is off to people who can somehow look at that stuff and remain sane.
Or are they...hmmm...
A major mistake in interpreting the massive parallelism of all these claims is to assume a
form of central coordination.
In fact the parallellism is spontaneous once the target has a bad reputation. Centrally
organized propaganda can tune the reputation of the target but even that is not essential and
it can happen organically. Once the reputation is set however the process has its own
momentum. There is a bit more to it than merely the reputation of the target because the
positive reputation of those who attack the target also plays. In fact you have to work with
a large network of trust relations to get a good picture.
Glenn Greenwald recently linked to an article of Erik Weinstein on Russell Conjugation , how
the same events get an entirely different emotional content depending on the reporter. In the
long list of links above everyone is using the same spectacles for looking at events, but
also for filtering what is relevant , meaningful and worthy of attention.
This is why the NYTimes is still an interesting paper once you know how to read it. But few
people can use it that way.
The Russians, along with the Chinese, have apparently weaponized the protests of British
citizens against overreaching Police legislation.
"The disruption being caused through "Kill the Bill" protests in UK is an effort by the
Sino-Russian alliance to destroy trust and confidence in political and institutional systems,
in a bid to leave society demoralised and feeling powerless against events." https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/china-russia-use-social-media-fuel-protests-uk
div> Surely Harry and Megan must have been weaponized by that dreadful
Putin! Stands to reason. Doesn't it?
We need to keep in mind one thing: That which The West accuses Russia of, they are actually
committing themselves.
Nearly all of the 'weaponisations' that we are reading about above, The West is actually
DOING. The hypocracy is incredible. But we need to look at this hypocrisy, because in all
instances the propaganda is being directed at YOU! You / Us / Me in The West. We are the
target of this propaganda. In many instances it is MILITARY ORGANISTIONS that are targeting
civilians with lies and misinformation. WE are being attacked by military organisations.
I think enough is enough on The West. It's disgraceful that military organisations are
allowed to target civilians with BLATANT propaganda. It's time to fight back.
Howdy people. I think Russians have weaponized word 'weaponized' because presence in
headlines represents most useful mechanism to map current extent of Mockingbird 2
operations.
classical psychological projection by the weaponized narrative enablers of the worst Empire
in all human history, as we stand at 90 Seconds to Midnight on the very precipice of nuclear
war and ecological catastrophe, and the engine of the Armageddon Express starts to go off the
cliff....
I have two parakeets that I have been trying to weaponize for the better part of a month. But
it appears to be totally hopeless. If Mr. Putin happens to read this blog for some
weaponistic purpose, would you please offer me some of your invaluable advice? Please?
I think weaponized sheep is the winner, with incompetence a close second.
Jen, can you please tell me where one can watch the skating? Or perhaps, well we would call
them re-runs in the ancient history days - perhaps utoobs?
I see tantalizing hints on RT, but no real films.
The russian skaters (from what I saw last year) are truly amazing. Thanks.
If the system used by restaurants and cafes in HK is similar to what we have in Australia,
then they are required at least to provide a method by which their customers can be contacted
and advised if someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 has also visited the eateries
within 14 days of the customers having visited the establishments. That way those customers
can know if they need to isolate and limit their contacts with others.
The contact tracing is also supposed to help government authorities know how quickly the
disease is or is not spreading so they only have to lockdown certain neighbourhoods or areas
where there may be a cluster developing, instead of locking down an entire city or a state or
even a whole country.
Also you need to be careful reading Al Jazeera articles: Al Jazeera is definitely not a
fan of Russia or China.
"... And among those chafing at the government's response, like restaurant owners and their
customers, a form of grassroots resistance was forged.
Instead of asking their customers to scan the health department's QR code and transmit
their location, some owners have designed an alternative code that feeds into a Googleform
which will be erased every 31 days, the period for which businesses are required by
authorities to retain the data ..."
That action by the restaurant owners is not exactly grassroots resistance if the
authorities have already approved the Googleform and the erasures.
Around ten years ago, I called this "Dog Putin ate my homework syndrome". It is not only
propaganda against an economic, political and even soul competitor (last resort of real
Christianity is Russia), it is not even just a projection ("killer Putin", as Putin himself
explained). Its primary purpose is to tell you why you are living worse than 20 years ago,
why your children will live even worse than you now if they remain in this lost cause of
deeply corrupt and rotten so called countries. It is an excuse for everything that is wrong -
it is all because Putin and Xi weaponised it.
When I see such things in alt media, since I do not consume the swill from the main
sewerage media, I get that sinking feeling that I live in a wrong place, a place without a
future.
I do not care who the "authorities" denigrate, Russia, China, they are even to me. I only
wish they would do something to reduce the problems of our own societies instead of always
blaming someone else. Because as long as the rulers and their sewerage media sycophants keep
pointing fingers at Russia and China nothing will change for the better here where I am.
Any propaganda works if the people know they will never suffer the consequences of war.
The idea, all the way from Saddam Hussein, that we can influence the USA public to stop
their govt waging war on us, is misplaced.
I used to believe it too. I dont believe anymore. I dont believe the USA govt needs to
strain themselves to get the citizens behind them to put up blockades/sanctions or launch
cruise missiles.
Some still think this or that event will be used to "sanction russia", "attack iran"
etc.
(The "more sanctions coming" part is weird. As though Russia today prospers at the
pleasure of the West)
The only thing that stops an attack on Iran is hard cold realities of thousands of dead US
Marines and destitution at home once the oil terminals are blown up. Same vs Russia.
Still bloggers write stuff to try to convince the Anerican public.
Only thing that convinces any person/society is the consequences for actions.
But mark my words: West was beaten on 2020-01-08. Payment soon to Russia for going along
with the c19. Iran got some of its payment with that 25yr agreement.
It's still "One Country / Two Systems" in China / Hongkong as far as I can tell. If
Googleforms are not available in Hongkong, maybe you need to tell
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
"Because as long as the rulers and their sewerage media sycophants keep pointing fingers at
Russia and China nothing will change for the better here where I am."
Posted by: Kiza | Apr 6 2021 1:18 utc | 51
Absolutely Kiza, damn shame, but expect no change, and no disappointment will arise. The
new feudalism has arrived.
The take away ending quote
"
For the EU, the Chinese entry into global politics is more problematic. It was trying to
leverage its own 'strategic autonomy' by erecting European values as the gateway to inclusion
into its market and trade partnership. China effectively is telling the world to reject any
such hegemonic imposition of alien values and rights.
The EU is stranded in the midst. Unlike the U.S., it is precluded from printing the money
with which to resurrect its virus-blighted economy. It desperately needs trade and
investment. Its biggest trading partner, and its tech well-spring, however, has just told the
EU (as the U.S.), to give up on its moralising discourse. At the same time, Europe's
'security partner' has just demanded the opposite – that the EU strengthens it. What's
to be done? Sit back, and watch (with fingers crossed that no one does something extremely
stupid).
"
Trying to wade through the muck that passes as news today IS a fools errand.
Long time reader of MOA, followed Paveway long ago.
B, keep this site alive and let me know how to contribute.
It was an interesting demonstration of the circularity of belief mechanisms at work when
people adopted ideas like: "Putin did not really intervene in our elections, he was much more
devious. He made us think he did intervene and that way caused us to undermine ourselves!
That is how devilish he is and we were even more right than we thought about that!"
I recently read an article which stuck with me on a Flemish 'eminence grise' (Jan
Balliauw)on Russia which commented on
the European turnabout over the Sputnik vaccine(in dutch) : yes we misjudged the Russian
vaccine but it is the fault of the Russians and the bastards are cheering now! And he goes on
to the main theme by emphasizing the Russians can't be trusted.
It is beyond question that such a "system" is overly hysterical, to say the least
. Show me the proof that there is a need to cancel democracy and human rights for something
that does not affect 99.9% if anyone at all. And if you do, why not lock everybody in because
of traffic accidents, violent crime or actual diseases such as malaria, dengue fever or
whatever.
I question the motives for what is going on: that is to say: I do not accept that people's
health is the driving factor behind this. Show me the proof that what is claimed is actually
happening and if so also show me the proof that the intrusive technology is actually
meaningful. In my view this is conditioning the people to accept personal surveillance on a
level that goes far beyond 1984, and it is infinitely more scary than "covid".
How Russia Amerika+France+UK+++ weaponized "the Great Syrian Democratic
Revolution"
How much longer can people still insist that there is a Syrian revolution, when the most
powerful group is not only friendly to the West, but an "asset"?
In Australia, the minimum that restaurants, cafes, other dining establishments, other
private retail establishments and places where large numbers of people might gather can do is
provide a way in which customers and patrons can be notified that they may have come in
contact with someone who has COVID-19 or who has tested positive for COVID-19. But most of
these places cannot compel people to leave their contact details (usually mobile phone
numbers) with them.
In cases where places do compel people to leave their mobile phone details for the
purposes of contact tracing, people have the option of going somewhere else that does not
insist on their leaving their contact details behind.
The system used in Hong Kong dining places appears to be
similar to the system used in Australia: by law, these establishments must provide
methods by which people can be contacted if they become sites of infection. They either
encourage people to download a contact-tracing app or ask people to write their details down
on paper forms. Customers have the option also of not going out at all and eating at home,
which is difficult to do in a culture where dining out in public with friends and family is
expected and where most people live in small apartments so they prefer to entertain others by
taking them out to restaurants and cafes.
Some restaurants and cafes in HK have also refused to take people's contact details and
have opted to serve takeaway meals only.
Theoretically this system would reduce the need for blanket lockdowns of an entire city or
a larger administrative unit such as a state or province, or even country. In Sydney, the NSW
government used contact tracing to determine that a cluster of COVID-19 cases was limited
mainly to the northeast side of the metropolitan area and this part of Sydney was subjected
to lockdown. Traffic access to the area (population: about 250,000) was blocked by police.
The lockdown lasted about 21 days and included New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. During this
period people living in the affected area couldn't leave it but were allowed to leave their
homes for exercise, essential shopping and getting takeaway meals within the area.
The issue that Al Jazeera brings up is an issue of compulsion and creeping authoritarian
rule (based on stereotypes about China and the Chinese government) but it uses a poor example
to demonstrate what it wants its readers to believe. It turns out that the HK govt is not
forcing all dining establishments to use its contact-tracing app but is giving them a choice.
Al Jazeera should have done better research.
Show me the proof that there is a need to cancel democracy and human rights for
something that does not affect 99.9% ...
Jen is not advocating for canceling democracy and human rights. And the pandemic
affects us all. Everyone is capable of getting sick and passing it on to others.
Democracies have responded to the pandemic with measures that many people find onerous and
many lies have been spread by some of these people such as: 1)"masks don't work" (they do
work but they protect others, not the mask-wearer) ; 2) "only old people die" (even teens
have died); and 3) that the pandemic is a hoax (it's not just the flu!).
Your "... does not affect 99.9% if anyone at all" is just regurgitating
nonsense.
Many more-authoritarian countries have actually been more successful in fighting the
pandemic. They haven't had to have the long "lockdowns" (a misnomer that exaggerates) that
Western democracies have imposed. Among the things that they have done (as temporary
emergency measures) is: rigorous contact-tracing, and quarantining the sick and suspected
sick.
I would also note that the hypocrisy is astounding:
People that DEMAND a return to normalcy also argue against the actions that could have
returned us to normal much sooner than waiting for experimental vaccines;
Libertarians that don't complain much about laws like speed limits and the prohibition
against yelling "fire!" in a crowed theater are DEMANDING an end to pandemic measures that
curtail their liberty;
Republicans that are pushing for voting ID and accept a police state are DEMANDING that
the economy be "opened up".
I should add, for the benefit of readers that don't know me, that my criticism of those
who are critical of pandemic measures doesn't mean that I'm not skeptical of many things
about this pandemic such as:
USA/Empire desire to stoke hate for China;
Big Pharma - government ties;
mRNA tech which has been funded by US Mil for use in biowarfare;
the immense propaganda spawned by the the above and the sheeple's acceptance of
same.
The only thing that holds America or the "democratic" West together is an increasingly rabid
hatred of Russia and China.
The Western-controlled Free Press and its unhinged accusations against Russia is matched
by its equally unhinged torrent of Yellow Peril propaganda against China, as evidenced
below:
Simply put, the collective West--led by the America and the Anglosphere--resembles a
civilization of paranoid schizophrenics, whose delusional ravings will drive them towards
world war--total war.
Needless to say, things will not end well for them.
This guy is nothing but a f * c king crook and a gangster. They just paid a fine of a
BILLION dollars for manipulating the Gold Market. And they even give time for this shyster to
even speak?
jamesblazen62 10 hours ago remove link
Dimon is in greed's grasp and he can't escape. He's had 2 brushes with death (cancer and
emergency heart surgery). You'd think a billionaire with more money than he can ever need or
want has something better to do in his life than conniving for more money and playing big
corporate games of manipulation and deceit.
Evil-Edward-Hyde 50 minutes ago
J P Morgan is a crime Syndicate.
They constantly Break the Laws.
No Problem for Them,
They Just Pay The Fines.
Their secret is they make much much more money on the scam did they have to pay in
fines.
FiscalBatman 1 hour ago remove link
It's amazing how out of touch these guys are. They just don't get it. Dimon will be
swaying back and forth with the rest of them at this rate
The Competent Man 8 hours ago remove link
This is NOT a boom.
When was the last time houses went for above asking price, ever, with 20 million out of
work?
All of this 'boom' is nothing but asset inflation.
And also by the level of degeneration of the US neoliberal elite. Healthy elite would never
resort to "Wokism" in the attempt to crush populism and deflect anger directed on banksters, tech
moguls and politicians
Political populism, a common lament for Dimon, was also criticized.
" Americans know that something has gone terribly wrong, and they blame this country's
leadership: the elite, the powerful, the decision makers - in government, in business and in
civic society," he wrote.
"This is completely appropriate, for who else should take the blame?"
That fuels populism on the right and left, he said.
"But populism is not policy, and we cannot let it drive another round of poor planning and
bad leadership that will simply make our country's situation worse."
The lengthy letter touched on many perennial policy bugbears like the need for "proper
immigration policies" - ie making it easier for tech companies and others to hire skilled labor
from abroad - while the CEO also wrote that " affordable housing remains out of reach for too
many Americans."
At one point, Dimon offered a defense of the dollar's status as the world's reserve
currency, arguing that the Chinese yuan isn't "fully convertible" like its American
counterpart, and warned of the possibility of capital controls and prohibitions against assets
like gold and cyptocurrency.
But the CEO was very candid about China...
"China's leaders believe America is in decline... The Chinese see an America that is
losing ground in technology, infrastructure and education – a nation torn and crippled
. . . and a country unable to coordinate government policies (fiscal, monetary, industrial,
regulatory) in any coherent way to accomplish national goals."
"Unfortunately," Dimon writes, "there is a lot of truth to this."
Warning of the real risks of stagflation, the banker warned
"...the United States could be perceived as a place that is inhospitable to capitalism and
capitalists," and he advised readers to think about "currency diversification, country
diversification, and asset class diversification."
And
as SovereignMan's Simon Black notes , Dimon then lists goes on to provide a wide-ranging
laundry list of problems that have been building for years in the United States– "I'll
give some examples, but if I tried to address them all this letter would become a book."
Dimon cites "a litigation and regulatory system that is costly, crippling small
businesses with red tape and bureaucracy ".
" terrible infrastructure planning and investment"
"huge waste and inefficiency at both the federal and state levels"
a lack of "effective immigration policies"
"we fail to properly fund pension obligations "
" income equality has gotten worse"
"social safety nets [are] poorly designed"
" 30% of Americans don't have enough savings to deal with unexpected expenses that total
as little as $400"
"Veterans [hospitals] . . . are broken"
"Almost all institutions – governments, schools, media and businesses – have
lost credibility in the eyes of the public. And perhaps for good reason: Many of our
problems have been around for a long time and are not aging well."
"Politics is increasingly divisive, and government is increasingly dysfunctional "
He also rails against the education and healthcare systems, saying:
"Our education and health issues come together in this alarming statistic: Seventy percent
of today's youth (ages 17-24) are not eligible for military service , essentially due to a
lack of proper education (basic reading and writing skills) or health issues (commonly
obesity or diabetes)."
Dimon goes on to explain that all of these problems "may explain why, over the last 10
years, the U.S. economy has grown cumulatively only about 18%. "
"Some think that this sounds satisfactory, but it must be put into context: In prior sharp
downturns (1974, 1982 and 1990), economic growth was 40% over the ensuing 10 years."
The country ultimately needs to "move beyond our differences and self-interest and act for
the greater good," Dimon said. "The good news is that this is fixable."
Of course, a strong economic rebound is good for JP Morgan, and waxing about the threat
posed by Big Tech could help the CEO push for less regulation even under a Democratic
Administration. Is Dimon once again just talking his book?
"Our education and health issues come together in this alarming statistic: Seventy percent
of today's youth (ages 17-24) are not eligible for military service , essentially due to a
lack of proper education (basic reading and writing skills) or health issues (commonly
obesity or diabetes)."
When you have no standards, SJW everyone is equal, then you have ****ty results.
5G-Powered Nanobots 3 hours ago
Good. Lets cut "defense" by 25% a year for the next 10 years
Clockwork Orange is complete, unbelievable nonsense. Our current leaders would not have
cured Alex, they would have appointed him an Ambassadorship to Syria or made him Vice
President, perhaps even given him a shot at Prime Minister or President one day.
Yes, but on condition that the 'Alexes' play the game. Deep State is full of sociopaths but
they spent their years in elite schools, not stealing cars and invading homes. Go to school,
get your degree, and then you can invade entire nations and kill many more people. Turk 152 says:
April 2, 2021 at 9:33
pm GMT • 4.8 days ago ↑ @Priss Factor
I suppose it is pretty tough these days to be a mass murderer on a global scale without
Harvard or Yale on your resume. In the old days, Truman was able to drop 2 atomic bombs and
firebomb Dresden with merely a degree from Spalding's Commercial College.
Other that that this ilist is just another sign of the crisi of neoliberlaism in the USA
and elsewhere. That why neoliberal elite badly needs a scapegoat to avoid the possibility to
be hanging from lampposts. The high level of hate toward neoliberal elite( parcially
redirected by "woke" movement toward whites ) and the loss of legitimacy is not
undeniable.
...Bryan MacDonald's thread is a good opportunity to update our list of all the issues,
ideas and things Russia has weaponized.
Even while the list below now includes 111 entries - like robotic cockroaches,
postmodernism and 14-legged squids - it is likely far from being complete:
I am deeply troubled that you conveniently neglected to include another fearsome Russian
Super-Dooper Weapon: the children's cartoon Masha and the Bear .
It's obvious that Masha and the Bear is a nefarious Russian plot to steal the precious
bodily fluids of our children!
We must be constantly vigilant. The CIA, FBI, MI6, NSA, and Homeland Security must be
notified about the Masha Threat. YouTube must censor Masha. And blue check-marked Twitter
police must condemn anyone who watches Masha.
This one didn't have the word 'weaponize', close though: "opening a new front in its spy
battles".
accusing the Kremlin of opening a new front in its spy battles with the West amid the
worldwide competition to contain the pandemic.
...
American intelligence officials said the Russians were aiming to steal research to
develop their own vaccine more quickly, not to sabotage other countries' efforts. There was
likely little immediate damage to global public health, cybersecurity experts said.
The U.S. media is weaponizing ignorance. The more one absorbs their reporting, the more
the brain is reduced to mush.
I can only manage a few hundred works and I become irritated and disoriented. My hat is
off to people who can somehow look at that stuff and remain sane. Or are they...hmmm...
> Russia isn't going to invade Ukraine, much as their leaders and press seem to lose
sleep endlessly over it.
This is about blocking North Stream 2. Ukrainian government is a puppet in a bigger
geopolitical game and will do what they are told to do.
If they were ordered to invade Donbass Russia might intervene. I think Russia movement of
troupes was a pre-preemptive move to block a joint plan of the USA and some Eastern(Poland) and
Western European states to create a crisis and bury North Stream 2 by the attempt to retake the
territory by force (Georgian scenario).
While writing resolutions in which they essentially declare war on Russia (retaking Crimea
by force as a new Ukrainian government policy) Ukrainian government clearly understands that
any significant military move in Donbass might be the end of Ukraine as we know it. So they are
afraid to do anything without strong Western support, including military. That's why Biden
administration made a statement about the support of Ukrainian sovereignty and, at the same
time, probably pushing Ukrainians to make a move in Donbass.
There are two parts of Ukraine with different history and affiliations: Eastern Ukraine and
Western Ukraine.
The regime in Kiev represents Western Ukrainian nationalism and it is/was to a certain
degree resented in Eastern Ukraine (where manufacturing is concentrated) as provincial,
incompetent and corrupt. It is controlled by a handful of oligarchs -- a classic neoliberal
oligarchic republic so to speak.
That does not mean that Eastern Ukraine would welcome Russians now (after seven years of
anti-Russian propaganda by the government), but please do not write about things you have no
clue: in 2014 the situation was different with several uprisings against Provisional government
in Eastern Ukraine.
IMHO it was Putin's decision to limit Russia role that led to the current situation. As far
as I know the only large city which supported Provisional government in the East in 2014 was
Dnepropetrovsk ( the home town of oligarch Kolomoyskyi, and nationalistic politicians Kuchma
and Tymoshenko.)
IMHO Putin has the ability to occupy all Eastern Ukraine without a single shot and establish
separate "Eastern Ukrainian republic" government. But he decided not to do as the it would
result in crushing Western sanctions (which was Washington's policy from the very beginning
(google Nulangate); and that's why 2014 EuroMaidan putsch was organized and financed by the USA
with Poland, Germany and Sweden in supporting roles).
Add to this the necessary to feed pensioners (mentioned above) and the amount of money
necessary to resurrect the manufacturing which would compete with Russian's own. Which Russia
probably could not afford at the time.
REPLYHOLE IN HEAD IGNORED04/04/2021
at 4:44 am
> Russia isn't going to invade Ukraine, much as their leaders and press seem to lose
sleep endlessly over it.
This is about blocking North Stream 2. Ukrainian government is a puppet in a bigger
geopolitical game and will do what they are told to do.
If they were ordered to invade Donbass Russia might intervene. I think Russia movement of
troupes was a pre-preemptive move to block a joint plan of the USA and some Eastern(Poland) and
Western European states to create a crisis and bury North Stream 2 by the attempt to retake the
territory by force (Georgian scenario).
While writing resolutions in which they essentially declare war on Russia (retaking
Crimea by force as a new Ukrainian government policy) Ukrainian government clearly understands
that any significant military move in Donbass might be the end of Ukraine as we know it. So
they are afraid to do anything without strong Western support, including military. That's why
Biden administration made a statement about the support of Ukrainian sovereignty and, at the
same time, probably pushing Ukrainians to make a move in Donbass.
There are two parts of Ukraine with different history and affiliations: Eastern Ukraine
and Western Ukraine.
The regime in Kiev represents Western Ukrainian nationalism and it is/was to a certain
degree resented in Eastern Ukraine (where manufacturing is concentrated) as provincial,
incompetent and corrupt. It is controlled by a handful of oligarchs -- a classic neoliberal
oligarchic republic so to speak.
That does not mean that Eastern Ukraine would welcome Russians now (after seven years of
anti-Russian propaganda by the government), but please do not write about things you have no
clue: in 2014 the situation was different with several uprisings against Provisional government
in Eastern Ukraine.
IMHO it was Putin's decision to limit Russia role that led to the current situation. As
far as I know the only large city which supported Provisional government in the East in 2014
was Dnepropetrovsk ( the home town of oligarch Kolomoyskyi, and nationalistic politicians
Kuchma and Tymoshenko.)
IMHO Putin has the ability to occupy all Eastern Ukraine without a single shot and
establish separate "Eastern Ukrainian republic" government. But he decided not to do as the it
would result in crushing Western sanctions (which was Washington's policy from the very
beginning (google Nulangate); and that's why 2014 EuroMaidan putsch was organized and financed
by the USA with Poland, Germany and Sweden in supporting roles).
Add to this the necessary to feed pensioners (mentioned above) and the amount of money
necessary to resurrect the manufacturing which would compete with Russian's own. Which Russia
probably could not afford at the time.
REPLY HOLE IN HEAD IGNORED 04/04/2021
at 4:44 am
The globalists are behaving just like the Bolsheviks of old. It is down right scary to see
this happen in America. We lost the major cities 40 or 50 years ago and now the entire
country (except that 1 percent stealing all the money) is on the verge of going 3rd world
banana republic.
drjd 6 hours ago
If this was truly "communism", would 1% be stealing all the money? Why don't we just call
it what it really is: "globalist crony capitalism."
YuriTheClown 2 hours ago
The internationalists are behaving just like the Bolsheviks of old.
You must not know your history. High powered US bankers prop up the big Bolshevik names in
New York until it was time to loose them on Russia. Then they financed the whole
operation.
And who is financing the Bolsheviks in the USA now???
artless 1 hour ago remove link
The word you are looking for is fascism. This use of "crony this" and "crony that" along
with ANY use of the word capitalism-because their is nothing capitalist about any of this-
needs to stop. It is fascism. Not communism, not socialism...
It has been argued that the phrase Et tu, Brute can be interpreted as a curse or
warning. It is possible that Caesar adapted the words of a Greek sentence "You too, my son, will
have a taste of power", which to the Romans had long since become proverbial. It foreshadows
Brutus ' own
violent death, after Antony and Octavian decisively defeated the outnumbered armies of Brutus and
Cassius at the Battle
of Philippi in October 42. After the battle, Brutus committed suicide.
This is not only about IMF being a puppet of the USA. this is also clear reputation of
neoliberal ideology.
After this move any defender of neoliberal deregulation looks like joke.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it backs a U.S. proposal for a global minimum
corporate tax.
IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said that the fund has been calling for international
cooperation on tax policy "for a long time," adding that different corporate tax rates around
the world have fueled tax shifting and avoidance.
"That reduces the revenues that governments collect to do the needed social and economic
spending," Gopinath told Yahoo Finance Tuesday. "We're very much in support of having this kind
of global minimum corporate tax."
Gopinath's remarks are likely to add momentum to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's
efforts to start an international dialogue on a new framework. The European Commission on
Tuesday also said it supported
discussions , but said the ultimate rate should be deliberated through the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Yellen recently called on the 20 largest economies to work together to "stop the race to the
bottom" by setting a new minimum that would allow governments more stability in collecting tax
revenue. The Biden administration is targeting a 21% global minimum tax for U.S. multinational
corporations.
"It is important to work with other countries to end the pressures of tax competition and
corporate tax base erosion," Yellen said in a speech Monday.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that she is working with G20 countries
to agree on a global corporate minimum tax rate and pledged that restoring U.S. multilateral
leadership would strengthen the global economy and advance U.S. interests.
In a speech ahead of her first International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings as
Treasury chief, Yellen signaled stronger U.S. engagement on issues from climate change to human
rights to tax base erosion.
A global minimum tax proposed by the Biden administration could help to end a "thirty-year
race to the bottom on corporate tax rates," Yellen told an online event hosted by the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs.
The proposal is a key pillar of President Joe Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure spending
plan, which calls for an increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% while eliminating some
deductions associated with overseas profits.
Without a global minimum, the United States would again have higher rates than a number of
other major economies, tax experts say, while the U.S. proposal could help jump-start
negotiations for a tax deal among major economies.
World Bank President David Malpass said finance leaders from the Group of 20 major economies
on Wednesday would discuss global tax issues, including for digital services, adding that
international attitudes were shifting away from continual tax reductions.
"Taxes matter to development, and it's important that the world get it right," Malpass told
CNBC television.
Separately, a group of Democratic senators unveiled a legislative proposal to roll back
parts of former President Donald Trump's 2017 U.S. tax cuts.
Mexico's government said it reached a deal with union and business
leaders on a controversial bill to ban outsourcing in a move that seeks to close tax loopholes.
The group agreed during a meeting at the National Palace in Mexico City on Monday to forbid
the outsourcing of personnel to third-party firms, except for specialized work outside a
company's main economic activity, and to implement a new profit sharing model, the labor
ministry said in a
statement .
"... Do Mr. Biden and his people claim that the dogmatic and occasionally hysterical certitude of the woke is sufficient warrant to turn the country upside down? ..."
"... If the 2020 election meant anything, it confirmed the irreconcilable differences -- a standoff of the cobra and mongoose. The election certainly didn't give Mr. Biden marching orders from the American people to open the southern border to all comers, or to redesign the natural order of biology (in regard to gender identity and all the social arrangements that have flowed from the difference between the sexes since time immemorial), or to change the country in a hundred other ways, bundling it off on an expedition to the far left fringes of reality and grievance. What the new administration proposes may be less a transformation than a hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not on Mr. Biden's terms. ..."
"... He and his people have gone into business with a bogus, echo-chamber mandate: They manipulate a media illusion of unanimity, and presume to impose a moral narrative. The Bolsheviks, a tiny but ferociously focused minority, proceeded in this way in 1917. ..."
While Trump was rejected by electorate (Biden got 7 million votes more -- mainly in costal
states and large cities), Biden was elected only because of extention of mail-in voting and
because he was not Trump. Now people regret their choice, while main-in voting "irregularities"
deprive Biden administration of the legitimacy. Moreover due to Biden neocon foreign policy and
pandering to woke Bolsheviks, many people have "post-election remorse," But in two-party system
you can do nothing about it: the train already left the station.
Now the Biden administration, headed by a man a few years too old to be a boomer, entertains
ambitions to take a great leap forward. But wait. Does a transformation require a mandate? By
what mandate does the Biden administration undertake the work of irrevocably altering American
society? Do Mr. Biden and his people claim that the dogmatic and occasionally hysterical
certitude of the woke is sufficient warrant to turn the country upside down?
There was no mandate in the outcome of the last election. November 2020 merely confirmed
that the U.S. remains split precisely down the middle, 50-50, as it has been for more than 20
years, since the deadlock of Al Gore and George W. Bush and the hanging chads of Florida.
If the 2020 election meant anything, it confirmed the irreconcilable differences -- a
standoff of the cobra and mongoose. The election certainly didn't give Mr. Biden marching
orders from the American people to open the southern border to all comers, or to redesign the
natural order of biology (in regard to gender identity and all the social arrangements that
have flowed from the difference between the sexes since time immemorial), or to change the
country in a hundred other ways, bundling it off on an expedition to the far left fringes of
reality and grievance. What the new administration proposes may be less a transformation than a
hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not on Mr. Biden's terms.
He and his people have gone into business with a bogus, echo-chamber mandate: They
manipulate a media illusion of unanimity, and presume to impose a moral narrative. The
Bolsheviks, a tiny but ferociously focused minority, proceeded in this way in 1917.
... ... ...
Mr. Morrow is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His latest book
is "God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money."
Peter Von Nessi SUBSCRIBER 29 minutes ago "A man of his age --
fearing that he may amount to nothing more than the great Obama's onetime sidekick -- is apt to
react to the surprise of waking up in the White House by pandering to the flashiest ideas of
the young people and their hero Bernie Sanders. Mr. Biden can, for a moment, forestall death if
he veers way left and makes his mark, however chaotically."
I think the author gives too much credit to Biden and not his handlers. After all Pinocchio
was made of wood. When was the last time you saw a piece of wood think....about anything? SHOW
MORE REPLIES
N Neil Steinhoff SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Joe did not know which state he was in, what office
he was running for and said 150 million Americans have died of Covid Here is an update from
Joe. "I have been in government for 180 years". "I wake up every morning, look at Jill, and say
'where the he- are we?'" on February 17, 2021. What could possibly go wrong? Greg Caldwell SUBSCRIBER 58 minutes ago (Edited) Mr. Ferrara: Many
people voted for Joe's ideas because he claimed to be more of a centrist while he was running
for office. I know of quite a few people who voted for Joe (1) because he wasn't Trump, and;
(2) he claimed he would govern from the middle-left.
Those people are now saying they didn't vote for anything he has done to the jobs, to
energy, nor do they buy his lies about Covid Relief (only 9% of over $1.9T actually went to
Covid); the Infrastructure bill (of which only 7% actually has anything to do with our
infrastructure); or, finally the repeated outright lies about the Georgian Voting Law. People
who voted for him are paying attention and many are not happy.
Like thumb_up Reply reply Share link Report
flag
M Melissa Firestone SUBSCRIBER 49 minutes ago Vote counting continued on and on in pivotal
states in 2020. That's why 2016 was so different than 2020. And in 2020, pivotal states were
decided by less than 21,000 votes - WI, AZ, and GA. And PA and MI were more competitive than
the polls showed going into election night. Votes continued to be counted days after the
election and as we know in some cases weeks. That's why this wasn't a mandate for Biden. It was
a rejection of Trump by the marginal voter - the ones who in tight elections determine
outcomes. The same was true for Trump when he won - Hillary was so hated by so many voting
blocks the Republicans could have run any of their potential nominees and would have won.
G George Nesterenko SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Claiming the WH, and both chambers of Congress
is, in deed a mandate.
The only measure by which the election was 'close' was the electoral college. By the number
of.. you know... actual people... there was no, and is no contest. That's is also, indeed, a
mandate.
And as demographics shift, the mandate deepens. Which is why the GOP is so adamant against
preventing a DC or Puerto Rico statehood. An unpopular, shrinking minority is desperately
holding on to any iota of power. Not 'half the country', as Mr. Morrow repeats on several
occasions.
A national rebirth is desperately needed. Although I doubt it will happen under Biden, we
can at least get on our way.
Like thumb_up 2 Reply reply Share link Report
flag
W william marx SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Mr. Nesterenko, even if President Biden won by several
million votes, which I am not disputing, the fact that former President trump drew over 80
million votes suggests that the country is divided. Add to that a 50/50 split in the Senate and
a slim Dem majority in in the House leads to a conclusion that there is no mandate. Until both
parties stop shoving things down the other party's throat, we will not move forward.
J Jerry Beukelman SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago So you voted for a man who has no idea where he is?
Good for you. Would you like to lay odds on when the next press conference will be? I'll take,
never. Joe is one and done, they won't risk putting him on stage again, it is too obvious he
isn't all there. Another year or two, the Biden family can make some more cash, Nancy gets her
way till the House turns. And Harris can step in. That will be fun. A woman who polled 7% in
her own state during the primary can take control. God help us.
J jim markey SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago Trump and the GOP claimed Trump received a mandate in
2016 even though he lost the popular vote by 3 million.
Biden beat Trump by 7 million popular votes and a 4.45% popular vote spread.
That's much more of a mandate than Trump had.
Like thumb_up 3 Reply reply Share link Report
flag
M Melissa Firestone SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago You didn't see vote counting continuing on and on
in pivotal states in 2016. In 2016 the election was decided very early and key States that
hadn't voted Republican in more than two decades voted for Trump. That's why 2016 was so
different than 2020. And the pivotal states were decided by less than 21,000 votes - WI, AZ,
and GA. And PA and MI were more competitive than the polls showed going into election night.
That's why this wasn't a mandate for Biden. It was a rejection of Trump by the marginal voter -
the ones who in tight elections determine outcomes. The same was true for Trump when he won -
Hillary was so hated by so many voting blocks the Republicans could have run any of the
nominees and he would have won. ike thumb_up 12 Reply reply
Share link Report flag
M Michael Wilson SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago Yet American voters chose them over a dictatorship
led by Trump. If you don't like the results of having a 0-3 lose, then come up with a candidate
and agenda Americans want. Like thumb_up 4 Reply reply Share
link Report flag Rob Joseph SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago "I won't insult your intelligence by
suggesting that you really believe what you just said". William F. Buckley
At no time was Trump even close to a dictator. Trump wanted to push power to the states.
Exactly how is that dictatorial? However, the current crop of dems want to centralize power to
the federal government, so exactly who is the totalitarian party?
M Mac Moore SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago Nedd writes, "Biden has an approval rating approaching
55 percent. Trump never got above 50%."
Now, that's funny. What was the polled question? Was it, "do you approve of men joining
women's sports and bathrooms?". Or, was it, "do you approve of thousands of migrant lives being
destroyed by an open border that puts them at risk and children in peril?" Or, 'do you approve
of re-education classes that mandate that one much denounce their whiteness or be banned from
Gov't employment?" or "do you approve of Biden killing thousands of good paying oil pipeline
jobs?" Like thumb_up 5 Reply reply Share link Report
flag Rob Joseph SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago The gallup poll is from March 1. Let's
see what the new poll numbers are now after his spending spree and botched immigration policy
(Oh I'm sorry, what immigration policy). I couldn't stand Trump, but biden makes him look like
a statesman. He will divide the country further until there is no more US.
L Linda Briscoe SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago The election of2020 was not a mandate of Democratic
policies. The mandate was to be shed of Donald J Trump. We accomplished that, I hope. Now the
challenge is to wrench control of the Democratic Party out of the hands of the radical few, and
back into the hands of the moderate many.
The idea of a Silent Majority may not be new, but I believe it is as relevant as it ever
was. Most people don't focus a lot of their time on politics. They're too busy just trying to
make a living, creating or nurturing a loving family, and trying to create a home they enjoy
and can be proud of. A living wage, a liveable home of their own, and a loving family; that's
the real American dream. Royal Martin SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago President Biden;
"Just imagine all those young voters coming across our southern border that I can impress
with open arms."
e thumb_up 9 Reply reply Share link Report
flag
J James Bruning SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago How are Biden and the progressive Democrats getting
away with this charade? True, the liberal press provides cover by not reporting or fairly
reporting the egregious blunders of the Biden administration, but that does not explain why
most American voters are viewing Biden as someone who is honest and deserving of trust. They
know he is an unaccomplished "geezer" so in the absence of a coordinated, unified "push back"
by Republicans one can assume they want a much different America Like thumb_up 8 Reply
reply Share link Report flag
M Melissa Firestone SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago How are the "getting away with" this??? We voted
them in...and the "news" media is NOT news anymore. It is another arm of the Democrat/Socialist
movement. Biden lied during the debates, but he wasn't shy about his true objectives - they
were posted right on his web site. Like thumb_up Reply reply
Share link Report flag
M Melissa Firestone SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago "What the new administration proposes may be
less a transformation than a hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not
on Mr. Biden's terms."
Couldn't have said it better myself. People are not liking what they are seeing with Biden
in office. Just today I had a conversation with a phlebotomist who put it in very easy to
understand terms. "They are just dictating what we can and can't do, what we can and can't buy,
that we have to take care of illegal citizens, while we have millions who are never going to
recover from the impacts of shutting down our economy - that's not a free country." She's 100%
correct yet clearly not an "expert," just a consumer. But she can see more nonsensical policy
implications coming. Specifically she mentioned unaffordable utility bills with going to 100%
green energy and that she didn't want to be "forced" to buy an electric car. I don't believe
she's alone in seeing what's coming with Dem control...and it isn't good
S Sherrill Schein SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago As bad and vacuous as Biden is, what will follow
him will be much worse, starting with Kamala Harris. Louis XIV, who preceded the French
Revolution and Biden both share the same argument to try to retain their thrones. "After me,
the deluge." ke thumb_up 3 Reply reply Share link
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M Michael Barbour SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago Biden is neither a moderate or a unifier and even
his Covid policies are mostly just an extension of what was started by the previous WH
administration. I didn't like Trump either, but Biden's actions and policies are hastening the
decline of the U.S.
M Michael OFarrell SUBSCRIBER 3 hours ago Biden, or whoever is actually in charge, is
giving this country away. It will the younger generation that will pay the price. Like
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M Mark A. Rosasco SUBSCRIBER 3 hours ago "A whole generation with a new explanation" ,
history definitely rhymes.
According to John Kenneth Galbraith, financial memory is usually about 20 years, then
lessons need to be re-leaned the hard way, either with financial euphoria or I would say with
tax polices that promote economic growth.
"... Do Mr. Biden and his people claim that the dogmatic and occasionally hysterical certitude of the woke is sufficient warrant to turn the country upside down? ..."
"... If the 2020 election meant anything, it confirmed the irreconcilable differences -- a standoff of the cobra and mongoose. The election certainly didn't give Mr. Biden marching orders from the American people to open the southern border to all comers, or to redesign the natural order of biology (in regard to gender identity and all the social arrangements that have flowed from the difference between the sexes since time immemorial), or to change the country in a hundred other ways, bundling it off on an expedition to the far left fringes of reality and grievance. What the new administration proposes may be less a transformation than a hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not on Mr. Biden's terms. ..."
"... He and his people have gone into business with a bogus, echo-chamber mandate: They manipulate a media illusion of unanimity, and presume to impose a moral narrative. The Bolsheviks, a tiny but ferociously focused minority, proceeded in this way in 1917. ..."
While Trump was rejected by electorate (Biden got 7 million votes more -- mainly in costal
states and large cities), Biden was elected only because of extention of mail-in voting and
because he was not Trump. Now people regret their choice, while main-in voting "irregularities"
deprive Biden administration of the legitimacy. Moreover due to Biden neocon foreign policy and
pandering to woke Bolsheviks, many people have "post-election remorse," But in two-party system
you can do nothing about it: the train already left the station.
Now the Biden administration, headed by a man a few years too old to be a boomer, entertains
ambitions to take a great leap forward. But wait. Does a transformation require a mandate? By
what mandate does the Biden administration undertake the work of irrevocably altering American
society? Do Mr. Biden and his people claim that the dogmatic and occasionally hysterical
certitude of the woke is sufficient warrant to turn the country upside down?
There was no mandate in the outcome of the last election. November 2020 merely confirmed
that the U.S. remains split precisely down the middle, 50-50, as it has been for more than 20
years, since the deadlock of Al Gore and George W. Bush and the hanging chads of Florida.
If the 2020 election meant anything, it confirmed the irreconcilable differences -- a
standoff of the cobra and mongoose. The election certainly didn't give Mr. Biden marching
orders from the American people to open the southern border to all comers, or to redesign the
natural order of biology (in regard to gender identity and all the social arrangements that
have flowed from the difference between the sexes since time immemorial), or to change the
country in a hundred other ways, bundling it off on an expedition to the far left fringes of
reality and grievance. What the new administration proposes may be less a transformation than a
hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not on Mr. Biden's terms.
He and his people have gone into business with a bogus, echo-chamber mandate: They
manipulate a media illusion of unanimity, and presume to impose a moral narrative. The
Bolsheviks, a tiny but ferociously focused minority, proceeded in this way in 1917.
... ... ...
Mr. Morrow is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His latest book
is "God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money."
Peter Von Nessi SUBSCRIBER 29 minutes ago "A man of his age --
fearing that he may amount to nothing more than the great Obama's onetime sidekick -- is apt to
react to the surprise of waking up in the White House by pandering to the flashiest ideas of
the young people and their hero Bernie Sanders. Mr. Biden can, for a moment, forestall death if
he veers way left and makes his mark, however chaotically."
I think the author gives too much credit to Biden and not his handlers. After all Pinocchio
was made of wood. When was the last time you saw a piece of wood think....about anything? SHOW
MORE REPLIES
N Neil Steinhoff SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Joe did not know which state he was in, what office
he was running for and said 150 million Americans have died of Covid Here is an update from
Joe. "I have been in government for 180 years". "I wake up every morning, look at Jill, and say
'where the he- are we?'" on February 17, 2021. What could possibly go wrong? Greg Caldwell SUBSCRIBER 58 minutes ago (Edited) Mr. Ferrara: Many
people voted for Joe's ideas because he claimed to be more of a centrist while he was running
for office. I know of quite a few people who voted for Joe (1) because he wasn't Trump, and;
(2) he claimed he would govern from the middle-left.
Those people are now saying they didn't vote for anything he has done to the jobs, to
energy, nor do they buy his lies about Covid Relief (only 9% of over $1.9T actually went to
Covid); the Infrastructure bill (of which only 7% actually has anything to do with our
infrastructure); or, finally the repeated outright lies about the Georgian Voting Law. People
who voted for him are paying attention and many are not happy.
Like thumb_up Reply reply Share link Report
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M Melissa Firestone SUBSCRIBER 49 minutes ago Vote counting continued on and on in pivotal
states in 2020. That's why 2016 was so different than 2020. And in 2020, pivotal states were
decided by less than 21,000 votes - WI, AZ, and GA. And PA and MI were more competitive than
the polls showed going into election night. Votes continued to be counted days after the
election and as we know in some cases weeks. That's why this wasn't a mandate for Biden. It was
a rejection of Trump by the marginal voter - the ones who in tight elections determine
outcomes. The same was true for Trump when he won - Hillary was so hated by so many voting
blocks the Republicans could have run any of their potential nominees and would have won.
G George Nesterenko SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Claiming the WH, and both chambers of Congress
is, in deed a mandate.
The only measure by which the election was 'close' was the electoral college. By the number
of.. you know... actual people... there was no, and is no contest. That's is also, indeed, a
mandate.
And as demographics shift, the mandate deepens. Which is why the GOP is so adamant against
preventing a DC or Puerto Rico statehood. An unpopular, shrinking minority is desperately
holding on to any iota of power. Not 'half the country', as Mr. Morrow repeats on several
occasions.
A national rebirth is desperately needed. Although I doubt it will happen under Biden, we
can at least get on our way.
"... It is unbelievable how much the media can lie. I don't even know what I should believe any more. ..."
"... Why does our mainstream media cheer on these politicians instead of denouncing them? The answer: They're working together. They stick to these elites. How can it be that our mainstream media is always demanding that German soldiers should be sent on new military adventures in foreign countries, even though the majority of the population is clearly against this? The answer Our alpha journalists are nothing more than the long arm of the NATO press office. We will also go into great detail to prove this in this book. How can it be that our mainstream media continues to celebrate mass immigration from all over the world as "enrichment," even though the majority of Germans would rather close the borders to certain migrants today rather than tomorrow? The answer Industry and the financial elite want it this way, because a massive influx of cheap labor serves their interests. ..."
"... if the citizens aren't in charge, then who is? Could it be a group of opinion makers, a group of the most important and influential heavyweights from industry, finance and politics who are pulling the strings behind the scenes and controlling our thinking through the mainstream media? ..."
The actress Hildegard Knef once said to me, "It is unbelievable how much the media can lie.
I don't even know what I should believe any more." We met in August 1997, at the Bremen-based
talk show Nach Neun (Three after Nine).** We drank a glass of wine after the show in a local
hotel. Indignantly, Hildegard Knef related the liberties journalists had taken in reporting
about her life. She said, "Only one thing is true about journalists: they are in the business
of lying."
A few months before that and nearly 5600 kilometers away from Bremen, I heard
something similar while I was on a trip in Ethiopia. This time I was talking with Karlheinz
B6hm, the actor who played Emperor Franz Joseph at Romy Schneider's side in the "Sissi" film
trilogy about Empress Elisabeth of Austria. I visited him in the highlands of Ethiopia.
Hildegard Knef and Karlheinz Bohm - two legends of the German cinema - no longer trust the
German media. This gave me a lot to think about. After all, 'Thou shalt not bear false
witness," was one of the highest moral commandments at one time. Alas, now we consider
journalists to be the greatest liars out there.
Udo Lindenberg, a German rock music legend,
didn't have the best opinion of the media cither. We had a chance to discuss this in a
television studio's gfreenroom. Likewise the journalist Peter Scholl-Latour, whom I met many
times in war zones around the world since the late 80s. He liked to paraphrase Hiram Johnson's
old adage saying, "The first thing that falls by the wayside in war is the truth."
When I was
younger, these comments by Hildegard Knef, Karlheinz Bohm, Udo Lindenberg and Peter
Scholl-Latour seemed like conspiracy theories to me. Are they really? Later on, I started to
hear things like this more frequently, for example, from my friend, Professor Wilhelm Hankel, a
man who always seemed like a father to me. He was the man who developed the German treasury
bills.
The Truth - A Journalist Exclusive?
How can it be that our mainstream media celebrate the European Union and the euro currency
as a project for the future, even though millions of people throughout Europe are critical of
the EU and the euro? Jean-Claude Juncker, longtime head of Luxembourg's government and the
current President of the European Commission, tells us how this works:
"We decide on something, put it out there and wait and see what happens. If no one
kicks up a fuss, no rioting in the streets, since most people haven no clue what's been
decided, we continue, step by step, until there is no turning back. "
Why does our mainstream media cheer on these politicians instead of denouncing them? The
answer: They're working together. They stick to these elites. How can it be that our mainstream
media is always demanding that German soldiers should be sent on new military adventures in
foreign countries, even though the majority of the population is clearly against this? The
answer Our alpha journalists are nothing more than the long arm of the NATO press office. We
will also go into great detail to prove this in this book. How can it be that our mainstream
media continues to celebrate mass immigration from all over the world as "enrichment," even
though the majority of Germans would rather close the borders to certain migrants today rather
than tomorrow? The answer Industry and the financial elite want it this way, because a massive
influx of cheap labor serves their interests.
This list of piercing questions could go on forever. However, the most important question
behind all of it is: Who is really governing Europe? It surely isn't the citizens of the EU,
because what's going on in Europe has little to do with democracy. It is more of an illusion of
democracy, a well-crafted illusion. Still, if the citizens aren't in charge, then who is?
Could it be a group of opinion makers, a group of the most important and influential
heavyweights from industry, finance and politics who are pulling the strings behind the scenes
and controlling our thinking through the mainstream media?
"... Back then, I didn't know how contemptuously intelligence agencies spoke about journalists. "You can get a journalist for less than a good whore, for a few hundred dollars a month." These are the words of a CIA agent, as quoted by the Washington Post editor Philip Graham. The agent was referring to the willingness and the price journalists would accept to spread CIA propaganda reports in their articles. ..."
"... I inevitably found out during my decades abroad, almost every foreign reporter with an American or British newspaper was also active for their national intelligence services. That's just something to keep in mind whenever you think you've got "neutral" reporting by the media in front of you. I remember when I got involved with the Federal Academy for Security Politics, with their close ties to intelligence agencies. This was encouraged by my employer. ..."
Looking back, I was a lobbyist. A lobbyist tries to, for example, influence public opinion
through mainstream media in favor of special interest groups. I did that.
Like for the German Foreign Intelligence Service. The FAZ expressly encouraged me to
strengthen my contact with the Western intelligence services and was delighted when I signed my
name to the pre-formulated reports, at least in outline, that I sometimes received from
them.
Like many of the reports I was fed by intelligence services, one of many examples I can
remember well was the expose, "European Companies Help Libya Build a Second Poison Gas Factory"
from March 16, 1993. Needless to say, the report caused a stir around the world.
However, I watched as two employees of the German Federal Intelligence Service (the German
CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND), drafted it in a meeting room of the FAZ offices at
Hellerhofstrasse 2 in Frankfurt. In other words: They basically told me what to write,
paragraph for paragraph, right there in the FAZ editorial offices and then the article was
published. One of the duties of these two BND employees was writing reports for
large-circulation German newspapers. According to employee accounts, the BND fed reports to
many German newspapers at the time - with the knowledge of their publishing houses.
The Federal Intelligence Service even had a little front company with an office directly
above a shop on the Mainzer Landstrasse in Frankfurt, only two blocks away from the FAZ's main
office. In any case, they had classified materials there that came from the BND.
Once you became a "player" on the team that drafted such articles, this was followed by the
next level of "cooperation": You would be given stacks of secret documents that you could
evaluate at your leisure. I remember we brought in a steel filing cabinet just for all the
secret reports at the FAZ. (When I was visiting colleagues at a magazine in Hamburg, I saw that
they'd done the same thing in their editorial offices).
Back then, I didn't know how contemptuously intelligence agencies spoke about
journalists. "You can get a journalist for less than a good whore, for a few hundred dollars a
month." These are the words of a CIA agent, as quoted by the Washington Post editor Philip
Graham. The agent was referring to the willingness and the price journalists would accept to
spread CIA propaganda reports in their articles. Of course, this was also with the
approval of their employers, who knew about and encouraged all of this.
In Germany, the Federal Intelligence Service was the extended arm of the CIA, basically a
subsidiary. I was never offered money by the Federal Intelligence Service, but they never even
had to. I, like many of my German colleagues, found it thrilling to be a freelance writer for
an intelligence agency or to be allowed to work for them in any capacity at all.40
... ... ...
During the summer of 2005 when I was the "chief correspondent" of the glossy magazine Park
Avenue, I had a phone call with the Director of the CIA James Woolsey, which lasted more than
an hour. His wife is active in the transatlantic propaganda organization German Marshall Fund
(but we'll touch on this later). Sitting in my Hamburg office at Griiner + Jalir publishing, I
was amazed that I didn't lose the connection, because at the beginning of our conversation
Woolsey was sitting in his office in Virginia, then he was in a limousine and after that in a
helicopter. The connection was so good, it was as if he was sitting right next to me. We spoke
about industrial espionage. Woolsey wanted me to publish a report through Griiner + Jahr that
would give the impression that the USA doesn't carry out any industrial espionage in Germany
through their intelligence services. For me, the absurd thing about this conversation wasn't
its content, which was fortunately never printed. What I really found absurd was that after the
conversation, Griiner + Jahr sent the CIA henchman Woolsey's secretary in Virginia a bouquet of
flowers after the call, because someone at Griiner + Jahr wanted to keep the line to the CIA
open.
Moreover, don t forget that in addition to 6,000 salaried employees, the Federal
Intelligence Service has around 17,000 more "informal" employees. They have completely ordinary
day jobs, and would never openly admit that they also work for the Federal Intelligence
Service. It is the same all over the world. As I inevitably found out during my decades
abroad, almost every foreign reporter with an American or British newspaper was also active for
their national intelligence services. That's just something to keep in mind whenever you think
you've got "neutral" reporting by the media in front of you. I remember when I got involved
with the Federal Academy for Security Politics, with their close ties to intelligence agencies.
This was encouraged by my employer.
I also remember that in the late summer of 1993 I was given time off to accept a six-week
invitation from the transatlantic lobbying organization, the German Marshall Fund of the
United States. All of this surely affected my reporting. The German Marshall Fund sent me to
New York, and I did a night shift with police officers in the Bronx. I wrote an article for the
FAZ about this titled: "The toughest policemen in the world go through these doors." It was one
of many positive articles I wrote about the USA - discreetly organized by the German Marshall
Fund.
It may be hard to believe, but I was actually given a loaded firearm in New York. There's
even a photo of the New York City Police Department handing it to me. The reader didn't learn
anything about what was going on behind the scenes, behind this favorable reporting in the FAZ.
They also didn't find out about the discreet contacts I made during my stay in the US. These
included a
"... his original title Bought Journalists (Gekaufte Journalisten) was kinder and more modest than my more sensational Presstitutes -- but as he had a pithy sense of humor, ..."
"... There is no free speech protection for setting fire to a crowded theater! In my book ISIS IS U.S., in fury at the fakery of these warmongers, I castigate the mainstream media, the MSM, as the МММ: the Mass Murdering Media, as well as the Military-Monetary- Media complex. Notice how the media only point the finger at the military and industry, but mum's the word about the money masters and the media manipulators, they who control the nerve system of the zombie nation, military-industrial complex and all? ..."
"... Sharmine Narwani is right. These are media combatants, these are war criminals, the lowest circle of hell in the ranks of crimes. ..."
What Is Freedom of the Press? Can censorship be freedom of the press? Legal minds favoring the interests of capital may be quick
to claim that newspaper owners and editors have a freedom-of-speech right to print what they think is fit to print. They affirm a
right of censorship or advocacy, above the duty to hew the line of objective reporting. Business, but not government, they say, may
restrict press freedom.
However, this attitude confuses two very distinct classes of law, the Bill of Rights and civil contract law. The First Amendment
merely forbids the government from infringing on freedom of expression. Thus if communist and nationalist parties each wish to publish
their own books or newspapers, congenial to their respective viewpoints, the state should not intervene. Most newspapers, however,
claim to be independent, objective or non- partisan. Thus there is an implied contract to provide an information service to readers.
Advertising in the paper should be clearly labeled as such. Truly independent media are a public service entrusted with a fiduciary
duty, similar to civil servants. The power and influence of their office is under their care, it is not theirs personally. Thus arises
the temptation of corruption, of selling favors. For a large corporation, the financial value of a decision by an official or a newspaperman
may easily dwarf the salary of the poor fellow, who may sell himself for pennies on the dollar.
A paper that claims to be independent when it actually serves hidden interests is guilty of fraud. That of course comes under
another branch of law, the criminal code.
We hear much more about political corruption, but media corruption may actually be worse. Media reporters are our eyes and ears.
What if our senses didn't reflect what is happening around us, but instead some kind of fantasy, or even remote programming? (Which
sounds a lot like TV;-) If our eyes fooled us like that, we would be asleep and dreaming with eyes open, or disabled, hospitalized
for hallucinations. We could never be masters of our own affairs, without a reliable sensorium. So the media must serve the nation
just as our senses must faithfully serve each one of us. But they serve themselves. With the media we have, we are a zombie nation.
Of course, it's hard to be objective on topics like politics which are matters of opinion. That's what the op-ed page is for. The
problem is systematic bias, when money talks in the news pages.
As a freshman in college, I once volunteered to be a stringer on the college paper, and was sent out to interview some subjects
on a campus controversy. I didn't seem to be cut out for a hard hitting journalist either! The episode always reminds me of a Mulla
Nasrudin story.
Mulla was serving as judge in the village, holding court in his garden. The plaintiff came and pleaded his case so convincingly,
that the Mulla blurted out. By Allah, I think you are right! His assistant demurred, But Mullah, you haven't heard the other side
yet! So now the defendant entered his plea, with even greater vigor and eloquence. Once again, the Mulla was so impressed, he cried
out, By Jove, I believe you are right! And once again his clerk protested: But Mulla, they can't both be right! Oh my God, exclaimed
the Mulla, I guess you are right, too!
My junior high school journalism teacher never tired of telling us. Journalism is a business. In theory it's a public trust, but
money makes the world go round. We all have to please the boss to keep our job. We are all bought one way or another. As Ulfkotte
points out, there are thousands of journalists looking for a job, not the other way about. So his original title Bought Journalists
(Gekaufte Journalisten) was kinder and more modest than my more sensational Presstitutes -- but as he had a pithy sense of humor,
I think he would have liked it anyway. The "privished" edition title Journalists for Hire seems to downplay the matter a shade though.
It's perfectly normal to be hired as a journalist, isn't it?
Perhaps we have to escalate the term to investigative journalist, because a journo is just somebody who writes things down.
In an interview ( https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/10/14/journalists-are-prostitutes ), Ulfkotte tells about his first assignment,
during the Iran-Iraq war. The international press corps set out from Baghdad into the desert with extra jerry cans of gasoline --
to set alight some long-destroyed tanks for a film shoot. Innocent sensationalism perhaps? But a million people have died in Iraq,
Libya and Syria because the press didn't just report the news, didn't just lie about the news, but they invented and sold the events
that served as pretexts for wars. That is way out of line.
There is no free speech protection for setting fire to a crowded theater! In my book ISIS IS U.S., in fury at the fakery of these
warmongers, I castigate the mainstream media, the MSM, as the МММ: the Mass Murdering Media, as well as the Military-Monetary- Media
complex. Notice how the media only point the finger at the military and industry, but mum's the word about the money masters and
the media manipulators, they who control the nerve system of the zombie nation, military-industrial complex and all?
Political candidates
who tackle the media do so at their peril. Sharmine Narwani is right. These are media combatants, these are war criminals, the lowest
circle of hell in the ranks of crimes.
We have million-dollar penalties for accidental product liability, but the salesmen of genocide
get off scot-free!? 3,000 died on the spot on 9/11, followed by two decades of wars. The key suspect: Netanyahu crony Larry Silverstcin.
His reward: a S3 billion insurance payout - pure profit, as he was only leasing the Towers.
The MSM cover it up, and revile you as
a "conspiracy theorist" if you protest. "Presstitutes" is too light-hearted a word for them. The tragedy is that many social media
agitators for the destruction of Syria were fools, who thought they were being oh so cool.
Remember the Milgram experiment? 1 like
my book covers to be a depiction of the title, an allegory, which led to the most salacious cover art on "Presstitutes" I've ever
dealt with. "Bought Journalists" could have been a covey of journos in a shopping cart, picking up their perks. Light satire blending
to comedy, but this isn't really a funny story. Too many people, including the author, have given their lives.
One nice thing about this book is you get to know a real nice guy. I like Udo. Decent, intelligent, good sense of humor, conscientious,
level-headed. He tells how he fell into this because he was just out of college and needing a job. We all have our compromises and
our confessions to make. Ulfkotte relates the moment when it became too corrupt for him, when politicians offered him €5000 to use
his cover as a journalist to spy and dig up dirt on the private life of their rival. That was too low down and dirty, too criminal
for him, although it seemed to be expected and natural to them. Ulfkotte was the rarest of courageous whistleblowers.
... ... ...
English translation never moved forward." Another curiosity: during the nearly three years Journalists for Hire was "on sale"
but unavailable on Amazon, it garnered only five-star reviews, 24 of them, from customers who wanted to read the book. Then the day
this edition became available, that edition got a 1 -star troll review, virulently attacking the author as a "yellow journalist"
- which happens to mean "warmonger." Weird.
Of course, there could be some mundane explanations for the failure of the first, or rather zero edition. Business failure. Language
barrier. Death of the author -- for a small publisher, a proactive author promoting the book is a necessity. It was spooky, too,
that the only book Tayen Lane seemed to have published before was a non-starter about suicide...
And what if the author's death was a key part of the pattern of suppression? There we go full conspiracy. It's not that incredible,
though. Ulfkotte's last page here is a declaration of war: "This book is the first volume of an explosive three-part series." It's
been alleged that the CIA has a weapon that works by triggering a heart attack. And like the Mafia, their code of silence calls tor
punishing ex-colleagues who took the oath of secrecy and then turned against them, more than mere bystanders like Joe Blogger or
Johnny Publisher.
So I hope I'm lucky to publish this book. Hopefully it will get reviews in the alternative media, or interviews with our translator
or myself. This is the second time I've published a German bestseller. The first was Mathias Broeckers' Conspiracy Theories and Secrets
of 9/11. It didn't turn a profit, but was a very interesting treatment. In the first part of the book he shows that conspiracy -
in the broadest sense, grouping together against outsiders - is one of three basic principles of life and evolution. Darwinians normally
only talk about competition, but the second one is cooperation, and the hybrid of the two is conspiracy. Our body consists of a collective
of cells cooperating and conspiring together against competing organisms! Conspiracy is as common as the air we breathe. Even the
official story of 9/11 is a theory about a conspiracy of 19 hijackers, who weren't even on the passenger lists... Then there is the
conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories, that the CIA purposely turned the term into an epithet to cover up the JFK assassination.
Of course not everything is a conspiracy. You have to remain skeptical, keep your balance and common sense. We need the flexibility
to add new perspectives, and not try to reduce everything to one perspective. Our brains are perfectly capable of this, we just have
to use them. Don't believe what they tell you, if it doesn't stand to reason. On 9/11, three towers fell at free- fall speed, but
only two were hit by airplanes - which were 5,000 times lighter than the steel buildings anyway. Anyone can do the math. The perps
didn't even bother to make it plausible, having the media to cover it up.
When a huge revelation like 9/11 hits, like it did some of us back in 2002, when I published the first "truther" book in English,
it's a big shock. This can make people either deny the new information, or go overboard with it. Sometimes the shock of losing the
mainstream world view is so great that people switch to the reverse explanation for everything. Yet most of life is still banal or
benign. Major criminal political conspiracies like 9/11 require a lot of effort, and are used strategically.
Although 9/11 showed that these people arc capable of almost anything, that doesn't mean they can or will do everything. For instance,
I don't believe in chemtrails, because it doesn't make sense, and the contrails persist mostly on days when there are natural cirrus
clouds in the upper atmosphere. Manipulation is even more common than conspiracy. We all do it to get other people to do things.
Ulfkotte shows that mass media manipulation is business as usual. It is so prevalent that it starts to get into the realm of a matrix,
a wall-to-wall pseudo-reality. The spider army spins its web 24/7. Their thread is a mix of outrages and banalities, bread and circuses.
The formula is clear to see in the major German tabloid Bild. Its readers go for simplified and emotional narratives, like a cheap
novel with themes of love and hate: "The reader's attention is steered away from what's objective- ly important and diverted to what's
trivial." Yes, there IS a sucker bom every minute. We are still just creatures that go too much on impressions and emotions rather
than logic, and the media play on that with sensationalism and simplified images. Sure, our brain has amazing powers, but it can
only focus on one thing at a time. (Luckily, that's at least one more than machines, that have no awareness of anything.)
Simplification, love and hate, enemy images. Our bane as a nation is our bent for political correctness and demonization. We are
the heirs of the Puritans, who had a nasty habit of picking on little old ladies, demonizing them and then burning them at the stake.
Who were the real demons there? Or in the tragedies of Libya and Syria?? When a huge revelation like 9/11 hits, like it did some
of us back in 2002, when I published the first "truther" book in English, it's a big shock. This can make people either deny the
new information, or go overboard with it. Sometimes the shock of losing the mainstream world view is so great that people switch
to the reverse explanation for everything. Yet most of life is still banal or benign. Major criminal political conspiracies like
9/11 require a lot of effort, and are used strategically.
Although 9/11 showed that these people arc capable of almost anything, that doesn't mean they can or will do everything. For instance,
I don't believe in chemtrails, because it doesn't make sense, and the contrails persist mostly on days when there are natural cirrus
clouds in the upper atmosphere. Manipulation is even more common than conspiracy. We all do it to get other people to do things.
Ulfkotte shows that mass media manipulation is business as usual. It is so prevalent that it starts to get into the realm of a matrix,
a wall-to-wall pseudo-reality. The spider army spins its web 24/7. Their thread is a mix of outrages and banalities, bread and circuses.
The formula is clear to see in the major German tabloid Bild. Its readers go for simplified and emotional narratives, like a cheap
novel with themes of love and hate: "The reader's attention is steered away from what's objective- ly important and diverted to what's
trivial." Yes, there IS a sucker bom every minute. We are still just creatures that go too much on impressions and emotions rather
than logic, and the media play on that with sensationalism and simplified images. Sure, our brain has amazing powers, but it can
only focus on one thing at a time. (Luckily, that's at least one more than machines, that have no awareness of anything.)
Simplification, love and hate, enemy images. Our bane as a nation is our bent for political correctness and demonization. We are
the heirs of the Puritans, who had a nasty habit of picking on little old ladies, demonizing them and then burning them at the stake.
Who were the real demons there? Or in the tragedies of Libya and Syria?? We never learn. Hitler with us is as immortal as Satan,
constantly recycled as the evil icon dictator of the day, sometimes complete with moustache. This is how they demonize populism.
Ulfkotte asks, why should populism be unpopular? Lincoln expounded populism when he spoke of a government by and for and of the people.
Each time you spend a $5 greenback with his icon on it, you distribute a piece of populist propaganda! Trump is right to use the
term "witch hunt" against the puritanical attack dogs of impeachment. He wouldn't have needed to ask favors of foreign potentates
if the MSM, the mainstream media, were doing their job and investigating the Bidens. The pot calling the kettle black, because it
sees itself on the politically correct moral high ground. More important, without die color revolution launched by the MSM and the
Obama regime, Ukraine wouldn't have sunk into this cesspool of corruption. Even Trump won't say what die Bidens were really up to:
stirring up war in East Ukraine so they could get their hands on the oil shale fields of the Donbass, or that they are investors
in the illegal occupation of oil fields in the Golan Heights. Can't remember anyone ever fishing in more troubled waters. What about
the suspicions that the Clintons have murdered people, such as Seth Rich, those are just conspiracy theories and not to be investigated
either. Did the DNC kill this whistleblower and blame Putin instead for losing the election? The Mueller report won't say. But people
do get killed. Like JFK, RFK, MLK.
These are not minor matters they are getting away with behind the protective mask of the media which "covers" the news. Surveys
do reflect declining public faith in die mainstream media - except among Democrats. Tell people what they want to hear: a basic marketing
principle. You may have heard of Operation Mockingbird and how the CLA plays our domestic media like a Wurlitzer. Ulfkotte explains
how in Germany, CIA media operations started with the postwar occupation. It's part of the declared intention (most infamously but
not only by Winston Churchill) to destroy the German people, the German identity. Control of the global media is the firm foundation
of the Anglo-American-Zionist empire.
In his parting shot, "What should we do," Ulfkotte sees one simple ray of hope. "Everyone reading this book has the ultimate power
over the journalism I have described here. All we have to do is stop giving our money and our attention to these 'leading media.'
When enough of us stop buying the products offered by these media houses, when we no longer click on their Internet articles and
we switch off their television or radio programs - at some point, these journalists will have to start producing something of value
for their fellow citizens, or they're going to be out of a job. It's that simple." Instead, we can patronize sources like
https://eluxemagazine.com/magazine/honest-news-sites .
They note that, according to Business Insider, 90% of US media are owned by just six corporations, a similar
problem of lockstep media as in Germany. They recommend these "Honest News Sites Way Better Than Mainstream Media."
The Corbett Report
Moon of Alabama
The Anti-Media
Global Research
We Are Change
ProgressivePress.com,
Consortium News
StormCloudsGathering
Truth In Media
Media Roots
21st Century Wire
And The OffOuardian, which incidentally was one of the strongest voices for publishing this suppressed book.
"... The adjectives used in the FAZ to describe Putin had overwhelmingly negative connotations, including: threatening, rough, aggressive, confrontational, anti-westem, power-political, untruthful, cool, calculated, cynical, harsh, abrasive, non-substantive (arguments) and implausible (arguments). ..."
"... The words used to describe Obama had a completely different tone: committed, fanatically welcomed, enthusiastic, conciliatory, praised, hopeful and resolute ..."
"... The former FAZ Washington correspondent Matthias Rub wrote the adulation to US President Bush cited above shortly before the Iraq War began in 2003, in violation of international law. One year later he received the Arthur F. Bums Award for a different article. The Arthur F. Bums Award is presented by Germany's Foreign Minister. So, who selects the winners today? ..."
An interesting undergraduate thesis from Munich put together a list of the adjectives and
adverbs used in select articles about Obama (USA) and Putin (Russia) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung between 2000 and 2012.
The words selected were ones that implied a value judgement in their description of Obama or
Putin. The adjectives used in the FAZ to describe Putin had overwhelmingly negative
connotations, including: threatening, rough, aggressive, confrontational, anti-westem,
power-political, untruthful, cool, calculated, cynical, harsh, abrasive, non-substantive
(arguments) and implausible (arguments).
The words used to describe Obama had a completely different tone: committed, fanatically
welcomed, enthusiastic, conciliatory, praised, hopeful and resolute :' In plain language:
The reporting in the once renowned FAZ newspaper is definitely not neutral, independent,
unbiased nor objective these days. So where is this bias coming from? Does this style of
reporting possibly have anything to do with the closeness that the FAZ's writers have to
certain elites and powerful circles? In the following chapters, we won't only be considering
the FAZ when it comes to this question. We will also look into why the mainstream media doesn't
even want you to imply that they're close to the elite.
Chapter one, scene two: A few years ago, the reporter Thomas Leif painted a rather
conspiratorial picture in the ARD television documentary Strippenzieher und Hinterzimmer
(Puppet Masters and Back Rooms). In it, journalists, ministers and party officials appeared to
all be sitting in the same boat, isolated from the common folk and getting along like
gangbustcrs. Viewers got to see how politics is made in secret meetings behind the scenes. The
film was about a corrupt world of cozy connections.4 What was being shown, however, wasn't a
conspiracy theory.
The film was controversial, because die people being shown in it were the perpetrators. They
thought that this form of corruption was completely normal. The journalists portrayed in the
documentary took it as an affront when they were simply asked about these secret networks
operating in the background.
... ... ...
The manipulation of the readers has been noticeable at the FAZ for many years. Dr. Heinz
Loquai gave a famous speech in 2003 where he said the following about the FAZ:
We learn from the FAZ's Washington correspondents that, among other things, Bush
studies the bible every day, prays regularly and bases his actions on the question, "What
would Jesus do?" The president is a "paragon of modesty and close to his people." There may
be "an arrogant bone or two in Bush's body," but he is "a man of love." His "portion of
missionary fervor" is "softened by statesmanlike prudence," through "patient waiting," the
"natural political talent's decision" has been "expressed." Although Bush may know that he is
not an intellectual, he can rely on "his political instinct, his wisdom and his natural
wit."
So (...) lectured, we can continue to count on the judgement and objectivity of leading
German daily and weekly newspapers' America correspondents! Embedded with the allied troops,
embedded in the political-media network in Washington - what's the difference? 16
The former FAZ Washington correspondent Matthias Rub wrote the adulation to US President
Bush cited above shortly before the Iraq War began in 2003, in violation of international law.
One year later he received the Arthur F. Bums Award for a different article. The Arthur F. Bums
Award is presented by Germany's Foreign Minister. So, who selects the winners today? The
jury includes, for example, the journalists Sabine Christiansen and Stefan Kornclius
(Sflddeutsche Zeitung).17 Keep these names in the mind. We will come across them and their
interesting connections quite often.
" Reporters uncritically echo intel agencies' election claims. Did they learn nothing from
the Iraq war?" that a wrong question to ask. In reality presstitutes are controlled by their
pimps from intelligence agencies. Like was the case in the USSR he MSM has generally abandoned
journalism and became propaganda arm of the State Department and CIA if we are talking about
foreign policy. .
By no stretch of the imagination can NPR or NYT any longer be called a news organizations.
They are propaganda outlets. The book, "Legacy of Ashes," is a good place to start to learn
something about CIA. And
Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA by Dr. Udo Ulfkotte describes how CIA controls
journalists.
Notable quotes:
"... Some of our guys told us stuff. We won’t tell you who or why you should trust them, and we won’t show you any evidence that backs them up. The intelligence community is making a bold appeal to its own authority — an authority of which journalists have good reason to be skeptical. ..."
"... Organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency have a history of propagating disinformation to media outlets. Their biases are obvious: They exist not to report the truth but to disrupt foreign adversaries and, at least in theory, to further American interests. Formally they answer to the president and are overseen by Congress, but they also protect their parochial interests like all bureaucracies. ..."
"... Mr. Rall is a political cartoonist, columnist and author of "The Stringer," a graphic novel forthcoming in April. ..."
Reporters uncritically echo intel agencies' election claims. Did they learn nothing from the
Iraq war?
If your mother says she loves you, check it out, goes an old reporter’s saying. What
if the intelligence community says so?
On March 15 the National Intelligence Council declassified an “intelligence community
assessment” titled “Foreign Threats to the 2020 Federal Election.” From a
journalistic standpoint, the section titled “sources of information” is of
interest. It says only that “we considered intelligence reporting and other information
made available to the Intelligence Community as of 31 December 2020.”
To put that in layman’s terms: Some of our guys told us stuff. We won’t tell
you who or why you should trust them, and we won’t show you any evidence that backs them
up. The intelligence community is making a bold appeal to its own authority — an
authority of which journalists have good reason to be skeptical.
Organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency have a history of propagating
disinformation to media outlets. Their biases are obvious: They exist not to report the truth
but to disrupt foreign adversaries and, at least in theory, to further American interests.
Formally they answer to the president and are overseen by Congress, but they also protect their
parochial interests like all bureaucracies. (Speaking of bias, I draw cartoons for Sputnik
News and frequently appear on their radio programs. I have many other clients as well. That may
affect how seriously you take this article.)
Yet many in the media greeted the report with utter credulity. NPR aired a story March 17
titled “Russia’s Efforts at Information Warfare Against the West
Continue”—not “Intelligence Agencies Claim . . .” Reporters Mary Louise
Kelly and Greg Myre framed the report’s election-interference claims as straightforward
fact, analyzed the political implications, and discussed what the U.S. might do to retaliate.
“But the bigger question, Mary Louise, is how can the U.S. stop these major breaches
being carried out by Russia?” Mr. Myre said.
The segment ignored the possibility that the report’s claims might be false or
mistaken. It failed to mention the lack of documented evidence and the anonymous sourcing. NPR
interviewed a single expert: Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel of the National Security
Agency, identified only as an “official,” who took the report at face value.
Other media outlets were careful to use proper journalistic form, such as “report
says” and “report alleges.” Yet they too presented unsourced allegations as
fact. CNN said the report “confirms what was largely assumed” and called it
“a wholesale repudiation of many false narratives that were pushed by right-wing news
outlets.” CNN didn’t address the questions of anonymous sourcing or
reliability.
While the New York Times allowed that “the declassified report did not explain how the
intelligence community had reached its conclusions,” it bent over backward to give the
benefit of the doubt to the intelligence community: “The officials said they had high
confidence in their conclusions about Mr. Putin’s involvement, suggesting that the
intelligence agencies have developed new ways of gathering information after the extraction of
one of their best Kremlin sources in 2017.”
In May 2004 the Times’s editors published a 1,200-word letter to readers apologizing
for their coverage of Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. “We
have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have
been,” they wrote. “In some cases, information that was controversial then, and
seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking
back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence
emerged—or failed to emerge.”
You’d think they’d have learned something from the mother of all
intelligence—and journalistic—failures.
Mr. Rall is a political cartoonist, columnist and author of "The Stringer," a graphic
novel forthcoming in April.
Appeared in the April 2, 2021, print edition.
Douglas Wolf
From the 50's on to the fall of the Soviet Union (which the "intelligence agencies
completely missed) the assessments of the Soviet military was WAY overexaggerated to justify
huge budgets for themselves and the military-industrial establishment. When the SU crumbled,
new boogie men had to found! Oh and they missed the plot that became 9-11. WMD's in Iraq
-nope. The list is long of the screwups and politically motivated reports. I say this as
someone who has a long friendship with a CIA officer
Bryan Smith
Asking the media if they have any ethics,, is like asking the executioner why he is an
hatchet man? Because the money is good!
Robert Bridges
50 Intelligence officers, including Brennan, said the Hunter Biden story was Russian
misinformation before the election. They were wrong. Of course, they, and you, won't
apologize to the American people for that blatant attempt to affect the election.
Michael Bomya
Mr. Rall reminds us of the WMD ploy that was the premise for the Iraq war, however he
misses entirely the more recent 2016 Russian collusion narrative. The alleged journalists are
simply extending their Russia story into a tome as thick as Tolstoy's "War and Peace". I
might take the recent intel report to mean that Russia spent $75K on faceyspacey ads in the
run up to the 2020 election, a 25% increase over their spending to install a sleeper agent,
Donald Trump, into the White House.
No Mr. Rall, there are many "news" articles that I stop reading halfway through due to
anonymous sources, a dearth of facts and its' alignment with a Dem narrative. I am not easily
morphed into a consumer of fiction, when I wish to read the news.
David Everson
As long as their agendas coincide they will cooperate. The rest of us are left to sort out
the epistemological sewage we live in.
Bill Schmaltz
"I'm from the government, I'm here to help you". (Be afraid)
"We're the FBI, we're here to pursue justice" (Not always)
"We're the intelligence community, you can trust us". (No, you can't)
Michael Kwedar
Sadly the question "Cui Bono" addresses a lot of what Mr. Rall declaims.
Richard Taylor
The author gives the "journalists" too much credit for being anything other than the
political hacks they are. The intelligence information coincides with their political views
and hence it is gospel. No need for any further review.
Richard Bolin
The issue of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was not a failure of the intelligence
community at large. That assessment was made by a rogue intelligence component that had the
White House's ear. I was a senior intelligence officer at the time and when I asked my staff
if they were still seeing evidence that Iraq still had a weapons of mass destruction program
the unanimous answer was no.
Marc Jones
Yet the Director of the CIA still went forward, declaring "Slam Dunk!" Was it not his
responsibility to vet the information he was passing on to ensure its accuracy, or was he one
of the rogues? Where do you want to start with these rogue operations and elements? The 1950s
in Latin America and Iran? The 1960s domestically? The 1970s in Asia? The 1980s and 1990s in
the Middle East and again in Latin America? The record is long, ugly and it has a cause.
There is a difference between gathering information and conducting clandestine foreign
intervention.
The former is necessary and relatively benign. The latter leads to embarrassing and
dangerous rogue operations. The United States has a military, Constitutionally established
and maintained for the purpose of conducting violence in the country's behalf. It was the
intent of the founders that would only happen after the members of Congress debated and
agreed there was a need to do so. We need to return to that standard.
Kenneth Wilson
The "journalists" cited all intend to propagate the Democratic Party narrative that it's
only "The Russians" who interfere in US presidential elections. You will not hear anything
about China's involvement from "the intelligence community" or these same journalists.
Also you can be sure that "the intelligence community" won't say publicly anything about
Dominion voting systems. One member of the intel community, former Trump cybersecurity chief
Chris Krebs (who had been fired by Trump) testified to the Senate Homeland security committee
that in no way were the voting machines connected to the Internet. Until Senator Ron Johnson
showed evidence that yes, the machines are in fact connected to the Internet. Thus the vote
counts can be manipulated from anywhere, including from servers abroad.
Madison Bagney
As Reagan famously said, "Trust but verify." Sadly advice that most Americans fail to
do.
ugghhhh the propaganda channel – thesaker – continues unabated
"Putin single-handedly "resurrected" Russia in an amazingly short time"
just LOL @ single-handedly
" Putin turned Russia into the strongest military power on the planet and he completely reshaped the Russian perception
of themselves and of Russia"
strongest? zvezda channel posting youtube videos doesn't make you the strongest military power
completely reshaped? so much that still all the young Russians want to emigrate
"the country which created the best vaccine on the planet "
the best vaccine? only 4% of Russians got vaccinated, that's 6 million out of 144 millions
so much about Russians trusting Putin, LOL
-- -- -
Andrei Raevsky, do you even re-read what BS you write?!
you aren't fooling anyone but a handful of braindead followers you got there on your blog
in the real world – no one gives a shyt about Putin
the West doesn't hate Putin, they just want to loot Russia or get a cut from the loot of Russia.
Russian oligarchs want to loot Russia for themselves without giving a cut/tribute to Western oligarchs.
Putin is a non-issue, a nobody, he just follows orders of the Russian oligarchs.
But there is a real hate @ Putin – that because he is a fake, only a carefully prepared media
image. And you Andrei Raevsky are part of that propaganda effort. Putin is no savior, Putin
is not working for the betterment of Russians or humanity as a whole. He is just a facade for
Russian oligarchs. And that is what we hate . And the more you and the likes of you push
that fake image of Putin, the more the pushback and hate from us.
So go on – continue.
I was a believer in Putin. Then I saw the light. Now I would have no quarrel putting a bullet in
Putin's head. Analyze this!
In truth, the West has a very long list of reasons for which to hate Putin and everything
Russian, but I believe that there is one reason which trumps them all: the western leaders
sincerely believed that they had defeated the USSR in the Cold War (even medals were
made to commemorate this event) and following the collapse of the former superpower and the
coming to power of a clueless, alcoholic puppet, the triumph of the West was total. At least in
appearance. The reality, as always, was much more complicated.
The causes and mechanisms of the collapse of the Soviet Union are not our topic today, so I
will just indicate that I believe that the USSR never "collapsed" but that it was deliberately
destroyed by the CPSU apparatus which decided to break up the country in order for the Party
and Nomenklatura to remain in power, not at the helm of the USSR, but at the helm of the
various ex-Soviet republics. Weak leaders and ideologies which nobody really believes in do not
inspire people to fight for their rulers. This is why the Russian monarchy collapsed, this is
why the masonic democracy of Kerenskii collapsed and this is why the Soviet Union collapsed
(this is also one of the most likely reasons for the final collapse of the US as a state).
Putin, who was not very well known in the West or, for that matter, in Russia, came to power
and immediately reversed Russia's course towards the abyss. First, he dealt with the two most
urgent threats, the oligarchs and the Wahabi insurrection in the Caucasus. Many Russians,
including myself, were absolutely amazed at the speed and determination of his actions. As a
result, Putin suddenly found himself one of the most popular leaders in Russian history.
Initially, the West went into a kind of shock, then through a process reminiscent of the
so-called " Kübler-Ross model " and,
finally, the West settled into a russophobic frenzy not seen since the Nazi regime in Germany
during WWII.
In this sequence, Russia committed two very different types of "crimes" (from the
AngloZionist point of view, of course):
The minor crime of doing what Russia actually did
and The much bigger crime of never asking the Empire for the permission to do so
The West likes to treat the rest of the planet like some kind of junior partner, with very
limited autonomy and almost no real agency (the best example is what the USA did to countries
like Poland or Bulgaria). If and when any such "junior" country wants to do something in its
foreign policy, it absolutely has to ask for permission from its AngloZionist Big Brother. Not
doing so is something akin to sedition and revolt. In the past, many countries were "punished"
for daring to have an opinion or, even more so, for daring to act on it.
It would not be inaccurate to summarize it all by saying that Putin flipped his finger to
the Empire and its leaders. That "crime of crimes" was what really triggered the current
anti-Russian hysteria. Soon, however, the (mostly clueless) leaders of the Empire ran into an
extremely frustrating problem: while the russophobic hysteria did get a lot of traction in the
West, in Russia it created a very powerful blowback because of a typical Putin "judo" move: far
from trying to suppress the anti-Russian propaganda of the West, the Kremlin used its power to
make it widely available (in Russian!) through the Russian media (I wrote about this in some
detail here and here ).
The direct result of this was two fold: first, the CIA/MI6 run "opposition" began to be
strongly associated with the russophobic enemies of Russia and, second, the Russian general
public further rallied around Putin and his unyielding stance. In other words, calling Putin a
dictator and, of course, a "new Hitler", the western PSYOPs gained some limited advantage in
the western public opinion, but totally shot itself in the leg with the Russian public.
I refer to this stage as the " phase one anti-Putin strategic PSYOP ". As for the
outcome of this PSYOP, I would not only say that it almost completely failed, but I think that
it had the exact opposite intended effect inside Russia.
A change of course was urgently needed.
The redirection of US PSYOPs against Putin and Russia
I have to admit that I have a very low opinion of the US intelligence community, including
its analysts. But even the rather dull US "Russia area specialist" eventually figured out that
telling the Russian public opinion that Putin was a "dictator" or a "killer of dissidents" or a
"chemical poisoner of exiles" resulted in a typically Russian mix of laughter and support for
the Kremlin. Something had to be done.
So some smart ass somewhere in some basement came up with the following idea: it makes no
sense to accuse Putin of things which make him popular at home, so let's come up with a new
list of accusations carefully tailored to the Russian public.
Let's call this a " phase two anti-Putin PSYOP operation ".
And this is how the "Putin is in cahoots with" thing began. Specifically, these accusations
were deployed by the US PSYOPs and those in its pay:
Putin is disarming Syria Putin will
sell out the Donbass Putin is a puppet of Israel and, specifically, Netanyahu Putin is a
corrupt traitor to the Russian national interests Putin is allowing Israel to bomb Syria (see
here )
Putin is selling the Siberian riches to China and/or Putin is subjugating Russia to China Putin
is corrupt, weak and even cowardly Putin was defeated by Erdogan in the Nagorno-Karabakh war
The above are the main talking points immediately endorsed and executed by the US strategic
PSYOPs against Russia.
Was it effective?
Yes, to some degree. For one thing, these "anti-Russian PSYOPS reloaded" were immediately
picked up by at least part of what one could call the "internal patriotic opposition" (much of
it very sincerely and without any awareness of being skillfully manipulated). Even more toxic
was the emergence of a rather loud neo-Communist (or, as Ruslan Ostashko often calls them
"emo-Marxist") movement (I personally refer to as a sixth
column ) which began an internal anti-Kremlin propaganda campaign centered on the
following themes:
"All is lost" (
всепропальщики
): that is thesis which says that nothing in Russia is right, everything is either wrong or
evil, the country is collapsing, so is its economy, its science, its military, etc. etc. etc.
This is just a garden variety of defeatism, nothing more. "Nothing was achieved since Putin
came to power": this is a weird one, since it takes an absolutely spectacular amount of mental
gymnastics to not see that Putin literally saved Russia from total destruction. This stance
also completely fails to explain why Putin is so hated by the Empire (if Putin did everything
wrong, like, say Eltsin did, he would be adored in the West, not hated!). All the elections in
Russia were stolen. Here the 5th (CIA/MI6 run) column and 6th column have to agree: according
to both of them, there is absolutely no way most Russians supported Putin for so many years and
there is no way they support him now. And nevermind the fact that the vast majority of polls
show that Putin was, and still is, the most popular political figure in Russia.
Finally, the big SNAFU with the pension reform definitely did not help Putin's ratings, so
he had to take action: he "softened" some of the worst provisions of this reform and,
eventually, he successfully sidelined some of the worst Atlantic Integrationists, including
Medvedev himself.
Sadly, some putatively pro-Russian websites, blogs and individuals showed their true face
when they jumped on the bandwagon of this 2nd strategic PSYOP campaign, probably with the hope
to either become more noticed, or get some funding, or both. Hence, all the nonsense about
Russia and Israel working together or Putin "selling out" we have seen so many times recently.
The worst thing here is that these websites, blogs and individuals have seriously misled and
distressed some of the best real friends of Russia in the West.
None of these guys ever address a very simple question: if Putin is such a sellout, and if
all is lost, why does the AngloZionist Empire hate Putin so much? In almost 1000 years of
warfare (spiritual, cultural, political, economic and military) against Russia, the leaders of
the West have always hated real Russian patriots and they have always loved the (alas, many)
traitors to Russia. And now, they hate Putin because he is such a terrible leader?
This makes absolutely no sense.
Conclusion: is a war inevitable now?
The US/NATO don't engage in strategic PYSOPs just because they like or dislike somebody. The
main purpose of such PSYOPs is to break the other side's will to resist . This was also
the main objective of both (phase one and phase two) anti-Putin PSYOPs. I am happy to report
that both phases of these PYSOPs failed. The danger here is that these failures have failed to
convince the leaders of the Empire of the need to urgently change course and accept the
"Russian reality", even if they don't like it.
Ever since "Biden" (the "collective Biden", of course, not the potted plant) Administration
(illegally) seized power, what we saw was a sharp escalation of anti-Russian statements. Hence,
the latest " uhu, he is a killer " -- this was no mistake by a senile mind, this was a
carefully prepared
declaration. Even worse, the Empire has not limited itself to just words, it also did some
important "body moves" to signal its determination to seek even further confrontation with
Russia:
There has been a lot of sabre-rattling coming from the West, mostly some rather
ill-advsied (or even outright stupid) military maneuvers near/along the Russian border. As I
have explained it a billion times, these maneuvers are self-defeating from a military point of
view (the closer to the Russian border, the more dangerous for the western military
force). Politically, however, they are extremely provocative and, therefore, dangerous. The
vast majority of Russian analysts do not believe that the US/NATO will openly attack Russia, if
only because that would be suicidal (the current military balance in Europe is strongly in
Russia's favor, even without using hypersonic weapons). What many of them now fear is that
"Biden" will unleash the Ukronazi forces against the Donbass, thereby "punishing" both the
Ukraine and Russia (the former for its role in the US presidential campaign). I tend to agree
with both of these statements.
At the end of the day, the AngloZionist Empire was always racist at its core, and that
empire is still racist : for its leaders, the Ukrainian people are just cannon fodder, an
irrelevant third rate nation with no agency which has outlived its utility (US analysts do
understand that the US plan for the Ukraine has ended in yet another spectacular faceplant such
delusional plans always end up with, even if they don't say so publicly). So why not launch
these people into a suicidal war against not only the LDNR but also Russia herself? Sure,
Russia will quickly and decisively win the military war, but politically it will be a PR
disaster for Russia as the "democratic West" will always blame Russia, even when she clearly
did not attack first (as was the case in 08.08.08, most recently).
I have already written about
the absolutely disastrous situation of the Ukraine three weeks ago so I won't repeat it
all here, I will just say that since that day things have gotten even much worse: suffice to
say that the Ukraine has moved a lot of heavy armor to the line of contact while the regime in
Kiev has now banned the import of Russian toilet paper (which tells you what the ruling gang
thinks of as important and much needed measures). While it is true that the Ukraine has become
a totally failed state since the Neo-Nazi coup, there is now a clear acceleration of the
collapse of not only the regime or state, but of the country as a whole. Ukraine is falling
apart so fast that one could start an entire website tracking only all this developing horror,
not day by day, but, hour by hour. Suffice to say that "Ze" has turned out to be even worse
than Poroshenko. The only thing Poroshenko did which "Ze" has not (yet!) is to start a war.
Other than that, the rest of what he did (by action or inaction) can only be qualified as "more
of the same, only worse".
Can a war be prevented?
I don't know. Putin gave the Ukronazis a very stern warning (" grave consequences for Ukraine's statehood as such ").
I don't believe for one second that anybody in power in Kiev gives a damn about the Ukraine or
the Ukrainian statehood, but they are smart enough to realize that a Russian counter-attack in
defense of the LDNR and, even more so, Crimea, might include precision "counter-leadership"
strikes with advanced missiles. The Ukronazi leaders would be well-advised to realize that they
all have a crosshair painted on their heads. They might also think about this: what happened to
every single Wahabi gang leader in Chechnya since the end of the 2nd Chechen war? (hint: they
were all found and executed). Will that be enough to stop them?
Maybe. Let's hope so.
But we must now keep in mind that for the foreseeable future there are only two options left
for the Ukraine: " a horrible ending or a horror without end " (Russian
expression).
The best scenario for the people of the Ukraine would be a (hopefully
relatively peaceful) breakup of the country
into manageable parts . The worst option would definitely be a full-scale war against
Russia.
Judging by the rhetoric coming out of Kiev these days, most Ukrainian politicians are firmly
behind option #2, especially since that is also the only option acceptable to their overseas
masters. The Ukrainians have also adopted a new military doctrine (they call it a "military
security strategy of Ukraine") which declares Russia the aggressor state and military adversary
of the Ukraine (see here for a machine translation of the official text).
This might be the reason why Merkel and Macron recently had a videoconference with Putin
("Ze" was not invited): Putin might be trying to convince Merkel and Macron that such a war
would be a disaster for Europe. In the meantime, Russia is rapidly reinforcing her forces along
the Ukrainian border, including in Crimea.
But all these measures can only deter a regime which has no agency. The outcome shall be
decided in Washington DC, not Kiev. I am afraid that the traditional sense of total impunity of
US political leaders will, once again, give them a sense of very little risk (for them
personally or for the USA) in triggering a war in the Ukraine. The latest news on the
US-Ukrainian front is the delivery by the USN of 350 tonnes of military equipment in Odessa.
Not enough to be militarily significant, but more than enough to further egg on the regime in
Kiev to an attack on the Donbass and/or Crimea.
In fact, I would not even put it past "Biden" to launch an attack on Iran while the world
watches the Ukraine and Russia go to war. After all, the other country whose geostrategic
position has been severely degraded since Russia moved her forces to Syria is Israel, the one
country which all US politicians will serve faithfully and irrespective of any costs (including
human costs for the USA). The Israelis have been demanding a war on Iran since at least 2007,
and it would be very naive to hope that they won't eventually get their way. Last, but not
least, there is the crisis which Blinken's condescending chutzpah triggered with China which,
so far, has resulted in an economic war only, but which might also escalate at any moment,
especially considering all the many recent anti-Chinese provocations by the US Navy.
Right now the weather in the eastern Ukraine is not conducive to offensive military
operations. The snow is still melting, creating very difficult and muddy road conditions
(called " rasputitsa " in Russian) which greatly inhibit the movement of forces and
troops. These conditions will, however, change with the warmer season coming, at which point
the Ukronazi forces will be ideally poised for an attack.
In other words, barring some major development, we might be only weeks away from a major
war.
We must not forget President Putin's outrageous opinion piece in the New York Times of
September 11th 2013: delivered at the same time as he had the impertinence to propose
the voluntary relinquishment of all chemical weapons by Syria -- thwarting the traditional
wholesale bombing campaign that the "Allies" were working up to. This was an unforgivable
affront to the USA -- and to Obama in particular; who had only just invoked his "red line".
It made him look ridiculous -- and a man in his position can't afford to look ridiculous.
This behaviour by Mr. Putin has never been forgotten or forgiven and it will be quite a
while before the New York Times prints another oped by him.
Russia was "back": in 2013 Russia stopped the planned US/NATO attack on Syria (the
pretext here was Syrian chemical weapons). In 2014 Russia gave her support to the
Novorussian uprising against the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and, in the same year, Russia also
used her military to make it possible for the local population to vote on a referendum to
join Russia. Finally, in 2015, Russia stunned the West with an extremely effective military
intervention in Syria.
Don't forget what Russia did the Georgia's American trained and supplied military in
2009.
This was an unforgivable affront to the USA -- and to Obama in particular; who had only
just invoked his "red line". It made him look ridiculous -- and a man in his position can't
afford to look ridiculous.
Excellent observation.
To deal with contemporary western elites is, to a great extent, to deal with Satan
himself. The devil- and presumably, his minions- does not mind confrontation or opposition
anywhere as much as he hates being the object of derision.
"The devil the prowde spirite cannot endure to be mocked." -- St. Thomas More
"why does the AngloZionist Empire hate Putin so much?"
I have an explanation, but that would tend to get me labelled a "sixth columnist".
It is obvious to anyone who does not believe that Putin is the Saviour Of Russia, but just
a neoliberal politician who is moderately better than Yeltsin, and whose real alternatives,
not Quislings like Navalny but real alternatives, are all far more nationalist and not
beholden to international capital than he is. Since the 90s are now over, and the attempt to
destroy Russia has failed, how does one ensure that the country does not become even stronger
and, crucially, more assertive?
One possible answer is interesting: keep demonising the man in power, *even though you
know that demonising him hardens support behind him*. Especially since it hardens support
behind him. As long as you keep attacking him, the Russian people support him more, making it
less likely for someone who would be more nationalist and less neoliberal to take charge.
I've come to think that the whole "Putin the Devil" thing is pushed so hard by the
corporate-communist-left (aside: I do struggle these days with what to call them) mostly as a
distraction. "Hey! Look over there! A BAD MAN!" (and pay no mind to what I'm doing over here,
flooding the country with replacements, thrashing the constitution, coming up with vaccine
passports and enabling a totalitarian technocracy).
In fact, it's a necessary hallmark of ALL totalitarian leftist regimes to have a huge
"outside enemy" who threatens the very existence of the state and is used to distract from
domestic troubles. Try to find a single totalitarian state without one.
So the U.S. has everything to gain and little to lose (Biden gov thinks anyways) by
goading Ukraine into "taking back Crimea." The U.S. is committed to fight that war down the
very last Ukrainian.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced this week that the country's National
Security and Defense Council had approved a strategy that is aimed at retaking Crimea and
reintegrating the strategically important peninsula.
Christopher Caldwell delivered what I thought was a good assessment of Putin in 2017, and
this excellent piece by The Saker complements and updates it for me. I think Putin is even
more reviled than ever by the U.S. Dems, because Putin = a national-sovereignty proponent =
Trump.
I play online chess -- speedy games, and so I have a lot of experience with players from
Russia and Ukraine. They tend to favor what chess players call "quiet moves." Is this a
manner of thought, a philosophy, that can be extrapolated to government? (U.S. players, by
contrast, tend to be more impetuous and impulsive in their chess style.)
The World Health Organization recently published its report on the
origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which has caused the Covid-19 pandemic. Most scientist agree
that the virus is of zoonotic origin and not a human construct or an accidental laboratory
escape. But the U.S. wants to put pressure on China and advised the Director General of the
WHO, Tedros Adhanom, to keep the focus on China potential culpability. He acted accordingly
when he
remarked on his agency's report:
Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this
requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist
experts, which I am ready to deploy.
The Governments of Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia,
Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States of America remain steadfast in our commitment to working with the World Health
Organization (WHO), international experts who have a vital mission, and the global
community to understand the origins of this pandemic in order to improve our collective
global health security and response. Together, we support a transparent and independent
analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence, of the origins of the
COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, we join in expressing shared concerns regarding the
recent WHO-convened study in China, while at the same time reinforcing the importance of
working together toward the development and use of a swift, effective, transparent,
science-based, and independent process for international evaluations of such outbreaks of
unknown origin in the future.
The most interesting with the above statement is the list of U.S. allied countries which
declined to support it,
Most core EU countries, especially France, Spain, Italy and Germany, are missing from it.
As is the Five-Eyes member New Zealand. India, a U.S. ally in the anti-Chinese Quad
initiative, also did not sign. This list of signatories of the Joint Statement is an
astonishingly meager result for a U.S. 'joint' initiative. It is unprecedented. It is a sign
that something has cracked and that the world will never be the same.
The first months of he Biden administration saw a rupture in the global system. First
Russia admonished the EU for its hypocritical criticism of internal Russian issues. Biden
followed up by calling Putin a 'killer'. Then the Chinese foreign minister told the Biden
administration
to shut the fuck up about internal Chinese issues. Soon thereafter Russia's and China's
foreign ministers met and agreed to deepen their alliance and to shun the U.S. dollar. Then
China's foreign minister went on a wider Middle East tour. There he reminded U.S. allies of
their
sovereignty :
Wang said that expected goals had been achieved with regard to a five-point initiative on
achieving security and stability in the Middle East, which was proposed during the visit.
"China supports countries in the region to stay impervious to external pressure and
interference, to independently explore development paths suited to its regional realities
," Wang said, adding that the countries should " break free from the shadows of big-power
geopolitical rivalry and resolve regional conflicts and differences as masters of the
region ."
Suffice to say, the China-Iran pact deeply is embedded within a new matrix Beijing hopes to
create with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and Iran. The pact forms part of a new
narrative on regional security and stability.
Countries in Asia and further afield are closely watching the development of this
alternative international order, led by Moscow and Beijing. And they can also recognise the
signs of increasing US economic and political decline.
It is a new kind of Cold War, but not one based on ideology like the first incarnation.
It is a war for international legitimacy, a struggle for hearts and minds and money in the
very large part of the world not aligned to the US or NATO.
The US and its allies will continue to operate under their narrative, while Russia and
China will push their competing narrative. This was made crystal clear over these past few
dramatic days of major power diplomacy.
The global balance of power is shifting, and for many nations, the smart money might be
on Russia and China now.
The obvious U.S. countermove to the Russian-Chinese initiative is to unite its allies in a
new Cold War against Russia and China. But as the Joint Statement above shows most of those
allies do not want to follow that path. China is a too good customer to be shunned. Talk of
human rights in other countries might play well with the local electorate but what counts in
the end is the business.
Even some U.S. companies can see that the hostile path the Biden administration has
followed will only be to their detriment. Some are asking the Biden gang to
tone it down :
[Boeing] Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told an online business forum he believed a major
aircraft subsidy dispute with Europe could be resolved after 16 years of wrangling at the
World Trade Organization, but contrasted this with the outlook on China.
"I think politically (China) is more difficult for this administration and it was for
the last administration. But we still have to trade with our largest partner in the world:
China," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit.
Noting multiple disputes, he added: " I am hoping we can sort of separate intellectual
property, human rights and other things from trade and continue to encourage a free trade
environment between these two economic juggernauts. ... We cannot afford to be locked out
of that market. Our competitor will jump right in."
Before its 737 MAX debacle Boeing was the biggest U.S. exporter and China was its biggest
customer. The MAX has yet to be re-certified in China. If Washington keeps the hostile tone
against China Boeing will lose out and Europe's Airbus will make a killing.
Biden announced that "America is back" only to be told that it is no longer needed in the
oversized role that it played before. Should Washington not be able to accept that it can no
play 'unilateral' but will have to follow the real rules of international law we might be in
for some
interesting times :
Question: Finally, are you concerned that deteriorating international tensions could lead
to war?
Glenn Diesen: Yes, we should all be concerned. Tensions keep escalating and there are
increasing conflicts that could spark a major war. A war could break out over Syria,
Ukraine, the Black Sea, the Arctic, the South China Sea and other regions.
What makes all of these conflicts dangerous is that they are informed by a
winner-takes-all logic. Wishful thinking or active push towards a collapse of Russia,
China, the EU or the U.S. is also an indication of the winner-takes-all mentality. Under
these conditions, the large powers are more prepared to accept greater risks at a time when
the international system is transforming . The rhetoric of upholding liberal democratic
values also has clear zero-sum undertones as it implies that Russia and China must accept
the moral authority of the West and commit to unilateral concessions.
The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only
be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national
interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly asked
for a summit of leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council:
Putin argued that the countries that created a new global order after World War II should
cooperate to solve today's problems.
"The founder countries of the United Nations, the five states that hold special
responsibility to save civilisation, can and must be an example," he said at the sombre
memorial ceremony.
The meeting would "play a great role in searching for collective answers to modern
challenges and threats," Putin said, adding that Russia was "ready for such a serious
conversation."
Such a summit would be a chance to work on a new global system that avoids unilateralism
and block mentality. As the U.S. is now learning that its allies are not willing to follow
its anti-China and anti-Russia policies it might be willing to negotiate over a new
international system.
But as long as Washington is unable to recognize its own decline a violent attempt to
solve the issue once and for all will become more likely.
Posted by b on April 1, 2021 at 17:52 UTC |
Permalink
Very thought provoking b, I wish time off brought me back firing on all cylinders like
this!
No doubt vk will chime in here better than I but it surely cannot be a matter of "if
America decides". There are historical forces at work in this financialized phase of late
capitalism that are not grasped by the US leadership, let alone factored into intelligent
policy debates. Biden is an arch-lobbyist for the vested interests which compel the US's
unilateral and interventionist foreign policy. I'm quite sure he is incapable of 'deciding'
anything (not just mentally but institutionally). But the underlying dynamic of
world-historical change is beyond him and his whole country. The die was cast long ago when
the Soviet Union fell and the US couldn't help themselves. Junkies for unilateralism since
1989, they will keep shooting up until they OD (Boeing notwithstanding...). I suspect they
will end up like the schizoid UK, psychologically unable to accept increasing and humiliating
losses of empire until it hits the bottom of the dustbin of History.
The Dems and Republicans are two heads of the same hydra, voting for one or the other is a
charade played on the American people and is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The US is
a state run for the benefit of the economic elite that owns the media and from which the
political elite is chosen/sponsored and which is aligned with the military elite. Presidents
will come and go, policy pretty much stays the same, its the same as CEOs of corporations -
if they don't follow profit maximization they will be booted out.
The US elites all went to the same schools (or military academy) where they were
inculcated with "American Exceptionalism" and the need for "America to be the Global
Policeman", ending up with mediocrities such as Blinken and Pompeo that thrash around as the
world moves to multipolarity and the US becomes just another important nation. It will take
at least decades for the US elite to get their heads around this, the British still haven't
as seen by their wasting of resources on showy projects such as the two useless aircraft
carriers (know as "targets" by submariners and missile batteries) to assuage its "size"
envy.
Voting for either imperialist party in the US will make little difference in policy toward
Ukraine or in most any foreign policy situation. Only the timing of a given aggression is
changed. I didn't vote at all in the last election because it is just obvious that we are
screwed now. The menagerie of imperialist monkeys in Biden's government is bound to do
something in the spirit of maximum hubris. It will require only one more chest-swelling act
of bellicose madness, something "kinetic" and terminally stupid.
Roger @28 said;"The Dems and Republicans are two heads of the same hydra, voting for one
or the other is a charade played on the American people and is irrelevant to the discussion
at hand. The US is a state run for the benefit of the economic elite that owns the media and
from which the political elite is chosen/sponsored and which is aligned with the military
elite. Presidents will come and go, policy pretty much stays the same, its the same as CEOs
of corporations - if they don't follow profit maximization they will be booted out."
Absolutely.
@ 22 should read the above, and check out Gazza @ 24, to see who has who surrounded...
Oh, and quit dreaming about Trump, liberal, him and Biden work for the same people..
Apparently it was "You pissed on my rug!". I guess if they update that book and article,
they'll include Trump characterizing Justin as "weak and dishonest" - which I would say,
based on his 7 years as PM, is blunt but accurate.
I think you're right that any US concessions are just a reprieve. That
non-agreement-capable thing. Freeland and Justin don't care, they're looking forward to
getting rich after leaving office, like the Clintons, Obama, etc. as a reward for their
service to plutocracy.
William Gruff @19, Hoarsewhisperer @16, agreed. That, it seems to me is the root of the
problem. Our politicians are for sale to the highest bidders. It's no longer democracy, but
full-fledged plutocracy with a veneer of "democracy" that's visibly cracked and flaking off
to anyone but the willfully blind.
solo @38, good point. Saudi Arabia also sided with China on Xinjiang:
Importantly, the Crown Prince said Saudi Arabia 'firmly supports China's legitimate
position on the issues related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong, opposes interfering in China's
internal affairs under any pretext, and rejects the attempt by certain parties to sow
dissension between China and the Islamic world.'
Plainly put, Saudi Arabia has undercut the current US campaign against China regarding
Xinjiang. It is a snub to the Biden administration.
One thing which separates Russia and China from Western 'thinking' is that the People's
Government in each country has rules in place to prevent Billionaires from buying/owning
politicians.
To be fair, the neocon's feel that way about everyone - they embrace the role of paranoid
imperialist because that's a relatively accessible way to get funded in the DC policy world.
The striking thing is the hubris - they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time
and it will somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them.
"To be fair, the neocon's feel that way about everyone"
Did you consider the article linked to @59?
Michael Hudson quote from the article, for your consideration.
(take it or leave it)
The Americans want war. The people that Biden has appointed have an emotional hatred of
Russia. I've spoken to government people who are close to the Democratic Party, and they've
told me that there's a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming
from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there's still the hatred about their
ancestors: "Look what they did to my great-grandfather." And so they're willing to back the
Nazis, back the anti-Semites in Ukraine. They're willing to back today's anti-Semites all
over the world as long as they're getting back at this emotional focus on a kind of post
19th-century economy.
"...And this is because Zbig [Brezinski] is a Polish aristocrat with lost family estate on
outskirts of Lvov. Any fool knows emigre info is useless and emigre aristocrat most useless
of all."
Brezinski's keyboard was hacked before age 3; its output foreordained by unknown sources
he mis-owned as "self". A well-oiled robot producing brilliant compositions of high-quality,
effective communication promoting madness and contagious ruin of non-aristos.
Ghost Ship: That same Nazi scum that the OSS/CIA brought into the US after WW2 was also
involved in the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, and probably Malcolm X.
In the last several years the CIA and other intel agencies have cemented their control of
the US that is now a fascist rogue state that is marching the American people into a war with
peer powers. As usual the American people will believe US elites telling them the war is
started by a foreign power. Americans around me are blind as bats. And they think I'm dumb
for not taking experimental mRNA vaccines.
@ptb (63) "...they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time and it will
somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them."
Correct, there will be no personal physical cost to them, as in getting maimed or killed
in a war. But on the other side of the ledger, the profits that flow to the MIC are massive,
and many, if not most of the neocons are in some way connected to it, either by consultancy,
think-tank positions, corporate board positions, TV sinecures, etc. In other words, they are
cashing in big-time on their political views and policy recommendations.
@ptb (63) "...they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time and it will
somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them."
Correct, there will be no personal physical cost to them, as in getting maimed or killed
in a war. But on the other side of the ledger, the profits that flow to the MIC are massive,
and many, if not most of the neocons are in some way connected to it, either by consultancy,
think-tank positions, corporate board positions, TV sinecures, etc. In other words, they are
cashing in big-time on their political views and policy recommendations.
Military actions might be suicidal for Ukraine. But this exactly what the USA wants in order
to achieve its geopolitical objectives.
The danger for Ukraine in Georgia war scenario.
Notable quotes:
"... Yesterday (Ist April) the Russians stopped sending Gas via Ukraine. ..."
"... A hot war in eastern Ukraine/Crimea appears unlikely. Ukraine no doubt perceives that such a conflict means almost certain defeat. Military defeat would likely raise existential issues for Ukraine and its leadership, given the present adverse economic conditions. The Ukrainian leadership has very little to gain by waging a war and has much to lose. ..."
"... Assuming the truth of reports of a Russian military buildup along its relevant borders, such a buildup appears to be more of a warning to Kiev - and to the U.S. - not to make any rash moves. ..."
Cute /funny, but for me this points to the script that the "west" has laid out before
hand: Washington has dialed up an attack by Ukraine, has been concentrating ukrop forces
along the line of contact, and has kept its media muzzled, total media blackout, until the
Russians respond. Then let loose with the media to make it appear that the Russians are
threatening Ukraine. And per the 08/08/08 Georgia attack, if they push the button and attack
donbass, and the Russians respond, blame it on Russian aggression. Russia attacks!! Russian
aggression!! Who's to know it isn't so? They'll all be singing from the same hymn sheet. Not
like in '08 when the EU was still semi autonomous. If Washington doesn't order an attack,
then they can still point to Russia massing troops and score a propaganda victory as Russia
is intimidating poor Ukraine. Russian aggression!! And "sell" more weapons to Ukraine and
move more "advisors" in. The cost? Who cares? They'll just keep the printing press
rolling.
"Vyacheslav Nikonov: ...How dangerous is the situation in Ukraine in light of the ongoing
US arms deliveries, the decisions adopted in the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday, and the
statements made by the Ukrainian military, who are openly speaking about a war? Where do we
stand on the Ukrainian front?
Sergey Lavrov: There is much speculation about the documents that the Rada passed and
that President Zelensky signed. To what extent does this reflect real politics? Is it
consistent with the objective of resolving President Zelensky's domestic problem of
declining ratings?
I'm not sure what this is: a bluff or concrete plans.
According to the information published in the media, the military, for the most part, is
aware of the damage that any action to unleash a hot conflict might bring.
I very much hope this will not be fomented by the politicians, who, in turn, will be
fomented by the US-led West. ...
Like President Vladimir Putin said not long ago; but these words are still relevant,
– those who try to unleash a new war in Donbass will destroy Ukraine. "
Yesterday (Ist April) the Russians stopped sending Gas via Ukraine.
The day before Zelensky "invited" NATO into Ukraine for military exercises. In the face of the amassing of Russian troops near Ukraine's borders, setting up joint
exercises involving Ukraine Army and Allied forces, including joint air patrols with NATO
aviation in Ukraine's airspace, will help stabilize the security situation in the region,
Mashovets has told his counterpart.
UNIAN:
https://www.unian.info/politics/donbas-kyiv-invites-nato-to-hold-joint-military-drills-11374195.html
(Disclaimer; I don't know much about this site)
(The day before that there was a top level meeting of NATO "to discuss the situation in
Ukraine, which might have provoked/told Zelnsky to do the former).
Talking of provocation; here is a "twit" showing a Polish, it looks like fishing vessel,
ramming a supply ship to NordStream II pipe layers. Gangster warfare? https://twitter.com/I30mki/status/1377821400325480451
Although b says that the "Russian threat" is overdone, this buildup is certainly part of
the problem as the US wants NATO in Ukraine. Therefore the more the threat is hyped the more
they can use it to "justify" changing the facts on the ground.
One side observation is that Biden is totally absent. This situation is being run by the
US High Command (Milley et al) and others who always want moar war for the cash it brings
in. The US Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Chairman of the JCS, and National
Security Advisor have all had phone calls with their Ukrainian counterparts over the past
three days, and General Milley spoke with General Gerasimov.
Ukraine - and the West's - main problem with Russia over the Donbass is that Russia is NOT
a party to the Minsk agreement. With both France and Germany, it is a guarantor.
The signatures on the Minsk document are that of Ukraine and the so-called republics.
Ukraine can create as many laws stating it is in an 'International armed conflict' with
Russia as it likes, it does not alter the fact that no such conflict exists, nor has it been
brought to the Security Council.
But the Minsk accord HAS been approved by the Security Council.
"On March 29, the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) adopted a draft of so-called
resolution on the situation in Donbass. It seems that there is noting new in such a
document, however, it puts at stake Kiev's obligation on implementation of the Minsk
Agreement...
Such a document is not the first to be adopted in Ukraine in the last years. However,
this draft has a specific feature. It is for the first time that Ukrainian Rada adopted the
draft statement, which says that the war in Eastern Ukraine is a Russian-Ukrainian armed
conflict.
Previously, the phrase "aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine" was used
in Kiev's official documents. Today, the war in Donbass was designated as an international
armed conflict, that is, war.
Such a definition has significant juridical impact. This statement completely blocks
Kiev's implementation of the Minsk Agreements. Paragraph 2 of the Package of Measures
clearly defines that the parties to the conflict are Kiev on the one hand, Donetsk People's
Republic and Lugansk People's Republic (LDPR) on the other.
Today the Ukrainian Parliament officially declared, at the highest level, that the
parties to the conflict are Ukraine and Russia.
The resolution ensures the immediate forwarding of the text of this statement to the
national governments and parliaments of foreign states, international organizations and
their parliamentary assemblies."
The propaganda may never change but that doesn't mean the events can't be different this
time. There's video of large amounts of heavy weapons heading to the border.
A few weeks ago the US sent 350 tonnes of armoured humvees etc to Odessa. Then On 23rd
March video shows Ukraine sending trainloads of tanks etc. On 24th March Kiev passed a decree
claiming a right to retake Crimea. It's always said so but this seemed to really ratchet up
the rhetoric as it virtually commits the government to trying to retake Crimea by force.
Several videos from 29th March show different Russian trains with scores of tanks etc
heading across the Kerch bridge to Crimea, and to the Donbas border. Plus other videos of
numerous helicopters & endlessly long lines of tanks & armoured vehicles on roads as
well.
This is a buildup not seen since the hit war days of 2014.
Meanwhile a NATO Fleet enters the Black Sea for exercises with Ukraine.
A hot war in eastern Ukraine/Crimea appears unlikely. Ukraine no doubt perceives that
such a conflict means almost certain defeat. Military defeat would likely raise existential
issues for Ukraine and its leadership, given the present adverse economic conditions. The
Ukrainian leadership has very little to gain by waging a war and has much to lose.
Assuming the truth of reports of a Russian military buildup along its relevant
borders, such a buildup appears to be more of a warning to Kiev - and to the U.S. - not to
make any rash moves.
True, there is a possibility of war. Hot heads in Kiev and Washington appear always to
want war. But insofar as Washington is concerned, its domestic agenda presently appears to
hold far greater sway than does a failing outpost on the periphery of Washington's
influence.
At this juncture, then, the possibility of a significant conflict seems low by
comparison.
You are completely ignoring the overall picture. The US wants to stop Nordstream 2 and
roping NATO into a war situation with NATO would make it almost impossible to continue.
Already physical provocation is being used against the pipe-laying ships (see Stonebird's
post (2))
Personally I blame all this shit on the Nazi scum moved to the United States by Washington
after World War 2 and "weaponised". Desperate to destroy Russia and no doubt keen to acquire
Lebensraum, these Hitler fanboys and their handlers in Washington are doing everything they
can to apply Hitler's racial beliefs to Russia and make them seem like others when Russians
are as European as Hungarians, the British and the Irish and certainly more European than
Americans, Canadians and Australians. This is to make war with Russia more acceptable among
Europeans. Perhaps the Hitler fanboys in Washington need to work to improve their understand
of the Napoleonic Wars and World War 2 .
As Field Marshall Montgomery (a decent but fallible and somewhat egotistical British general)
said in 1959:
Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have
tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know
whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land
armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.
A few years later he repeated his Rules of War and even claimed ownership for himself:
The United States has broken the second rule of war. That is: don't go fighting with your
land army on the mainland in Asia. Rule One is, don't march on Moscow. I developed those
two rules myself.
They are rules that the Hitler Fanboys and "Lost China" morons in Washington should have
tattooed on their foreheads along with a free prefrontal lobotomy.
BTW, who are the more civilised:
The use of the procedure increased dramatically from the early 1940s and into the 1950s; by
1951, almost 20,000 lobotomies had been performed in the United States and proportionally
more in the United Kingdom. The majority of lobotomies were performed on women; a 1951
study of American hospitals found nearly 60% of lobotomy patients were women; limited data
shows 74% of lobotomies in Ontario from 1948–1952 were performed on women. From the
1950s onward, lobotomy began to be abandoned, first in the Soviet Union and Europe.
.
The idea of "weaponized immigration" in the sense of bringing in immigrant hostile to their
source state and using them to overthrow their source state was applied by Washington and
largely publicized by Yasha Levine.
As some of us are superannuated, it is good to know the views of
younger generation . Top general of Ukraine addressed the deputies of Verkhovna Rada
(parliament), declared readiness of Ukrainian army to attack with the aim of "re-integrating
the temporarily not-under-control territories", but then he somberly added the perspective of
huge civilian casualties, and then started to described Russian forces currently to the
north, east and the south of Ukraine. That was taking some time, so Anna Kolesnik, at 26 one
of the youngest deputies of the ruling party, texted "We are listening to Khomchak. We need
to get out from this country."
Looks like Zelensky signed a document or Decree No. 117/2021 the other day, to recapture
the Donbas and Crimea which could also be seen as a declaration of war towards Russia, more
in the link below:
Look at the videos of massive troop build ups. Also the conscription in both the Donbas
republics & Ukraine Donetsk & Lugansk militia veterans of 2014/15 returning from
Russia to region.
To say nothing is going to happen this time seems wishful thinking.
Of course US and European concern about Russian military build-up along Russia's borders
with European nations serves a purpose: justifying even more NATO military build-up along the
other side of the Russian border which in turn generates profit for US, British and EU arms
corporations and their shareholders in the banking and finance industries (and politics as
well), and helps NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg to think he is important.
Several nations that have borders with Russia probably need the money that NATO soldiers
might spend (mostly on entertainment like watching pole-dancing performers) while stationed
on their territories. Latvia and Lithuania among others haven't done too well since joining
the EU with something like 18 - 20% of their people living in poverty and many families
dependent on remittances sent by their relatives working overseas. Instead of their resident
Russian-speaking population being a bridge between their economies and the Russian economy,
these countries prefer to deny their Russian-speaking minorities social welfare benefits and
the right to vote, unless they can speak and read their host nations' languages at
postgraduate level, and to harass them in various petty ways.
As for Ukraine, the Zelensky govt has its work cut out trying to get Crimea back so the US
military can take over the base at Sevastopol and turn the Black Sea into a US lake, and to
clear out the Donbass region of those pesky Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics and make
it secure for oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation. The Bidens depend on Zelensky
to get those oil and natural gas resources so they can get their cut.
Anna Kolesnik, cited by Piotr Berman @ 12 has it exactly. The emigres are already
arriving. Ukraine is and has been entirely a failed state. The Uke army is a joke. So they
have a new boatload of Humvees. Probably already sold. Humvees were going to stop T72 and up.
Right. High probability Ukraine simply vanishes, local residents invite stability and the
Russian army.
The normalcy bias expressed by host and commenters is extreme. Start believing in defeat.
Defeat is going to change your outlook.
"So what made the Russians suddenly move a massive invasion force toward Ukraine?
Well, it turns out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky essentially signed a
declaration of war against Russia on March 24th. The document that he signed is known as
Decree No. 117/2021, and you won't read anything about it in the corporate media.
I really had to dig to find Decree No. 117/2021, but eventually I found it. I took
several of the paragraphs at the beginning of the document and I ran them through Google
translate
In accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I decree:
1. To put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine
of March 11, 2021 "On the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily
occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol"
(attached).
2. To approve the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied
territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (attached).
3. Control over the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense
Council of Ukraine, enacted by this Decree, shall be vested in the Secretary of the
National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
4. This Decree shall enter into force on the day of its publication
.
President of Ukraine V.ZELENSKY
March 24, 2021
Basically, this decree makes it the official policy of the government of Ukraine to retake
Crimea from Russia. Of course the Russians will never hand over Crimea willingly because they
consider it to be Russian territory, and so Ukraine would have to take it by force."
That was more than a week ago. See how much Ukraine has done about it so far? That is as
much as they are able to do. Also quoted in #17 by imo, Mike Whitney/ZH "I really had to dig
to find Decree 117"... That would be because you have been trained to look away. That decree
was well reported, just not in the house organs of the idiots.
Martyanov has a new post up. Worth reading. He cites Michael Hudson on the overwhelming
influence Russian Jews have had on US policy. I would add Polish Jews. Zbig Brezinski gets
mentioned. Ever taken a look at his pamphlet, The Grand Chessboard? It has been required
reading for all students at Thomas Pickering School (State Department) for a generation.
Theme is Ukraine is center of universe. And this is because Zbig is a Polish aristocrat with
lost family estate on outskirts of Lvov. Any fool knows emigre info is useless and emigre
aristocrat most useless of all. Any in US policy establishment who should have known better
were blinded by Russophobia. (Just a note, spellcheck on this box changed my spelling to
'Lviv' multiple times before allowing old spelling. The thought control is total.)
The deployed Russian forces are not about overwhelming the Uke army. It is an occupation
force. They will be taking territory.
I don't see mention of Ukrainian build up and increased aggression on the border of Donbass.
That's why Russian troops are building up. They are posturing defensively. It's US-backed
Zelensky that is taking the aggressive position here.
77 millions that voted for Biden are not all "f....s". Everyone has some priorities,
imperfect choices etc.
That of course applies to countries, something that "responsible media" never considers,
but this is not a good role model for us.
Russia has to rely on her resources, so defending them from military and/or financial
takeover or even nuclear blackmail is a vital interest. While there are no perfect choices,
they try to choose the better ones. And not leaving people who speak Russian to repressions
and even massacres is another vital interest.
In the current situation, Russia clearly needs a deterrence for any possible blitzkrieg
type of plan by Ukraine. But pre-emption would not be the best choice.
In turn, Ukrainian government/elite has to bet on a patron and at least make some
appearance of diligently following what the patron wants. And for that, they need to
raise/maintain tensions with Russia (and China? hard is our fate now that we are
underlings).
I'm sure oldhippie means that if the Ukies are subservient enough to the US to actually
attack, this will almost certainly be reminiscent of Georgia (rather than just some cruise
missile strikes, as some had speculated). The buildup means Russia is prepared to sweep into
the Ukraine, and probably make a special point of killing as many Nazi battalions as
possible, along with any Ukie troops who don't surrender quickly enough. I don't see them
entering Kiev, just like they didn't try to take Tblisi, but I imagine they will try to take
most of the pro-Russian territory in the East and possibly even South, until Kiev begs for a
cease-fire (just like last time), but this time the conditions of cease fire will likely be
much more strongly enforced, and then I would imagine Russia will try to establish some
assemblage of peace-keeping troops from countries they can trust (maybe Shanghi Coalition?)
so that they can withdraw their troops as soon as possible, for political reasons. Not that
it will help, but then again, I think Russia sees they'll be damned if they do, damned if
they don't, so they might as well do it. But they damn sure don't want to take ownership of
the Ukraine, just like they didn't want to own Georgia.
The Dems and Republicans are two heads of the same hydra, voting for one or the other is a
charade played on the American people and is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The US is
a state run for the benefit of the economic elite that owns the media and from which the
political elite is chosen/sponsored and which is aligned with the military elite. Presidents
will come and go, policy pretty much stays the same, its the same as CEOs of corporations -
if they don't follow profit maximization they will be booted out.
The US elites all went to the same schools (or military academy) where they were
inculcated with "American Exceptionalism" and the need for "America to be the Global
Policeman", ending up with mediocrities such as Blinken and Pompeo that thrash around as the
world moves to multipolarity and the US becomes just another important nation. It will take
at least decades for the US elite to get their heads around this, the British still haven't
as seen by their wasting of resources on showy projects such as the two useless aircraft
carriers (know as "targets" by submariners and missile batteries) to assuage its "size"
envy.
Granted I am just an armchair observer but I have been watching since before the Maidan coup.
Something feels different this time, as if the positions of the players involved have changed
somehow. I realize that the multipolar world has been incubating for some time now and that
Russia, China et.al. have been waiting patiently for USA to collapse from exhaustion, but I
rather doubt that it will do so with a wimper. There may come a time when the RF armed forces
may opt to use a quick bone crushing response to say 'enough'. While this is never an great
option to have to take due to potential reprecussions, it can sometimes be better than being
slowly swallowed by the serpeant of Mission Creep.....
"Our rhetoric [over Donbass] is absolutely constructive," Peskov said in reply to a
question. "We do not indulge in wishful thinking. Regrettably, the realities along the
engagement line are rather frightening. Provocations by the Ukrainian armed forces do take
place. They are not casual. There have been many of them."
Ukraine's economy is collapsing. Even the IMF (USA) is getting tired of giving it free
money:
Prospects for Ukraine this year to receive even the second tranche of the IMF under the $ 5
billion credit line, which Kiev agreed with the Fund last June, remain vague. Although
according to the schedule, Ukraine should have already mastered the second and third
tranches for a total of $ 1.35 billion and is about to receive the fourth tranche in the
amount of $ 0.55 billion, in fact, the first June tranche of 2.1 billion is still the only
one.
Commenting on this situation on television, Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko
said this week: "The IMF does not give money, because, unfortunately, as a country, we have
crumpled up some obligations and must renew them."
[...]
So far, budget holes have been bridged by historically record borrowings in December
last year (over $ 6 billion) and an increase in interest rates on domestic borrowings this
year. But last year's reserves and domestic borrowing are insufficient either to cover the
$ 9 billion budget deficit or to service the external public debt, which will cost at least
$ 8.1 billion this year (excluding the cost of securing new loans).
The IMF, by the way, is not interested in getting its money back - they already knew the
black hole they were entering into when the coup happened in 2014 - but in social
engineering: the American Empire wants a brand new province:
According to the aforementioned Sergei Marchenko, the IMF puts forward five main conditions
for returning to consideration of the issue of allocating the second tranche of the loan.
First , the Fund requires the restoration of liability, including criminal
liability, for the declaration of false information by officials and other persons for whom
such is provided in the framework of anti-corruption procedures. This type of
responsibility was actually abolished by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) in
October last year as part of the recognition of a number of provisions of the
anti-corruption law as unconstitutional. Although almost the entire so-called
anti-corruption infrastructure in a format imposed by the West contradicts the
Constitution, the judges are concerned about this problem mainly because of the
infringement of their rights. Since then, Zelenskiy has effectively blocked the work of the
KSU, making a number of decisions that clearly go beyond his constitutional powers. And
last December, the Verkhovna Radaeven restored responsibility for declaring inaccurate
data. But within the framework of the struggle for control over the anti-corruption
infrastructure, the "seven-embassy" (the ambassadors of the G7 countries) did not even
think that responsibility had been restored.
Secondly , we are talking about the restoration of the so-called independence of
the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), that is, the accountability of the body to
Western curators, their actual appointment and accountability of the head of NABU, etc. and
imply the legal consolidation of the full control of the West over the entire
anti-corruption infrastructure, which in its essence is a parallel structure of government
in the state. After amending the law on NABU and recognizing as unconstitutional the
appointment of Artem Sytnik, a protege of the West, by the head of NABU Zelenskiy never
dared to fire him. But even such a manifestation of loyalty to the "seven-embassy" seemed
not enough.
Thirdly , the Fund demands urgently to "reform" the High Council of Justice, that
is, to transfer the judicial branch of power under the control of the West - by analogy
with anti-corruption bodies. In this issue, Ukraine is showing the greatest resistance so
far. Moreover, it comes both from the judges themselves and from representatives of other
branches of government. For obvious reasons: the surrender of the judicial system will
destroy even the miserable remnants of sovereignty, and most importantly, it will carry
serious risks both for judges and for various top-level officials.
Fourth and fifth - issues of the gas market and the electricity market. In the
context of these markets, the Fund is interested in the abolition of tariffs [n.t. -
probably it means here "subsidies"] for the population with a corresponding increase in
prices. The Ukrainian, let's say, elites just do not care about the problems of the
population - that is why the refusal to regulate gas prices for the population last year
became one of the first fulfilled requirements of the IMF. However, when winter came, gas
prices skyrocketed and social protests broke out across the country , and gas price
regulation had to be urgently returned. Of course, only for a while - first until April,
now until May. But the Fund did not like this either: just the other day, the head of the
IMF office in Ukraine, Jost Lyngman, called a return to gas price control in an ineffective
way of subsidizing households. Exactly the same applies to electricity prices - the tariff
for the population was raised in winter, but the Fund wants the regulated tariff to
disappear altogether. The Ukrainian authorities are, of course, ready to meet the IMF
halfway on these issues. But so that social protests do not completely reset her
ratings.
The article also mentions that Ukraine effectively cannot borrow elsewhere in the "free
market" because its bonds are rated "junk" (this we already knew, since it's been so for some
years now) and that its "borrowing rates" (interest rates) are at 12% (bonds) and 6.5%
(central bank's). In other words, Ukraine will disappear as a sovereign country, one way
(outright loss of the Eastern regions, reduction to a impoverished para-Polish rump state) or
the other (become a proto-colony of the USA a la Puerto Rico). My guess is Zelensky is
calculating an all-out war to reconquer the richer eastern regions, followed by a triumphal
accession to NATO, to be the only way out for Ukraine as a nation-state.
If Ukraine attacks the eastern provinces, there will be a repeat of Georgia 2008. The Russian
counter will be ferocious.
But Ukraine is just a puppet for America, which will use, abuse and even lose Ukraine for
*other purposes*.
Those other purposes are fortifying European subordination to NATO, cancelling Nord Stream
2 and breaking any German and French rapprochement with Moscow. US hegemony is in fact
conditional on a climate of hostility between Europe and Russia in general, and between
Germany and Moscow in particular. Hence the need to provoke Germany to cancel NS2. The
Navalny operation didn't work, and the sanctions didn't work either. So it's on to Plan C,
which might sacrifice Ukraine for the greater project of US empire.
In the bigger picture, the strategy is to globalize NATO against China. This is the Biden
regime's specific strategy of provoking minor conflicts to fortify alliances and bloc
politics for taking on China and Russia. Ukraine is just disposable trash in this game.
That Merkel and Macron just met with Putin is further evidence of the unlikeliness of war.
Frau Merkel in particular has an interest in preventing a war because it is Germany who needs
the Nordstream pipeline (to Washington's displeasure); the Russians can just as easily sell
their natural gas to China if Nordstream falters. Thus the Germans are more likely to exert
pressure on Ukraine to forebear than they are to let Ukraine loose the dogs of war.
I agree with you, oldhippie @ 20. And thanks to b and other posters here who have kept us
well apprised of the events in Ukraine as the buildup commenced on the Ukrainian side,
supported by US munitions.
Actually, as far as I can understand it, if the Russians do enter Ukraine it will be at
the behest of the Ukrainians themselves, just as it was in Crimea. They will be as supportive
as possible of the Donbass, which is already back in the Russian Federation in every way
except the formal declaration.
But Russia wants the country of Ukraine to remain whole. That's a big ask, but it surely
must include all areas like Odessa in order to be viable as a member of the Federation. I
don't know if that is possible yet, but rule by force has existed for so long under such
duress there, that I do believe the entire civilian population would be happy to have this
happen. And in will come the Russian aid, pouring in on tanks if need be, to a population
weary of hardship.
Russia certainly doesn't want to be on a war footing with Ukraine, since it considers the
citizenry to be its own people historically speaking, as Putin has said many times. It will
not force the issue; it can be patient. But if its troops do enter, they will only do so if
they are welcome; and I think that welcome mat is fast being woven, as fast as Penelopes in
the Donbass can weave it. And as for the rest of Ukraine, plenty of Penelopes there as
well.
It may not be Ukraine will enter the Federation immediately - there will have to be talks
and so much restructuring politically speaking before that can happen. But if the hand of
Russia is still extended in friendship to places like the US, it most certainly would be to a
sane and peaceful Ukrainian government.
This time the buildup is very real. But NATO has no reason to be "concerned", as it is
they who have the initiative. Russia will only move in response to a Ukrainian attack on
Donbass. Ukraine will only attack after it gets approval or direct orders from
Washington.
Work on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is progressing fast. I estimate that pipelaying
may be finished by the end of May. To prevent it from happening, Ukraine has to attack in
April. Rumors claim that the planned date of the attack is April 15, 2021. The problem on the
Ukrainian side is that there is no sensible war plan, apart from attacking Donbass and then
immediately withdrawing to defensive position on the western shore of the Dnieper River.
Christelle Néant from Donetsk published this on March 16th, citing Ukrainian
sources.
In an enlightening article, the Ukrainian media outlet Strana revealed that not only is
the Ukrainian army preparing for an offensive in the Donbass, but that there is an
emergency plan to stop the attack if Russia were to send its own army in. This information
is nothing less than a debunking of seven years of Ukrainian propaganda, which claims that
Ukraine is fighting Russia in the Donbass.
The article is based on sources in the Ukrainian army and the Defence Ministry, and
begins by questioning the reality of Kiev's preparation for an offensive against the
Donbass.
Strana's sources on the front line confirm that there is no longer a ceasefire, nor a
withdrawal of troops and equipment. The source even makes it clear that it was Ukraine that
first violated this provision of the Minsk package of measures, and that the DPR and LPR
(Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics) did so only afterwards, in response to the
violation by the Ukrainian army.
...
BUT, because there is a but in this kind of rather too pretty plan, if Russia sends its
army to intervene then the Ukrainian army will have to give up its offensive against the
Donbass and withdraw.
"In this case, the AFU offensive will be stopped. With a high degree of probability,
the troops will then have to withdraw, so as not to fall again into cauldrons," says the
Strana source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
In other words, for the Ukrainian army's offensive in the Donbass to work, Russia must
not intervene. The problem for Kiev is that Russia has no intention of letting several
hundred thousand of its citizens die on its border without reacting. A problem that
Strana's source is well aware of.
J.Swift#38
Nice riff on 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'!
Excellent take on the situation as it has unfolded. I agree with your observations re: a
change in tone coming Russia and China in regard to their criticizms of the USA. It's likely
that they have indeed run the numbers on both how much damage they can absorb and what their
counter move would be as compare to the long drawn out decline that seems to be atking
forever.
The line (or really one of the several) is when the USA get more directly involved and
sustains losses at the hands of Russian forces. Nobody really wants to find out what happens
when the The Darkness behind the might of the Pentagram has a hissy fit. The yapping dog
might just beable to run the numbers itself and see the outcome as being very disadventageous
to itself and it's minions. Who am I kidding, the USA doesn't care a whit about it's
minions....
I believe you are right. A war is unlikely, but with madmen in Washington you never know.
Some of them would like to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
But, Russia is moving substantial troops and equipment to the Ukrainian border to deter
the Kiev authorities from invading the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk
People's Republic (LNR) - so this is real not a made-up story (it is not what 'normal' troop
movements as the b's article implies). Russia is drawing a red line and it should be seen as
such!
Russia's actions will probably be enough to dissuade Kiev but what have they got to lose?
The Kiev regime is failing, its economy is in freefall, disaster beckons - a glorious
military defeat might be considered preferable to inevitable social and economic
collapse.
Kiev may also have well-founded belief that the US/West will be forced to support them
militarily to keep the secrets of western involvement in the downng of MH17 out of Russian
hands.
Thank you for all the compliments. I am not and will not be angry with librul for more
than one moment, in the past. Same Biden/Trump barbs are tossed daily on a face to face
basis. It has become how Americans are.
Ghostship does make some good points. Not theoretical to me. Here in Chicago FuhrerTag is
still celebrated at many bars. Large group sings of Horst Wessex song occur for a variety of
occasions. When at University of Illinois (70s) there was a sizable contingent of OUN
children in the History Department. They freely Indulged in Sieg Heil and Slava Ukraina to
greet each other publicly. There was also an Ustache contingent who did return to Croatia,
not to fight but to govern. Shall we say that these groups were insane. Some did go to
military careers.Some did go to State Department. Some did go to think tanks. If the subject
is Russia clinical insanity is not a career impediment in America.
For two days I owned the Rainbow, Bugsy Siegel's old joint 1900 N. Damen. . That was
Ukrainian Village. My money was refunded. The alternative was death. Yes, they put guns in my
face. Yes, they could do that. No, I do not like these people.
None of us predicts future with any accuracy. Will keep pointing out that downsides for
Russia will vanish with victory. They have a lot of choices in how they could construct that
victory. Every choice US/NATO has available is nothing but a defeat.
It is a very important reminder as to how insane and mindless the neo con hatred is of
Russia and Putin. It is indeed alarming that this rabid hatred controls the neo cons and what
passes for us foreign policy. How can on expect rational policy when the people in charge are
completely irrational.
If nothing else, just note the quote in the article from Hudson-it is beyond alarming as
to the description by hudson of the mindless and controlling irrationality of the neo cons in
the dimo biden admin!
I watched a video by Alexander Mercouris China Warns Ukraine on Crimea Ties which
shows how coordinated this present crisis may be, as Washington may be maneuvering its
Ukrainian proxy into nationalizing a corporation there that manufactures a variety of turbine
engines, built to power both warships and aircraft. Zelensky is applying pressure on both
China and Russia at once. The Russians have overcome some manufacturing problems and have had
to build up their own stocks of turbines for military use. Responding to Zelensky's seizure
of their assets and investments in Ukraine, the Chinese have sent an economic mission that
involves serious investments in Crimea .
A coordinated threat to the culturally Russian Donbas and Lugansk region and the
nationalizing of Chinese assets will place China and Russia again on the same path in their
diplomatic response. It would not be a surprise if China officially recognizes Crimea as part
of the Russian Federation.
To be fair, the neocon's feel that way about everyone - they embrace the role of paranoid
imperialist because that's a relatively accessible way to get funded in the DC policy world.
The striking thing is the hubris - they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time
and it will somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them.
Russia doesn't need "troops" to defend Donetz and Luhansk; Russian can destroy Ukrainian
forces using stand-off weapons and then DNR and LNR forces can easily cope with what remains.
Russian doesn't need forces to "occupy" Donetz and Luhansk because these areas will remain
under the control of the republics. What Russia needs "troops" for is to advance and capture
Kiev and this is what Russia's troop deployments threaten. If the conflict starts in Ukraine
then Russia will demonstrate its ability to do whatever it wants in all areas of Ukraine;
then Russia will withdraw and leave what is left for the West/EU and US to deal with.
Rationally, nothing will happen because Kiev will be deterred. But, many elements in the
Kiev regime may desire war because they believe the West will (because they "have to")
support them (or, as I already said, glorious defeat may seem preferable to the slow-burn
collapse of their regime). The US/West may encourage Kiev because they are posturing for war
and the plandemic is envisaged as the best time for such an event (I feel the likelihood of
this is underestimated), or compelling a demonstration of Russian "aggression" may have
overriding propaganda value (regardless of the outcome for the Kiev regime) for their own
populations (everyone can really hate on Russia for the next 10 years - hate is a great
unifier).
All of this is to be expected after weeks and weeks of UAF buildup along the Donbass
border. In fact, they've been shelling villages in the Donbass for some time now since they
re-instigated aggression in February. Even today they were shelling the infamous Donetsk
airport. On top of that you've got US aerial vehicles flying around the Black Sea right
underneath Crimea and next to Krasnodar. Kiev's posturing has signaled their supposed
willingness to attack the Donbass and attempt to retake Crimea, so Russia's reaction to
protect Russian citizens would be entirely reasonable.
The defense ministers of Ukraine and the United States held their second conversation in a
month and a half on the situation in Donbass. According to Andriy Taran, the Americans
promised Kiev "support measures" in the event of a direct military conflict between Ukraine
and Russia.
The US will not come to the aid of Ukraine. That is a pipe dream, pun intended.
@JohninMK et al:
On the surface this seems to be a continuation of the provocation game, which has been the
tactic since the beginning. The Ukies are definitely upping the ante by threatening Crimea. I
can only assume that they are deep into thinking wishfully that the USA will "come to rescue"
when they poke the bear. But in both their cases I have to wonder: with WHAT? The Ukies dont
have an effective army as demonstrated by mass defection and surrender last bout. Other than
"punishment battallions" there do not seem to be many troops willing to fight. As for the
USA, they are not shock troops, they are an occupation force. So then is it to be some sort
aerial ballet of stand-off weapons over the skies of the Donbass??
As stated above, the Western MSM is going to shriek like flock of terrified Karens no
matter what Russia does so they may as well earn it. My mind wanders over the demonstration
of the Iskander in Syria most recently. Ten or so of those simultaneously in the right places
would bring a Ukrops offensive to sudden halt if there were the will to do so.....
Zelensky is making de-escalation noises. Bit late for that. Should this all ratchet down
it will be the end of Zelensky. Bear in mind he is there only because there is no one else.
As an actor and a comedian he has been impersonating a President. He did that for the sitcom
cameras and then he did it in real life.
It will also be the last time Ukraine ever pretends to field an army. Conscripts will make
their way home somehow, they won't be played again. Heavy equipment and ammo will be
auctioned off cheap to any who can arrange transport. Transport will be questionable, arms
will be sold very cheap.
Ukraine army is heavily larded with mercs and Wahabi jihadis from all over the planet.
Idiots could still start something big even if the "leadership" calls it off. Shelling has
been happening all day up and down the line. Artillery is mostly mercs. Russia is holding
fire so far, one shell chances to fall on a concentration of Russian troops and it is on.
Poles and other idiots could also blow this up. Way too many moving pieces and no one in
charge, either in Kiev or Washington.
If this excitement just ends Ukraine will go from a comic opera government to no
government at all. Russia will move in for humanitarian reasons. Western Ukraine will die or
flood to Europe.
I see we are back to the "fog of war".
There has been artillery/mortar fire around Horlivka and elsewhere. (50 shells) These
mortar attacks were conducted by the 58th motorised rifle brigade of the Armed Forces of
Ukraine from the areas of Avdeevka and Pervomaisky.
A Global Hawk is presumed to have flown over both Donetsk and Luhansk - various altitudes to
test the Russian radars. This is the same type that was shot down by Iran. Maybe the US wants
to order a few more replacements?
One vid that is supposed to show a train full of Tor systems of the 56 airborne has already
been debunked as filmed a long way away on the other side of Russia, (The 56th do not have
Tors)
It is clear that there is a definite push to provoke a Russian reaction. The threats about
Crimea mean that any movement in that area will be taken seriously, as "several" high ranking
Russian Generals have arrived there. Russian Generals lead from the front, not the back as do
the UK or US versions. (see Syria)
It is the details that are showing that this will escalate (Burning houses and villages)
and civilians in bunkers. I was going to show you the picture of an old man still in the
firing area, because he has nowhere else to go . Someday the human cost must be
counted.
***
Interesting tie ups with the BRI and Afghanistan from Karlof1's post @70. One mention of a
canal between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian, via Russsia. The "anything but Suez"
canal?
More than that, I realised that the Saudi Arabian NOEM (Straight Line road) across the
Gulf of Aqaba to Sharm el-Sheik, will eventually give it access to the Med via Egypt and
Africa, without going through Israel. (Or Lebanon, Syria or Turkey)
Syria is in a mess because of lack of fuel. Their stolen fuel is/was bought by Israel
cheaply. Are you sure that the EverGiven WAS an accident?
*****
Biden has Zelenskys back - if he is thinking of his back pocket there is nothing left in
it.
I'm sure oldhippie means that if the Ukies are subservient enough to the US to actually
attack, this will almost certainly be reminiscent of Georgia (rather than just some cruise
missile strikes, as some had speculated). The buildup means Russia is prepared to sweep into
the Ukraine, and probably make a special point of killing as many Nazi battalions as
possible, along with any Ukie troops who don't surrender quickly enough. I don't see them
entering Kiev, just like they didn't try to take Tblisi, but I imagine they will try to take
most of the pro-Russian territory in the East and possibly even South, until Kiev begs for a
cease-fire (just like last time), but this time the conditions of cease fire will likely be
much more strongly enforced, and then I would imagine Russia will try to establish some
assemblage of peace-keeping troops from countries they can trust (maybe Shanghi Coalition?)
so that they can withdraw their troops as soon as possible, for political reasons. Not that
it will help, but then again, I think Russia sees they'll be damned if they do, damned if
they don't, so they might as well do it. But they damn sure don't want to take ownership of
the Ukraine, just like they didn't want to own Georgia.
A fair and balanced analysis, as far as it goes.
We must remember the Stavka is in charge....
What makes the most sense to them??? Where should the cease fire line be??? The best place
to put it is the midline of the Denieper River. It is a natural boundary. It is wide enough
so anything less than 155 mm artillery can't reach across. It resolves permanently water
supply to Crimea.
NATO will use this action to censure, villify, and sanction Russia. She might as well get
something for that.
Will this happen?? Last year, I'd say no.... but now.... anything goes...
I thought Biden would not start a war until next year to save the 2022 mid-term elections. My
speculation is that Merkel is standing firm on Nord Stream 2 so the Biden administration is
going to use the Ukrainians to start up a war against Russia to physically shut down the
construction of the pipeline and introduce sanctions like against SWIFT, Aeroflot, etc.
During a meeting with Defense Minister of Ukraine Andriy Taran and the leadership of the
Armed Forces of Ukraine, the defense attaches of the United States, Canada and the United
Kingdom assured Ukraine of the support in defending its sovereignty and territorial
integrity. "US, Canada's, and UK Defense Attaches met with Minister of Defense [of Ukraine]
Taran, Deputy Minister Petrenko, Deputy Minister Polishchuk, Joint Forces Commander
Lieutenant General Naiev, and Colonel Budanov," the U.S. Embassy posted on Twitter. The
Embassy assured Ukraine of support in defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity:
"We stand with Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and territorial integrity and are
watching the situation in Ukraine closely."
The story is number one or two all over the place (The Hill, Politico, Reuters, The
Washington Times,...).
No mention of Ukraine except perhaps in minor side stories.
"Biden holds first call with Ukrainian president amid Russian buildup"
By NATASHA BERTRAND and LARA SELIGMAN
04/02/2021 09:39 AM EDT
Updated: 04/02/2021 11:24 AM EDT
President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on Friday morning
for the first time since Biden took office, amid reports of a Russian military buildup in
eastern Ukraine that has alarmed U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
The leaders spoke for 30 to 40 minutes, according to a person with knowledge of the
call. A White House readout of the conversation said Biden "reaffirmed the United States'
unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of
Russia's ongoing aggression in the Donbas and Crimea."
For decades, America styled itself the 'indispensable
nation' that led the world & it's now seeking to sustain that role by emphasizing a new Cold War-style battle against
'authoritarianism'. But it's a dangerous fantasy.
It seems a week cannot go by without US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
bringing
up the specter of the 'rules-based international order' as an excuse for meddling in the affairs of another state or region.
The most recent crisis revolves around allegations that
China
has
dispatched a fleet of more than 200 ships, part of a so-called 'maritime militia', into waters of the South China Sea claimed by
the Philippines. China says that these vessels are simply fishing boats seeking shelter from a storm. The Philippines has
responded by dispatching military ships and aircraft to investigate. Enter Antony Blinken, stage right:
"The United States stands with our ally, the Philippines, in the face of the PRC's maritime
militia amassing at Whitsun Reef,"
Blinken
tweeted
.
"We
will always stand by our allies and stand up for the rules-based international order."
Blinken's message came a mere 18 hours after he tweeted about his meeting in Brussels with NATO.
"Our alliances were created to defend shared values,"
he
wrote
.
"Renewing
our commitment requires reaffirming those values and the foundation of international relations we vow to protect: a free and
open rules-based order."
Our rules, our order
What this actually means, of course, is that the order is rules-based so long as it is the nation called America that sets these
rules and is accepted as the world's undisputed leader.
Blinken's fervent embrace of the 'rules-based international order' puts action behind the words set forth in the recently
published 'Interim National Security Strategy Guidance', a White House
document
which
outlines
President Joe Biden'
s vision
"for how
America will engage with the world."
While the specific term 'rules-based international order' does not appear in the body of the document, the precepts it represents
are spelled out in considerable detail, and conform with the five pillars of the
"liberal
international order"
as set forth by the noted international relations scholars,
Daniel
Duedney
and
G.
John Ikenberry
, in their ground-breaking
essay
,
'The nature and sources of liberal international order', published by the Review of International Studies in 1999.
The origins of this
"liberal international order"
can be traced back to the end of the
Second World War and the onset of a Cold War between Western liberal democracies, helmed by the United States, and the communist
bloc nations, led by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The purpose of this order was simple – to maintain a
balance of power between the US-led liberal democracies and their communist adversaries, and to maintain and sustain US hegemony
over its liberal democratic allies.
This was accomplished through five basic policy
'pillars': Security co-binding; the embrace of US hegemony; self-limitation on the part of US allies; the politicization of
global economic institutions for the gain of liberal democracies; and Western
"civil
identity."
All five are emphasized in Biden's interim guidance, in which the president openly advocates for
"a
stable and open international system."
It notes that
"the alliances, institutions,
agreements, and norms underwriting the international order the United States helped to establish are being tested."
The faltering empire's flaws and inequities
Biden also observed that the restoration of this international order
"rests on a core
strategic proposition: The United States must renew its enduring advantages so that we can meet today's challenges from a
position of strength. We will build back better our economic foundations; reclaim our place in international institutions; lift
up our values at home and speak out to defend them around the world; modernize our military capabilities, while leading first
with diplomacy; and revitalize America's unmatched network of alliances and partnerships."
All five of Duedney's and Ikenberry's policy 'pillars' can be found embedded in these – and other – statements contained in the
guidance.
There is a defensive tone to Biden's guidance, which notes that
"rapid
change and mounting crisis"
have exposed
"flaws and inequities"
in the US-dominated
international system which
"have caused many around the world – including many Americans – to
question its continued relevance."
Here Biden runs into the fundamental problem of trying to justify and sustain a model of economic-based global hegemony which was
founded at a time when the existence of a Western liberal democratic
"order"
could be
justified as a counter to the Soviet-led communist bloc. The Cold War ended in 1990. The 'international rules-based order' that
was created at the behest of the US to prevail in this conflict continued, however. It seems that the US wasn't simply satisfied
with preventing the spread of communism; its raison d'être instead transitioned from being the leader of an alliance of liberal
democracies, to being the global hegemon, using the very system devised to confront communism to instead install and sustain the
US as the undisputed dominant power in the world.
This trend began in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War, where the US had the opportunity to pass the baton of
global leadership to the United Nations, an act that would have given legitimacy to the notion of an 'international order'.
This, however, proved a bridge too far for the neo-liberal tendencies of the administration of President Bill Clinton, who
continued the Cold War-era practice of using the UN as a vehicle to promote US policy prerogatives at the expense of the
international 'order'. Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright helped coin the term
"indispensable
nation"
when defining America's post-Cold War role in the world (it is notable that Blinken recently praised Albright in a
tweet
,
noting that
"her tenacity & effectiveness left the US stronger & more respected globally,"
and
adding
"she's a role model for me & so many of our diplomats."
)
The arrogance and hubris contained in any notion of a single nation being
"indispensable"
to
the global order is mind-boggling and is reflective of a disconnect with both reality and history on the part of those embracing
it.
The myth of indispensability
The unsustainability of the premise of American 'indispensability' was demonstrated by both the events of September 11, 2001, and
the inability of the US to deal with its aftermath. Had the US embraced and acted on President George H. W. Bush's notion of a
"new
world order"
in the aftermath of the Cold War, it would have found itself as a vital world leader working in concert with a
global community of nations to confront the scourge of Islamic fundamentalist-based terrorism. But this was not to be.
Instead, the 'indispensable nation' was exposed as a fraud, with many in the world recognizing the US not as a power worthy of
emulation, but rather as the source of global angst. This
rejection
of
America's self-anointed role as global savior extended to many Americans too, who were tired of the costs associated with serving
as the world's police force.
Indeed, this exhaustion with global intervention, and the costs accrued, helped create the foundation of electoral support for
Donald Trump's rejection of the
"rules-based international order"
in favor of a more
distinct
"America first"
approach to global governance. What gave Trump's policy so much
"punch"
was
the fact that not only did many American citizens reject the
"rules-based international
order,"
but so did much of the rest of the world.
Repairing the damage done by four years of Trump has become the number one priority of the Biden administration. To do this, both
Biden and Blinken recognize that they simply cannot return to the policy formulations that existed before Trump took office; that
ship has sailed, and trying to sell the American people and the rest of the world on what many viewed as a failed policy
construct (i.e., unilateral, uncontested American hegemony) was seen as an impossible task.
Instead, the Biden administration is seeking to reinvent the original premise of the
'rules-based international order' by substituting Russian and Chinese 'authoritarianism' in place of Soviet-led communism as a
threat which liberal democracies around the world willingly and enthusiastically rally around the US to confront.
"Authoritarianism is on the global march,"
Biden's guidance observed,
"and
we must join with like minded allies and partners to revitalize democracy the world over. We will work alongside fellow
democracies across the globe to deter and defend against aggression from hostile adversaries. We will stand with our allies
and partners to combat new threats aimed at our democracies"
and which
"undermine the
rules and values at the heart of an open and stable international system."
Biden concluded his essay in dramatic fashion.
"This moment is an inflection point,"
he
noted.
"We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future direction of our
world. No nation is better positioned to navigate this future than America. Doing so requires us to embrace and reclaim our
enduring advantages, and to approach the world from a position of confidence and strength. If we do this, working with our
democratic partners, we will meet every challenge and outpace every challenger. Together, we can and will build back better."
No longer the world's undisputed No.1
While postulated as a statement of American strength, Biden's concluding remarks actually project not only the inherent
insecurity of the US today, but also its root causes. The fact that the US needs to
"reclaim
our enduring advantages"
implies that we lost them, and illustrates that these so-called advantages are not nearly as
enduring as Biden would like to think.
"Building back better"
is an admission of
weakness, a recognition that the notion of an 'indispensable nation' is an artificial construct; most nations no longer accept
America as the world leader.
The reality is that the US is one of the most powerful nations in the world. That
position, however, is no longer uncontested; China has emerged as the equal of the US in many metrics used to measure global
power and influence, and superior in some.
Moreover, China operates effectively in a multi-polar global reality,
recognizing that the era of the American singularity is over. Russia, India, Brazil, and the European collective all represent
polar realities whose existence and influence exists independent of the US.
The US, however, cannot function in such a world.
While there is a growing
recognition among American politicians that the post-Cold War notion of the US being the sole-remaining superpower has run its
course, the only alternative these politicians can offer is the attempt to return to a bi-polar world which has the US at the
head of its liberal democratic 'partners', facing off against the forces of 'authoritarianism'. This vision, however, is
unrealistic, if for no other reason that the world no longer views Western liberal democracy as 'good', and authoritarianism as
'evil'.
This reality is evident to much of the rest of the world. Why, then, would US policy makers embrace a formulation doomed to fail?
The answer is simple – the US, as it exists today, needs the 'rules-based international order' to remain relevant. Relevant, as
used here, means globally dominant.
US politicians who operate on the national level cannot get elected on platforms that reject the 'indispensable' role of the
country, even if many Americans and most of the world have. US economic dominance is in large part sustained by the very systems
that underpin the 'rules-based international order' – the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. US geopolitical relevance
is sustained by Cold War-era military alliances.
An unviable, unsustainable future
An American retreat from being the 'indispensable' power, and a corresponding embrace of a leadership role based upon a more
collegial notion of shared authorities, would not mean the physical demise of the US – the nation would continue to exist as a
sovereign entity. But it would mean an end to the psychological reality of America as we know it today – a quasi-imperial power
whose relevance is founded on compelled global hegemony. This model is no longer viable. The fact that the Biden administration
has chosen to define its administration through an ardent embrace of this failed system is proof positive that the survival of
post-Cold War American is existentially connected to its ability to function as the world's 'indispensable nation'.
American exceptionalism is a narcotic that fuels the country's domestic politics more than global geo-political reality. The
'rules-based international order' that underpins this fantasy is unsustainable in the modern era and makes the collapse of the
"exceptional"
United
States inevitable.
Watching the Biden administration throw its weight behind a US-dominated 'rules-based
international order' is like watching the Titanic set sail; it is big, bold, and beautiful, and its fate pre-ordained.
lay_arrow
2banana
37 minutes ago
remove
link
We
are just about to see how that is going to work out in the Ukraine.
It seems a week cannot go by without US
Secretary
of State Antony Blinken
bringing up the specter of the 'rules-based international order' as an
excuse for meddling in the affairs of another state or region.
TimeHasCome
29 minutes ago
I
live near a huge military base and every night since the inauguration of Dementia Joe there has been
cannon fire and mortar fire every night . This nut is going to get us in a war.
TimeHasCome
29 minutes ago
I
live near a huge military base and every night since the inauguration of Dementia Joe there has been
cannon fire and mortar fire every night . This nut is going to get us in a war.
kanoli
31 minutes ago
The
rules-based international order requires US approval or national approval to put troops on the ground in
another country. The US troops in Syria are there illegally, Mr. Blinken. Is the rules-based
international order only for the other countries?
TBT or not TBT
14 minutes ago
"Syria" is a place on a map, but demonstrably is no longer a sovereign country able to manage its own
territory. Dozens of factions and foreign powers operate in its former territory.
Apollo Capricornus Maximus
10 minutes ago
rules based international order = laser guided joint direct attack munitions
End Times Prophecy
25 minutes ago
The
international criminals against humanity, WMD using, international mass murderer, repeated international
declarations of war , international terrorists, permanently Oath of Office breaching and violating
subversive, seditious, traitors and more are blathering about being a part of a rules-based international
order?
Clearly these maniacs are an exceptionally extreme danger to themselves and the entire World and more.
Chain Man
3 minutes ago
(Edited)
The
US should have a law (lol) that no politicians can make any money other than his regular pay when coming
into office plus his pay from their elected position (on going tabs on income while in Office.). Don't
like it don't run !
The
problem with being a leader is you have to get involved in the Nations problem most of the time, then the
USA gets charged with being the problem. Leave um the hell alone if they screw with us blow um away. End
the Foreign Aid and we will end their smart *** crap.
Just work with the foreign Nations we can screw these drawn out treaties
Mearsheimer is an interesting cat. His whole conception of international relations seems
to be that it is necessarily zero-sum, and that the general model is that of US regional
hegemony, as in the Monroe Doctrine in the 19th century and the frankly neocolonial
relationship that exists today. (and he makes no attempt to dress it up as anything other
than the brute power relations). His thesis is that there must be a conflict, and that the US
will successfully get all of China's neighbors to join the US in opposing the rise of China.
Importantly, if you go back to look at talks he gave and how they've evolved in the last 15
years, Mearsheimer included Russia in his "anti-China balancing coalition" list, up until
2013-2014. More recent talks have him leaning essentially on Japan, Australia, and India,
with South Korea and ASEAN determined to avoid picking sides as Mearsheimer would have it,
and most of central Asia, plus Iran and Pakistan, already on the Chinese side.
I also take issue with Mearsheimer's singular focus on the regional-hegemony model,
although I think it does provide good insights into the thinking behind US policy. But in
reality, there have been long stretches of history, European history in particular, where
there was in fact a balance of power on the regional level, not to mention on the global
level.
Besides that, with significant numbers of nuclear weapons, the historical analogies of the
first half of the 20th century pretty much go out the window. No decisive war between
superpowers is possible, except by accident, and in that case it will not be decisive in the
way he means. It's all proxy conflict from the 1950s on. And when it comes to proxy conflict,
the clear imperative for third parties, from the history of the last 70 years, is to avoid
becoming a proxy battleground.
Meanwhile Biden's son Hunter, the "smartest guy" his father knows, has his feet firmly in
his mouth in excerpts from an interview this Sunday about his 💻 that was full of
underage porn & business dealings involving his father when VPOTUS.
THOMAS QUICK SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago I doubt it. Vaccination doesn't cure chronic grifters.
Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply Share link Report
flag
N N Z SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago "Medical science is making such remarkable progress that soon
none of us will be well.'' ---Aldous Huxley
So, the New Normals are discussing the Unvaccinated Question. What is to be done with us?
No, not those who haven't been "vaccinated" yet. Us. The "Covidiots." The "Covid
deniers." The "science deniers." The "reality deniers." Those who refuse to get "vaccinated,"
ever.
There is no place for us in New Normal society. The New Normals know this and so do we. To
them, we are a suspicious, alien tribe of people. We do not share their ideological beliefs. We
do not perform their loyalty rituals, or we do so only grudgingly, because they force us to do
so. We traffic in arcane "conspiracy theories," like "pre-March-2020 science," "natural herd
immunity," "population-adjusted death rates," "Sweden," "Florida," and other heresies.
They do not trust us. We are strangers among them. They suspect we feel superior to them.
They believe we are conspiring against them, that we want to deceive them, confuse them, cheat
them, pervert their culture, abuse their children, contaminate their precious bodily fluids,
and perpetrate God knows what other horrors.
So they are discussing the need to segregate us, how to segregate us, when to segregate us,
in order to protect society from us. In their eyes, we are no more than
criminals , or, worse, a plague , an infestation. In the
words of someone (I can't quite recall who), "getting rid of the Unvaccinated is not a question
of ideology. It is a question of cleanliness," or something like that. (I'll have to hunt down
and fact-check that quote. I might have taken it out of context.)
Nice thoughts but the high priests of the new secular cult of scientism are playing a zero
sum game. It's an either/or for them; slavery or scalp. The rituals of the cult reinforce the
dogma. The continual washing of hands as an act of purification. The mask as an act of
penance for your defiling breath. Forced solitude to keep you in front of the 24 hour Cult
broadcasts on tv. Social distancing as a way to inculcate insular thinking. Any resistors to
the new rituals will be brought to a tribunal of neo torquemadas. Perhaps a better way to be
thinking of the resistance is in terms of knighthood.
The US-China meeting in Anchorage took place 75 years almost to the day of the Winston
Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri. Just as the latter signalled a break point in the
uneasy, war forced cohabit of the West with the communist Soviet Union, so too the Anchorage
will enter the history as the break point in the US hegemony threatening collaboration of the
West and China.
Since WW2, no other nation, not even Russia, has confronted the US so firmly and so
publicly as did Yang Jiechi, one of the ruling member of the Chinese Politburo when he said
that "the United States does not have the qualification to speak to China from a position of
strength'.
That was a slap in the face the Americans will have to respond to, and it's in the nature
of the response one will find whether the American Governing elite is prepared to share power
or go for a confrontation.
Written by Steven Lee Myers, the NYT 's bureau chief in Beijing, the piece is
full of false and unsupported assertions. It changes explicit Chinese statements in support
of democracy and human rights into the opposite. It is also untruthful about the sources of
its quotes:
China hopes to position itself as the main challenger to an international order, led by the
United States, that is generally guided by principles of democracy, respect for human
rights and adherence to rule of law.
Such a system "does not represent the will of the international community," China's
foreign minister, Wang Yi, told Russia's, Sergey V. Lavrov, when they met in the southern
Chinese city of Guilin.
In a joint statement, they accused the United States of bullying
and interference and urged it to "reflect on the damage it has done to global peace and
development in recent years."
There is no evidence and no quote in the piece to support the assertion that the
unilateral "international order, led by the United States" is in fact "guided by principles
of democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law." The wars the U.S. and
its allies have waged and wage in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and other countries are, in fact,
not in adherence to the rule of international law nor are they executed with respect for
human rights or the principles of democracy.
The Wang Yi quote in the second paragraph is taken completely out of context. By placing
it after his false assertions the author insinuates that Wang Yi rejected the "principles of
democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law."
Wang Yi did not do that at all. He did in fact the opposite.
Here is the original
quote from the report of Wang Yi's meeting with Russia's foreign minister Sergei
Lavrov:
Wang Yi said, the so-called "rules-based international order" by a few countries is not
clear in its meaning , as it reflects the rules of a few countries and does not represent
the will of the international community . We should uphold the universally recognized
international law.
The there is the
Joint Statement from the Lavrov-Wang Yi meeting which contradicts the New York
Times insinuation:
The world has entered a period of high turbulence and rapid change. In this context, we
call on the international community to put aside any differences and strengthen mutual
understanding and build up cooperation in the interests of global security and geopolitical
stability, to contribute to the establishment of a fairer, more democratic and rational
multipolar world order.
All human rights are universal, indivisible and interrelated. ...
Democracy is one of the achievements of humanity. ...
International law is an important condition for the further development of humanity.
...
In promoting multilateral cooperation, the international community must adhere to
principles such as openness and equality, and a non-ideological approach. ...
The Chinese Foreign Ministry report
about the issuance of the above Four Point Statement quotes Wang Yi as saying:
Today, we will issue a joint statement on several issues of current global governance,
expounding the essence of major concepts such as human rights, democracy, international
order, and multilateralism, reflecting the collective demands of the international
community, especially developing countries. We call on all countries to participate in and
improve global governance in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness and equality, abandon
zero-sum mentality and ideological prejudice, stop interfering in the internal affairs of
any country, enhance the well-being of people of all countries through dialogue and
cooperation, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.
In no way has China rejected human rights, democracy or the rule of law. The New York
Times author simply construed that.
The third NYT paragraph quoted above is likewise false. The
Joint Statement did not urge the U.S. to "reflect on the damage it has done to global
peace and development in recent years." There is nothing in there that could be construed as
such. The U.S. is not even mentioned in the Joint Statement.
The quote the NYT author uses is not from the official Joint Statement, as
falsely claimed, but from a Chinese State TV's summarization of a
press conference :
Both foreign ministers said that the international community believes that the United
States should reflect on the damage it has done to global peace and development in recent
years , stop unilateral bullying, stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs,
and stop pulling "small circles" to engage in group confrontation.
Unsupported assertions about the motives of the "U.S. led" order, out of context quotes
that turn the actual statements by the Chinese foreign minister into their opposite and
missattribution of a news summary as a diplomatic statement is something that one would not
expect from a news outlet but from a propaganda organ.
That is then, obviously, what the Times has become.
Thanks b, for bringing this to light.
Without your posts, most of us - even those of us that try to dig into things more than
most people - would not be aware of these things.
Western mainstream media will, of course, never inform the public of those important
excerpts from the Lavrov-Wang Joint Statement and the Chinese Foreign Ministry that you
brought to our attention.
In our so-called "democracies", the electorates are not just deliberately kept in the
dark, but in fact shaped, not into informed voters, but disinformed voters.
-
Again to translate from the Orwellianism/Newspeak of our Western establishment news media,
when they say "international order" what they really mean is the "Western
deep-state-run order" or "Western neocon-run order."
"Generally guided by principles of democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to
rule of law" can be translated to "generally guided by hypocrisy, Orwellianism, special
interests, gangsterism, treachery, and mockery of rule of law."
fallacia non causae ut causae
Eristische Dialektik: Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten / Arthur Schopenhauer 1831
[The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument]
Steven Lee Myers, the NYT's bureau
chief in Beijing just use a really classical and poor way to manipulate.
"an international order, led by the United States, that is generally guided by principles of
democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law."
International order is not international law. LED by USA not by law. Generally (... No
comment), principe of... (again)
Yes. Really pure Propagandastaffel.
But a good news. Why is NYT in a need to manipulate?
...On a different note, i believe Steven Myers is just milling for a free ticket home and
a promotion which he'll surely get once he's expelled from China for fabricating fake
news.
Even during the worst of the cold war there were some respect and integrity on reporting
facts. MSM of today is fully weaponized and had gone full goebbels.
"that is generally guided by principles of democracy, respect for human rights and
adherence to rule of law"...
I haven't decided yet to either cry about the existence of such idiocies and such
propaganda driven Idiots and what it says about the human condition or scream because the
hypocrisy displayed continuously without shame and any twinge of self-awareness' becomes
unbearable.
Okay, then what can we infer from this lie-filed screed? I suggest that the NY Times and
its manipulators are against all the highlighted portions of this point b highlighted from
the 4 Point Joint Statement:
"Today, we will issue a joint statement on several issues of current global governance,
expounding the essence of major concepts such as human rights, democracy, international
order, and multilateralism, reflecting the collective demands of the international community,
especially developing countries . We call on all countries to participate in and
improve global governance in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness and equality, abandon
zero-sum mentality and ideological prejudice, stop interfering in the internal affairs of any
country, enhance the well-being of people of all countries through dialogue and cooperation,
and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind ."
All the bolded text is what the Outlaw US Empire, its vassals and its propaganda organs
are against, as in opposed in a very proactive manner up to and including physical war waged
on nations that try to promote any of those bolded items. The one main feature the Outlaw US
Empire is dead set against occurring is the construction of a global community aimed at
promoting a shared, equitable future for humanity for that's a Win-Win outcome, not a
Zero-sum last man standing, winner take all outcome Neoliberalism demands. In other words,
the NY Times is serving as a sort of American Pravda by detailing what its actual
policies are without actually declaring them to be policies.
Ever notice that within US culture there's not one sport or game that has a shared outcome
between several different participants, that there's only one winner (team or individual) and
that its entire political-economy is modeled on that concept? That equality of outcomes is
always subsumed by equality of participation? That if there's not going to be any equality
overseas then there won't be any equality at home? And I can list many more. That all such
arrangements are promoting a domineering authoritarian ethos never seems to dawn on far too
many--I'm the head of the household so you must do as I say. We don't care if 80% of the
public demand universal single payer health insurance, an end to forever wars, clean water
for our communities, clean air to breathe, freedom from mass shootings, freedom from police
riots, and so forth and so on. The NY Times and its controllers don't want anything of the
sort for the US public or for anyone else on the planet. And that's the message it delivers
every time it publishes an article filled with lies, falsehoods, innuendo, fabrications,
etc., which is daily.
The NY Times ought to be called The Projector and sold with the tabloids.
Thanks b, when you wrote: "The New York Times author simply construed that."
I would change to: "The New York Times author maliciously construed that."
The "Five Eyes" countries, who just happen to all be Spawn of Perfidious Albion, seem to
be more and more infected with the virus of Orwellianism (itself an idea of Anglo culture).
Perhaps parallel to the out-of-control "Five Eyes" apparatus, or as a subset of it, there is
an unspoken out-of-control "Five Mouths" apparatus, of which the NYT is a key outlet ...
Let's hope other countries do everything they can keep that virus out of their systems,
and inoculate themselves and their populations well.
Steven Lee Myers used to work as a NYT correspondent in Moscow and Baghdad. He is the
author of the tome "The New Tsar: the Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin", the title of which
alerts you to the tone of the garbage that wasted an entire plantation of pine trees.
"Our Nairobi chief has a tremendous opportunity to dive into news and opportunity
across a wide range of countries, from the deserts of Sudan to the pirate seas of Somalia,
down through the forests of the Congo and the shores of Tanzania. It is an enormous patch of
vibrant, intense and strategically important territory with many vital story lines, including
terrorism, the scramble for resources, the global contest with China and the constant
push-and-pull of democracy versus authoritarianism.
The ideal candidate should enjoy jumping on news, be willing to cover conflict, and
also be drawn to investigative stories. There is also the chance to delight our readers with
stories of hope and the changing rhythms of life in a rapidly evolving region."
Myers certainly knows how to jump on propaganda often and hard enough to turn into
something faintly resembling ... news.
"... Steve moved to Beijing in 2016 and quickly built a portfolio that was as powerful as
it was eclectic. His old world combined with his new one when he explored Russia's fury
over China's hunger for timber. He detailed Beijing's spreading crackdown on Islam,
analyzed China's exploration of the far side of the moon and reported on Hengdian World
Studios, an outdoor movie and television lot scattered over 2,500 acres in eastern China.
He also landed a rare interview with the Chinese actress Fan Bingbing after she was
embroiled in a tax scandal.
At each stop along his journey, he has taken to heart the advice of the former executive
editor Joe Lelyveld, devouring the local literature of his new home, not just the books by
foreign correspondents. Lately, he has been reading Yan Lianke, the author of "The Day the
Sun Died," and "Lenin's Kisses." He has an equally voracious appetite for Chinese cuisine,
which he is offsetting by training for his eighth marathon ..."
And here's our own Chris Buckley who joined Myers on his arduous tour of duty in
Beijing:
"... Chris [Buckley] is our resident China expert, having spent the past 20 years reporting
on the country. He went into journalism essentially as an excuse to hang around China.
Born in Australia, he decided to abandon a law degree and went to Beijing to study
Communist Party history at the People's University of China. After a half-hearted attempt
to start an academic career, his odd jobs in teaching and translating turned into
occasional fixer work for journalists, eventually in our own Beijing bureau.
He worked for Erik Eckholm and Elisabeth Rosenthal covering corruption scandals,
political infighting, the SARS crisis and the outbreak of an AIDS epidemic in rural China.
When they left, he worked for a while under a couple of obscure correspondents, Joe Kahn
and Jim Yardley.
After a seven-year stint as a correspondent at Reuters, he returned to The Times in
2012. He spent the first three years waiting in Hong Kong for a visa, camping out at the
Harbour Plaza Hotel for reasons that are unknown. From that perch, he wrote about the rise
of Xi Jinping, his corruption campaign, his directive declaring war on liberal values, as
well as the Umbrella Revolution. Since returning to the mainland, he has been a force
behind our coverage of the crackdown on the Uighurs in Xinjiang and the country's shift
toward authoritarianism, while also taking on a more personal quest about Sichuan
food."
Do you get the impression that these fellows jumped onto these cushy jobs for the food
junkets?
"... international order, led by the United States, that is generally guided by principles of
democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law.
Such a system "does not represent the will of the international community," according to the
Chinese.
We throw this statement into spectroscope to check if there is any weasel content, phrases
that sound nice but are capacious enough to cover not so nice meaning. Would it be even
better if the much tutted "international order" was not BASED on principles, rather than
GUIDED BY principles, and even weaker, GENERALLY GUIDED? Going further on that path we can be
INSPIRED by principles, GENERALLY INSPIRED, and then we can make a bold step to VAGELY
INSPIRED. Going further, OCCASIONALLY VAGUELY INSPIRED.
Not ashamed to manipulate stuff from CCTV about migrant work in Xinjiang into "forced
labour" and "BBC findings". Typical for western "journalists" in China, mostly sitting in
their apartments quaffing cheap liquor or going to the .. erm barber shops for a da feiji
(打飞机) ..
I will bring up a "human right" that rarely is discussed in the MSM: the right to relieve
one's bladder & bowels when traveling in public places. In many cities in the U.S., there
are NO public restrooms, not even in the railway stations and bus depots! Oh, sure -- all the
airports have them because they cater to the well heeled.
Here in the two biggest California cities SF and LA, one has to find a restaurant (good
luck during the pandemic) or supermarket or else a secluded spot. I live next to an alley
where the homeless people frequently dump, and we the neighbors have to clean it up because
the city won't bother.
The authorities claim that setting out Porta-potties can't be done because homeless
addicts would use them. WTF -- those people would do drugs in their own place if they had
one. But this isn't just an issue about homelessness, which is an enormous violation of human
rights in itself, but more broadly one of DECENCY that barely exists in this society.
The authorities claim that setting out Porta-potties can't be done because homeless addicts
would use them. WTF -- those people would do drugs in their own place if they had one. But
this isn't just an issue about homelessness, which is an enormous violation of human rights
in itself, but more broadly one of DECENCY that barely exists in this society.
CHOLERA is gonna get ya.
It is sad but what has happened to the USA through neoliberal economic rules based society
is the abdication of memory and learning over centuries.
There will be probably a long period of gradual decline of the USA empire and dismateling
of various aspects of neoliberalim in countires all over the globe.
It's evident that the "new world order" China wants is nothing more than respect for a
multipolar world and the international institutions in place meant to service this world.
The US has become accustomed to the notion that it is the "world" and that American
interests are everybody's interests even when America's interests harm their interests,
whether economic(Germany's Nordstream 2 or Japan's trade with China) or security(the DPRK-ROK
situation can never be resolved as long as the US interferes as a biased 3rd party) or even
humanitarian(see: Palestine, Libya, Syria, Yemen etc).
The pawns of the US empire will go on diatribes to basically outline a framework where
America is the end-all, be-all. Human rights, according to racist America. International
peace, according to militarist America. Fighting poverty, according to capitalist
America.
The only question for me has always been whether the blob of experts, advisors, and
government officials are maliciously pursuing this kind of global trolling or whether they're
actual believers of the delusion of American Exceptionalism. And the reason would be because
the latter are far more likely to cause exceptional suffering and destruction on their moral
crusade due to their arrogance in their fundamental "superiority".
If pride comes before the fall, the US is peaking in its arrogance and there's few likely
outcomes that don't lead to worse conditions.
The real question is not about his neocon delusions, which are pretty predictable, but about
the ability for the USA project global dominance in the decade to come.
Blinken is a marionette. And pretty much second rate even in that.
Notable quotes:
"... Let's consider this headline for a moment: "Blinken Accuses China of Trying to Undermine US-Dominated World Order." Blinken provides us with a definition of that "world order" in his own words cited in the article: "'... preserve the rules-based international order, in which we have all invested so much over the past 75 years , and which has served our interests and values well'." [My Emphasis] ..."
Let's consider
this headline for a moment: "Blinken Accuses China of Trying to Undermine US-Dominated
World Order." Blinken provides us with a definition of that "world order" in his own words
cited in the article: "'... preserve the rules-based international order, in which we have
all invested so much over the past 75 years , and which has served our interests and
values well'." [My Emphasis]
Clearly, he's referring to the rules put in place by the UN Charter. But as we at this bar
all know, it's the Outlaw US Empire for whom Blinken works that's the #1 criminal when it
comes to violating the UN Charter which is why it's "served our interests and values
well."
Now when we turn to reality, it become very clear that China seeks to uphold the UN
Charter--it's one of the foundational members of the newly established Friends of the UN
Charter Group that the Outlaw US Empire will certainly snub because of the reality of its
actual relations to that Act and Organization .
Indeed, what is being said by the very formation of that Group is a big NO!! to the
Outlaw US Empire's attempt to say it abides by the system it's continuously violated for the
past 75+ years. Yet, it's also clear that NO!! isn't being shouted out by global media
enough, particularly when Outlaw US Empire officials give such an excellent opportunity to be
rebuffed and ridiculed for their lies.
We have many good writers here who could take Blinken's words and turn them into an
indictment of himself and the nation he represents. That implies that writers for global
publications are just as good but need to examine the framing of their articles. Peace won't
come to our planet unless the Outlaw Bully Nation is daily accused for what it is and
does.
NATO is a distinct minority yet it holds the world captive in a terroristic manner. It's
well past time to stop groveling and kow-towing and to stand-up and call out the bullshitters
for what they are since being nice isn't getting us anywhere.
The "Russia question" appears to have surfaced in response to a March 16 US
intelligence
community assessment
that "Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted,
influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy, and the Democratic Party."
The 15-page public document is fluff. We heard it all before in December 2020, when fifty former intelligence officials
denounced news reports of Hunter Biden's corrupt ties to Ukrainian oligarchs as Russian disinformation.
The
New
York Post
claimed to have gotten hold of a laptop with smoking-gun emails to and from Biden's son. The voters never were
allowed to consider the evidence, because the rest of the media suppressed the report and Twitter blocked reposting of the
Post
expose.
In a December 4 column, I called this the "
Treason
of the spooks
."
By way of tying up loose ends, the intelligence community has now delivered an "assessment" claiming that "a key element of
Moscow's strategy was its use of people linked to Russian intelligence to launder influence narratives -- including misleading or
unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden -- through US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US
individuals, some of whom were close to former President Trump and his administration."
Those are weasel words. The Post published the text of Hunter Biden emails that, strictly speaking, were "unsubstantiated" to
the extent that the geek squad had not proven their provenance and the younger Biden hadn't owned up to their authenticity.
But that does not prove they were false, much less justify employing extraordinary means to suppress the reports.
Source:
New York Post
Apart from Biden's ABC interview, the nomination of Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs has sent
an unmistakable signal to Moscow and, more importantly, to America's European allies.
In early 2014 Nuland was taped on a cell phone call with America's ambassador to the Ukraine ordering the composition of the
next Ukrainian government after the Maidan coup, in the tone of a colonial viceroy.
Told that there might be
some difficulties, Nuland explained that the UN was being enlisted in support and said, "That would be great, I think, and
help glue this thing." She added, "And, you know,
fuck
the EU."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the time denounced the remark as "unacceptable." That sort of faux pas
normally would rate being assigned a diplomatic mission to the South Pole, but such is Washington's ideological fervor that
Nuland survived and resurfaced.
Nuland is a neoconservative, a former deputy national security adviser to then-vice president Dick Cheney, as well as the
spouse of Robert Kagan, one of the most persistent advocates of global transformation via the projection of American power.
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying
on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't have
the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or the
lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity we
have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
@ maahaa | Mar 24 2021 17:46 utc | 5:
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find
none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been
relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't
have the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or
the lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity
we have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
"High-profile proponents of what's known as the "simulation hypothesis" include SpaceX
chief Elon Musk, who recently expounded on the idea during an interview for a popular
podcast.
"If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be indistinguishable
from reality," Musk said before concluding, "We're most likely in a simulation."
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees, giving "better than 50 -- 50 odds" that the
simulation hypothesis is correct. " I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I
can find none."
I guess that is one way for Musk to avoid the guilt over those people his coup in Bolivia
killed. They didn't really die because it is all just make-believe; a simulation.
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying
on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't have
the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or the
lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity we
have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
@ maahaa | Mar 24 2021 17:46 utc | 5:
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find
none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been
relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't
have the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or
the lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity
we have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
According to the Austfailian media, it was a triumph. I kid you not. They will lie and lie
and lie again about Biden's dementia, until the bitter end, and at his stage, once the meds
lose their effectiveness, the end can come quickly. Perhaps he'll rip off his nappy and fling
faeces at the fawning presstitutes. Dream on. Or, as in the comedy, Bidet will mutter 'I'm
going to the toilet. I mean, I'm going to the toilet NOW!'.
Even before the targets in Yemen had been "legally" designated as
a Foreign Terrorist Organization Obama used cluster bombs to shred
dozens of women and children in a failed attempt to hit members of
"al Qaida in Yemen (AQY)".
.
The war crime immediately became a dirty Obama secret, covered up
with the help of the MSM, in particular ABC.
.
An enthusiastic White House had leaked to their contacts at ABC that
Obama had escalated the War on Terror, taking it to another country,
Yemen. This was December 17, 2009 only days after Obama had returned
from his ceremony in Oslo where he proudly accepted the Nobel Peace
Prize.
.
ABC was thrilled with their scoop and in manly voices announced
the escalation in the War on Terror.
.
The very next day ABC went silent forever about it, joining the cover up
of a war crime.
.
Hillary Clinton, by the way, committed her own act of cover up.
Covering her butt by backdating a memo.
.
The designation of a organization as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization)
is not official nor legal until it is published in the Federal Register.
An oversight? Obama attacked Yemen before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
had done the paperwork to make the killing legal?
.
The designation was not published until a month later, January 19, 2010.
Hillary Clinton back dated the memo she published in the Register with the date of
December 14, 2009, to somewhat cover her butt.
.
Obama's acceptance speech in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize was December 10th.
.
Yemen leaders agreed to participate in Obama's coverup saying it was their
own Yemen forces that had accidentally shredded dozens of women and children.
.
Obama was grateful to the Yemen leaders. The Yemen leaders were not
honored in Oslo. But, ironically, Obama ended his speech honoring women
and children, days before he ordered their slaughter.
.
Obama in Oslo, December 10, 2009:
.
"Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty
still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what
few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she
believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's
dreams.
.
Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will
always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the
intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed,
we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.
We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the
.
hope
.
of all the world; and at this moment of challenge,
that must be our work here on Earth.
.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
.
One week later Obama shredded dozens of women and children in Yemen
and covered it up.
.
Here is ABC's Brian Ross using his most masculine voice to boast about Obama's attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHcg3TNSRPs
.
Wikileaks cable corroborates evidence of US airstrikes in Yemen (Amnesty Intl)
https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-corroborates-evidence-us-airstrikes-yemen/
.
Actual cable at Wikileaks: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SANAA4_a.html
.
More at ABC [12/18/2009]: https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236 https://web.archive.org/web/20190624203826/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236
">https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236">https://web.archive.org/web/20190624203826/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236 https://web.archive.org/web/20190725171012/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cr
">https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cr">https://web.archive.org/web/20190725171012/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cr
To go back to a previous BTL discussion on Patrick Cockburns recent article in
Counterpunch, Bidens missteps so early on are a very worrying indicator that his foreign
policy team is worse than just being malign. They are incompetent. Thats a very dangerous
combination.
I don't think the Russians, Chinese, or most other major countries (apart from Europe) had
a fundamental problem with Trumps approach. They understood him, and were quite happy to
ignore his bombast and threats and focus instead on what was happening in the real world. But
things are different for someone like Biden, and I'm very surprised nobody in his team seem
to realise this. When he talks on the record, its assumed that it is a reflection of a real
policy. At first, I thought maybe he was just doing the usual new guy in power thing of
talking tough to set the ground for later compromises (the opposite of Obama, who appeared
very weak to other leaders, and then just looked indecisive when his policies turned more
hardline). But that does not seem to be the case so far.
I've no idea what the final outcome will be, but I do think that this is one of those
points in history where things take a very sharp and irreparable change in direction.
Obviously, things have been brewing for years, but the ineptness of US foreign policy seems
to have created a strategic Russian/China alliance which will force many countries to make
some very hard choices about which side of the fence they are on.
On a related note, I woke up this morning to find that a speech by Lawrence P. Wilkerson,
who is associated with the conservative paleoconservatives is getting very wide circulation
in China (you know this has to be officially approved otherwise it disappears very rapidly on
WeChat. He makes a claim that the CIA back in the early '00's intended to use the Uigurs as a
sort of proxy army to destabilise China. For all sorts of reasons, I would doubt that, but it
is now widely believed among Chinese people, even those who have no liking for the CCP. The
notion that the Uigurs are a sort of third force within China, and as such need to be
destroyed now seems to be very deeply embedded in Chinese thinking, and the interference by
'official' western NGO's are undoubtedly making things much worse for them.
"[Wilkerson] makes a claim that the CIA back in the early '00's intended to use the Uigurs
as a sort of proxy army to destabilise China. For all sorts of reasons, I would doubt that,
but it is now widely believed among Chinese people, even those who have no liking for the
CCP."
Just curious as to what your reasons would be for doubting this. The CIA has been doing
precisely this all over the world for over 70 years. There is a clear pipeline between the
Uighurs in China and the CIA-supported "rebels" in Syria. The expatriate Uighur organizations
that are integral to the Western propaganda apparatus is supported and amplified by the NED
and other CIA fronts, as your last sentence implies. This is not to deny the historical
Uighur desire for autonomy in Western China, nor to defend Chinese policies toward them.
Rather, it is to acknowledge the CIA's use of ethnic tensions to sow chaos and division in
non-conforming nations *everywhere*.
1. The US has had little to no success in its many attempts to establish an intelligence
foothold in China. There is zero evidence, direct or indirect, that it has had any successful
contact with Uigur groups directly, although contacts via others, such as the Pakistani or
Turkish intelligence agencies are possible. If there was even the tiniest amount of evidence
of such a link, the Chinese would be broadcasting it from the skies, and not just
re-messaging out tired CT stuff. Chinese intelligence is far ahead of the US in that region,
so they would certainly know if something like that was happening.
2. Uigur groups in general such as we know about them tend to be as virulently anti
Western as anti Han Chinese. All evidence suggests that the brand of Islam that has been
belatedly introduced into those regions is essentially second hand Wahhabism (traditionally,
they were never all that religious).
3. Any such attempt could be easily countered by China – simply by dumping Uigur
radicals into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban, or anywhere else that would create trouble.
The fact that they haven't done this strongly suggests that the Chinese themselves see no
link.
4. US military intelligence is often a misnomer, but even the CIA can't be stupid enough
to think that fostering another islamic state on the borders of Afghanistan is anything but a
terrible idea.
Of course, no doubt some mid ranking CIA officer may have circulated some report saying
more or less 'hey, maybe we can use those Uighurs or whatever they are called'. But thats an
entirely different thing from suggesting that there have been active links and a strategy for
using them to destabilise the borders of China. The reality is that the US has been entirely
unsuccessful in any attempts (when they've been made) to undermine China via internal Chinese
ethnic or religious groups.
Incidentally, the reliability of Wilkerson (who I actually quite like and who says some
interesting things), on that topic can be measured by his statement that the invasion of
Afghanistan was motivated by an attempt to stop the Belt and Road Initiative. It's quite
impressive intelligence if that was the case as the invasion predated the Belt and Road
Initiative by more than a decade.
Yes, I think the important point is your last one. It's not out of the question that on a
rainy afternoon in Virginia some junior CIA analyst amused himself by sketching out such an
idea, and one day the product may leak and be presented as "proof." But for the reasons you
give, the political leaders who would have to approve the scheme would turn it down, even if
it were physically possible. I doubt it would be, actually: from what little information is
publicly available, the US seems to be having little or no luck penetrating that area.
Thanks for the systematic reply. I appreciate each of your points, and pretty much agree
with the first one – including your comment about Turkish intelligence. But regarding
the others, the fact that we are talking about anti-Western Wahabist radicals does not mean
the CIA (or elements of the CIA or other military/intelligence operations) would hesitate to
weaponize them if possible. We did this in Afghanistan, Bosina, Kosovo, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
Chechnya etc. Indeed, we seemed to *welcome* the fostering of an Islamic State in Eastern
Syria, because the various jihadists were a means to destroy the Syrian government. When the
goal is to foster chaos and destruction in order to *undermine* an existing state, the
calculus of unleashing the head-choppers is different than if we were actually interested in
fostering stability in the region. I admit that such a strategy might sound insane to *us*,
but Einstein's definition of insanity seems to rule our National Security Establishment.
Not PK, but I would suggest these cases are not only different from each other, but also
different from the Uigurs. Essentially, there was a war going on in all of these cases, and
the US (and they were scarcely the only ones) decided to try to get a bit of influence by
arming one or more of the factions. This is a tactic which is as old as arms themselves, and
has a pretty spotty record of success, if that. Its advantage is that it is low-key and
doesn't require a massive presence (the classic case is the Soviet Union and the Chinese
flooding Africa with AK-47s and copies in the 1960s and 1970s). But the cases you mention are
very disparate. In Bosnia there do seem to have been some (illegal) CIA deliveries to the
Muslims in violation of the embargo, but these were very small scale and in any event the
Muslims were one of the major parties to the conflict, as well as constituting the de facto
government in Sarajevo, because the other ethnicities had withdrawn. Likewise, and in spite
of preening memoirs and films, the US influence in Afghanistan was quite small : the
mujahideen were already forming in the 1970s, and the only contribution the US really made
was to supply anti-aircraft missiles, which complicated the Russians' existence quite a bit.
But actually fomenting and arming an insurgency next to one of the three or four major powers
on the planet, with highly skilled intelligence services? There is stupidity and there's
downright insanity.
I the 1950s, the CIA and MI6 trained and armed the "Forest Brothers" in the Baltics.
Neutral Sweden and Finland were across hundreds of km of water. Land access was through
Soviet territory or satellites. There was no significant international trade or commerce in
the area at the time. Yet they had tens of thousands of well supplied (for that era)
resistance fighters that took a decade for the USSR to stomp out.
To suggest that today's CIA is incapable of stirring things up in a well-connected
Xinjiang when thousands of foreigners travel there, tons of business shipments and
international flights and road transport is a mystifying statement. Particularly after CIA's
decades of experience managing jihadis all across North Africa, Mideast and Central Asia,
more than a few being Uigurs.
And suggesting that the only thing the US supplied the Afghan jihadis were Stinger
missiles is far off the mark. It was a multi-billion dollar per year operation conducted by
the US with collaboration of the ISI and Saudis. All those tens of thousands of jihadis
didn't arrive by camels and make slingshots.
I agree "There is stupidity and there's downright insanity" in fomenting troubles in
Xinjiang. The US has already passed that test. Many times.
We are three generations past the 1950s. Not a relevant example.
The US is not even remotely as good as you'd have to believe to accept this theory. For
starters, we don't begin to have enough people with native level language competence, much
the less willing to live there long enough to be trusted. They'll take our arms, but our
directives?
It is in the interest of the CIA to take credit for all sorts of things where their role
was non-existent to marginal because funding.
I can't claim any great knowledge or insight into the region, but the notion that the
Uighurs were part of a grand CIA strategy, or that they have had sufficient influence in the
region to manipulate them into opposing China, just doesn't pass the smell test.
Unfortunately, like the notion that Covid is spread on frozen food, so far as I can tell it
is now considered 'a fact' by most Chinese, inside and outside the country. As a result, even
Chinese who strongly dislike their government are not at all bothered by reports coming out
of the region.
For what its worth, I knew an English guy who lived for a few years in Urumqi with his
Chinese wife about 15 years ago. He was virulently anti-muslim and didn't much like the
non-Chinese locals he met, but I remember at the time that said that what he saw around him
convinced him that things were going to end very badly for the Uighurs, the Chinese were just
waiting for the opportunity to wipe them out. I was in Tibet at that period (I was fortunate
to get a visa on the last year solo traveller were allowed in) and witnessed the way Tibetans
were openly abused on the street by Chinese soldiers. Even Tibetans said that the Uighurs got
it worse.
The US government and privately motivated US citizens have no credibility on this issue.
That means if anyone is going to raise it, it will have to be someone other than America or
Americans.
That doesn't change the fact of Great Han Lebensraum genocide-policy against the Uighurs
on the part of the Chinese Communazi Party. And Chinese statements about their Lebensraum
genocide against Uighuria are just as much hasbara as Israeli statements about
antiPalestinianitic persecution in the Occupied West Bank.
And if that purely-private opinion of a mere U S citizen makes any Great Han hasbarists (
or might I say . . . Hansbarists) on this thread mad, then that makes me happy.
Your friend was English; I have not seen this attitude on the part of Chinese friends or
Chinese I've talked with. I was traveling on a domestic flight in China a number of years ago
and found myself sitting on a plane next to a random Chinese soldier -- a memorably tall,
handsome young man. He spoke English well enough to have a discussion (the relaxed atmosphere
and the need to pass the time does wonders when it comes to breaking down language barriers).
Major Uighur terror attacks and unrest had been in the news (around 2009), so I asked him
what he thought about it. He said that he grew up in Xinjiang. His parents were Han Chinese
who had first come to Xinjiang during the cultural revolution to build some local
infrastructure/improvement project (he described it to me but I don't remember the details).
They saw their goal as improving conditions in the region. Of course, the government wanted
to solidify Chinese presence in that region of their country, but I heard no hint of anger or
derision toward the Uighur. He said he was very concerned that the Uighur people were happy
and he hoped China could find a way to mend the relationship. He said that growing up, there
were many mixed Chinese/Han marriages and that "people say" that mixed Han/Uighur marriages
produced the most physically beautiful children. I didn't see any evidence of the malignant
racism you describe on the part of your English friend.
Strong central governments vs violent separatist movements tend to create lasting
problems. Growing up in a border state over 100 years after our own civil war, I grew up with
the fact that many people had still not let go of that resentment. Southerners still
maintained a sense of grievance back then. The Maryland state song that I learned as a child
is only now being decommissioned by the state legislature. One stanza refers to the "Northern
scum".
This week's WaPo headline: "Maryland poised to say goodbye to state song that celebrates
the Confederacy".
If your Han Chinese interlocutor's feelings are widely shared among the ruled-over rather
than ruling-over ordinary majority of Han citizens, then it would appear that it is the
MonoParty RegimeGovernment ruling over China which is Communazi, not the people as such.
Regardless, it will be up to countrygovs which have moral standing in this area to comment
or not, not the US anymore. At least for now.
Probably the Uighurs have it even worse than Tibetans because Uighuria is very inhabitable
by Han settlers whereas Tibet is high and dry enough that ( I have read), that
lowland-adapted Hans have trouble physically coping over time with the lower oxygen levels at
Tibet altitude.
If that is so, then the High Tibetan Plateau at least would not provide Lebensraum for
millions of Han Settlers in any case, so why clear the Tibetans off the plateau and out of
existence? Not so much need, in Tibet's case.
@PlutoniumKun
I have no knowledge about points 1 to 3, but totally disagree with point 4.
The hubris and desire of the US alphabet agencies to meddle is remarkable. A current example
is the CIA support of jihadis in Syria that the US military itself is fighting against.
Interesting caution re Wilkerson – do you have a link?
Here is a link to an article talking about that talk PK. Having a coupla thousand Uygurs
in Syria gaining combat experience for use later who knows where was probably proof enough
for China of western intentions. Just think of the other Jihadists who have been used in
places like Libya and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the Chinese would be drawing their
own conclusions-
The Great Commission to Uplift the American Negro is a long-running national project that
goes back at least to the 1850s. It's recurred in cycles that always eventually founder,
creating at best a "talented tenth"-type elite and leaving the great mass of the black
underclass where they are or worse.
It can only continue to the extent that it does because of willful ahistoriocity on the
part of its adherents, at least with respect to past cycles.
As our esteemed host has pointed out time and again, liberals are forbidden to know of any
history relevant to blacks prior to the 21st century other than slavery, Jim Crow, redlining,
and Emmett Till.
Why crime rises and falls is a devilishly complicated question.
In journalism, always a blaring alarm that a thumb-sucking pile of BS is about to follow.
In fact, insert anything you want in front of "is a complicated question." But crime in
particular is not complicated to explain. It's just unpleasant and embarrassing to face up
to.
The George Floyd incident is illustrative. Police were not being brutal or confrontational
when they approached Floyd. Floyd escalated the situation by refusing to comply with simple
instructions. This is at the root of almost all police/public confrontations.
Police are required to investigate a violation of the law. If you hinder that
investigation, physically resist or flee things go south. They can't just let you go if they
believe you did something illegal. Had Floyd cooperated he would have likely ended up with a
misdemeanor charge of passing a counterfeit bill,booked at the jail and bonded out in a
couple of hours.
Underclass negroes simply refuse to take the easy way out believing they can talk ( lie )
their way out of a situation of their own making or, failing that, flee and everybody will
just forget about it.
Stefani
Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
This story is part of a group of stories called
Finding the best ways to do good.
One of the greatest challenges facing democratic societies in the 21st century is the loss of faith in public
institutions.
The internet has been a marvelous invention in lots of ways, but it has also unleashed a tsunami of misinformation and
destabilized political systems across the globe. Martin Gurri, a former media analyst at the CIA and the author of the
2014 book
The
Revolt of the Public
, was way ahead of the curve on this problem.
Gurri spent years surveying the global information landscape. Around the turn of the century, he noticed a trend: As the
internet gave rise to an explosion of information, there was a concurrent spike in political instability. The reason, he
surmised, was that governments lost their monopoly on information and with it their ability to control the public
conversation.
One of the many consequences of this is what Gurri calls a "crisis of authority." As people were exposed to more
information, their trust in major institutions -- like the government or newspapers -- began to collapse.
Gurri's book became something of a cult favorite among Silicon Valley types when it was released and its insights have
only become more salient since. Indeed,
I've
been thinking more and more about his thesis in the aftermath of the 2020 election and the
assault
on the US Capitol
on January 6. There are lots of reasons why the insurrection happened, but one of them is the
reality that millions of Americans believed -- really believed -- that the presidential election was stolen, despite a
complete lack of evidence. A Politico poll conducted shortly after the election found that
70
percent
of Republicans thought the election was fraudulent.
That's what a "crisis of authority" looks like in the real world.
And it's crucial to distinguish this crisis from what's often called the "epistemic crisis" or the "post-truth" problem.
If Gurri's right, the issue isn't just
that
truth suddenly became less important; it's that people stopped believing in the institutions charged with communicating
the truth. To put it a little differently, the gatekeeping institutions lost their power to decide what passes as truth
in the mind of the public.
I reached out to Gurri to explore the implications of his thesis. We talk about what it means for our society if
millions of people reject every claim that comes from a mainstream institution, why a
phenomenon
like QAnon
is fundamentally a "pose of rejection," and why he thinks we'll have to "reconfigure" our democratic
institutions for the digital world we now inhabit.
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Sean Illing
Have elites -- politicians, corporate actors, media and cultural elites --
lost
control of the world?
Martin Gurri
Yes and no. It's a wishy-washy answer, but it's a reality.
They would have completely lost control of the world if the public in revolt had a clear program or an organization or
leadership. If they were more like the Bolsheviks and less like QAnon, they'd take over the Capitol building. They'd
start passing laws. They would topple the regime.
But what we have is this collision between a public that is in repudiation mode and these elites who have lost control
to the degree that they can't hoist these utopian promises upon us anymore because no one believes it, but they're still
acting like zombie elites in zombie institutions. They still have power. They can still take us to war. They can still
throw the police out there, and the police could shoot us, but they have no authority or legitimacy. They're stumbling
around like zombies.
Sean Illing
You like to say that governments have lost the ability to dictate the stories a society tells about itself, mostly
because the media environment is too fragmented. Why is that so significant?
Martin Gurri
When you analyze the institutions that we have inherited from the 20th century, you find that they are very top-down,
like pyramids. And the legitimacy of that model absolutely depends on having a semi-monopoly over information in every
domain, which they had in the 20th century. There was no internet and there was a fairly limited number of information
sources for the public. So our ruling institutions had authority because they had a very valuable commodity:
information.
So I was an analyst at the CIA looking around the world at open information, at the global media. And I can tell you, it
was like a trickle compared to today. If a president, here or somewhere else, was giving a speech, the coverage of it
was confined to major outlets or television stations. But when the tsunami of information hit around the turn of the
century, the legitimacy of that model instantly went into crisis because you now had the opposite effect. You had an
overabundance of information, and that created a lot of confusion and anarchy.
Sean Illing
I'm curious how you weigh the significance of material factors in this story. It's not just that there's more
information, we've also seen a litany of failures in the 21st century -- from Hurricane Katrina to the forever wars to
the financial crisis and on and on. Basically, a decade of institutions failing and misleading citizens, in addition to
the deepening inequality, the deaths of despair, the fact that this generation of Americans is doing materially worse
than previous ones.
How big a role has this backdrop of failures played in the collapse of trust?
Martin Gurri
I would say that what matters is less the material factors you mention than the public's perception of these factors.
Empirically, under nearly every measure, we are better off today than in the 20th century, yet the public is much
angrier and more distrustful of government institutions and the elites who manage them. That difference in perception
arises directly from the radical changes in the information landscape between the last century and our own.
With few exceptions, most market democracies have recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. But the public has not
recovered from the shock of watching supposed experts and politicians, the people who posed as the wise pilots of our
prosperity, sound and act totally clueless while the economy burned. In the past, when the elites controlled the flow of
information, the financial collapse might have been portrayed as a sort of natural disaster, a tragedy we should unify
around our leadership to overcome. By 2008, that was already impossible. The networked public perceived the crisis
(rightly, I think) as a failure of government and of the expert elites.
It should be a truism that material conditions matter much less than expectations. That was true during the Great
Depression and it's true today. The rhetoric of the rant on the web feeds off extreme expectations -- any imperfection in
the economy will be treated as a crisis and a true crisis will be seen as the Apocalypse.
Take the example of Chile. For 40 years, it had high economic growth, rising into the ranks of the wealthiest nations.
During this time, Chile enjoyed a healthy democracy, in which political parties of left and right alternated in office.
Everyone benefited. Yet in 2019, with many deaths and much material destruction, the Chilean public took to the streets
in revolt against the established order. Its material expectations had been deeply frustrated, despite the country's
economic and political successes.
Sean Illing
Just to be clear, when you talk about this "tsunami" of information in the digital age, you're not talking about more
truth, right?
Martin Gurri
As
Nassim
Taleb
pointed out, when you have a gigantic explosion of information, what's exploding is noise, not signal, so
there's that.
As for truth, that's a tricky subject, because a lot of elites believe, and a lot of people believe, that truth is some
kind of Platonic form. We can't see it, but we know it's there. And often we know it because the science says so.
But that's not really how truth works. Truth is essentially an act of trust, an act of faith in some authority that is
telling you something that you could not possibly come to realize yourself. What's a
quark
?
You believe that there are quarks in the universe, probably because you've been told by people who probably know what
they're talking about that there are quarks. You believe the physicists. But you've never seen a quark. I've never seen
a quark. We accept this as truth because we've accepted the authority of the people who told us it's true.
Sean Illing
I'm starting to hate the phrase
"post-truth"
because
it implies there was some period in which we lived in truth or in which truth was predominant. But that's misleading.
The difference is that elite gatekeeping institutions can't place borders on the public conversation and that means
they've lost the ability to determine what passes as truth, so now we're in the Wild West.
Martin Gurri
That's a very good way to put it. I would say, though, that there was a shining moment when we all had truth. They are
correct about that. If truth is really a function of authority, and if in the 20th century these institutions really had
authority, then we did have something like truth. But if we had the information back then that we have today, if we had
all the noise that we have today, nothing would've seemed quite as true because we would've lacked faith in the
institutions that tried to tell us.
Sean Illing
What does it mean for our society if an "official narrative" isn't possible? Because that's where we're at, right?
Millions of people will never believe any story or account that comes from the government or a mainstream institution.
Martin Gurri
As long as our institutions remain as they are, nothing much will change. What that means is more of the same -- more
instability, more turbulence, more conspiracy theories, more distrust of authorities. But there's no iron law of history
that says we have to keep these institutions the way they are. Many of our institutions were built around the turn of
the 20th century. They weren't that egalitarian or democratic. They were like great, big pyramids.
But we can take our constitutional framework and reconfigure it. We've done it once already, and we could do it again
with the digital realm in mind, understanding the distance we once had between those in power and ordinary citizens is
gone forever. It's just gone. So we need people in power who are comfortable in proximity to the public, which many of
our elites are not.
Sean Illing
I do want to at least point to an apparent paradox here. As you've said, because of the internet, there are now more
voices and more perspectives than ever before, and yet at the same time there's a massive "herding effect," as a result
of which we have more people talking about fewer subjects. And that partly explains how you get millions of people
converging on something like QAnon.
Martin Gurri
Yeah, and that's very mysterious to me. I would not have expected that outcome. I thought we were headed to ever more
dispersed information islands and that that would create a fragmentation in individual beliefs. But instead, I've
noticed a trend toward conformism and a crystallizing of very few topics. Some of this is just an unwillingness to say
certain things because you know if you said them, the internet was going to come after you.
But I think Trump had a lot to do with it. The amount of attention he got was absolutely unprecedented. Everything was
about him. People were either against him or for him, but he was always the subject. Then came the pandemic and he
simply lost the capacity to absorb and manipulate attention. The pandemic just moved him completely off-kilter. He never
recovered.
Sean Illing
But we're in a situation in which ideas, whether it's QAnon stuff or anything else, are getting more hollow and more
viral at the same time -- and that seems really bad moving forward.
Martin Gurri
I'm not quite that pessimistic. You can find all kinds of wonderful stuff being written about practically every aspect
of society today by people who are seeing things clearly and sanely. But yeah, they're surrounded by a mountain of viral
crap. And yet we're in the early days of this transformation. We have no idea how this is going to play out.
There has always been a lot of viral crap going around, and there have always been people who believe crazy stuff,
particularly crazy stuff that doesn't impact their immediate lives. Flat earthers still get on airplanes, right? If
you're a flat earther, you're not a flat earther enough to not get in an airplane and disrupt your personal life. It's
not really a belief, it's basically giving the finger to the establishment.
Sean Illing
It's a pose.
Martin Gurri
Yeah, it's a pose of rejection. QAnon is a pose of rejection. There are very many flavors of it, but what they have in
common is they're saying all these ideas you have and all the facts you're cramming in my face -- it's all a prop for the
powerful and I'm rejecting it.
Sean Illing
It's an important point because a lot of us treat QAnon like it's some kind of epistemological problem, but it's not
really that at all. It's actually much more difficult than that. And even if we set aside QAnon, the fact that the vast
majority of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was fraudulent speaks to the breadth of the problem.
Martin Gurri
Right, it's a problem of authority. When people don't trust those charged with conveying the truth, they won't accept
it. And at some point, like I said, we'll have to reconfigure our democracy. Our politicians and institutions are going
to have to adjust to the new world in which the public can't be walled off or controlled. Leaders can't stand at the top
of pyramids anymore and talk down to people. The digital revolution flattened everything. We've got to accept that.
I really do have hope that this will happen. The boomers who grew up in the old world and can't move beyond it are going
to die out, and younger people are going to take their place. That will raise other questions and challenges, of course,
but there will be a changing of the guard and we should welcome it.
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The West is declining because the elite production system has failed. The worst type of
mediocre grinders are pulling the levers of power. The plebes are revolting because
immigration, taxes, inflation and the tenuous over-complication of society (fragility) has
positioned a great deal of people in precarious positions. Might as well loot Target.
I don't agree with it. Violence is the inverse of the type of impulse control necessary
for a functioning society.
But impulse control is gone from our overlords as well. So long noblesse oblige. The
plebes loot Target while the gentry loots the treasury. Race blindness is a courtesy for
civilized people. Ignore the social implications because the enemy has no race. They are
global elites with no homes and no loyalty. They may not be sending their best but our worst
are sending out the invitations.
We can't go on ignoring the class violence hollowing out the West. The elites today are
actively trying to make everyone poorer. Not themselves, obviously. How is that going to
induce cops out of the donut shops? The culture wars are making me a retarded Marxist.
Marxist in the class conflict sense. Retarded in the spergy libertarian view that economics
and politics are intertwined to create the type of society that, as Menken says, we deserve
good and hard.
It is always helpful to remember the words of "Arthur Jensen": "You are an old man who
thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are
no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only
one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate,
multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks,
rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which
determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things
today."
"... Apparently Biden was either too senile or too inherently stupid to realize what gangrenous filth the subhuman Clintonite scum Stephanopoulis is, was and always will be. And put his stupid senile foot into Stephanopoulis's clever little bear trap. ..."
"... Pretty sure this was exactly the message Biden's people wanted to send, whether because they really think this sort of thing will "work" on the world stage or because they've gunned up the Russia nonsense so hyperbolically for so long that their domestic audience now demands it. ..."
Apparently Biden was either too senile or too inherently stupid to realize what gangrenous
filth the subhuman Clintonite scum Stephanopoulis is, was and always will be. And put his
stupid senile foot into Stephanopoulis's clever little bear trap.
Well, those are hardly trick questions or subtle ones. And Biden temporizes perfectly well
when he wants to. He didn't want to. I'd be mildly surprised if he hadn't been told to expect
these particular questions. Stephanopolous has form for lobbing cooperative softballs at the
right sort of democrats.
Pretty sure this was exactly the message Biden's people wanted to send, whether because
they really think this sort of thing will "work" on the world stage or because they've gunned
up the Russia nonsense so hyperbolically for so long that their domestic audience now demands
it.
If your interpretation of "what Stephie-poo was thinking" and what Biden was expecting are
correct, then Biden is indeed the same sort of Clintonite filth that Stephanopoulous himself
is.
And that would be very unfortunate. It means that Biden is just as war-risky with Russia
as Clinton would have been. And yes, the massed millions of "Putin stole the election" Pink
Kitty Kap Klintonites want, need and demand this sort of agitprop. They and their precious
spokes-creeps like that anti-Russianitic MSNBC news show hostess whose name I absolutely
cannot remember just now.
And do you remember who her mentor was? Roger Aisles. Yeah, him. And after an extensive
education, including a Rhodes scholarship, she sells her integrity out on her program for
about $30,000 a day now-
Maybe she never had any integrity to begin with. Maybe she was always and only about
working the media rackets, just like her reciprocal one-schtik-phoney opposite number Tucker
Carlson over at Fox.
Let's start with comic relief: the "leader of the free world" has pledged to prevent China
from becoming the "leading" nation on the planet. And to fulfill such an exceptional mission,
his "expectation" is to run again for president in 2024. Not as a hologram. And fielding the
same running mate.
It goes back to The Democrat Run Mainstream Media's narrative that Black men can only be
the poor helpless victims and NEVER the apex predators.
Which is why they only say that Black men are murdered by guns but NEVER that Black men
are murdered by other Black men. The only time they do not blame the guns is in the much less
common man bites dog White male on Black male murders.
You know the perpetrator is a Black male and not a White male when the headline is a gun
all by itself murdered a Black man!
"... This whole process was intended to be for seriously delinquent kids/parents, but, you know bureaucracy – gotta check the boxes rather than just have a 30 second phone call "please email Mrs. ABC when your kids have been absent." ..."
If underfunded means you have to use old textbooks from the 1950s through the 1970s and have no tablets or computers on class,
I'd choose an underfunded school for a better education.
@Jonathan Mason on an attendance remediation plan. The first words out of my mouth were "so this is where my tax money goes."
It went on for 15 minutes, signing forms and shit. This whole process was intended to be for seriously delinquent kids/parents,
but, you know bureaucracy – gotta check the boxes rather than just have a 30 second phone call "please email Mrs. ABC when your
kids have been absent."
After that BS, we got another certified letter, so I went to the school. "I thought we had this thing settled. What do we have
to do now?" "Oh, nah, we just sent one to everybody. It was easier that way. You're fine." How much do certified letters cost
now, Jonathan? Oh, it's free though, right?
They've got plenty of money, all of them. Wait until the SHTF. Then we'll see some frugality and some legitimate complaints.
California public schools get their funding according to the number of students present. So if your kid is a half hour late,
you get an urgent call from the attendance office. Every kid is worth money to them. Maybe something like that is driving the
overreaction you describe.
I can see why this is unfinished work, with lots more research required, requiring quite a bit more grant money. It's hard
work getting around the simple truth. Steve here had a good handle on the reasons for the big uptick in violent crime half a year
ago, without even hitting the taxpayers up for a lot of grant money. It's just that his was not the answer that the Establishment
was looking for. Try harder, Steve.
So many USians (as in "people who use far too many resources") really believe, as
President Obama intimated on so many occasions, that this country is exceptional. My readings
of ancient Greece remind me of Athens: as Edith Hamilton pointed out in The Greek Way, that
city-state's decline began when its rulers treated "client states" as conquered territories
to be plundered. Athens' decline in power thus began when its rulers, having become so
arrogant, became unconcerned with the rights of others. In our own time, we see that our
"leaders" not only couldn't care less about the rights of others in terms of foreign
countries, but also with regard to Americans not of their class, race, and social/academic
pedigrees.
Nevertheless, as a fervent anti-imperialist, I think we should celebrate the incipient
loss of Washington's power.
According to Mary Beard & others Thucydides is incredibly difficult to translate
resulting in variations depended on the translator.
Perhaps not surprisingly Donald Kagan, Victoria's husband Robert's Father produced his own
hawkish assessment of what Thucydides should teach us today.
The Thucydides Trap is a clownish misreading of history by simplistic International
Relations scholars who should spend more time talking to real historians of the relevant
period. Graham Allison is on record as having done no research on China, he just assumed the
parallel with the Peloponnesian war. From my PhD dissertation, which included addressing such
simplistic and historically-ignorant theories in International Relations:
The ahistorical, Eurocentric and universalist shortcomings of neorealism with respect to a
rising power such as China are evident in analyses such as Allison's (2017), that rely upon
the assumption that the small-scale Peloponnesian wars of more than two millennia ago are
applicable to the modern world of superpowers and weapons of mass destruction, with the
internal dynamics of each nation deemed to relative irrelevance. Furthermore, both classical
realist and neorealist scholars may utilize simplistic readings of Thucydides, an author that
may in fact be a highly unreliable narrator (Podoksik 2005). There is a great deal of
disagreement among historians about who actually started the Peloponnesian wars; it could
have been Athens, Sparta, Corinth or even a combination (Dickins 1911; Tannenbaum 1975; Kagan
2013), and therefore the main lesson to be learnt is the complexity of the real world, even
the ancient one. In addition, as Bagby notes (1994, p. 133), "Thucydides thinks that an
understanding of the political and cultural differences among city-states before and during
the Peloponnesian War is crucial for understanding their behavior"; Sparta and Athens could
easily be seen as greater ideological competitors than the Cold War US and Soviet Union.
Actually it's pretty common knowledge among classisists that there was no Thucydides Trap.
Whatever his many merits one thing Thucydides didn't even begin to do was to prove his
central claim about jealously between a rising and an established power making conflict
inevitable.
Take an article back in February NC linked to in the Asia Times wherein Pepe Escobar
reported that "the two really crucial events at Davos" were speeches given by Putin and Xi at
the WEF that "received minimal or non-existent coverage across the wobbly West."
Here is a link to an analysis of Putin's speech by Rostislav Ishchenko provided in Escobar's
article
https://www.stalkerzone.org/munich-esque-davos/?fbclid=IwAR39jqR8vWHHAAUP0KXazwBAqTqsg7PXkIrlB2Yvmuu0sXZP0WqB3fJgUjw
Add the above to the discussion between Pepe Escobar and Michael Hudson provided in the
links today.
It would follow, probably at the behest of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, that the aims
stated in Xi's and Putin's speeches and the material discussed by Escobar and Hudson would
produce aggressive rhetoric from Biden and Blinken toward Russia and China.
Interesting that Putin mentioned "financial hegemony" as one of the two tools used "to
carry out long-arm jurisdiction and suppress other countries." I assume he means the
eurodollar system of offshore US dollars which remains the dominant currency of global
finance and capital markets, and control of the global payments system. If so, what are the
workarounds, and who controls them? or, are we talking Texas hold'em here?
Just an observation here. China is making China a better place; Russia is making Russia a
better place; India is India. And the United States looks to be headed in that direction. It
is a big job and it will keep our "leaders" busy for a long time. One thing I'd like to see
is a cooperating, cohesive and sustainable North America. Canada, the US, Mexico and Central
America. That would be a good project for our foreign policy wizards. World War 2 is over.
Way long gone. We should let the EU, and especially our long and loyal ally Germany, make
their own peace with Russia and China.
China was all onboard for Western neoliberal ideas.
They started to have their doubts when the US, UK and Euro-zone wrecked their economies in a
ridiculous financial fiasco in 2008.
When they realised they had made exactly the same mistakes, and nearly driven the Chinese
economy into a financial crisis, they realised neoclassical economics was the problem.
They really needed some decent economics and fast.
We never did work out what happened in 2008, the Chinese did.
The Chinese now know the US, UK and Euro-zone went on a joint economic suicide mission before
2008.
After 2008, they went on an economic suicide mission.
Policymakers are rendered completely clueless with neoclassical economics and try and crash
their economies.
If the West is sticking with this load of old rubbish, that's their problem, the Chinese have
learned from their mistakes.
Davos 2018 – The Chinese know financial crises come from the private debt-to-GDP
ratio and inflated asset prices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WOs6S0VrlA
The black swan flies in under our policymakers' radar.
They are looking at public debt and consumer price inflation, while the problems are
developing in private debt and asset price inflation.
The PBoC knew how to spot a Minsky Moment coming, unlike the FED, BoE, ECB and BoJ.
A year later, and they had made further progress.
Davos 2019 – The Chinese know bank lending needs to be directed into areas that grow
the economy and that their earlier stimulus went into the wrong places. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNBcIFu-_V0
They had pumped bank credit into areas that don't grow GDP, and the private debt-to-GDP had
risen to a level they were on the verge of a financial crisis.
Everyone does that with neoclassical economics, but they don't usually see the financial
crisis coming, like the US in 1929, Japan 1991 and US, UK and Euro-zone in 2008.
The one good thing about bringing back neoclassical economics.
We know what led to Wall Street Crash in 1929. The same mistakes have been repeated
globally.
At 25.30 mins you can see the super imposed private debt-to-GDP ratios.
No one realises the problems that are building up in the economy as they use an economics
that doesn't look at debt, neoclassical economics.
As you head towards the financial crisis, the economy booms due to the money creation of
unproductive bank lending, as it did in the 1920s in the US.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf
The financial crisis appears to come out of a clear blue sky when you use an economics that
doesn't consider debt, like neoclassical economics, as it did in 1929.
1929 – US
1991 – Japan
2008 – US, UK and Euro-zone
The PBoC saw the Chinese Minsky Moment coming and you can too by looking at the chart
above.
The Chinese were lucky; it was very late in the day.
Everyone has made the same mistake; only the Chinese worked out what the problem was.
Our current status is in some respects comparable to Britain in the decades preceding WW
I: balancing rival powers off of each other. In Britain's case, the rivals were Russia, first
and foremost, and Germany. But as Germany was perceived to be threatening to both Britain and
Russia, Britain made an alliance with Russia (and France) against Germany.
We tried to make a similar alliance with Russia against the growing power of the PRC, but
Yeltsin was too weak, and Putin was not eager to become the junior partner of the US in the
game of containing Chinese power. Then came the pivot to China (after the failure of
Clinton's "reset" with Russia). That failed too. Trump tried to re-engage Putin and levied
tariffs on China. Both moves were ineffective.
We still have something to learn from Britain, though: mainly, how to have a long and
gentle glide path into decline and yet still manage to punch above our weight. This is
something Lawrence Wilkerson has talked about for the last 15 years or so. We either do this
or go bankrupt trying to hold onto . . . what?
Not sure the UK's decline was long and gentle. The USA will be one of the three major
powers in the world for a long time yet. What has gone wrong for the USA imo is that it tried
to be a hyperpower, to rule the world, when that possiblity really disappeared when first
Russia and then other countries obtained nuclear weapons. The neoconseratives need to stop
drinking the koolaid.
"We tried to make a similar alliance with Russia against the growing power of the PRC, but
Yeltsin was too weak, and Putin was not eager to become the junior partner of the US in the
game of containing Chinese power."
I don't see any historical evidence supporting that assertion. The US tried to do a
complete sack and burn of the remains of the USSR and walk off with everything worth
anything. They didn't quite succeed at that but did a lot of harm along the way. Russia tried
(with Putin no less) to become part of the EU or at least associate with it and tried to
become part of NATO (or at least associate with the rest of Europe in military and security
matters) and was told to get lost. Then, violating promises, the expansion of NATO began. I
think the record shows that the US wants Russia to be an enemy – regardless of what the
Russians want. With the history of the past twenty years to go by I would think that both
Russia and China (and likely several other nations) now believe that the US simply can't be
negotiated with due to it's penchant for throwing away treaties and ignoring the rule of law
whenever it feels like it. If that wasn't bad enough, there's also the holier-than-thou
moralizing that goes along with it.
About a decade or so ago there was serious talk in Washington of a US-China pact as an
extension of Chimerica. China would supply the money and the manpower while Washington would
supply the brains. The rest of the world could go fly a kite as these two would then run the
world but the Chinese for some mysterious reason had zero interest in being the junior
partner in this proposal.
That's because China had already decided to turn America into one of its many Overseas
Tibets. ( I have read that the Chinese word for Tibet translates to Western Treasure House.
And they also refer to Tibet as Water Tower Number One).
Putin has perhaps realised that unflappability and civility, long his calling cards in
diplomatic relations with the West, even when coming under the most vicious attacks, will
never win him or Russia any favour with the western mainstream press and their political
class overlords. You can't reason with a bully so might as well do a more polished version of
Duterte telling Obama to "go to hell" as Putin and China are doing here. The pillars of
American foreign policy are increasingly being shown up to be relics of a bygone era,
anachronistic and maladaptive in the extreme.
The world has moved on and people are no longer buying the "America is a force for good"
story. They see the worst of American cultural values e.g. excessive consumption, being
exported by Hollywood to their societies and American companies swooping in to harvest the
demand for useless stuff that comes as a result of this. Dismounting the high horse will be
difficult for America to do but I don't see that she has any choice here, the world is
starting to signal strongly that we've all had enough of the exceptionalism and belligerence
borne of entitlement with which the US engages with other nations.
Yes, and perhaps the most important task before R/C is how to bring the now-former hegemon
down off its high perch, quietly and gracefully, or at least without triggering an all out
war. I do hope they can pull it off, otherwise it's curtains for us all.
But it is not the first time p. Putin told the West Russia will go its own way. The 2007
Munich security conference put all on notice; some just refused to listen.
But if we take those 5 min 25 sec, and the Chinese statement in Anchorage that USA has no
qualifications (!) to speak to China from the position of strength, we should see that the
world's distribution of power has changed. In spite of more tricks and subterfuge that the
West will no doubt deploy, what matters more now is the self-confidence these two nations
have finally owned. For us, the little folk, however, it will get worse before it gets
better.
Everything of human creation has a lifespan and everything of
human creation can be changed or removed by human hand. Slavery, feudalism and other systems of
the past
The bottom line question from all of the above is this: Will this U.S. dominance come to an
end? Stepping back and looking at this question in a historical way tells us that the answer
can only be yes, given that there has been a sequence of cities that have been the financial
center.
Centuries ago, the seat of a small republic such as Venice could be the leading financial
center on the strength of its trading networks. Once capitalism took hold, however, the
financial center was successively located within a larger federation that possessed both a
strong navy and a significant fleet of merchant ships (Amsterdam); then within a sizeable and
unified country with a large enough population to maintain a powerful navy and a physical
presence throughout an empire (London); and finally within a continent-spanning country that
can project its economic and multi-dimensional military power around the world (New York).
No empire, whatever its form, lasts forever. But knowledge of the sequence of capitalist
centers tells us nothing of timing. Each successive new financial locus was embedded in
successively larger powers able to operate militarily over larger areas and with more force.
What then could replace the U.S.? The European Union has its effectiveness diluted by the many
nationalisms within its sphere (and thus nationalism acts as a weakening agent for the EU
whereas it is a strengthening agent for the U.S. and China). China's economy is yet too small
and retains capital controls, and its currency, the renminbi, isn't fully convertible.
U.S. Treasury bills remain the ultimate safe haven, as shown when investors poured into U.S.
debt during crises such as the 2008 collapse, even when events in the U.S. are the trigger.
There are no other possible other contenders, and both the EU and China, as already
discussed, are in no position to seriously challenge U.S. hegemony.
Here we have a collision of possibilities: The transcending of capitalism and transition
to a new economic system or the decreasing functionality of the world capitalist system should
it persist for several more decades. Given the resiliency of capitalism, and the many tools
available to it (not least military power), the latter scenario can't be ruled out although it
might be unlikely. Making any prediction on the lifespan of capitalism is fraught with
difficulty, not least because of the many predictions of its collapse for well over a century.
But capitalism as a
system requires infinite growth , quite impossible on a finite planet and all the more dire
given there is almost no place on Earth remaining into which it
can expand .
Although we can't know what the expiration date of capitalism will be, it will almost
certainly be sometime in the current century . But it won't be followed by something better
without a global movement of movements working across borders with a conscious aim of bringing
a better world into being. In the absence of such movements, capitalism is likely to hang on
for decades to come. In that scenario, what country or bloc could replace the U.S. as the
center?
And would we want a new center to dictate to the rest of the world? In a world of economic
democracy (what we can call socialism) where all nations and societies can develop in their own
way, in harmony with the environment and without the need to expand, and with production done
for human need rather than corporate profit, there would no global center or hegemon and no
need for one.
Capitalism, however, can't function without a center that uses financial, military and all
other means to keep itself in the saddle and the rest of the world in line.
Yes, the day of U.S. dethronement will come, as will the end of
capitalism . But the former is not going to happen any time soon, however much millions
around the world wish that to be so, and the latter is what we should be working toward. A
better world is possible; a gentler and kinder capitalism with a different center is
not.
Excellent analysis! I would just point out that those who decide how the world operates, and
I am not talking about the US Gov, hold the vast majority of their wealth in dollar$. Most of
their power and influence would disappear if the dollar as world reserve currency system were
to end. Their power to manipulate from behind the scenes is nearly unlimited and this is not
conspiracy theory.
Their ace in the hole is of course World WAR.
It seems to me that all wars and all Empire collapses are about resources and we are at or
near peak everything so that is IMO what will determine how things play out sooner than we all
think too.
" Most of their power and influence would disappear if the dollar as world reserve
currency system were to end. " That is very much true, and is true not only for the U.S.
bourgeoisie but also for the bourgeoisie and compradors of countries around the world. When the
U.S. unraveling comes, it will be on a steeping curve, but that day is a long way off yet.
Nonetheless, resource depletion may well intervene sooner than we believe . Better to
organize now rather than later.
When Biden called Russian President a soulless "killer" on
ABC News, Putin responded with the most deft bit of diplomacy I've seen in quite a while, openly challenging Fungal Joe to a
publicly broadcast debate of substantive issues, which Biden, of course, declined.
There can be no question now that
all the disparate interests within
The
Davos Crowd
are aligned at this point
(see
this
month's Newsletter
for more discussion on this).
All guns point at Russia.
Putin tried to defuse the situation with an offer that was at once an epic troll of Biden,
who is clearly no match for his Russian counterpart cognitively, and a warning to Americans that this situation has gotten far more
dangerous than they are being told.
And sometimes you win simply by taking the high road. Make no mistake the fact that Putin went here this early in Biden's presidency
is a bad sign. It tells us things are horrific between the world's most prominent nuclear powers and that there's been zero
diplomatic effort put forth by the Biden administration since the election.
The problem is rapidly becoming that indiscriminate use of all weapons all the time --
diplomatic, economic, military, propaganda -- creates a kind of dopamine addiction.
In order to keep the public interest in
the threat they have to keep raising the stakes and the rhetoric to eventually absurd levels.
As I like to say all the time, it's the first rule of screenwriting :
Be forever raising the
stakes lest the audience gets bored.
But there comes a point where people begin to realize that they are being asked to back a war where the existential threat to the
elite's power is transferred onto them. Remember folks, government's fight and spend billions propagandizing you into believing
their wars are for your own good.
It's rarely the case, if ever. More often than not the war being ginned up in the media and by government officials is one that
either feathers their own nest directly, supports the goals of other powerful folks indirectly, or covers up past corruption.
The brewing conflict in
Ukraine is all of these and more.
The project to add Ukraine to NATO and the EU is a long-held dream of neocons
like Victoria Nuland and neoliberals like Biden. It's an important cog in the World Economic Forum's desire to expand the EU to both
encircle Russia thereby disrupting any dreams of Eurasian integration which could form a bulwark against their brave new world.
What's got Biden's Depends in a bunch is that he's neck-deep in the corruption in Ukraine. In
Obama's own words, Ukraine is Joe's project. And Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky is not fully subsumed into the morass of
Biden's (and the rest of the usual suspects') problems.
Putin's deft and cordial handling of Biden's indiscriminate use of language was masterful here. Biden's initial remarks are, at
best, him trying to hold onto the Amy Poehler demographic (see reruns of Parks and Recreation for her slavish obsession with him as
Vice-President) as a vibrant, macho man, while he implements every bad idea that that same demographic rejected from all the other
Democrats during primary season.
But we can all see he's nothing of the sort. He's a barely coherent, rapidly fading bully with no discernible achievements in life
other than being available to be a placeholder for someone else's plans.
So, it was never a question as to whether Biden would ever talk to Putin under those
conditions. They can't even get him to talk with reporters for real, having to green screen him into backgrounds to make it look
like he's out in the world, doing stuff.
And don't get me started on that embarrassment of a press conference held the other day. Running for re-election in 2024? This guy's
not going to be alive in 2024. Then again, since he didn't run in 2020, what does it actually matter?
Elections are just Hollywood productions anymore anyway.
Biden's counter is to now invite Putin and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping the big Climate Summit
in late April
where the WEF controls the agenda and Biden's anti-diplomatic corps led by the completely over-matched
Secretary of State Antony Blinken can further embarrass the U.S. on the world stage.
Since both Putin and Xi told the WEF to go scratch on both Climate Change, Agenda 2030 and,
most
notably from Putin, the Fourth Industrial Revolution
, I don't see how this summit ends any better than virtual Davos did earlier
this year.
In fact, with Biden's approach to both China and Russia so far, this summit is shaping up to be a colossal waste of time while also
threatening everyone the world over with what they can expect policy-wise from the West until someone finally puts these insane
people out of our misery.
With each day that passes the U.K., for example, under tyrant Boris Johnson sinks further into a complete totalitarian nightmare
(see
here
,
here
,
here
,
and
here
from the last 24 hours) thanks to COVID-19, while ramping up the anti-Russian rhetoric to eleven.
But, back to Ukraine, because it's tied directly to all this climate change nonsense. Putin
understands as well that Biden will allow every escalation in Ukraine because he's shackled by it and they need to complete the job
started with the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014.
That means we'll see something far worse than Victoria Nuland's latest Cookie Campaign for freedom. We're going to see a war for
the Donbass soon, likely right after Orthodox Easter and the end of the snow melt.
Putin tried to go directly to the people to end this destructive spiral to the bottom, because he knows where this ends.
It will be a confrontation that one side will have to commit to completely or allow it's bluff to be called. The game Biden's
handlers have played to this point has been a massive escalation of rhetoric while continually moving real pieces into position for
a real conflict. I just don't see cooler heads prevailing here because there is no upside for the U.S., the EU and the WEF if China
and Russia stand their ground and Biden et.al. back down.
Russia has to be
destroyed or subjugated if the Great Reset is to happen and Europe is to remain a relevant global player.
That
means control of the Black Sea, which means taking back Crimea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently reiterated publicly
that Russia has had zero diplomatic contact with the European Union since the 2014 vote by Crimea to rejoin Russia.
Diplomacy is nearly over between the major powers. Biden's simple refusal to talk to Putin
publicly is a major event.
In the end everything we've lived through since COVID-19 began boils down to the need to destroy the global economy built on oil and
coal, otherwise all major energy production stays under Eurasian control as it strengthens not Atlanticist as it peaks in global
power and their grand dreams wither.
Time is getting short for this to happen. Public opposition to this program is rising. It happens now or not at all.
If there is a war in the Donbass this spring it won't be a happy ending which extends U.S.
primacy into the future but the moment when we realized its acceleration into irrelevancy.
In both the current major conflicts between Russia and the US Psychopaths In Charge, Russia holds the moral high
ground. In Ukraine the US promoted, financed, helped organize, and encouraged the overthrow of a democratically
elected government. When the citizens of Crimea exercised their natural right of self determination and voted to
return to being a part of Russia, the US called it a coup. In Syria, the US has illegally invaded a sovereign nation
without that nation's sovereign government's permission or request. Russia got both. Not only does Russia hold the
moral high ground, but the legal high ground as well.
vic and blood
PREMIUM
3 hours ago
Well
stated.
The
role reversal is complete. We are now the Evil Empire.
gmrpeabody
1 hour ago
" . In
Ukraine the US promoted, financed, helped organize, and encouraged the overthrow of a democratically elected
government. "
Marine
General Smedley Butler knew his forces were being used back in the thirties to enforce American bankster
interests in central and South America.
eyewillcomply
1 hour ago
(Edited)
"We are now the Evil Empire."
As
soon as we allowed the cousins of the same Bolsheviks who made Russia into a communist basket case to
control our currency and thus, government, we became an "Evil Empire". It has been a slow process and hard
to recognize early on. The founding principles of the United States are moral and admirable. What we have
morphed into at the behest of this satanic cabal is the exact opposite of that ethos.
chunga
3 hours ago
Many
people hate the US and have many very valid reasons to fight and kill all of us.
BlindMonkey
2 hours ago
(Edited)
A
large swath of Americans just want to live life as a people. They harbor no ill will to other people's,
we just want our space in the world respected. Of these, they also have a beef with the insane people
that have got us to this point.
jeff montanye
2 hours ago
the u.s. government has not been mine since vietnam.
dead hobo
1 hour ago
(Edited)
Funny,
but look at the big picture. How could all these foreign horrors be contemplated if only a few people voted
for Biden? Agree the election was stolen, but it still took a massive number of Libtards and Woketards to
provide enough actual votes to make the fake votes count.
We are
seeing what happens when a massive amount of Accumulated Stupid runs daily life in the US. No amount of talk
will make a difference and most people don't read. Combined, this makes them impervious to common sense.
Things will get worse, then much worse, before they get better. This is a big deal. Democrats are going all
in at 110% effort because they know they will fail and and never get another chance if they don't take over
now. Expect outrageous takeovers followed by more outrageous takeovers. We haven't seen anything yet. Expect
to be Amazed.
chunga
2 hours ago
I'm
afraid those people will not be exempt from the harmful, malicious actions of the US govt and do not deserve
to be. I put myself in this category.
Sandmann
23 minutes ago
Most
Americans are great and generous people but so were most people in the Soviet Union
Lordflin
2 hours ago
You
don't seriously believe we would sit on the sidelines of such a conflict...
When
was the last time that happened...?
Deep
State wants war... and they are now firmly in charge in a capital protected by armed troops and razor
wire...
JPHR
3 hours ago
(Edited)
remove
link
This
article seems mistaken in treating Biden as somehow being in charge nor is this Harris.
The
most concerning aspect of this fake presidency is that non-elected and not accountable people behind the
scenes are running this farce.
The US
always selects weak corrupt leaders as front men for their color revolutions abroad and it should not be a
surprise that the color revolution at home now follows exactly that very same pattern.
Carlin was RIGHT
2 hours ago
(Edited)
It is
not just the author of this article that is mistaken, it is also 95% of the murican public. What you see on
your tee veee and read in media is 100% pure theatre - all agenda driven, of course.
Dumfknation will begrudgingly go along with ANYTHING tptb dictates - that has been proven beyond any doubt
over the last year. So expect nothing but misery and quite possibly death for the foreseeable future,
because (((they))) most certainly have NO CONCERN WHATSOEVER for you happiness and prosperity, and only seek
to make the world a better place for (((them))).
Sandmann
4 hours ago
Much
of the Hitler-Stalin War was fought in Ukraine. Ukraine was always the centre for Soviet weapons production
to ensure The West stayed away.
Brzezinski set up a cat's paw which he hoped would ensnare Russia but it will destroy USA. The West kept
Bandera groups funded and armed in Ukraine into 1950s. Poland wants to seize Gailicia. The simple fact is
Ukrainians are emigrating for work to Poland and Turkey and Western Europe if they can get forged papers.
Ukraine is dead - US wants to force West Europeans to pay transport levies to Ukraine for Russian gas
instead of North Stream so Europeans fund Ukraine corruption and backfunding to US Democrats.
Russia
will fight when it is ready as will China. Seems stupid to risk Atlanta or Dallas or LA or Chicago for Kiev
Craven Moorehead
3 hours ago
The
Soviet Union economically collapsed trying to match NATO military strength, too much of their resources and
productivity were directed to military, the West effectively outspent them.
Now
the tables have turned, The US may be on the road to the same fate, and the current government of morons may
just bring it about
BlindMonkey
2 hours ago
remove
link
The Ukraine war might be kept under wraps solely because Russia has clearly signaled they will enter it. An
attack is a suicide play for Ukraine. I don't expect this to stop the warhawks from trying but Zelensky
must know this is a death trap for him.
If this kicks off, expect Poland to be sacrificed to try to
take Kaliningrad in retribution.
SwmngwShrks
1 hour ago
remove
link
I
remember being in school in 2014, in a UN class specifically, learning about how the US backed coup in the
Ukraine led to them wanting to join the EU. However, as part of the treaty during the dissolution of the
USSR, if any of the barrier states went to join the EU, Russia would annex Crimea, as its only warm-water
port.
This
is what happened, and what was executed, however it was propagandized here in the US that Russia had
"invaded" Crimea. It explains why reporters on scene found the locals welcoming the Russians.
The
thing is, I remember so explicitly finding this on the web, because I was surprised it was true. I read the
actual treaty, and can no longer find it online, anywhere. Sigh, down the memory hole, thanks Brave New
World.
Savvy
24 minutes ago
It's hard to believe the Americans could be so short sighted, but Ukraine was 'liberated' to control
Russia's access to the EU market. Pretty stupid if so because that's when construction on NS2 began and
Ukraine is a US quagmire now. Another shining example of US intervenyionism.
SoDamnMad
2 hours ago
remove
link
Search
for the "March of the Immortal Regiment" on Youtube and understand that if you attack either the Crimea or
the Donbass you will fight seasoned soldiers as well as civilians ready to smash your face in with a
shovel. Unlike the US woke crowd those that chose Russia are not willing to lay down for the corrupt
private Nazi militias of Ukraine. The shipment of up-armored humvess are worthless in this fight. Half the
stuff will be stolen and wind up on the black market. No more mister nice guy. "Remember, you asked for
it."
deep-state-retired
3 hours ago
remove
link
With
the successful Biden Coup and full media / tech blackout of election fraud the Globalists are ready to take
on one of the last few nation states. They think like Napoleon and Hitler just kick in the door and the
house will collapse. We will see.
de tocqueville's ghost
1 hour ago
(Edited)
the
industrialized military complex and deep state stole our vote and election...they need war to survive. Biden
was always their "boy"...he voted yay for every war in the last 42 years. They had to get rid of Trump...he
wasn't starting any wars.
We knew Biden would start beating the war drums soon after being in the WH, and he is.
JackOliver5
3 hours ago
(Edited)
Luongo
is not too sharp - THIS is about the energy future - NATURAL GAS !
So was
the deal between Iran and China today !
Russia
already has over over 1000 CNG service stations - Iran will provide CNG pipelines to China - the Rothschilds
will have NO place in this NEW world !
THAT
is why we are seeing what we are seeing NOW !
Time
will prove that I am right !
Five_Black_Eyes_Intel_Agency
4 hours ago
(Edited)
The
psychopathic cabal loves creating frozen conflicts that they can "switch on" - such as the one in Ukraine.
The only problem is that they always keep choosing losers as their friends.
The
CIA and MI6 are working hard on "switching on" the Ukraine conflict, because peddling conflict is all they
know. Russia will wipe the floor with them.
The
world is waking up fast to the US-UK-israeli racket of depravity. The world except those pitiful vassals
still stuck in the honeymoon phase with their oppressors like the EU.
Propaganda Ripper
2 hours ago
(Edited)
At
this point, if you are politically correct, you cheer for World War 3. What could be more normal in a world
gone mad ?
US Banana Republic
2 hours ago
(Edited)
remove
link
Russia
AND China need to make sure the US has skin in this game.
When I
was IN Ukraine recently for three months a friend asked when the continental US was last involved in a real
war. It was, of course, the US Civil War and that ended in 1865. The US is far removed from the people it
disturbs and massacres. We have no problem singing how proud we are to be Americans because we are situated
in a place that we can do anything to anybody and they can't touch us. That needs to end.
I
don't know exactly how but Russia and China need to make the US pay some consequences for this ********
aggression.
Oldwood
2 hours ago
When you say "US", exactly WHO are you referring?
When you say "Chinese" who are you referring.
Most people of this planet are dominated by their leadership.
otschelnik
3 hours ago
(Edited)
remove
link
Donbass is another example of a successful 'frozen conflict' tactic which the Russians use in ethnicly
charged border conflicts or strategically important territories. North Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transdnestr are
some of the other ones. There's one big chanage in that now a lot of the residents of the Donbass region
have obtained Russian passports under an expedited system, about 400,000 reportedly by the beginning of the
year. Unlike US politicians Putin is not limited by time. This can go on for decades.
Russia
is keeping their options open, and they're willing to withdrawl from Donbass if the region is given autonomy
in Ukraine if they can keep Crimea. This is their favorite option but that's not acceptable for the Ukraine
government. If that doesn't work they can go all the way and annex Donbass too and have the forces to go
all the way to the Dnepr river. Ukraine can't do anything, they're too weak.
The
neocon's running the Biden administration would definitely like to push Ukraine into a hot war with Russia
but our NATO allies are not going to support it.
vasilievich
2 hours ago
If I
may ask, how do you know what Russia is willing to do?
otschelnik
22 minutes ago
Listen to Lavrov and read between the lines.
SoDamnMad
2 hours ago
"if
they can keep Crimea". I stopped reading after that. The road and railway links over the Kerch Strait told
me they were there for good.
BinAnunnaki
1 hour ago
remove
link
Can
Putin annex Donestsk and not expect full western sanctions, esp. on energy or is that a bluff?
Will
Merkel let her people freeze for Eastern Ukraine?
indus creed
30 minutes ago
(Edited)
At the
minimum Russia will take the eastern portion and the entire southern region, thus cutting Ukraine off from
the Black Sea.
MILITARY SITUATION IN EASTERN UKRAINE ON MARCH 28, 2021 (MAP UPDATE)
European Monarchist
1 hour ago
(Edited)
remove
link
Biden
is just like Obama, an unsophisticated and blundering WARMONGER.
El_Puerco
1 hour ago
Who
Are the Secret
Puppet-Masters
Behind
Biden's
War?
European Monarchist
59 minutes ago
(Edited)
Who
knows, but here is my list of likely suspects: the military industrial complex, the CIA, the deep state,
Mossad, hubris, dementia, and demons.
The Vel
1 hour ago
I like
this article. Some wonderful quotes:
'
They can't even get him to
talk with reporters for real, having to green screen him into backgrounds to make it look like he's out in
the world, doing stuff.'
- Check
In the
end everything we've lived through since COVID-19 began boils down to the need to destroy the global economy
built on oil and coal, otherwise all major energy production -
Check
If
there is a war in the Donbass this spring it won't be a happy ending which extends U.S. primacy into the
future but the moment when we realized its acceleration into irrelevancy. -
Check
Mate
That's
the key point of covid - it will take the US Federal Government into irrelevancy along with Dementia Joe.
And all you good folks and me will get to witness this transition to
irrelevance
(if
you don't die off from the vaxx sooner).
BubbaBanjo
1 hour ago
remove
link
Ukraine would be very wise to find a diplomatic way to be a neutral nation and not be a pawn. Russia will
take the pawn if it is played. Nothing will stop that. A pawn needs to know its role in the game.
Aquamaster
10 minutes ago
Always
remember, Biden did not put anyone into his administration based on qualifications. Most were picked for
either their racial, sexual, or LBGTQ... bonafides. The rest were picked as paybacks for financial, and
media/tech support during the campaign. Also, many are Obama retreads, and we know how poorly they performed
in those eight years of the Obama reign of error.
This
is going to be a horrible four years and I have no doubt that OBidens ideologues will blunder us into at
least one war. Hopefully it won't be WW3.
flyonmywall
23 minutes ago
The
idiot-in-chief is being told by his handlers that they can win this without American boots on the ground,
with cannon fodder provided by conscript Ukrainians.
When
the Russians finally unleash their armor divisions, they will cut through their opposition like a hot knife
through butter, while being covered by the Russian aerospace forces.
If
these idiots unleash long range misiles, World War 3 will be just around the corner.
Aquamaster
7 minutes ago
Indeed. We saw this exact thing happen in the ill fated Georgia conflict during the Bush presidency.
QABubba
2 hours ago
remove
link
Putin
is, and has been, playing a waiting game. With each year that passes the West gets weaker and Eurasia gets
stronger. The goal is with deft diplomacy to stretch this period out long enough for the balance of power
to become obvious.
Again, whoever thought that Russia would pay billions in transit fees to Poland and Ukraine for them to turn
around and spend with Lockheed, Ratheon. etc., to buy weapons to point at Russia was an idiot. A first
class idiot. The kind of idiot that will be the death of us.
Tom Green Swedish
2 hours ago
WIth
each year Putin becomes older and weaker. He will age out, and they will fall. I don't like Russia. Who
would?
Victor999
1 hour ago
Lots of people like Russia - all over the world. And lots of people absolutely hate America - all over
the world. How do you explain that? And if you knew anything about Russia, you would understand why you
should fear the day that Putin finally steps down.
blumenthal
2 hours ago
(Edited)
In
contrast to the attempted coup in Turkey, in which Erdogan acted decisively, it was a serious mistake on
Yanukovich's part not to deploy the military in Ukraine. The Russians made a subsequent mistake by not
marching straight into the capital Kiew. Now it will be much more difficult to control the situation in
Ukraine. A further conflict will escalate very quickly, because the Russians have a lot at stake and China
will not hesitate for long.......
Propaganda Ripper
2 hours ago
(Edited)
Yanukovich did not deploy the military in Ukraine because he was threatened with sanctions... The result is
that he almost got himself (and his family) killed. It was a very narrow escape from Kyiv.
BinAnunnaki
2 hours ago
remove
link
Remember this all happened while Putin was concluding a successful Olympics
morefunthanrum
2 minutes ago
Zerohedge and the Republicans are awful sympathetic to trumps buddy putin....why is that?
TRUMP WON
2 minutes ago
Putin
loves his country...
Biden
does not.
Only a
few years difference in their ages... Jesus, what a contrast.
One,
sharp as a tack... the other, a urine-soaked imbecilic pedo clown
rtb61
1 hour ago
The
Ukraine no longer seems willing to self destruct being part of Europe a lie, they should never have shot
down the passenger jet, they will never be forgiven for that.
Right
now the worst thing the USA could do to Russia, dump the Ukraine back on them and force Russia to pay to fix
and and create chaos with regard to the Crimea.
The
Ukraine is a mess and getting worse, it is a booby prize for whom ever gets stuck with it. The Ukraine even
managed to say the stupidest thing they could, when they said the Crimea returned to Russia, really stuck
their foot in there. Should never have said that because yes, it was stolen by a Ukrainian leader of the
Soviet Union and logically at the end of the Soviet Union should have demanded it's return to Russia because
soviet union evil.
The
Ukraine government should have never said, the Crimea returned to Russia because they immediately lost their
case in doing so.
Global Hunter
1 hour ago
remove
link
The
pro-Soros, pro NATO Ukrainians (baby Russians) who are rebelling against their Russian brethren shot the
plane down ya stooge.
fosfor 37
2 hours ago
(Edited)
remove
link
Many
thanks to Biden and Nuland for the Russian Crimea!
Vladymyr Zhirinovsky - The division of Ukraine will take place in the near future
The
flight of Viktor Yanukovych from Kiev turned out to be the most profitable option for Russia. Otherwise, one
would have to spend a lot of money and be left without Crimea.
"Why
didn't Yanukovych stay in Kiev? How would we take Crimea if Yanukovych stayed in Kiev? We would have thrown
an army into Kiev, we would have given a lot of money, Yanukovych would have sat there and continued to rule
Ukraine, and Crimea would have remained Ukrainian and died. Yanukovych played along with us. Now Biden is
playing along with us. Let him continue to help the allegedly Ukrainian army. "
Zhirinovsky presented the ongoing actions as a multi-step combination for the creation of Novorossiya.
"It is
beneficial for us that Biden gave the command through his Ukrainian accomplices to launch an attack on
Donbass. Yes, we will crush this entire army completely, and a movement will begin towards the creation of
Novorossia, the entire South-East of Ukraine, and the North - we will see. Maybe we'll come to an agreement
with the Germans and the Poles, maybe we'll do a little differently there. "
Let it Go
3 hours ago
remove
link
Biden putting more weapons into
the hands of those unmotivated to fight for their corrupt state is merely adding fuel to this fire and doing
more harm than good.
Remember Ukraine is a financially failed state and while we can point to its
potential, its massive oil and gas reserves by all rights should belong to the Ukrainian people. These
reserves do not belong to people like Joe and hunter Biden.
More
on this subject in the article below.
Recall
all the "concern" that Trump might be blackmailed by those who had dirt on him...(Russia)
never
happened
So
what of Biden and Burisma, Ukraine, Hunter, China deals, money wired, ...??
Any
stories that might be told, or withheld, on the Bidens?
Southern_Boy
21 minutes ago
I
believe living anywhere near the DC Swamp will become rather dangerous (it's probably dangerous now because
of BLM/Antifa and the "woke" mobs) once the nuclear ballistic missile exchange starts. Even the big blue
cities and state capitals are probably going to be targets.
The
globalist elites of the Medical-Military Industrial Complex really believe the homeland is invulnerable to
and will never be subjected to a real damaging attack.
Don't
forget the historical wild card is Pakistan, India and Iran with nuclear and biological weapons of mass
destruction.
gzorp
24 minutes ago
(Edited)
After
the nazis bounced Kennedy's brains (and your democracy) off the trunk of his limo on 11/22/63, the Right of
Return side as opposed to Containment side won the argument. There would be no cooperation with the Soviet
Union... Nixon (Dulles/nazi protege) used the ukrainian (Bandera faction) Romainian Iron Guard, Croation
Ustashi etc . to get the ethnic vote for the Republipigs promosing right of return to their countries for
the nazi collaborators given refuge here in the US. Brought into the Republipig party as an official wing of
the party by HW Bush when he was chairman of the Republipig party as the "Ethnic Outreach" wing of the
party. Seen the USSA returning any former nazis to Croatia or Ukraine?...
Kat Daddy
49 minutes ago
(Edited)
If a
plebiscite is called in the Donbass, the people will vote to join the Russian Federation. Any actions taken
by NATO and the Atlanticist interests will appear illegal under international law. So much for promoting
democracy and humanitarian interests. There need not be a war, but I know you're secretly hoping for one.
It was the preamble to Putin's most important message in years to what he called the
American "establishment, the ruling class". He said the US leadership is determined to have
relations with Russia, but only "on its own terms".
Although they think that we are the same as they are, we are different people. We have a
different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to defend our own interests.
And we will work with them, but in those areas in which we ourselves are interested, and
on those conditions that we consider beneficial for ourselves. And they will have to reckon
with it. They will have to reckon with this, despite all attempts to stop our development.
Despite the sanctions, insults, they will have to reckon with this.
This is new for Putin. He has for years made the point, always politely, that Western powers
need to deal with Russia on a basis of correct diplomatic protocols and mutual respect for
national sovereignty, if they want to ease tensions.
But never before has he been as blunt as this, saying in effect: do not dare try to judge us
or punish us for not meeting what you say are universal standards, because we are different
from you. Those days are now over.
One domino falls on another which falls on another, etc. But one has to push the first
domino over.
I hope the Germans build Nordstream II and then III and IV and as many as they like. It
will prevent the US gas industry from selling any LNG to Europe. That will keep the price of
NatGas in America nice and low. That will keep luring electro-grid power-makers away from
coal. Hopefully it would finalistically and irreversibly exterminate the power-grid
thermal-coal industry in America.
The meme is that "Biden called Putin a killer." Looking at the video, Biden just answered
"yes" to that snake Stephanopolous's opening, "So you know Vladimir Putin, do you think he's
a killer?" Same thing with "Will you make Putin pay a price?"
Maybe I've just missed it, but I haven't seen any place where the Gerontocrat in Chief has
emitted those gaffes heard 'round the world from his own volition, rather than in the kind of
setup that ABC News put up there to spin the pedals of the Narrative Bicycle that Putin
authorized meddling in the US electoral games
Apparently Biden was either too senile or too inherently stupid to realize what gangrenous
filth the subhuman Clintonite scum Stephanopoulis is, was and always will be. And put his
stupid senile foot into Stephanopoulis's clever little bear trap.
Europe and Germany appear to be disappointingly wishy washy over Russia, they seemed happy
to play poodle and follow the lead of the UK in expelling Russian diplomats after Theresa May
falsely claimed that the presence of Novichok indicated a "state actor", a standard the US
with its various drone assassinations (such as of Qasem Soleimani) is never held to. I
suspect German attitudes to US foreign policy are driven mostly by concerns over exports,
knowing full well the US propensity to link trade with supporting their foreign policy, the
US remains the sole biggest destination for German exports (from what I can tell via google
at a little over 8% total exports, in and around $110 billion per annum) and in the absence
of the Euro being the global reserve currency I would imagine for the time being they (and by
extension Europe as a whole) will remain somewhat reluctant foreign policy poodles to the US,
so long at least as the new cold war remains cold.
It's a bit difficult for Germany to 'Step up' when the majority of their clout is derived
from their close association with the US. While they have strong backing from some of Europe,
they do not have the strong backing of a number of key members since the introduction of
uneven austerity measures in 2009 which means without the US, they would not be able to
portray themselves as leaders
Alex Cockburn (RIP) once commented that he didn't think GWB was as bad as some people
thought -- because through his (admittedly awful) recklessness in Iraq and elsewhere he was
inexorably driving the American Empire into failure and eventual dissolution. (My paraphrase,
mind you.)
Dog, I detested GWB and remember the huge anti-war march in London that day. And had tears
in my eyes at 2AM in a Tokyo hotel watching Obama being inaugurated. But St Barack if
anything extended W's wars -- along with fellow warmongers Hillary and Biden, of course.
Trump conversely tried to remove troops from Afghanistan only to have the Permanent War Party
(Dems & Repubs) deny him the chance.
Well, as the post points out, Biden's foreign policy advisors are definitely the B Team
but seem to have the hubris of the A Team. A bad combination.
As for the new Russia-China axis, I recommend Pepe Escobar's writings; he has been
following this for some time.
Anyway, please excuse the rambling -- I meant to praise LowellHighlander for his final
sentence. (^_^)
The United States government is able to impose its will on all the world's countries. The rest
of the world, even some of the strongest imperialist countries of the Global North, lie prostrate at the feet of the U.S. What
is the source of this seemingly impregnable power? Which of course leads to the next question: How long can it last?
The U.S. moves against any country that dares to act on a belief that its resources should be
for its own people's benefits rather than maximizing profits of multinational corporations or prioritizes the welfare of its
citizens over corporate profit or simply refuses to accept dictation in how it should organize its economy. The military is
frequently put to use, as are manipulation of the United Nations and the strong arms of the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF). But sanctions are a frequently used tool, enforced on countries, banks and corporations that have no
presence in the U.S. and conduct business entirely outside the United States. The U.S. can impose its will on national
governments around the world, using multilateral institutions to force governments to act in the interest of multinational
capital, even when that is opposite the interests of the country itself or that country's peoples. And when a country persists
in refusing to bend to U.S. demands, sanctions imposing misery on the general population are unilaterally imposed and the rest
of the world is forced to observe them.
In short, the U.S. government possesses a power that no country has ever held, not even Britain
at the height of its empire. And that government, regardless of which party or what personality is in the White House or in
control of Congress, is ruthless in using this power to impose its will.
This power is most often wielded within an enveloping shell of propaganda that claims the U.S.
is acting in the interest of "democracy" and maintaining the "rule of law" so that business can be conducted in the interest
of a common good. So successful has this propaganda been that this domination is called the "Washington Consensus." Just who
agreed to this "consensus" other than Washington political elites and the corporate executives and financial speculators those
elites represent has never been clear. "Washington diktat" would be a more accurate name.
Much speculation among Left circles exists as to when this domination will be brought to an end, with many commentators
believing that the fall of the U.S. dollar is not far off and perhaps China will become the new center of a system less
imperialistic. On the Right, particularly in the financial industry, such speculation is far from unknown, although there of
course the downfall of the dollar is feared. In financial circles, however, there is no illusion that the end of dollar
supremacy in world economics is imminent.
There are only two possible challengers to U.S. dollar hegemony: The European Union's euro and
China's renminbi. But the EU and China are very much subordinated to the dollar, and thus not in a position to counter U.S.
dictates. Let's start here, and then we'll move on to the mechanics of U.S. economic hegemony over the world, which rests on
the dollar being the global reserve currency and the leveraging of that status to control the world's multilateral
institutions and forcing global compliance with its sanctions.
Europe "helpless" in the face of U.S. sanctions
A February 2019 paper published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs,
discussing the inability of EU countries to counteract the Trump administration's pullout from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action, the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, flatly
declared
the EU "helpless"
: "In trying to shield EU-based individuals and entities with commercial interests from its adverse
impact, European policy-makers have recently been exposed as more or less helpless."
The legislative arm of the EU, the European Parliament, was no more bullish. In a paper
published in November 2020, the Parliament wrote this about
U.S.
extraterritorial sanctions
: "[T]his bold attempt to prescribe the conduct of EU companies and nationals without even
asking for consent challenges the EU and its Member States as well as the functioning and development of transatlantic
relations. The extraterritorial reach of sanctions does not only affect EU businesses but also puts into question the
political independence and ultimately the sovereignty of the EU and its Member States."
No such open worries are going to be said in public by the Chinese government. But is China
better prepared than the EU? Mary Hui, a Hong Kong-based business journalist,
wrote
in
Quartz
, "China is actually far more vulnerable to US sanctions than it will let on, even if the sanctions are
aimed at individuals and not banks. That's because the primary system powering the world's cross-border financial transactions
between banks, Swift, is dominated by the US dollar." We'll delve into this shortly. As a result of that domination, Ms. Hui
wrote, "the US has outsize control over the machinery of international transactions -- or, as the Economist put it, 'America is
uniquely well positioned to use financial warfare in the service of foreign policy.' "
Grand
Place, Brussels (photo by Wouter Hagens)
In 2017, then U.S. Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin
threatened
China with sanctions
that would cut it off from the U.S. financial system if it didn't comply with fresh United Nations
Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea in 2007; he had already threatened unilateral sanctions on any country that
trades with North Korea if the
United
Nations didn't apply sanctions
on Pyongyang.
So neither Brussels or Beijing are in a position, at this time, to meaningfully challenge U.S.
hegemony. That hegemony rests on multiple legs.
The world financial platform that the U.S. ultimately controls
The use (or, actually, abuse) of the two biggest multilateral financial institutions, the World
Bank and the IMF, are well known. The U.S., as the biggest vote holder and through the rules set up for decision-making,
carries a veto and thus imposes its will on any country that falls into debt and must turn to the World Bank or IMF for a
loan. There also are the U.S.-controlled regional banks, such as the Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development
Bank, that impose U.S. dictates through the terms of their loans.
Also important as an institution, however, is a multilateral financial institution most haven't
heard of: The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as SWIFT. Based in Brussels, SWIFT is the
primary platform used by the world's financial institutions "to securely exchange information about financial transactions,
including payment instructions, among themselves." SWIFT says it is officially a member-owned cooperative with more than
11,000 member financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories.
That sounds like it is a truly global entity. Despite that description, the U.S. holds ultimate
authority over it and what it does. U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, National Security Agency and Treasury
Department, have access to the SWIFT transaction database. Payments in U.S. dollars can be seized by the U.S. government even
when the transaction is between two entities outside the U.S. And here we have a key to understanding.
Beyond the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to acquire information is the status of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve
currency, the foundation of the world capitalist system of which SWIFT is very much a component and thus subject to dictates the
same as any other financial institution. What is a reserve currency? This
succinct
definition
offered by the Council on Foreign Relations provides the picture:
"A reserve currency is a foreign currency that a central bank or treasury holds as part of its country's formal foreign
exchange reserves. Countries hold reserves for a number of reasons, including to weather economic shocks, pay for imports,
service debts, and moderate the value of its own currency. Many countries cannot borrow money or pay for foreign goods in
their own currencies -- since much of international trade is done in dollars -- and therefore need to hold reserves to ensure a
steady supply of imports during a crisis and assure creditors that debt payments denominated in foreign currency can be made."
The currency mostly used is the U.S. dollar, the Council explains:
"Most countries want to hold their reserves in a currency with large and open financial markets, since they want to be sure
that they can access their reserves in a moment of need. Central banks often hold currency in the form of government bonds,
such as U.S. Treasuries. The U.S. Treasury market remains by far the world's largest and most liquid -- the easiest to buy into
and sell out of bond market[s]."
If you use dollars, the U.S. can go after you
Everybody uses the dollar because everybody else uses it. Almost two-thirds of foreign exchange reserves are held in U.S.
dollars. Here's the breakdown of the four most commonly held currencies, as of the first quarter of 2020:
U.S. dollar 62%
EU euro 20%
Japanese yen 4%
Chinese renminbi 2%
That 62 percent gives the U.S. government its power to not only impose sanctions unilaterally, but to force the rest of the world
to observe them, in conjunction with the use of the dollar as the primary currency in international transactions. In some
industries, it is almost the only currency used. To again turn to the Council on Foreign Relations explainer:
"In addition to accounting for the bulk of global reserves, the dollar is the currency of choice for international trade.
Major commodities such as oil are primarily bought and sold using U.S. dollars. Some countries, including Saudi Arabia, still
peg their currencies to the dollar. Factors that contribute to the dollar's dominance include its stable value, the size of
the U.S. economy, and the United States' geopolitical heft. In addition, no other country has a market for its debt akin to
the United States', which totals roughly $18 trillion.
The dollar's centrality to the system of global payments also increases the power of U.S. financial sanctions. Almost all
trade done in U.S. dollars, even trade among other countries, can be subject to U.S. sanctions, because they are handled by
so-called correspondent banks with accounts at the Federal Reserve. By cutting off the ability to transact in dollars, the
United States can make it difficult for those it blacklists to do business."
Sanctions imposed by the U.S. government are effectively extra-territorial because a non-U.S. bank that seeks to handle a
transaction in U.S. dollars has to do so by clearing the transaction through a U.S. bank; a U.S. bank that cleared such a
transaction would be in
violation
of the sanctions
. The agency that monitors sanctions compliance, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), insists that
any transaction using the dollar comes under U.S. law and thus blocking funds "is a
territorial
exercise of jurisdiction
" wherever it occurs, even if no U.S. entities are involved. Even
offering
software as a service
(or for download) from United States servers is under OFAC jurisdiction.
Two further measures of dollar dominance are that about half of all cross-border bank loans and international debt securities
are
denominated in U.S.
currency
and that 88 percent of all foreign-exchange transactions in 2019
involved
the dollar
on one side. That forex domination has remained largely unchanged; the figure was 87 percent in April 2003.
Dollar dominance cemented at end of World War II
The roots of the dollar as the global reserve currency go back to the creation of the Bretton Woods system in 1944 (named for the
New Hampshire town where representatives of Allied and other governments met to discuss the post-war monetary system as victory
in World War II drew closer). The World Bank and IMF were created here. To stabilize currencies and make it more difficult for
countries to reduce the value of their currencies for competitive reasons (to boost exports), all currencies were pegged to the
dollar, and the dollar in turn was convertible into gold at $35 an ounce. Thus the dollar became the center of the world
financial system, which cemented U.S. dominance.
By the early 1970s, the Nixon administration believed that the Bretton Woods monetary system no longer sufficiently advantaged
the United States despite its currency's centrality within the system cementing U.S. economic suzerainty. Because of the system
of fixing the value of a U.S. dollar to the price of gold, any government could exchange the dollars it held in reserve for U.S.
Treasury Department gold on demand.
Rising world supplies of dollars and domestic inflation depressed the value of the dollar, causing the Treasury price of gold to
be artificially low and thereby making the exchange of dollars for gold at the fixed price
an
excellent deal
for other governments. The Nixon administration refused to adjust the
value
of the dollar
, instead in 1971 pulling the dollar from the gold standard by refusing to continue to exchange foreign-held
dollars for gold on demand. Currencies would now float on markets against each other, their values set by speculators rather than
by governments, making all but the strongest countries highly vulnerable to financial pressure.
The world's oil-producing states dramatically raised oil prices in 1973. The Nixon administration eliminated U.S. capital
controls a year later, encouraged oil producers to park their new glut of dollars in U.S. banks and adopted policies to encourage
the banks to lend those
deposited
dollars to the South
. But perhaps "encourage" is too mild a word. The economist and strong critic of imperialism
Michael
Hudson once wrote
, "I was informed at a White House meeting that U.S. diplomats had let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries
know that they could charge as much as they wanted for their oil, but that the United States would treat it as an act of war not
to keep their oil proceeds in U.S. dollar assets."
Restrictions limiting cross-border movements of capital were opposed by multi-national corporations that had moved production
overseas, by speculators in the new currency-exchange markets that blossomed with the breakdown of Bretton Woods and by neoliberal
ideologues, creating decisive momentum within the U.S. for the
elimination
of capital controls
. The ultimate result of these developments was to make the dollar even more central to world trade and thus
further enhance U.S. control. Needless to say, bipartisan U.S. policy ever since has been to maintain this control.
U.S. sanctions in action: The cases of Cuba and Iran
Two examples of U.S. sanctions being applied extraterritorially are those imposed on Cuba and Iran. (There are many other examples,
including that of Venezuela.) In the case of Cuba, any entity that conducts business with Cuba is barred from doing business in the
U.S. or with any U.S. entity; foreign businesses that are owned by U.S. companies are strictly prohibited from doing any business
with Cuba. Any company that had done business in Cuba must cease all activities there if acquired by a U.S. corporation. Several
companies selling life-saving medical equipment and medicines to Cuba
had
to cease doing so
when acquired by a U.S. corporation.
Meanwhile, U.S. embassy personnel have reportedly threatened firms in countries such as Switzerland, France, Mexico and the
Dominican Republic with commercial reprisals unless they canceled sales of goods to Cuba such as soap and milk. Amazingly, an
American
Journal of Public Health
report quoted a July 1995 written communication by the U.S. Department of Commerce in which the
department said those types of sales
contribute
to "medical terrorism"
on the part of Cubans! Well, many of us when we were, say, 5 years old might have regarded soap with
terror, but presumably have long gotten over that. Perhaps Commerce employees haven't.
The sanctions on Cuba have been repeatedly tightened over the years. Joy Gordon, writing in the
Harvard International Law
Journal
in January 2016,
provides
a vivid picture
of the difficulties thereby caused:
"The Torricelli Act [of 1992] provided that no ship could dock in the United States within 180 days of entering a Cuban port.
This restriction made deliveries to Cuba commercially unfeasible for many European and Asian companies, as their vessels would
normally deliver or take on shipments from the United States while they were in the Caribbean. The Torricelli Act also prohibited
foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. The Helms-Burton Act, enacted in 1996, permitted U.S. nationals
to bring suit against foreign companies that were doing business in Cuba and that owned properties that had been abandoned or
confiscated after the revolution. Additionally, the Helms-Burton Act prohibited third-party countries from selling goods in the
United States that contained any components originating in Cuba. This significantly impacted Cuba's major exports, particularly
sugar and nickel.
[T]he shipping restrictions in the Torricelli Act have increased costs in several ways, such as Cuba sometimes having to pay
for ships carrying imports from Europe or elsewhere to return empty because they cannot stop at U.S. ports to pick up goods.
Shipping companies have partially responded by dedicating particular ships for Cuba deliveries; but in most cases, they tend to
designate old ships in poor condition, which then leads to higher maritime insurance costs."
However distasteful we find the religious fundamentalist government of Iran, U.S. sanctions, which are blunt weapons, have caused
much hardship on Iranians. The same restrictions on Cuba apply to Iran. The Iranian government said in September 2020 that it
has
lost $150 billion
since the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and that it is hampered from importing food
and medicines.
The Trump administration's renewed sanctions were imposed unilaterally and against the expressed policies of all other signatories
-- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia. With those governments unable to restrain Washington, businesses from around the world
pulled out to avoid getting sanctioned. EU countermeasures were ineffective -- small fines didn't outweigh far larger U.S. fines,
European companies are subject to U.S. sanctions and favorable judgments in European courts are unenforceable in U.S. courts.
Sascha Lohmann, author of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs paper,
wrote
:
"Well ahead of the deadlines set by the Trump administration and absent any enforcement action, major European and Asian
companies withdrew from the otherwise lucrative Iranian market. Most notably, this included [SWIFT,] which cut off most of the
more than 50 Iranian banks in early November 2018, including the Central Bank of Iran, after they again became subject to U.S.
financial sanctions. [T]he exodus of EU-based companies has revealed an inconvenient truth to European policy-makers, namely
that those companies are effectively regulated in Washington, D.C. [T]he secretary of the Treasury can order U.S. banks to
close or impose strict conditions on the opening or maintaining of correspondent or payable-through accounts on behalf of a
foreign bank, thereby closing down access to dollarized transactions -- the 'Wall Street equivalent of the death penalty.' "
The long arm of U.S. sanctions stretches around the world
The idea that sanctions can be the "Wall Street equivalent of the death penalty" is not a figment of the imagination. Two examples
of sanctions against European multinational enterprises demonstrate this.
In 2015, the French bank BNP Paribas was given a penalty of almost $9 billion for violating U.S. sanctions by processing dollar
payments from Cuba, Iran and Sudan. The bank also pleaded guilty to two criminal charges. These penalties were handed down in U.S.
courts and prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice. The chief executive officer of the bank
told
the court
"we deeply regret the past misconduct." The judge overseeing the case declared the bank "not only flouted U.S. foreign
policy but also provided support to governments that threaten both our regional and national security," a passage highlighted in
the
Department's
press release
announcing the settlement.
Why would a French bank agree to these penalties and do so in such apologetic terms? And why would it accept the preposterous idea
that Cuba represents any security threat to the U.S. or that a French bank is required to enforce U.S. foreign policy? As part of
the settlement,
Reuters
reported
, "regulators banned BNP for a year from conducting certain U.S. dollar transactions, a critical part of the bank's
global business." And that gives us the clue. Had the bank not settled its case, it risked a permanent ban on access to the U.S.
financial system, meaning it could not handle any deals denominated in dollars. Even the one-year ban
could
have triggered an exodus
of clients in several major industries, including oil and gas.
Viñales
Valley, Pinar del Rio province, Cuba (photo by Adam Jones adamjones.freeservers.com)
This was completely an extraterritorial application of U.S. law. An International Bar Association
summary
of the case
noted, "the transactions in question were not illegal under French or EU law. Nor did they fall foul of France's
obligations under the World Trade Organization or the United Nations; no agreements between France and the US were violated. But as
they were denominated in dollars, the deals ultimately had to pass through New York and thus came under its regulatory authority."
It does not take direct involvement in financial transactions to run afoul of the long arm of U.S. sanctions. A Swiss company,
Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA), was forced to agree to pay
$8
million to settle allegations
that it provided blacklisted airlines with "software and/or services that were provided from,
transited through, or originated in the United States." Among the actions punished were that SITA used software originating in the
U.S. to track lost baggage and used a global lost-baggage tracing system hosted on servers in the United States. Retrieving baggage
is a service most people would not consider a high crime.
Can the EU or China create an alternative?
Dropping the widespread use of the dollar and substituting one or more other currencies, and setting up alternative financial
systems, would be the logical short-term path toward ending U.S. financial hegemony. The German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle,
in
a 2018 report
, quoted the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, "We must increase Europe's autonomy and sovereignty in trade,
economic and financial policies. It will not be easy, but we have already begun to do it." DW reported that the European Commission
was developing a system parallel to SWIFT that would allow Iran to interface with European clearing systems with transactions based
on the euro, but such a system never was put in place. In January 2021, as the new Biden administration took office,
Iran
dismissed it entirely
, Bloomberg reported: "European governments have 'no idea' how to finance the conduit set up two years ago,
known as Instex, and 'have not had enough courage to maintain their economic sovereignty,' the Central Bank of Iran said in comments
on Twitter."
It would seem that Teheran's dismissal is warranted. The European Parliament, in its paper on U.S.
sanctions
being imposed extraterritorially
, could only offer liberal weak-tea ideas, such as "Encourage and assist EU businesses in
bringing claims in international investor-state arbitration and in US courts; Complaints against extraterritorial measures in the
[World Trade Organization]." Such prescriptions are unlikely to have anyone in Washington losing sleep.
What about China? Beijing has actually created a functioning alternative to the World Bank and IMF, the
Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank
. Just on the basis of the new bank representing a bad example (from Washington's perspective),
the U.S. government leaned heavily on Australia and other countries sufficiently firmly that Canberra initially declined to join the
bank despite its initial interest, nor did Indonesia and South Korea, although all three did later join. There is a possibility of
one-sidedness here, however, as China has by far the
biggest
share of the vote
, 27 percent, dwarfing No. 2 India's 7 percent, giving Beijing potential veto power. And with US$74 billion in
capitalization (less than the goal of $100 billion set in 2014), it can't realistically be a substitute for existing multilateral
financial institutes.
China has also set up an alternative to SWIFT, the
Cross-border
Interbank Payment System
(CIPS), a renminbi-denominated clearing and settlement system. CIPS says it has participants from 50
countries and regions, and processes US$19.4 billion per day. But that's well less than one percent of the $6 trillion SWIFT handles
daily. The Bank of China, the country's central bank, is on the record of seeking an alternative to the dollar system so that it can
evade any U.S. sanctions. "A good punch to the enemy will save yourself from hundreds of punches from your enemies," a 2020 Bank of
China report said. "We need to get prepared in advance, mentally and practically."
The report said if Chinese banks are deprived of access to dollar settlements, China should consider
ceasing
the use of the U.S. dollar
as the anchor currency for its foreign exchange controls.
That is easier said than done -- China holds $1.1 trillion in U.S. government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. That total
is second only to Japan, and Beijing's holdings comprise 15 percent of all U.S. debt held by foreign governments. The
South
China Morning Post
admits that China
holds
such large reserve assets
of U.S. debt "largely due to its status as a 'safe haven' for investment during turbulent market
conditions." Although Beijing seeks an erosion of dollar dominance and fears that U.S. economic instability could result in another
world economic downturn, its use of the safe haven is nowhere near at an end. "While it is clear that China is keen to lessen its
dependence on US government debt, experts believe that Beijing is likely to continue buying US Treasuries, as there are few
risk-free low cost substitutes," the
Morning Post
wrote.
Coupled with the restrictions on renminbi conversion, Chinese institutions are today far from a position of challenging current
global financial relations. The U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley
recently
predicted
that the renminbi could represent five to 10 percent of foreign-exchange reserves by 2030, up from the current two
percent. Although that would mean central banks around the world would increase their holdings of the Chinese currency, it would not
amount to any real threat to dollar dominance.
No empire, or system, lasts forever
The bottom line question from all of the above is this: Will this U.S. dominance come to an end? Stepping back and looking at this
question in a historical way tells us that the answer can only be yes, given that there has been a sequence of cities that have been
the financial center. Centuries ago, the seat of a small republic such as Venice could be the leading financial center on the
strength of its trading networks. Once capitalism took hold, however, the financial center was successively located within a larger
federation that possessed both a strong navy and a significant fleet of merchant ships (Amsterdam); then within a sizeable and
unified country with a large enough population to maintain a powerful navy and a physical presence throughout an empire (London);
and finally within a continent-spanning country that can project its economic and multi-dimensional military power around the world
(New York).
No empire, whatever its form, lasts forever. But knowledge of the sequence of capitalist centers tells us nothing of timing. Each
successive new financial locus was embedded in successively larger powers able to operate militarily over larger areas and with more
force. What then could replace the U.S.? The European Union has its effectiveness diluted by the many nationalisms within its sphere
(and thus nationalism acts as a weakening agent for the EU whereas it is a strengthening agent for the U.S. and China). China's
economy is yet too small and retains capital controls, and its currency, the renminbi, isn't fully convertible. U.S. Treasury bills
remain the ultimate safe haven, as shown when investors poured into U.S. debt during crises such as the 2008 collapse, even when
events in the U.S. are the trigger.
There are no other possible other contenders, and both the EU and China, as already discussed, are in no position to seriously
challenge U.S. hegemony.
Here we have a collision of possibilities: The transcending of capitalism and transition to a new economic system or the decreasing
functionality of the world capitalist system should it persist for several more decades. Given the resiliency of capitalism, and the
many tools available to it (not least military power), the latter scenario can't be ruled out although it might be unlikely. Making
any prediction on the lifespan of capitalism is fraught with difficulty, not least because of the many predictions of its collapse
for well over a century. But capitalism as a
system
requires infinite growth
, quite impossible on a finite planet and all the more dire given there is almost no place on Earth
remaining
into
which it can expand
.
Although we can't know what the expiration date of capitalism will be, it will almost certainly be sometime in the current century.
But it won't be followed by something better without a global movement of movements working across borders with a conscious aim of
bringing a better world into being. In the absence of such movements, capitalism is likely to hang on for decades to come. In that
scenario, what country or bloc could replace the U.S. as the center? And would we want a new center to dictate to the rest of the
world? In a world of economic democracy (what we can call socialism) where all nations and societies can develop in their own way,
in harmony with the environment and without the need to expand, and with production done for human need rather than corporate
profit, there would no global center or hegemon and no need for one. Capitalism, however, can't function without a center that uses
financial, military and all other means to keep itself in the saddle and the rest of the world in line.
Yes, the day of U.S. dethronement will come, as will
the
end of capitalism
. But the former is not going to happen any time soon, however much millions around the world wish that to be
so, and the latter is what we should be working toward. A better world is possible; a gentler and kinder capitalism with a different
center is not.
Fortunately for me I am able to listen to podcasts & audiobooks while working to fill
gaps in my portfolio, as nothing paid for available as yet. Dropped on an AB written by a
Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern front, followed by the view from a Russian soldier. I then
moved on to 2 AB's which featured around 15 testimonies from German military at or close to
the D-day beaches.
Something that became instantly clear was that all the combatants had very similar hopes
& dreams but were motivated by each states propaganda & much harsher disciplinary
measures than the Allies faced . The German cannon fodder believed that they were creating a
United Europe protected from Communism & were in partnership with the French –
something that was made all the easier to believe due to the friendly treatment they received
from at least some of the French locals. The Ivan's on the other hand were protecting the
Motherland from Fascism & as they progressed were given plenty of evidence that they were
correct to do so.
It was like getting a small bubble view of groups of men in either case whose main loyalty
was concentrated towards the relatively small group pf men they fought & died with. A
view under a microscope totally different from the usual general view from high above when
individuals are reduced to numbers with only the top brass being honoured with names.
All described various versions of Hell on Earth, gory with very little glory & one
thing that really surprised me in relation to D-day & the so called " Good War " was the
accounts of the use of early phosphorous weapons & the horror they inflicted on the
defenders. I looked it up on Wiki but it only mentions it in relation to the bombing & I
assume rocket attacks from Typhoons & the like at Cherbourg. My Great Uncle Tommy came
ashore that day & unlike my Grandad he talked a lot about his war experience, which
included descriptions of the black burning skeletons of German soldiers in trenches in front
of shattered concrete bunkers after air strikes & what he saw as one of the the biggest
threats being shrapnel, which soon got him home after his left arm was amputated after being
shredded by splinters from a machine gunned tree in the Bocage – his considered opinion
on war films was & is not family blogable.
The German accents are a tad Private Schultz, but fortunately for me that soon got lost in
the detail.
True, aided by everybody's low grade psychopaths that sow the bad seeds that has the rest
full of hatred & thirsting for revenge.
Something else that upset me was the fate of the horses & pack mules which for both
the Soviets & the Wehrmacht were the mainstay of their transportation. The Germans found
that the small Steppe ponies were much tougher than their larger supposedly better bred ones
– millions were killed & the Russian soldier who had worked in a mine as a
youngster with pit ponies felt it deeply during the times when he witnessed the mortally
wounded. He also became aware of the fate of many of the war caused stray dogs at the
Russians advanced into totally shattered places like Belarus. They were rounded up & then
fed under tanks for a period, before being starved then tied to a high explosive which was
timed to go off at the estimated time it took for the them to run under an advancing Tiger,
Panther or whatever.
Funnilly enough the biggest thing that shocked the Germans in relation to what was
unloaded at D-Day was the fact that there were no horses.
Perhaps the plight of the animals is hard to take for some at least is because they were
both totally blameless & innocent.
You really don't know what the hell is going on, do you! Putin is the moderating force in
Russia, keeping the hardliners at bay. Once he is gone, people who aren't going to take any
more **** from the US and its allies will be coming to power. Then we will see people like
you piss in their pants worrying how to save themselves from Russia's fury.
Maltheus 1 hour ago
Putin is an old guy. I fear that his replacement won't have the same patience and wisdom.
Or maybe I'm eagerly looking forward to it. Either way, it doesn't take much for things to
get out of hand rather quickly.
European Monarchist 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
President Putin is likely the healthiest leader Russia has ever had.
He is also 68, a full decade younger than Joe Biden.
I think he will be around for a while.
Vladimir Putin's hard-core daily routine includes hours of swimming, late nights, and no
alcohol
Take a look at a day in the life of Vladimir Putin:
Putin rises late in the morning, taking breakfast around noon. He usually tucks into a
large omelette or a big bowl of porridge, with some quail eggs and fruit juice on the side.
Newsweek reports that the ingredients are "dispatched regularly from the farmland estates
of the Patriarch Kirill, Russia's religious leader."
Once he's finished his meal, he drinks coffee.
Next, it's time to exercise. Newseek reported that Putin spends about two hours
swimming. While he's in the water, Putin often "gets much of Russia's thinking done," Judah
writes.
After he's done swimming laps, Putin lifts weights in the gym.
The financial fallout of covid-19 has pushed child hunger to record levels. The need has
been dire since the pandemic began and highlights the gaps in the nation's safety net.
While every U.S. county has seen hunger rates rise, the steepest jumps have been in some of
the wealthiest counties, where overall affluence obscures the tenuous finances of low-wage
workers. Such sudden and unprecedented surges in hunger have overwhelmed many rich communities,
which weren't nearly as ready to cope as places that have long dealt with poverty and were
already equipped with robust, organized charitable food networks.
Data from the anti-hunger advocacy group
Feeding America and the U.S. Census Bureau shows that counties seeing the largest estimated
increases in child food insecurity in 2020 compared with 2018 generally have much higher median
household incomes than counties with the smallest increases. In Bergen, where the median
household income is $101,144, child hunger is estimated to have risen by 136%, compared with
47% nationally.
That doesn't mean affluent counties have the greatest portion of hungry kids. An estimated
17% of children in Bergen face hunger, compared with a national average of around 25%.
But help is often harder to find in wealthier places. Missouri's affluent St. Charles
County, north of St. Louis, population 402,000, has seen child hunger rise by 69% and has 20
sites distributing food from the St. Louis Area Foodbank. The city of St. Louis, pop. 311,000,
has seen child hunger rise by 36% and has 100 sites.
"There's a huge variation in how different places are prepared or not prepared to deal with
this and how they've struggled to address it," said Erica Kenney , assistant professor of public
health nutrition at Harvard University. "The charitable food system has been very strained by
this."
Eleni Towns, associate director of the No Kid Hungry campaign , said the pandemic "undid a decade's
worth of progress" on reducing food insecurity, which last year threatened at least 15 million
kids.
And while President Joe Biden's covid relief plan, which he signed into law March 11,
promises to help with anti-poverty measures such as monthly payments to families of up to $300
per child this year, it's unclear how far the recently passed legislation will go toward
addressing hunger.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction," said Marlene Schwartz , director of the Rudd
Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. "But it's hard to know
what the impact is going to be."
Let's just keep spending all that money on our misadventures around the world though. I
believe in a strong defense but just that, defense. I would like to hear the warmongers
justify the ridiculous amounts of money spent on that, yet we can take care of our own to a
basic minimum. What the hell happened to this country over the years
"What the hell happened to this country over the years "
4 to 5 decades of neoliberalism will do that. Its like the nation-state equivalent of
being addicted to a drug. Makes you feel better in the short term: Reagan America worked
great! In the 80s. Long term everything gets screwed over, health wise.
Typical banana republic, spending on war and ridiculous, dysfunctional but grandiose
weapons, usually shown off in parades – lorded over by a rich oligarchy – while
people starve and live in hovels. However, a healthy well-fed population is the source of a
nation's strength, so we are well on the way to fading into a has-been.
"Sierra had to leave her Amazon warehouse job when the kids' school went remote, and
Morales stopped driving for Uber when trips became scarce and he feared getting covid on top
of his asthma".
In other words, our skimpy unemployment insurance systems in man states, plus gaps in the
pandemic special relief, plus the insufferable arrogance of closing the schools with no
financial relief for parents, and here we are.
Sorry guys but this is Failed Nation stuff. I am one of those that happen to believe that
it is the most fundamental duty of a State to protect children and pregnant women. Anything
after that is a bonus if not an embellishment. America is not only the wealthiest country in
the world but is also the wealthiest in history. And yet child hunger is tolerated. And just
to add the bread slices to this s*** sandwich, there are about 800 billionaires in the US at
the moment. How many of them could wake up one day and say to themselves: 'You know what?
I am going to abolish child hunger in America with my money and be remembered forever and
even have statues raised to myself!' But it never happens.
America's incredible success is going to require americans to have a vastly reduced
standard of living to the point that they are equally as poverty stricken as the poors the
world over. Globalisation really makes any other out come unfair, and we must globalize.
Everyone being a poverty stricken gig worker is the plan. Here in this case an amazon worker
and an uber driver, on the dole. In reality, I think the biden admin has just dusted off the
plans that were to be unleashed under hillary, that's one of the reasons it all seems so ham
handed. The TPP was going to keep the world in our orbit and create supra national barriers
to autonomy in order to stop what is in fact happening now where they are free to choose
between china/russia and the US. From this perspective trump really screwed the plans of the
despicables.
1. It in the past
2. It was built on predation against the British Empire
Who needs a German Enemy with friends who help with lend-lease, Cancel the German War
debt, and not their "allies." Combined with subverting the British Empires rule with a
twisted version of self-rule – Governance dependent on not having US Sanctions, aka
imperialism absent responsibility.
This after dispossession the local US natives of the ancestral lands by force, and tricky
legalities.
It's not a failed nation, it's how the US was always designed to work. It might have had
some good years of P.R. and marketing after WWII but it was always a lie. The Constitution
was written by a bunch of wealthy slavers that hated commoners and feared economic democracy
and popular governance. The US became the wealthiest country by starving kids and killing
people the world over; it was forced into a bit of wealth distribution for a few decades by
multi-state steel strikes, the Bonus Army, armed miners unions, tenants unions, the Farmers
Holiday movement, and the contrast of a Soviet Union that was advancing by leaps and bounds
economically while the US festered in a depression. But whether it was the indigenous, the
slaves, the Filipinos, the Haitians, the Chinese, the Nicaraguans, the Mexicans, the
Hondurans, the Iranians, the Guatemalans, the Chileans, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the
Laotians, the Cambodians, the Russians, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Syrians, or it's own
citizens, the US has always killed for money. If it runs out of places to take over and
expand it'll just starve the kids at home to make a buck. It'll charge the poor overdraft
fees for having no money then chalk that up as a financial service. It'll have its state
security forces kill you for a traffic stop and then beat every citizen en masse that dares
to object. It'll cannibalize the very infrastructure and fabric of society and hand it over
to oligarchs and private equity. It'll give all the wealth to people who charge usury and own
embroidered pieces of paper but who don't actually do anything useful or necessary. And the
marks that watch US movies and television and news will believe that the US is somehow
benevolent and that they can somehow bend the will of the rapacious through the very
electoralism that the wealthy designed to keep the poor from having a say.
Starving children. Children in concentration camps. Children forced into schools during a
plague. These aren't 'oopsies.' This is how the country is set up to run. Look at how much
money the wealthy gained by letting a pandemic run wild. Look at how the entire investment
class should have gone bankrupt in 2008 but instead workers were fired from jobs and cast out
of their homes by the millions. Now the kids of those sacrificed are starving right next to
the wealthy that should have gone bust. The affluent are literally taking food out of kids
mouths because they won't let their precious stocks or real estate go down in price one iota.
The only good thing about kids starving in wealthy districts is that a Robin Hood won't have
to go to far to find money to give to those kids.
The 800 billionaires consider child hunger in America to be one of their greatest
achievements.
The child hunger in America problem won't be solved until the 800 billionaires and all
their ideological supporters and economic servants have been " rounded up and exterminated",
so to speak.
Thank you, Palaver. All "food" is not equal. Nutrition should be the emphasis.
In my jurisdiction, the Food Bank Industry encourages donations of packaged, processed,
industrialized "food". For example, fifty pounds of oats gives much more nutrition bang for
the buck than the equivalent $$$ amount of Conglomerate Cereals.
At my Conglomerate Stupormarket, they have a bin for unthinking donors to drop in "food"
that was bought in the Stupor. I've seen poptarts, jars of frosting, jello, etc. all sorts of
"food". And why do I think the Stupormarket just recycles a lot of this stuff back onto their
shelves, making a huge profit?
Next time you donate, check out what your Food Bank is actually peddling and who runs it.
Food Banks have become a huge Industry and we know what happens to huge Industries.
My mother gives rides to some of her friends (without expectation of any compensation cuz
friendship). In return, some of the friends give random items from their weekly food bank
allotment.
the food is shelf-stable processed items with produce and baked goods nearing expiration
from the local gourmet independent chain and the local Whole Foods.
Manslow's hierarchy of needs applies obviously and the food banks do truly heroic deeds
daily, but long-term people can't live healthy lives eating boxed Mac 'n Cheese, PBJ
sandwiches and organic cookies every single day.
I say expand WIC spending and eligibility, but as I'm not too familiar with that program,
dunno if that'll do any good.
In the USA, the top one percent of household net worth starts at $11,099,166.
It is seems improbable that the commenter achieved that goal. May be he is thinking of 1%
of Indonesia or Philippines. The reference to tenant farmers also appears to indicate a
country like that. Retiring to live in the Indonesian countryside is not my idea of a good
old age. Correct me please if I am wrong.
The industry needs some good PR right now. After all, its refusal to share its vaccine
technology could end up costing millions of lives in the developing world. In addition, it
could mean trillions of dollars of lost output as countries need to shut down large segments
of their economy. But the NYT is there to help. It ran a lengthy article about the issue,
which contains much useful information, but it maintains a framing favorable to the
pharmaceutical industry. At the end of the piece, after giving the argument for broader
sharing of technology and over-riding the industry's government-granted patent monopolies,
the piece tells readers: "But governments cannot afford to sabotage companies that need
profit to survive."
If the reporters/editors had read their piece, they would know that the companies in
question had already made large profits, through being paid directly for their research and
building manufacturing facilities, as was the case with Moderna and BioNtech (Pfizer's German
partner), or with advance purchase agreements. No one is suggesting that these companies
should not make a profit, so it is not clear on what planet this assertion originated.
It is possible to make profits directly on government contracts, as major military
contractors like Lockheed and Boeing could explain to the New York Times. The advantage of
having direct contracts for biomedical research is that a requirement of the contract could
be that all findings are fully open-source so that researchers all over the world can benefit
from them. (I discuss a mechanism for direct funding in chapter 5 of Rigged [it's free].)
... ... ...
It is probably worth mentioning inequality in this piece. The NYT, like most intellectual
types, has done considerable hand-wringing over inequality in recent years, both overall and
racial inequality. It is a safe bet that giving more money to pharmaceutical companies will
mean more inequality and certainly benefit whites far more than Blacks. It might be useful if
the paper paid a little attention to the policies that create
inequality instead of just bemoaning it as an unfortunate feature of the economy.
Yes, the NYT is really good at covering the impact of policies that increase inequality
and perpetuate structural racism but avoids drawing any lines to the policies themselves --
and the politics that create these policies -- by treating the status quo as a kind of
state of nature.
Innovation in vaccine design comes from advances in fundamental science, which is funded
not by companies, but by NIH and NSF (predominantly). Pharma employs scientists trained
using federal funds, freely uses federally funded resources, open access publications and
open source software paid for through federal funds, buys up commercializable technologies
in form of startups that grow out of federal science and funded by SBIR and STTR grants,
kills most of them and overcharges taxpayers for the product. That's rarely mentioned. As
is the fact that pharma actually sucks at the only thing that they are supposed to be good
at - manufacturing. Quality problems have been plaguing AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna -
something that is discussed in trade publications and FDA meetings but doesn't make it to
the NYT or TV news.
For example, Google has a simulator of "News". Many users are happy to get all the news
they need in one source! I must admit that for a while I was a happy user. But now the
simulation is quite decrepit when you stray away from the scenery selected by Google. Try
Ukraine. Several Google-worthy items per week, in roughly equal parts from Atlantic Council,
Radio FE/Sloboda and occasional items authored (I guess) in Ukraine. On April 11 there will
be a runoff election in Ecuador, and no news at all for the last month!
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.
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.
What 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.
History doesn't repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes.
The Revolutionary and Civil war was fought against finance capital; where said capital
emanated mostly from London. By 1912 the U.S. was no longer Industrial Capitalist, but had
been usurped by Finance Capitalism, and of course the (((usual suspects))) were pulling
strings in the background.
WW2 was the now finance capitalist allies against the industrial capitalist axis
powers.
The run up to WW2 had the axis "industrial capitalist" powers exit the London based
finance capitalist "sterling" system. Churchill even admitted to the reason why the allies
attacked.
Germany's most unforgivable crime before the Second World War was her attempt to
extricate her economic power from the world's trading system and to create her own exchange
mechanism which would deny (((world finance))) its opportunity to profit.
Finance capital exported jobs from the U.S. and the West toward China; this in order to
take wage arbitrage. China then rope-a-dopes the dummies from the west, and uses its state
credit and industrial capitalist system to acquire intellectual know-how, and climb the
industrial curve.
Finance capitalist are slowly being cut-out of taking wage arbitrage from China and
realize that their "assets" over there, can be taken by the Chinese state at any time. Now
they want war to secure their asset position, and to buy more of China at a war time fire
sale price.
Finance capital runs the same playbook over and over. The bad guys won in WW1 and 2. The
(((international))) finance class works behind the scenes to take sordid gain on humanity,
including mass death.
If your government is festooned with ne0-con Jews, then that should be strong signal that
your country is not sovereign, but instead is operated by stealth with finance capital and
its oligarchs.
This time around is different, China and Russia will exit the dollar system, and the
western finance capitalist class can do nothing but make idle threats. Some will argue that
the West will resort to nukes.
Maybe? I'm assuming that our (((friends))) are not completely insane, as they would lose
their capital and asset position. Their greed will stop them from destroying themselves, and
us.
"If your government is festooned with ne0-con Jews, then that should be strong signal
that your country is not sovereign, but instead is operated by stealth with finance capital
and its oligarchs. "
You are a wise man Mefobills
If your government is festooned with ne0-con Jews, then that should be strong signal
that your country is not sovereign, but instead is operated by stealth with finance capital
and its oligarchs.
"When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you
– you know your nation is doomed."
Actually, it is the ***American people*** who are fucked. The little people that is.
Fucked on behalf of Israel/Neocons, the MIC, the Neolibs, and the other "owners" of the
country.
The good news is that when the above have thoroughly looted the country, and the rest of
the world sheds the by then worthless US dollar, and the City on the Hill becomes the
Toothless Slum on the Hill,
The privatization drive that was supposed to reap the fruits of the free market instead
helped to create a system of tycoon capitalism run for the benefit of a corrupt political
oligarchy that has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars of Western aid and
plundered Russia's wealth.
If you are using Fakebook you are part of the problem. I am pretty tired of people who use
these antisocial media platforms complaining when these platforms do what they do by their very
nature.
Notable quotes:
"... The "reality police" have infiltrated down to the lowest levels now to look for "new normal" violators anywhere. ..."
"... I am pretty tired of people who use these antisocial media platforms complaining when these platforms do what they do by their very nature. ..."
"... Remember when Eric Schmidt got his panties in a twist because some enterprising soul had done some digital digging into his private life? ..."
"... All social media Big Tech platforms are SARPA surveillance programs that added some cool logo, a young captured jew type as Boss and some marketing to morons and lemmings. ..."
"... The sheer narcissism and desperation on these platforms is disgusting and disturbing. Big data and pedophiles love Facebook. ..."
Last week I did a web search for a quote by Goebbels concerning truth and found one
regarding TheState and TheBigLie on TheJewishVirtualLibrary. After posting it to Fakebook, I
was notified that the quote violated "community standards" and wouldn't be seen by anyone
else (except the FBI, or local LEOs perhaps).
Being who I am, I posted the same quote with a link to where I found it
[TheJewishVirtualLibrary] and was notified no one would see any of my posts for a week.
Again, being who I am, I posted a video from TheBabylonBee that illustrated the danger of
likening everything to Nazis, and was notified of a month-long ban.
I then downloaded my data in two formats and deleted the account.
Living life stupid might be inclusive and entertaining, but there's too many options
available to make ignorance enjoyable.
...It is partially Brave New World with a dash of 1984 and a healthy helping of Mordor,
all of which is brightened and made more alluring and addicting with Sexual Revolution.
The "reality police" have infiltrated down to the lowest levels now to look for "new
normal" violators anywhere. If CJ thinks he's a nobody, then I am a sub-sub-sub-nobody, yet I
have had my user account suspended twice now at an obscure news aggregation website,
Fark.com , for making comments that
apparently constitute "Covid misinformation."
Once was when I commented on a story that
stated that there is a need to vaccinate even those that have recovered from actually having
Covid. I said something like, "Why would you need to vaccinate someone whose immune system is
functioning properly and already did the job naturally?" Apparently, even mentioning that
humans have an immune system is now verboten, and thus my comment was deleted and my account
was suspended for 24 hours. The next time I was suspended was just over this past weekend
when I commented on a story about someone ignoring covid rules.
I stated something to the
effect that we should ALL be ignoring the public health "experts" who are petty tyrants.
Well, they have now suspended my account for 72 hours again for "covid misinformation."
Despite being amused that my opinions are somehow "misinformation," it's certainly
enraging that speaking plain common truth is becoming more and more difficult.
I am pretty tired of people who use these antisocial media platforms complaining when
these platforms do what they do by their very nature. They weren't set up to help us they
were set up to enslave us. Get a clue, Farcebook and Twatter et al are not your friends!
All social media Big Tech platforms are SARPA surveillance programs that added some cool
logo, a young captured jew type as Boss and some marketing to morons and lemmings. Absolute
joke. The sheer narcissism and desperation on these platforms is disgusting and disturbing.
Big data and pedophiles love Facebook.
"... "Concern" about Libya in 2011 and Syria since 2011 to the present. So many "concerns" keep popping up about places that empire does not fully control. ..."
"... For some odd reason, this empire has no concern for the largest ethnic groups in its empire. It 24/7 calls them "deplorables" or "racists". The empire should look in the mirror at itself. ..."
"Concern" about Libya in 2011 and Syria since 2011 to the present. So many "concerns" keep popping up about places that empire
does not fully control.
For some odd reason, this empire has no concern for the largest ethnic groups in its empire. It 24/7 calls
them "deplorables" or "racists". The empire should look in the mirror at itself.
@anonymous ay. A play to gain advantage, to publicly make the Chins look weak, subject
them to a media diplomatic humiliation, and as usual control the narrative."
It is talked about in Chinese Internet that before Chinese diplomats attending the meeting,
they went through 20 (or so) different scenarios of what the other side would say or do, and
practiced the responses accordingly. So it is not a surprise they could handle this rather
obvious case easily.
You think US would do such preparation? Probably not. They probably didn't even bother to
look up basic things like Yang and Wang's backgrounds.
Like what Sun Tzu says, know yourself and know your enemy
So, according to
Facebook and the Atlantic Council , I am now a "dangerous individual," you know, like a
"terrorist," or a "serial murderer," or "human trafficker," or some other kind of "criminal."
Or I've been praising "dangerous individuals," or disseminating their symbols, or otherwise
attempting to "sow dissension" and cause "offline harm."
Actually, I'm not really clear what I'm guilty of, but I'm definitely some sort of horrible
person you want absolutely nothing to do with, whose columns you do not want to read, whose
books you do not want to purchase, and the sharing of whose Facebook posts might get your
account immediately suspended. Or, at the very least, you'll be issued this warning:
Now, hold on, don't click away just yet. You're already on whatever website you're reading
this "dangerous," "terrorist" column on (or you're reading it in an email, probably on your
phone), which means you are already on the official "Readers of Mass-Murdering Content"
watch-list. So you might as well take the whole ride at this point.
Also, don't worry, I'm not going to just whine about how Facebook was mean to me for 2,000
words well, all right, I'm going to do that a little, but mostly I wanted to demonstrate how
"reality" is manufactured and policed by global corporations like Facebook, Twitter, Google,
the corporate media, of course, crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and PayPal, and "think
tanks" like the Atlantic Council and its Digital Forensic
Research Lab ("DFRLab").
First, though, let me tell you my Facebook story.
What happened was, I made a Facebook post, and a lot of people tried to share it, so
Facebook and the DFRLab suspended or disabled their accounts, or just prevented them from
sharing it, and sent them the above warning. Facebook didn't suspend my account, or censor the
post on my account, or contact me to let me know that they have officially deemed me a
"dangerous individual." Instead, they punished anyone who tried to "boost" my "dangerous" post,
a tactic anyone who has been through boot camp or in prison (or has watched this classic scene fromFull Metal Jacket ) will be
familiar with.
Here's the "dangerous" post in question. (If you're particularly sensitive to "terrorist"
content, you may want to put on your "anti-terrorism" glasses, or take some other type of
prophylactic measures to protect yourself from "offline harm," before you venture any
further.)
The photo, which I stole from Gunnar Kaiser , is of an art exhibit in
Düsseldorf, Germany . My commentary is self-explanatory. As you can see, it is
extremely "dangerous." It literally radiates "offline harm."
OK, before you write to inform me how this was just the work of a dumb Facebook algorithm,
think about what I described above. If an algorithm was preventing sharing and suspending
people's accounts based on keyword spotting, it would have censored my original post, and
presumably suspended my account. Or, if Facebook has an algorithm that recognizes certain
"dangerous" phrases, and then censors or suspends the accounts of people who share a post
including those phrases, but doesn't censor the original post or suspend the account of the
author of the post well, that's kind of strange, isn't it?
In any event, shortly after I posted it, I started seeing reports like this on
Facebook:
Those are just a few examples, but I think you get the general idea.
The point is, apparently, the Corporatocracy feel sufficiently threatened by random people
on Facebook that they are conducting these COINTELPRO-type ops. Seriously, think about that for
a minute. I am not Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. I'm not even Glenn Greenwald or Matt
Taibbi. I'm a midlist-level author of unusual literature , and a
political satirist, and a blogger, basically, and yet Facebook, and their partners at the
Atlantic Council, and AstraZeneca, and Pfizer, and Moderna, and who knows which other global
corporations and transnational, non-governmental entities like the WEF and WHO, consider
someone of my lowly status enough of a threat to their "New Normal" narrative to warrant the
attention of the Reality Police.
Now, let me be clear about who I'm talking about when I'm talking about the "Reality
Police." Facebook's partnership with the Atlantic Council is only one example, but it is a
rather good one. Here's a quick profile of the Atlantic Council
"The Atlantic Council of the United States was founded in 1961 as a think tank and
anticommunist public relations organization to prop up support within the US for NATO in the
post-World War II era [its] current, honorary and lifetime directors list reads like a
bipartisan rogues gallery of American war-criminals, including Henry Kissinger, George P.
Shultz, Frank Carlucci, James A. Baker, R. James Woolsey, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell,
Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. Among the former Atlantic Council chairman have been Obama
administration officials James L. Jones, (national security advisor) and Chuck Hagel
(secretary of defense). The chairman of the council is Brent Scowcroft, the retired US Air
Force officer who held national security and intelligence positions in the Nixon, Bush I and
Bush II administrations. [It] is funded by substantial government and corporate interests
from the financial, defense and petroleum industries. Its 2017 annual report documents
substantial contributions from HSBC, Chevron, The Blackstone Group, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin
and Ford Motor Company, among many others. Also listed is Google Inc. in the $100,000 to
$250,000 donor category. Among the largest council contributors are the US State Department,
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the UK, and the United Arab Emirates. Other
contributors include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Boeing, BP, Exxon and the US Army, Navy, Air Force
and Marines." -- Kevin Reed, World Socialist
Website
These are the folks that are policing "reality" (the "reality" they have manufactured, and
are manufacturing moment by moment), deciding what officially
happened , and didn't happen , and what
it means, and who qualifies as an "authoritative news source," and "fact-checking" everything
we see on the Internet. It's not a bunch of pimply-faced IT nerds writing sloppy code in Menlo
Park. It's GloboCap and the Military-Industrial Complex.
If you're one of my "New Normal" ex-friends and colleagues (or one of my Facebook or Twitter
trolls) who, for some unknown reason, is still reading this column, perhaps on your way to get
experimentally "vaccinated" or report one of your neighbors for not wearing a mask or being
outdoors without a valid reason, this is who has manufactured your "reality" and the so-called
"science" you claim I am "denying," even as reality stares you in the face
This did not begin with the "New Normal," of course. Every system of power manufactures its
own "reality" (totalitarian systems more fanatically than others). No, I've been writing about
the
manufacturing of "normality," and the War on Dissent and Populism that
GloboCap has been relentlessly waging on anyone and everyone opposing its hegemony or refusing
to conform to its ideology, since back when I was still writing heretical
columns like this for CounterPunch before the editors saw which way the wind was blowing
and ideologically purged its roster to get back into the good graces of GloboCap (following
which ideological purge, Google restored it to the ranks of "real news").
And that is how reality-policing works. It's a bullying operation, basically. The entire
"cancel culture" phenomenon is. "Cancel culture" is a silly name for it. We are talking about a
global empire imposing total ideological conformity (or, in simpler terms, its version of
"reality") on the entire planet through fear and force. The Nazis referred to this process as
Gleichschaltung .
Global capitalism has reached the stage where it no longer needs to tolerate dissent (any
kind of dissent, from any quarter) to maintain the illusion of "freedom and democracy," because
there is no alternative to global capitalism. It is everywhere. There is nowhere to run or
hide. When the Reality Police find you, and threaten to "cancel" you, you have two choices obey
or be vaporized.
If you're a Palestinian, a Syrian, a Yemeni, the president of an uncooperative African
country, or some other type of non-Western person, you might very well be physically vaporized.
For Westerners, vaporization is less dramatic and final. You will simply be disappeared from
the Internet, fired from your job, socially ostracized, deemed a "dangerous individual," a
"racist," an "anti-Semite," a "conspiracy theorist," a "white supremacist," a "domestic
terrorist," an "anti-vaxxer," a "Covid denier."
Or have a look at this "warning" you get on Twitter if you attempt to read anything
published by OffGuardian
I could go on and on with this, and I'm sure I will in future columns. It's kind of the only
story at the moment, the changeover from simulated democracy to pathologized-totalitarianism as
the governing structure of global capitalism. For now, I'll just leave you with one more image
in this already overly pictorial column. Don't worry, it's been thoroughly "fact-checked," so
there's no need to read or question the fine print (even though I have a feeling you will)
Do watch out for those "unrelated coincidences." Some of them, I hear, can be rather
nasty.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing,
Inc. His dystopian novel,Zone 23, is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of hisConsent Factory
Essaysare published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
That Tweet would make a nice Plakat to start pasting around Berlin and other cities maybe
CJ can find a printer who 1) is still open; and 2) will take the business.
Article pretty much says it all. There's no longer any need to engineer consent, they can
just use outright coercion along with financial reward to jerk the masses of peasants around.
It's clear that the billionaire and corporate classes march in lockstep and control the US
government as well as media, educational system, etc. The rage against Russia seems to be
that they are a barrier to total world domination by GloboCap which, as part of its intrinsic
structure, needs to constantly expand. What's more, a certain part of the population are
wannabe commissars, wannabe Pavel Morozovs, wannabe willing executioners for the
dictatorship. The billionaires should go and fight their own next wars but no, there'll be
enough unemployed types willing to take a chance for a paycheck. The little people think the
US is a country; the people actually running it consider it to be an economic empire, their
empire that is.
These rich and millennial Facebook woke employees are like the young Khmer Rouge or Red
Guard monsters, full of woke rage and gleeful that they have the power to destroy
everyone.
Based on Facebook's 'community standards' (see above), it has banned all posts praising
the US in written or pictorial form for the following reasons –
1. Has created and/or funded terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, paramilitary groups like
Blackwater, death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc.;
2. Creates, trains and funds a vast military system to threaten and/or bomb countries and
overthrow governments;
3. Has conducted and prosecuted wars and military actions around the world every single day
for the past twenty years;
4. Kidnaps and abducts private citizens in foreign countries and imprisons them in secret
bases like Guantanamo;
5. Employs corporate institutions to impose financial embargoes destroying nations' economic
infrastructure and citizens' livelihood.
The point is, apparently, the Corporatocracy feel sufficiently threatened by random
people on Facebook that they are conducting these COINTELPRO-type ops.
This really seems to be a thing. The elite are supposedly into the occult including things
like clairvoyants. Have their soothsayers seen a future rebel that will take them down? Or
are they just insecure, criminally insane dopes that irrationally fear independent thinking?
Whatever the reason, they are extremely paranoid.
On Dec. 22, Coomer filed a
defamation suit in Denver state court , seeking unspecified damages, against Oltmann and 14
others, including the Trump Campaign; Giuliani; Powell; the One America News Network (OAN); OAN
chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion; Newsmax Media; Newsmax contributor Michelle
Malkin; The Gateway Pundit website; and radio and podcast host Eric Metaxas.
I have written of the decline of the US likening it to a malignant tumour yet the recent
gaffs with Russia and China make it likely the hospitalisation of the patient may be more
urgent. Regarding sanctions and thier use on poor countries .
Goya and Sanctions: with some satirical nudity. Satire is a bellweather indicator of the
sophistication and progress of a civilization. When satire and humor dies history teaches us
so will that civilization. Sadly I don't expect this video to be allowed on US youtube.
Not the OP, but I'll answer. American expat here. I spent years trying to get people to at
least talk with me on issues. They just wanted to watch TV and eat fast food and let the
plutocrats run things into the ground. So I left, 10 years ago, to seek meaning and adventure
elsewhere. Haven't looked back.
I settled into a "third world anti-freedom authoritarian regime", where I enjoyed all the
freedoms I hadn't realized I had not known in America, and built a life for myself. When
I'd talk to people back home they'd tell me I was crazy for wanting to stay in an
"authoritarian nation", and ask wasn't I afraid? They didn't understand why I didn't want to
come back home. I haven't visited America in ages. I can no longer relate to America's
Afro-centric, virus-mania culture. Turning on American MSM shows is like watching the news from
Mars.
Would I leave the life I've created for myself to go back to the place I grew up and help
save the people there if I thought there was enough of them willing to fight? Maybe, if I could
do it without jeopardizing my family here. A part of me would like to.
But the sad reality is, the people in the United States do not want to be saved .
They're comfortable . Half the people I talk to back there brag to me about the vaccine
they got. I just talked to one who boasted how it "wasn't available to the masses yet" and she
had to trick her way into getting an mRNA shot. 130 million doses have been administered in the
US already, to a nation of 330 million. That doesn't seem like something "unavailable to the
masses."
So, do I want to go back to the US, to stand there screaming at people on the street like
some homeless bum as they line up to get their COVID shots, as armies of them march with
#BlackLiveMatters signs, surrounded by police protection, as the idiots on the left scream
about Russia and the idiots on the right scream about China, while nobody talks about the #1
foreign influencer of American public policy by far, because to mention its name is to have
one's life destroyed? I have better things to do with the precious few years I get on this
Earth.
When enough of the people wake up, when they are ready to be led, I may yet answer the call
to leadership when that call seriously goes out, 15 or 20 or 25 years from now. But at the
present moment, the American people are still so far from wanting anything other than football,
fast food, and racial equality that it really is not a place I have any interest in being, nor
one I have anything much to offer.
Reagan made jokes about burning the midday oil, but he was faced with stagnant collapsing
Russia, not dynamic China. Biden has actually said that China is doomed to collapse and
already in decline because–get this– the Chinese are not young enough. Those
Fortune 500 companies most of which incorporated in Delaware did not do so for patriotic
reasons, but to avoid tax and government regulation. The elites (38 to 58 year olds) running
America or at least largely determining who wins the elections are more interested in making
money on their Chinese investments than US primacy; Trump was a merely a blip and the future
of America is pretty much set on relative decline now.
@Anonymous that a strong American military and national security posture is the best
guarantor of peace and the survival of our values and civilization.
Stavridis has been at the forefront of the mass slaughter known as the implementation of the
Oded Yinon Plan for Eretz Israel:
From 2002 to 2004, Stavridis commanded Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, conducting combat
operations in the Persian Gulf in support of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation
Enduring Freedom.
Stavridis "oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria." In short, this prominent
racketeer is dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of the victims.
US "intelligence" i.e the people who leak made up BS via anonymous sources to their media
mouthpieces
sbin 2 hours ago
Funny
I can not think of anything intelligent they have ever done.
If a list was drawn up of all the threats to Americans the MIC and Intelligence agencies
would be at the top.
joethegorilla 2 hours ago (Edited)
The US Intelligence used to be under the military chain of command. Dulles talked
Eisenhower into letting him start the CIA as a civilian agency. Everyone warned this domestic
political meddling would happen and guess what? They did it anyway. Spying on Americans is a
feature, not a bug.
Five_Black_Eyes_Intel_Agency 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link
israel-firsters and the CIA love to milk their sugar daddy, meanwhile people are all
choked up about the Left and Right charade
Weihan 59 minutes ago remove link
Great article from Greenwald! And remember: by "domestic terrorists" and "violent
extremists," they're referring to anyone who still believes a country should have a
recognizable and enforceable border.
1.(CFR) includes George Bush, Bill Clinton, all modern CIA Directors, most modern Joint
Chiefs of Staff, most modern Cabinet and top Executive Branch appointed officeholders,
etc.
2. The Trilateral Commission: Zbignew Brzezinski, John D. Rockefeller, Alan Greenspan,
Anthony Lake, John Glenn, David Packard, David Gergen, Diane Feinstein, Jimmy Carter, Adm.
William Crowe, etc.
3. The Bilderberg Group: Prince Hans-Adam of Liechtenstein, Prince Bernhard of
Netherlands, Bill Clinton, Lloyd Bentsen, etc.
4. (NSC), the military and intelligence policy-making and control group for national and
international security, which reports directly to the President, its secret 5412 Committee
(which directs black [covert] operations), and its
Softpanorama
2019
2020
+43
MintPress News | Alexander Rubinstein | Mar 6, 2019 Opposing some dictatorships, supporting others
66,319
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This isn't even satire
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© Antonio Cabrera
© Sebastian Scheiner/AP
© Haaretz When Donadio began searching for documentation of Eitan's role, he found a memo and contract draft with an Israeli security firm called "Ktalav Promotion and Investment Ltd" in the files of Barco's legal secretary, Fernán Bejarano Arias, who is today the vice president of legal affairs at Ecopetrol. The document valued the deal at almost $1 million, including a fee of $535,714, which covered "up to 50 tickets for air transport purposes, round trip, on the Tel Aviv-Bogotá route," among other expenses. The memo indicates that portions of the contract were agreed upon with the lawyer Ernesto Villamizar Cajiao.
© Rachamim Shaul/The National Library of Israel
© Luis Benavides/AP
Deap says: May 26, 2021 at 11:47 am
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Joe Biden speaks on the Colonial Pipeline attack as Vice President Kamala Harris stands by at the White House in Washington, DC, May 10, 2021 © Reuters / Kevin Lamarque 14 Follow RT on
A cyberattack that crippled the US fuel supply wasn't the work of Russia, President Joe Biden said. Confusingly, Biden then said that Russia bears "some responsibility" for the attack.
Scott Ritter
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines speaks during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing about worldwide threats © Reuters The Director of National Intelligence has ostensibly created a new “center†for the sharing and analysis of information and intelligence about foreign interference in US elections. Its real focus is much more nefarious.
7:06
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"The Department of Defense actually apologized in their covering letter to the producers of "Hulk" (2003), since the changes they required were so extensive," Dr. Matthew Alford of the University of Bath told MintPress .
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