JHK’s Three-Act Play
Was it such a good thing in the post-cold-war decades that the US was regarded as the supreme sole super-power? Look what we did with that privilege: fumbled around like an overfed stumblebum, blundering from one foreign occupation to another, breaking a lot of things and killing a lot of people — under the clownishly-conceived rubric of a “war on terror.”
Why is it in our interest which way Ukraine tilts? It has been in the Russian orbit for hundreds of years under one administration or another. Are we disappointed now that Kiev won’t answer to the floundering Eurocrats of Brussels? Was that ever a realistic expectation? Really, the best outcome for western Europe would be a return to the prior condition of Ukraine as a mute bearskin rug with oil and gas pipelines running through it to the oil and gas starved West. The idea that the US could supply Europe with oil and gas instead of Russia is a preposterous fantasy. Anybody wondering whether Ukraine might turn its armed forces loose on Russian forces supposedly massing at its border should ask themselves how Ukrainian soldiers will get paid.
I’m sure Russia can’t afford to annex all of Ukraine. Russia can barely maintain its paved roads. But it obviously couldn’t afford to give up its rented warm water ports and naval bases in the Crimea, either, with the new Kiev government making so much anti-Russian noise since the “revolution.” The annexation of Crimea changes nothing materially about the disposition of Russian military force in the region. They were already there. Given the size of their navy compared to the other nations in the neighborhood, the Black Sea is Russia’s bathtub and has been as long as anyone can remember. Was the brass at the US State Department shocked to discover this two weeks ago?
The recognition that there are some places on the planet where the US can’t exert its influence has also come as a shock to the so-called American Deep State — that matrix of bureaucratic toxic sludge that labors to pretend to control everything and succeeds mainly in embarrassing itself in a world that is now deeply tending away from the centralized control of anything. Nations are breaking up everywhere and for the moment there is no coherent public discussion of the ramifications. Venice voted the other day to secede from Italy — that is, to not send anymore tax revenue to Rome. That should be interesting. How about Scotland’s independence vote scheduled for September? Judging by the British newspapers, there is next-to-zero concern about that. Then there is the list of failed states, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and probably half the manufactured nations of sub-Saharan Africa, places with no viable economy or polity and too many clamoring poor people. These are parts of the world that will neither develop nor redevelop. In a hundred years they could be no-go zones or just return to howling wilderness.
The US would be better served these days to literally mind its own business. With Detroit in bankruptcy, why would we send Kiev billions of dollars? American urban infrastructures — water, sewer, gas, and electric lines — are falling apart. We have no idea how we’re going to manage most of the crucial economic activities of daily life in ten years, when the illusions of shale gas and shale evaporate in a dark cloud of disenchantment, when we no longer have an airline industry, and most Americans won’t have the means to own automobiles, and there’s not enough diesel fuel to plow Iowa mega-farms, or enough oil and gas based fertilizers or herbicides to pour into the eroding topsoil, and not enough fossil water left in the Oglala aquifer or enough electricity to run the center-pivot sprinklers where the prairie meets the desert? How are Americans going to live and eat and get from Point A to Point B and keep a roof over our heads in this beat-down land?
We’re having no conversation about these things and the political landscape in this country is a wasteland of mirages and dust devils. That is the true weakness of the USA now. We’re incapable of seeing the disorder in our own house. Why should we even glance overseas at others?
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“American urban infrastructures — water, sewer, gas, and electric lines — are falling apart.”
There’s an easy solution, sure to please the Randians and other stripes of Tea-Partiers: privatize it all.
Then one pays for better service. Otherwise, sucker, you get the crumbling bits not privatized. That is the “solution” in Northern Virginia, where more affluent commuters will soon pay to ride on special “HOT” lanes” while transit options other than cars faced a predictable fate from the VA Dept. of Transportation:
” ‘VDOT rejected at the earliest stages a transit alternative for this corridor. They were prevailed upon to do another transit study, but they promptly put it on a shelf. They never took seriously a transit-oriented development for this corridor,’ says Schwartz, who says Virginia could have considered something similar to the Purple Line, a proposed 16-mile light rail line that will extend from Bethesda to New Carrollton.”
How soon before we get “special” sewers, gas pipes, and electric lines for those who wish to pay a bit more? As soon as the infrastructure in more affluent areas gets its next upgrade in a “public-private” partnership.
That quotation comes from this WNYC story: http://www.wnyc.org/story/283109-whats-the-best-way-to-build-new-highways-private-public-tolls-magic/
Libertarian is an extremist cult just like progressivism.
The trouble with “isms” is that they are philosophies that advocate relying on abstract doctrine rather than common sense realism of choosing policies based on whether they have succeeded or failed in history. I guess you could give the Libertarians a bit more of a pass, since their policies haven’t yet been tried much, so we don’t have much empirical evidence yet on what an abject failure they would be, unlike the policies of progressives, which have a long history of failure.
The issue I take with your “pragmatic” approach is that choices, in the end, have to be informed by values, and values cannot be discerned from “common sense realism.” They are human, personal, and come from our need to establish priorities. They cannot be proven, but they can be argued for in more or less convincing ways. In short, some form of ideology or “ism” informs every choice you or I make (even if that ism is hedonism or idealism or egotism).
As for progressivism, I don’t know what you’ve been reading but since Reagan took over we haven’t had any progressive policies, only two flavors of pro-corporate deregulation, government handouts, and subsidizes and rule-writing for the rich. If you want to see “free markets” in action, take a look at the repo market and the derivatives markets, and the see how great they’ve worked out.
The ineluctable result of privatization is always stratification. If that floats your boat, fine, but I’m happier with a more just and egalitarian order than recognizes the value of each individual and the hollowness of Cain’s complaint, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But that’s my personal belief, which cannot be proved to be more valid than anyone else’s. Normative claims cannot be proven in the same way that empirical claims can.
Nicely said citizen.
“…policies of progressives, which have a long history of failure.”
R i i i g h t. That world of 1970.
Cain’t stand them freeways from Bangor to San Diego, smooth as glass. And them bridges wouldn’t even fall down at all, at all.
Just hate that Commie Nixon’s EPA, a-taxin’ the rich, an’ a-prosecutin’ poor Bobby Vesco, weren’t it? Just for crashin’ a bank, weren’t it? And him a REpublican contributor an’ all. Damn shayum that.
And that thar UNbroken heath care system. Sure glad that’s gone. And world’s sta-rongest eeconomy. NASA to the moon. World centre for science of all kinds. Them too.
Is that the long history of failure of which you write?
Smoky Joe – I fear you ignore the obvious in your haste to bash Randians – the infrastructure of this country has been publicly owned for 100 years. It collapsed (or is collapsing) under the command of public servants. How can you indict those that would privatize when the public at large is complicit in the failure of those systems that form the backbone of society?
You remind me of public school teachers who clamor for more money to fix failed schools but ignore the fact that they failed on their watch. Privatization may very well be the answer.
FYI – I am the general manager of a 57 year old wastewater treatment plant serving a city of 450,000 denizens of the Land formerly known as Free. I deal with this issue every day of my life. Politicians love to build things but rarely want to spend the funds to maintain them. It’s not sexy to raise a tax or user fee to repair a pump or resurface a road, but by-god they will line up in their suits with shiny new hardhats and gold spray-painted shovels to “break ground” for a new (insert ANY public project here).
I am confused, IV. Are you blaming the politicians for not funding the infrastructure and allowing it to rust away, or are you blaming the public servants for not magicking up the funds themselves? If the latter, when are you going to apologize?
Just asking, you see.
I’ve no fondness for Rand or Libertarianism, but the current problem with infrastructure is not their doing. There has been a great deal of waste, fraud, and over-building in public-sector projects. And Kunstler is correct that we have consistently made bad choices over the past 60 years. We’ll set aside how the Big Three colluded with local governments to subsidize roads while destroying streetcar systems in the first half of the 20th Century.
In the current situation cited, note who shelved the transit options: not the private company, but the state employees. Of course, one wonders who might be contributing to the coffers of the “elected” officials that appointed the VDOT Team. Virginia’s former GOP governor is under investigation for inappropriate gifts received while in office.
Plutocracy and bought government is no more “of the people” than a rapacious free-market brute freed of all regulations.
“I’ve no fondness for Rand or Libertarianism, but the current problem with infrastructure is not their doing.”
and again
“note who shelved the transit options: not the private company”
Aren’t you forgetting the time when GM and Big Oil bought up the light rail all over North America, and ripped up the tracks? I’d call that an act of vandalism, and “their doing”. Or do I have that all wrong?
Thanks for that reminder.
In VDOT’s case, it’s less GM (or Toyota) and BP paying off the officials who appoint transportation employees than other forces that favor suburban sprawl and oppose the sensible idea of converting some highway lanes to rail.
Makes we sad to see the roadbed needed for passenger rail RIGHT THERE, in the form of the left-hand lanes of our Interstate highways. Maybe in a more sensible age…after a collapse of the status quo, I reckon.
Yes, SJ
This is the game plan. Some call it the toll booth economy.
In some parts of the country (KY, believe–could be just a test case in a small town) you have to buy a subscription fee to the local fire department.
Those who didn’t watch as their houses burned down while the firemen were just there to protect the other homes. I hope we’re all rich enough to pay through the nose for all services, cuz we’re in deep trouble if we’re not…..
Don’t you just love your new country–I call it the theater of cruelty.
Toll booth economy indeed. The HOV lane of the Boulder Turnpike has been handed over to a private enterprise. As usual the Devil is in the details. In this case, any peripheral municipality that builds a road that is determined to have ‘bled’ traffic away from the privatized HOV lane will have to compensate said privatized interest for loss of revenue. Beautiful eh?
I don’t know about the expense involved, but the need to update the infrastructure is certainly there in suburban Philly. Last weekend more than 5 million gallons of raw sewage leaked into the only wild trout stream in the area, right in Valley Forge National Park. The foul stuff came from a pipe system that is old and vulnerable. Stream watchers don’t know yet what the effect will be on the native brown trout, but you can bet it won’t be good!
” Was the brass at the US State Department shocked to discover this two weeks ago?”
The State Department is a hollowed out shell of what it was during the decades immediately after WW2, like so much of the rest of the US. Whatever little aptitude was left by 1990 only understood the cold war dynamics of their fathers and grandfathers. The death blow came during the early 2000s when co-president Cheney wanted all negotiations done at gun point.
The current State Department has been systemically stripmined just like the infrastructure of the US.
I have to disagree – I think everyone within the deep state knows exactly what is going on. Let us consider that point within the context of what Jim wrote: “The US would be better served these days to literally mind its own business.”
Actually, our foreign adventures are entirely predicated on what Jim and other observers have repeatedly stated with regard to our industrial future. That is, given the nature of the domestic tight oil plays from the perspective of of high capital expenditures and very high depletion rates, we **have no choice but to look elsewhere to acquire traditional conventional sources**.
Now, where might those resources be found? That’s right, you guessed it.
By the very actions being taken across the furthest frontiers of empire, the deep state is telling anyone who is listening – straight to their face – that everything that has been discussed here & elsewhere is 100% on target.
So speed up those preparations; I’m not sure how much clearer and forthright the message could be presented.
I agree. Pretty simple statement of “agenda” and strategies to further said “agenda”.
Beware the overarching hubris that guides and defines it; some things are for compromise and some things are for fighting.
The elephant in the corner no one wants to talk about is the total dissatisfaction of the working class population from whence the soldiers come, irregardless of the MSM’s continued hype of faux patriotism.
The people in my Great Lakes city are sick, sick, sick of wars and won’t tolerate more bloodshed and money wasted on area’s most of them can’t even find on a map, especially when their own infrastructure is decaying.
The MSM and elite masters are so stupid they don’t even realize people feel this way. Its not 1980 anymore.
djc
Here in New Hampshire, even the folks who still have faded Bush and McCain stickers on their cars have had enough of the endless war.
Hey Stevo, some Comrades are saying the wars have just begun; you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, and the disturbances 2001-2014 are just the preliminaries for the main event right around the corner, just out of sight, like the Boer War, Philippine Wars and Serbian wars were warm ups for WW1.
As Comrade Lenin famously stated, you might not be interested in war, but most assuredly, war is interested in you.
History has its own logic, and takes a strange and meandering course.
–BRH
lets’s hope that does not come to pass!! It will totally mess with sugurin” season!!
Remember, under Neo-Liberalism/Conservatism, peoples are interchangeable. Who care if poor or lower middle class Whites are sick of it? Elect another people. They have the Mexicans and Central American immigrants now. They even troll for soldiers in Africa now. Face it: our birthright has been stolen from us. Since Immigrants ARE America – the aliens are considered more American than you under current policy and propaganda.
The answer? Nationalism – which is called Fascism by our traitor pundits and their dupes.
Sure the people are sick undo death of this country’s endless wars. They can gripe all they want and call and write their congressperson but what good does it do? It may have had a marginal impact in halting (temporarily?) Obama’s red line mania in Syria, but I think the role of the Russians had much more to do with our POTUS backing down. If our politicians actually listened to the people about Syria, wouldn’t they be more restrained now when the stakes are much higher, and it is an election year? Hell, the districts are so gerrymandered now that few have to fear for their reelection regardless of their warmongering. I submit that the only thing that will make Obama and the plutocrats listen would be massive street protests throughout the country. But unless they go to a military draft (which they won’t), I can’t see that happening. Only a miracle can save us from WW3.
War and caskets: The Price of Empire.
Detroit is bankrupt, Puerto Rico may be the next big bailout and Belgium is currently the biggest purchaser of U.S. debt. What’s next? http://youtu.be/q2dEvlW1itU
Although I think JHK is generally spot on (as usual), I would partially disagree with one point; we should glance overseas. But just glance, not arrogantly meddle. Unfortunately we are ruled by a combination of financial grifters and armchair generals. So every turn of events provides the possibility for more costly programs that must be immediately undertaken (with no time financial governance) and/or immediate military involvement (also with no regard to cost because of the need for immediate action). It’s a nice gambit until the coffers are bare. Attention grifters! The coffers are empty! QE tells us so.
George Washington, IMO the only president who was truly qualified for the job, simply because he didn’t want it, put it this way:
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”
Or in modern terms, stay the hell out!
Two Presidents have given very good advice to their successors. Washington, as noted (‘no foriegn entanglements’), and Eisenhauer, whose advice is equally sage: ‘beware of the military/industrial complex.’
Thank you for reminding us!
Craig
Eisenhauer has been praised for his sage advice regarding the MIC. But he continually built up the military (especially the nukes!) while in office and was a cold war warrior until the day he died. Not only that, but he waited until he was leaving office to say anything. That seems almost cowardly to me.
“[T]he American Deep State — that matrix of bureaucratic toxic sludge that labors to pretend to control everything and succeeds mainly in embarrassing itself in a world that is now deeply tending away from the centralized control of anything.”
One of the ways the Deep State tries to control everything also popped into the news the past two weeks, when Senator Diane Feinstein, usually a friend of the intelligence services in her role as the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, alleged that the CIA was spying on the Intelligence Committee’s own staffers. If so, it’s both a good example of a political situation in a country when an internal organ (“Deep State”), generally from the armed forces, intelligence agencies, or police, does not respond to the civilian leadership,” and a really dumb thing to do. One does not bite the hand that feeds it, and that’s what the CIA did.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-deep-state-spies-on-itself-and.html
“The US would be better served these days to literally mind its own business. With Detroit in bankruptcy, why would we send Kiev billions of dollars?”
Preach it, Brother James! Maybe someone will listen. Unfortunately, the last success for Detroit during the bankruptcy proceedings was to save the Detroit Institute of Art. People were willing to pay the ransom to keep it and fund part of the pensions of city retirees. Americans demand their entertainment, and they got it. However, talks over the water system have broken down, and the city is now looking for a private contractor to run it. Are they going to be in for a shock when they have to repair billions of dollars of water mains and sewer pipes, along with lots of broken-down pumps.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/looks-like-good-news-for-dia.html
There are some things that should never be privatized. Police, armed forces, water, utilities (mainly electric; also gas?) and medical care.
We are already behind the eight-ball on two of them, and moving that way on the rest. Our new owners will have the ability to make us “an offer we cannot refuse” in any instance of the above. When they can ‘legally’ tell us to pay them what they demand or die, our choice is payment or revolution (probably death).
Just watch as it happens… and weep?
Craig
Private electric utilities exist already – they are called “investor-owned” and trade on the NYSE. Public Power – municipally-owned and rural co-operatives – is, well, “public-owned” more or less. The IOU’s are regulated monopolies and answer to a public service commission, and if they generate or transmit at certain voltages (115kV and above) they come under the watchful gaze of various Federal agencies charged with keeping the lights on.
Back in the day an IOU’s stock was the functional equivalent of a bond earning a decent rate of interest, and engineers were CEO’s. These days accountants and lawyers run the IOU’s, and the mantra of “shareholder value” rules decisions. Lawyers have taken over because so much of the business has become interaction with Washington DC or the state PSC’s. Accountants are required because the IRS in fact runs everything. Common-sense engineering decisions become mired in considerations of Capex versus O&M. Sarbanes-Oxley added extreme complexity.
Whether Public Power or IOU we all end up paying for the electrons, generally at comparable rates. Both are equally adept at making enormous blunders, but for the most part the lights stay on.
i do not agree that people in this country have no choice but to starve or freeze to death when systems fail. there are always options and organizations ready to come to the rescue.
i heard thousands of people were without power this winter but noone dying as a direct result.
what about other countries and how they treat people! would russia let people freeze and starve? yes.
I do not have stats on how many actually die each year from lack of power – it does happen. Mostly they are ‘homeless’ and most organizations look in that direction when coming to the rescue.
At present the worst of it is in our medical care ‘system.’ Or lack thereof, from which it is calculated perhaps 45,000 die each year. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917
Craig
“complications from diabetes and heart disease”
in other words people die from overeating rich foods and not getting enough exercise. the healthcare industry is not to blame for that, they dont spend money they dont have on prolonging life. people die with or without healthcare.
govt role is to regulate spending and tax doritos and cocacola out the kazoo every yr for 45,000 casualties. that means at least $81 million from the colonel, the bell and mcd a yr.
a list of multinational corporations who pay u.s. income tax…when its profitable to do so….you will find mcdonalds.
http://www.nasdaqomx.com/digitalAssets/72/72058_20090324letter_to_congress_on_deferral.pdf
The founding fathers (who, according to fascists like those producing the recent MIAC law enforcement assistance report, were terrorists) clearly warned us to avoid two things: 1-foreign entanglements (they recommended only doing trade with other countries and NOT becoming involved in their internal politics), and 2-central banking (that speaks for itself).
To bad we’ve ignored most everything those terrorists had to say. Afterall what did they know. 🙂
Wardoc
Yes, it is pretty plausible that terrorists have at least as much insight into good public policy as the likes of Reid and Pelosi and Boehner.
Liberals consider our Founding Fathers Fascists. The word means nothing now. If you want the real meaning, check out the Arch-Druid’s 3 part series. Hint: it is the philosophy and practice of Nationalism. That’s why everyone hates it because it’s “bad for business” and the “business of America is business”. No, that’s not Fascism, that’s Plutocracy. That’s the opposite.
That’s one of the tricks of the human mind. Words bring their opposites to mind. Hucksters then conflate them and people end up thinking that opposites are identical.
“We’re having no conversation about these things and the political landscape in this country is a wasteland of mirages and dust devils.”
Get a grip! We can’t engage in such things because a higher priority has been placed on following the antics of the Kardashians and Lady Gaga.
http://www.thesisa.org
How are Americans going to live, eat and move in ten years? They won’t but minding others business in failed states keeps the illusion that all is well going a little bit longer and avoids that reality. Like that smoke with an extra silly millimetre. Because in everything we do we would rather fight than switch.
Bingo.
Consider the US as a belligerent, lumbering lummox, easily distracted by the trespasses, tittilations and tribulations of Others and wilfully ignorant of its’ own failings and dire circumstances.
JHK is asking exactly the right questions; we hope that at least a few sleepers are awakening to notice.*
*That could be delving deep into wishful thinking and false hope territory, but ya never know! 😉
I hope the US doesn’t send aid to Ukraine, because it would just go to Putin to pay off debt.
Exactly true. It’s somewhat hard to believe that the guys we think would behave smartly in this situation are actually bumbling f***ing idiots. McCain – now farting around like the old geezer he is. Even Carter, too, is posturing and acting like his Iran hostages fiasco didn’t happen. Jesus help us all! I agree with Kunstler on the Ukraine topic one hundred percent and more. I already knew our feckless president would blow this one as he already has, but where are everyone’s heads on capitol hill but clearly stuck in the ass of the next dumb f*ck politician! Holy sh*t I can’t believe it.
The best way, and I mean the absolute best way for Washington to serve the citizens in this geography is to shut down all operations.
For the people left holding the bag, after the corporations have stripped all assets and transferred them into digits, they will have to learn how to take care of themselves much like people took care of themselves pre-Drake.
And those digits? They will cost the owners something quite expensive, is my guess.
of course none of this will happen, and chaos will be what ultimately sorts this all out to exhaustion.
Good observations, JHK. The Venice vote is more than just the writing on the walls – it IS the walls! Frankly I was caught a little off guard when the story hit the media this weekend. Sometimes reality comes hard and fast.
Also this weekend, David Gregory made the following statement on NBC’s Meet the Press: “The New World Order is looking a lot like the old world order of the 18th century, where things like geography and ethnicity are important.”…The mainstream is catching on. [In all fairness Gregory has always impressed me as a pretty sharp cookie.]
Meanwhile Russia and the U.S. bicker over The Duchy of Grand Fenwick. Orlov dubbed our involvement there a manifestation of a foreign policy that is “breathtakingly incompetent”. David Malone (aka Golem XIV) opined that the presumption of U.S. military superiority is at work in Ukraine, as in other ‘hot spots’. He seems to feel that the children of the Military-Industrial Complex (McCain, Carey, et al) seek out any opportunity to stir up trouble. In this way they keep defense spending up, and MIC sated.
No conspiracy at work here…it’s just the way things are.
Well, conversely, “the way things are” is an end result of a concerted conspiracy [to accumulate a massive pile of wealth and power], no?
Perhaps, but there’s nothing clandestine about the MIC. I would call it an ‘agenda’ rather than a conspiracy. It’s almost a presumption – that which we think before we think. Mutual consent – or at least passive acceptance – takes a toll. Apathy and shared delusion on the part of the many; ambition and diligence on the part of the few. This is the stuff of hierarchy. This is Natural Selection at work in the creature man.
Oh, I meant to write ‘Kerry’ rather than ‘Carey’. I have no problem with Jim Carey.
Ozone, yes and no. “the way things are” is a result of a combination of factors. But it’s not so much a concerted conspiracy as it is an utter failure of leadership and a profound lack of creativity. The US for many decades followed a strategy that worked to its advantage (I don’t necessarily think that this strategy was noble in any way, but it worked.) Now it has ceased to work. We are called upon to find a new strategy, but our leaders are not leaders; they are keepers of the status quo. In fact, in many ways the current strategy sowed dragons’ teeth, in the sense that its own destruction is a predictable, endemic, consequence. What will happen is nothing – until an inflection point is reached – a point at which the current “leadership” can no longer keep the reality of their liking inflated. Then the whole shebang unravels. For an example, reflect upon the former Soviet Union. If you seek a visionary in these regards, read Dmitry Orlov.
Thank you both for your well-reasoned responses.
It’s my opinion, however, that an exercise in hair-splitting is being engaged in. (Not that it blunts your arguments at all; that’s simply my obviously biased impression.)
…And, yes, I follow Orlov’s missives closely and regularly as well as owning his book on “The 5 Stages of Collapse” -Survivor’s Toolkit.
To change the subject slightly, JHK mentioned in Too Much Magic that some modern skyscrapers in Johannesburg had been abandoned as no-one wanted to or could afford to retrofit them.
Does anyone have an update on that? Are they visible in Google StreetView? Have they been stripped of salvage?
cobequids,
Check out this article published in 2013 regards S. African skyscrapers.
http://www.weather.com/travel/ponte-tower-africas-skyscraper-city-decay-photos-20131101
Also, here’s an article from Foreign Policy magazine, press organ of the Deep State, regarding “Africa rising.”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/07/africa_rising_race_to_build_africas_tallest_skyscraper
Looks like there are still lots of plans to build up in S. Africa.
To paraphrase Jimmy Cliff, the higher they go the harder they fall.
How crazy is it that the US borrow a billion dollars from China to “loan” to Ukraine so it can repay part of its debt to Russia?
After almost 70 years of maintaining a overseas military presence It is time the US start pulling out of Europe, Japan and Korea.
Let’s to lower the flag and close most if not all of our overseas bases, this is not isolationism, it is realistic. Most other countries in the world do not have these types of military assets overseas, and are not isolationist.
Russia is looking to put new bases in Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Argentina, Iran and Syria.
The Birth of a Nation:
I’m speaking here tonight to describe how the nation the exists in our hearts can capture its freedom, first through letting our hidden thoughts emerge into the light of day and then grow to become a movement that cannot be denied when we demand that the desire of the people for self-determination be put to a vote.
The country of which I speak is called Cascadia, named after the ridge of mountains that runs up its spine. Its people have more in common culturally with the citizens of Norway or Canada than they do with Texans or New Yorkers. They value their experiences hiking in the mountains or sailing on the inland seas far more than the privilege of being seated promptly in a $2,000 per-plate restaurant or having the largest beehive hairdo at the country club.
Stretching from the southern wine country of Mendocino to the 49th Parallel, Cascadia encompasses everything a great nation needs to prosper and remain independent. Unlike most nations in the coming era of resource scarcity our one great river and its many smaller cousins provide us with abundant fresh water for our cities and our millions of acres of irrigated crop lands. Our main agricultural export product, cannabis, is recognized as the finest and most genetically diversified in the world. We are self-sufficient in food grains, vegetables, apples, cherries, beef, and wool, and harvest some of our numerous wild ungulates for food as well. While the great age of the Salmon has passed, our oceans still provide wild fish for an honored place on the table.
A great nation needs more than natural resources if it is to retain its independence. Cascadia already is the world’s second largest aircraft manufacturer, far ahead of the former United States. Although its varicose veins are starting to show, Microsoft is still the world’s dominant software company. And Amazon is the leading on-line retailer. Our lumber products industry produces more than enough products to house every citizen and export a surplus as well.
The true measure of a nation’s long-term success is determined by its’ use of energy. Not just how much it uses, but how it balances that requirement with the laws of the biosphere and ecosphere. Cascadia is favored above almost all nations on that count. We have a giant river system, which for better or worse, supports the largest hydroelectric system in North America. Underneath the Snake River plain lies a reservoir of geothermal heat that can supply the base load energy for half the continent. Our wind energy resources are already the most highly developed in the hemisphere. And our interior deserts have both the sunshine and the cooling water necessary for gigawatt scale solar plants.
Unfortunately when a nation is as richly endowed as Cascadia there remains a danger that its former colonial ruler(s) will attempt to regain power. Even though it does not have a large population, Cascadia is militarily invulnerable thanks to the M.A.D. weapons developed by its former rulers. We have the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world and the most deadly delivery system in our Trident submarine fleet. While the US has billion-dollar assassin drones patrolling the rest of the world, our superior software technical skills have miniaturized our nanotech-assembler manufactured drone fleet down to the size of honeybees which swarm and disable any enemy.
So I ask you, fellow Cascadians: Should we continue paying tribute to the banksters who control the financial system in New York and the political charade in Washington, bow down to a hereditary succession of Presidents from Texas, and send our sons and daughters off to fight and die in the wars of the Empire? Or should we secede from the Empire and form our own human-scale nation that expresses our will and values?
We will demand access to the sea via the Columbia. It means War if you refuse. And remember, much of Cascadia is Conservative, held hostage by Seattle and Portland. Let my people go!
We will provide free inner tubes and a six pack of Black Butte Porter for anyone who wishes to access the sea via the Columbia. As a special favor to conservatives, we will replace the Black Butte with imported Budwiser.
War? Have you any concept of the capabilities of one trillion nanodrone honeybees?
To be used against the Northwest Republic? Or by the Feds against you? We are issuing nano wasps to counter act your bees.
Interesting fantasy.
But unfortunate choice of a title.
Mere mention of the title of the uber-racist early 20th century movie “Birth of a Nation” evokes all the wrong associations!
Good post JHK,
But again, I believe the goal is to destroy the modern nation state, burgeoning in the 1600’s that is concerned with a social contract with the citizenry who determine representation.
The nationalism and break-up of the state is in fact both good for US hegemony since the former unified countries would be weaker for it, but it may also be a response to the global neoliberalism that people are bucking against.
In any case, the play here by the neocons is well described in an interview with Paul Craig Roberts. When you hear this, you will put the pieces together on the game plan to break Russia down so it can’t oppose us. Going back on Reagan’s word that we would not use the former satellite countries as staging grounds for missiles.
Destruction of US media outlets for real information and the end of any power to counter us, even China. We use NGO’s (non govt orgs. to whip up peoples like the Uyghurs to create internal problems.
One interesting observation was Morning Joe having Carter on, Carter is saying it’s ok for Russia to have Crimea, but not the Ukraine, meaning on the show of BIGNEW’s daughter, Carter is relaying a message a bit less extreme than the neocons.
Please give this a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BABXj2nNO8k
Right. As if the Left hasn’t done everything it could to destroy the Nation State. A plague on both your houses.
I’m about to type two words that will cause your head to implode from the vacuum therein.
Global Warming
Al Gore’s trick on the Children. Polar Bears are master swimmers since much of Ice melts every summer.
You must be a zombie to continue typing after your head imploded. Could you perhaps tell us who is your coven leader?
Hey, BT.
James G. Rickards on Greg Hunter’s channel today… looks like the IMF will be the source of America’s next bailout. Coming soon to a theater near you.
Cheers
We don’t need a bailout—the banksters do and we already paid the $33 Trillion!
This is the set-up for disaster capitalism: From public to private.
Can’t wait for austerity for all. Get ready for the privatization of ss and medicare. I once mentioned I saw Lloyd Blankfein followed by a gaggle of reporters as he walked down the street. He turned around to address them and stated: The American people will have to get used to living without their entitlements.”
I ask Little Lord Blankfein who can’t wait to get his mitts on the trusts, and what “entitlement” will you have to get used to not having? Who the F is he? And why did this non-nation state make him so important?
During Clinton’s era, Wm. K. Black explained that there was a process called “Retructuring Government” They claimed, “The banks are the govt’s biggest clients.” to which Black answered, “No it’s the American people. They answered, “You are wrong.”
This is what runs the country and JHK asked once, where is the intelligentsia? (professors and people in the know) Why aren’t they saying anything?
—why, indeed. This is the iintelligentsia!
James, here is an analysis of this week’s essay:
90% was on Russian/Ukraine
Your conclusion: “Why should we even glance overseas at others?”
10% The real problems we face.
============
Here is my suggested revision:
Your conclusion: “Why should we even glance overseas at others?”
0% Russia/Ukraine
10% The real problems we face.
90% Proposed solutions.
===============
I must warn you, James, if you were to follow my suggested revision you would be met by derision from most of your readers. Their comments would go like this:
* It is too late.
* It won’t scale.
* We don’t have enough resources to do anything.
* There is no political will.
* We are broke
* Bring back the 50s
* Stop the “happy talk”
* We are so fucked
It’s the epitome of poor taste to threaten and chastise one’s host.
Venice voted the other day to secede from Italy — that is, to not send anymore tax revenue to Rome.
Oh yeah. Well, Alaska is fomenting a vote to secede from the United States and submit a plea to Russia fro annexation. Where have you Joe McCarthy…a Nation turns its lonely eyes to you…woo, woo, woo…woo, woo, woo.
Very funny Cold, good for a laugh
I can’t imagine the secessionist Todd Palin, Sarah’s husband to want to annex itself to anything, let alone Russia. Indeed they can see Russia from their home, but they don’t want any part of it.
Palin is a real Mama Grizzly. Gentlemen, would you bed that bear? No hockey moms please. Pit Bulls with Lib Schtick are for the birds to eat. In old Iran, they left the bodies for the vultures on the “Towers of Silence. They do similar in Tibet.
Grotesque piece that accuses Russia of Anti-Semitism and that carefully avoids admitting that the almost all of the Oligarchs were Jews. Putin crushed the Oligarchs and saved Russia. The people love him for it. There are Jews in his government. Anymore idiocy? Obviously the Jews aren’t satisfied with the situation. Who cares?
Ukraine is a disaster because Ukrainians made it so. They apparently had neither the leadership to steer an independent Ukraine nor the know-how to make it work. So do they now have the wherewithal to fend off Russian advances? I don’t know. Maybe they do.
There’s a lot of preposterous fantasizing going on. Like Putin’s delusions of Russian grandeur. Want more? There’s talk among the west’s big thinkers about this big idea of turning the Ukraine westward.
Turn the Ukraine westward? How far would that go? What the hell for? To what end? Can you imagine the lunacy of trying to incorporate this monumentally corrupt, backward and bankrupt kleptocracy into the already monumentally corrupt and bankrupt European union?
It’s already serious insanity trying to shoehorn disparate countries into one common economic and monetary space. Nations of waiters, taxi drivers and tax evaders with industrial powerhouses? It’s unworkable. Everyone knows this. Anyone with an ounce of sense knew this before they embarked on this fool’s errand. And they want to add the Ukraine to this list of grief?
Germany already has a concrete block around its neck – the former East Germany. Germany also chooses to accommodate such feckless “partners” as Cyprus, Italy and Greece. Add to that a destitute Ukraine, left that way by a generation of thievery by Ukrainian oligarchs not to mention a complicit Ukrainian intelligentsia and a general populace that let it all happen. How far can you test the patience of already overly tolerant and patient German townspeople?
Or let’s assume that Russia conquers all the Ukraine. What on earth will they do with it? IMO the “prestige” of restoring this basket case to its former status as a vassal state is going to wear awful thin awful fast once the reality of governing it sinks in.
But, in the meantime, Russians will be giddy. Rapturous crowds will fill public squares. They’ll have parades. They’ll watch strutting ranks of Russian troops and they’ll weep with pride. Russia is back they’ll say.
And Putin will be a hero (maybe that’s the whole point of this exercise).
Let the Russians think what they want. Let them have their moment. The joy won’t last. Russia won’t be able to digest this conquest and the whole catastrophic mess will just go down the drain that much faster.
Yes grotesque but “we” gave this to him on a platter. And we can’t complain if he builds bases in the New World. We didn’t respect their sphere of influence so why should he respect ours? We want to surround Russia with anti-missile bases and thus take away their ability to attack. And then force them to surrender or be destroyed. That’s our plan. He knows it and is fighting against it.
Right Vlad
Listen to the Paul Craig Roberts interview I posted earlier.
Don’t forget that Zbig wrote the blueprint for this it in the 1990’s.”The Grand Chessboard.”
This is no secret and the neocons are even worse than the obsessed Zbig.
There’s a reason why Carter was on Morning Joe to give Zbig daddy’s message that its aok for Russia to take Crimea. Even he knows it would be too impossible for R to lose it’s Black Sea port.
Good point Bee. This is also a conflict between two groups of Globalists: the CFR Trilateralist Crowd of Carter, Clinton, and Zbig. And against them the Neo Cons consisting of the crazed religious Right, Israel, and the non-liberal Jews.
It’s not easy to fill Wage’s combat boots: she has huge feet the size of tug boats. But I give you an A for effort. You are always on the attack and never defend your outrageous positions.
Volodya,
I agree about 100% with the gist of what you are saying here. And most of all that we (I live in Indiana, USA) should keep our Yankee hands out of it!
I understand–I or think I do–why the Russians want to get hold of the situation. How would we react if Mexico or Canada had a similar political and economic bomb ready to explode? !
We in the states are running ourselves into an economic, social, and political firestorm of our own. A calamity that is bound to start building momentum in the next few years.
I have good will for all the Ukrainians, and EU, etc. and wish them well. But it’s not USA business, something rather for the Ukrainians, Russia, Europe and the adjacent nations to settle.
“It’s the epitome of poor taste to threaten and chastise one’s host.” — Ozone
It’s the epitome of poor command of the English language to fail to distinguish a warning and a suggestion from a threat and a chastisment.
This was one of your “home run” posts, Jim. Felt like you were speaking _my_ mind.
Your being Jewish and having a good grasp of history makes me wonder why you don’t see the possibilities. It sounds as if you propose to ignore those possibilities (as Chamberlain did) because we should mind our own business. Then we’ll take it seriously if and when it’s too late? Do we step on the spark or run from the fire?
Living in a former Soviet satellite state gives me a different perspective. The people here still have very vivid memories of 1968. So who exactly is going to stop Mr. Putin?
“So who exactly is going to stop Mr. Putin?” — carina
When Mr Putin amassed troops on the border of Ukraine, many thought he would invade. Obama’s sanctions have effectively stopped Putin. Putin has stopped and has not invaded Ukraine.
But the United States and the European Union visa bans and asset freezes were just a swat on the noses of some of Putin’s closest political and business allies. If Putin is stupid enough to continue invading he will be met by measures designed to hit Russia’s wider economy. Europe and America are united. Obama has also spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has voiced support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. If Putin thinks Russia can take on the G7 and China, he really is crazy. He will get his ass whupped real good.
Chamberlain? How does he come into all this????
Chamberlain’s sin was that he refused to re-arm as a precaution. That is hardly the case here: the West spends more than 10x what Russia spends.
Western sanctions haven’t stopped anything. What baffles me, though, is why the USA is now daring Russia to destroy the petro-dollar. In the past, the USA has bombed anyone who suggested that he might sell oil in another currency: remember Iraq, Libya. Now Obama seems to be taunting Putin, and inviting him to accept Euros or Pounds or whatever in return for Russia’s oil and gas. Why? Have he and his masters already decided to dump the USD?
Anybody?
Google “Kyle Bass They’re going to kill the dollar.”
Hello FP.
I watched the clip, and considering that it is hearsay from a 2011 conversation, it could mean anything from QE on up. Since we have seen lots of QE since 2011, that would be my interpretation.
The alternative is a very deep and cynical game, which I might ascribe to Putin, but not Obama.
But you may be right.
It’s the net so take with a grain of salt. Bass is reputed to be a smart guy. Not sure what he gains by being associated with the hearsay.
from Today’s ZeroHedge:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-25/first-russia-locks-china-holy-grail-gas-deal-now-rosneft-prepares-mega-deal-india
It is difficult not to conclude that there is method to the madness, even if it is the method of 2 year olds.
Nancy Pelosi will be leading one of the American units, called the Pink Division. Medea Benjamin is the XO. Russian Speznatz Brigades will be stopped in their tracks.
BRH
From Wikipedia sauerkraut:
“Chamberlain sought to conciliate Germany and make the Nazi state a partner in a stable Europe. He believed Germany could be satisfied by the restoration of some of her colonies, and during the Rhineland crisis of March 1936 he had stated that ‘if we were in sight of an all-round settlement the British government ought to consider the question [of restoration of colonies]'”
Emphasis on “satisfied by the restoration of some of her colonies”
You’ll have to think a bit about how Chamberlain is relevant to what’s happening now. I live in a country where those memories are still very much vivid.
Carina, you might wish to read Churchill on the subject. I can’t find the quote easily, but in defence of Chamberlain, Churchill said something like, “In the mature light of history, not all those who appeased were wrong, and not all who resisted appeasement were right.” (Churchill: The Gathering Storm, Their Finest Hour). I stand by my view, that Chamberlain’s sin was to not provide for the possibility that he was wrong, i.e. he should have rearmed.
I thought that if you were to respond, you would respond with the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938; but of course, that was a matter for the French, to which Chamberlain deferred.
“killing a lot of people”
That’s wut we do – You KNOW that.
“The idea that the US could supply Europe with oil and gas instead of Russia is a preposterous fantasy.”
Hope your aquifers are TASTY…
“They were already there.”
Only the clueless would argue OTHERWISE.
You’re definitely gunna defeat the 200 POAST barrier this week!!!
My bad, for last WEEK/./
“Expect the G8 to soon be G7” — ajmuste, March 20, 2014 at 2:00 pm
March 24 … done. Putin is out.
OMG! The ignominy!
“…but maybe we’ll get lucky again and witness the insolvent G8-1 take their toys, leave the sandbox, and petulantly shout only they get to invade Mali, Libya, Iraq, and so forth.” F-P, 3/3/14 (BTW, 8-1=7)
OK, perhaps I was a bit harsh on Canada and Germany. Insolvent they may not be. In Germany’s case re blathering about Crimea — They want their gold and have to play along to get it back. Besides, they are an occupied country.
Sticky observation!
US to Germany:
“Here now, my good fellow, I have a very secure facility where I can store all that gold stuff that’s laying around making a mess. You wouldn’t want somebody to steal it, would you? We’ll take it off your hands so you’ll never have to fret about it ever again!”
Aaaaaahahahahaha! …fool me twice…uh… you can’t get fooled again! -GWB
Jim, Have you considered this? http://www.generalfusion.com/
bp,
It’s a veritable certainty that he’s “considered” that.
Have you considered this?:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-crocodiles-of-reality.html
A bit farther down in the essay, he includes the fusion subsidy dumpster, just so no one will feel left out. 😉
Lots of word salad. Stay tuned to General Fusion.
Oh, I’ll be right here waiting. I hope you don’t mind that I might be busying myself with a large amount of “other options” while together, we wait………………….
(And don’t forget, should that not pan out—– they’ll assuredly think of something.)
Do you think Edward Snowden reads books? And has a sense of history? Or is he a man of the new millenium, a tech guy who doesn’t need any stinking books. Books are a relic of the past.
That’s too bad (for him) I ran across one at a flea market that might pertain to his situation, “The Forsaken”, by film maker and author Tim Tzoulaidis. It tells the story of the tens of thousand of American communists, socialists, utopianists, do gooders and all around seekers who left the US in the 20s and 30s for the workers paradise in the Soviet Union. Many brought their families.
To make a long story short, the lucky ones were shot in the Lubyanka and in the killing pits outside Moscow, Leningrad etc. The unfortunates ended up being worked to death in the camps at Vorkuta and Kolyma (the gulag, where millions perished) Of course Stalin had american help covering up these crimes in the form of entertainer Paul Robeson, reporter Will Duranty and US Ambassador Joe Davies.
If tensions heat up between the US and Russia, will Snowden be treated as some kind of hero, or will he be looked at as a traitor and interloper, easily dispatched once all he knows has been extracted.
–BRH
Sheesh, BRH. Don’t you think Snowden is just another media foil by now?
Predictably, American thinking, even European thinking, about Ed Snowden breaks down into two thought camps. Yours, which essentially frames the guy as a naive activist who ran into the arms of an enemy only to end up used and discarded. And the other side, which can only argue that Snowden finally triggered a national debate which the media had entirely failed to facilitate before now. Casting him as a hero or villain is child’s play for intellectual pussies with too much time on their hands at this point. In both senses, the concerned populaces have failed to act or even speak out, aside from too little, too late English style debates very few will want to see. Oh, I forget that participating in blog commentary on the matter passes for democratic deliberation these days. We all know what kind of change that brings.
To date, nothing about the governments’ (US or UK) Homeland Security policies are different. I take that back… laws reinforcing public policing enabled through data-mining have only become stronger. You should be thanking Snowden, not asking if he’s as good a choosing a selective view of history by citing the same books as you.
BackRow,
You know as well as everyone else who knows history that Stalin was paranoid. His daughter lived to tell about it. I believe he even killed his wife. It was a cult of personality and a totalitarian dictatorship.
I’m no fan of Russia, but at least I know that it’s Capitalist now and the place is run by organized crime, as powerful as the leadership.
If you had any sense of history you would know that the leadership is different than in the xenophobic times of Stalin.
Making an extreme argument isn’t going to make your point, BRH. That doesn’t mean he’s safe. There’s can always be radioactive isotopes in his morning coffee
I don’t know BT, Putin can seem a little xenophobic himself. And he is a trained KGB officer, maybe trained by the same people who executed so many naive and gullible Americans back in the day.
Some of the American emigrants shot and worked to death in the 30s and 40s were quite prominent and well known at the time, as Snowden is now. Then they disappeared. Stateless persons such as they had become, nobody much cared. So I wouldn’t too surprised if some day Snowden just disappeared too, with the explanation that he is “somewhere in the country, taking a vacation”. A long vacation, if you will …
–BRH
“I don’t know BT, Putin can seem a little xenophobic himself.”-BRH
Not for nothing, BRH, but I wouldn’t necessarily call you a xenophobe for voicing your opinions on Blacks and Mexicans who clearly offend your view of what (ought to) comprises the American identity. So, now, what is it about Putin that makes him a xenophobe as opposed to a nationalist or patriot by your reasoning? C’mon now, no bullshit. You don’t get to agree with Vlad so often without seeming hypocritical here.
Nationalism or xenophobia, BRH?
As far as I can remember UFIA, I’ve never been too critical of black people or Mexicans. These primarily are the people I work with 4 nights a week. In fact Vlad himself busts my balls about it. I do try to be honest about what I see around me here, ‘specially in the city where I work. Take it for what its worth.
–BRH
Do you still drink tap water? It would explain much.
Wow – so many interesting comments. So many credible perspectives.
The basis for much of JK’s weekly diatribe are increasingly austere outcomes and conditions presented by the scarcity of cheap energy. And anyway – right now the PTB are only worried about making money on the known remaining energy stocks.
I point to things like the Superbowl and professional sports as proof enough that the down slope of energy consumption is still far away. Energy scarcity, NASCAR – really? No one’s going rogue until after the games and races stop……..
I can offer my own theory regarding any possible TSHTF scenarios…..
The prominence of social unrest and decentralization of power will be proportional to the rate of a given population’s (nation) loss of disposable energy consumption.
It’s always been about bread and circuses……
Carina, you ask who is going to stop Putin. Who can say? Maybe nobody. Despite being deluged with – ahem – “information”, our crystal balls in 2014 don’t work much better than those of 1914.
I suspect that you (like myself) see a lot of bad outcomes lurking out there. Read any concise history of the 19th and 20th centuries and nobody except the most pollyanna-ish would blame us for taking a dim view.
What will Putin do? Scant weeks ago he denied having any plans to eat Crimea. But now the question is what are his post-prandial plans? What’s next on the menu?
There’s stories out there of Russian agitators(ie sent by Putin and his boys) in the Russian parts of the eastern Ukraine.
You know how it works, organize pro-Russia rallies, wave Russian flags, loudly advocate union, incite violence, make sure Russian speakers get their heads busted. And make sure there’s a body count.
Putin will then have his excuse to send in the tanks, you know, to defend Russian compatriots from Ukrainian fascists etc.
But consider this: Russia may be big geographically with a hefty population ie 143 million. But Olehombre is right. Ukraine has a population of 45 million. And Ukraine has neighbors. Poland has a population of 39 million, Germany’s is 81 million and, further afield, France has 67 million, the UK 66 million. None of these countries is helpless.
An alliance of Ukraine, Poland and Germany by themselves is big enough to take on Russia. Will they do it if Russia tries to swallow Donetsk? What if Putin makes moves on the Baltic countries?
Does Putin have the cojones to try? Is he crazy enough? Do Ukrainians have the will to fight? What about their neighbors? I wouldn’t discount Ukrainian backbone as the recent festivities at the Maidan attest.
For a long time Russia was in demographic decline, Russian men dispirited and horribly un-healthy and short-lived alcoholics. Real piss tanks. So maybe Putin is trying to change the channel, to re-invigorate the place, to restore a sense of pride and purpose. A bit on the late side I would say especially after the kleptos and oligarchs had their way. Bled the place dry.
Or maybe he’s using the Ukraine as a distraction from the problems at home. A time-tested approach this is, to point the finger, you know, at foreigners, westerners, agitators, traitors, fascists, bankers, communists, Jews. Pick an enemy. It works.
In any case, I wouldn’t count on “rationality” prevailing. If history teaches us anything it is that the one commodity in short supply is “rationality”.
The prominence of social unrest and decentralization of power will be proportional to the rate of a given population’s (nation) loss of disposable energy consumption. — budizwiser
Budizwiser, your theory is interesting. Using your theory, the Blue Angels are creating social unrest. The Blue Angels circus is wasting more fossil fuel than NASCAR. Jets consume more than stock cars. The Blue Angels, with their stupid “air shows” … ooooh, aaaaah, ooooh … go screaming overhead, disturbing the peace, at taxpayer expense.
Yes sir, AJ… and is not the current fusion project another example of a “subsidy dumpster” among many, many others? But you likey that one. Similarly, months ago you argued against Thorium, then later for it, and so on.
I know, you’ll argue that somehow those sorts of projects are worth it, then you’ll argue that there not when it suits your angle again.
You’re another one who likes to employ glaring contradiction just for the fun of it. You’re quite good at it too; like others here.
“You know as well as everyone else who knows history that Stalin was paranoid.”- BT
Anecdotally speaking, all those history wanks know everything, as if they lived it.
JHK consistently says Obama’s economic recovery is bogus, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Here is some more evidence the recovery is real, based on real people’s spending behavior. Yes, thanks to Obama’s economic recovery and Obama lowering unemployment, people do have money to spend.
Consumer confidence jumped in March as people were more upbeat about future job prospects. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 82.3, up from 78.3 in February. It’s the first reading above 82 since last June, and the highest reading since January 2008.
I think the confidence number is the fact that Winter is almost over.
Seriously, you use the word “Obama” when in fact you mean “the Obama administration” I presume, since Obama is economically illiterate. That is not a condemnation since his training was in other disciplines and he must rely on others for their expertise, such as it may be. In all likelihood these advisors are literate, and this is probably a handicap, since the old certainties don’t seem to apply anymore. Where’s that old reliable “V bounce” off the recession bottom that is supposed to follow reduced interest rates?
Regard the official numbers on inflation. Everyone I speak with notes a dramatic increase in the price of a bag of groceries, and all must eat, yet The Fed dismisses food and energy and concludes there is no inflation. Likewise they conclude unemployment is diminishing to acceptable levels. We can debate all day about the meaning of the words “inflation” and “unemployment” but sooner or later common sense applies and an apple indubitably costs North of one dollar when in recent memory it used to be half that. Consult your average black teenager on the meaning of consumer confidence.
I think Catherine Austin Fitts writes a reasoned analysis of the present malaise: there are pockets of great prosperity such as San Francisco, New York City, parts of Texas, of course Washington DC, and other oases here and there. These represent the new economy. Then there are the loci of the old economy best exemplified by Detroit. The liabilities of the old economy aren’t going away and must be addressed somehow. It’s not clear to me that the present regime, or anyone else for that matter, has a clue how to do that.
It stands out more and more to me that maybe blaming the media for skewing public perception is just another exercise in self-deception. But here’s an article describing exactly how the propaganda moves through the journalist’s fingers to the consumer’s mind:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38049.htm
Now scale that down to the way opinions are expressed about the Ukraine/Crimea stand-off at the amateur level. Same difference. Does the bias even need to be intentional?
“Or let’s assume that Russia conquers all the Ukraine. ”
Why everybody think that Putin wants to conquer Ukraine? Yes, Russian Army is ammassed on the border, but I doubt that Putin’s intentions are to roll over the tanks. He is already accomplishing his goals without firing a single shot in anger :
1. Put a fear of God into the hearts of Ukrainian Right Sector preventing them to start mass genocide against the population (Russian and Ukrainian alike)
2. Keep in check NATO forces against any possible temptations.
In a meantime a couple of interesting developments:
Current (and only one) Constitutional President Victor Yanukovich arrived in Kharkov (Eastern Ukraine) and according to some sources is planning a “military operation” together with his Defence Minister. He will rely NOT on Russian forces, but on “self-defence” militia, however excellently trained and equipped.
Incidentelly, his arrival coincided with murder of prominent member of Right Sector Sashko Biloi and dissaperance of others high-ranking officials of that Nazi organisation.
If you had any sense of history you would know that the leadership is different than in the xenophobic times of Stalin.
We live in a world of constant flux. There are shifts. We’re in the midst of one. Xenophobia is, perhaps, back in fashion…if it was ever out of fashion. I think you need to study the man a little closer. I wouldn’t call Putin Stalin necessarily. But I also wouldn’t call Stalin or Hitler Genghis Khan necessarily–although there are some striking similarities.
Convenient Fascism
Xenophobia is normal if not praise worthy. Sure it can go too far, but what about too little? And face it: Xenophillia is the disease of the West and we have a terminal case. You are so far gone you think it’s normal.
“The political landscape in this country is a wasteland of mirages and dust devils. That is the true weakness of the USA now. We’re incapable of seeing the disorder in our own house.”
Damn that is ominous. I hope I’m not living where it will be a no-go zone and a region of howling wilderness in a hundred years.
But it is worse than ominous. The cornicopian crowd has met its Waterloo.
As the link shows the disorder has roots. From my linked article:
”
The decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites.
”
And that from NASA, the cornicopian holy grail.
testing
“The recognition that there are some places on the planet where the US can’t exert its influence has also come as a shock to the so-called American Deep State — that matrix of bureaucratic toxic sludge that labors to pretend to control everything and succeeds mainly in embarrassing itself in a world that is now deeply tending away from the centralized control of anything. Nations are breaking up everywhere and for the moment there is no coherent public discussion of the ramifications.” – jhk –
Yeah, no coherent public discussion. One wonders if the private discussions among European and US “leadership” is very coherent, either. I fear it is not.
“Freedom depends on not being intimidated. But if the only way to live in freedom is to live without fear, then contemplating the worst occasions radical thoughts for a conservative. Can national sovereignty and political freedom really exist in an age of nuclear superpowers? What if preserving those political achievements really does require their complete abolition?
These days the press is gleefully churning out headlines about a renewed Cold War. Our political thinkers seem enlivened by the re-emergence of a real geo-strategic foe.
I don’t want a new Cold War. The first was bad enough. But if our political class is determined to clash with Russia, we ought to learn to fear them as well.”
http://theweek.com/article/index/258511/why-america-should-fear-the-worst-with-russia
…when we no longer have an airline industry, and most Americans won’t have the means to own automobiles…
ah jimmy, another hearty guffaw at your ineptness, you are like the Pope, infallibly fallible when writing ex clusterfuck.
care to bet the farm on this one? you misread all of Western technological progress – including centuries prior to the use of petroleum.
we laugh at your inability to see the obvious, as we soar high above you into a world of superabundance and cornucopia.
peace peaceniks
JHK,
Please consider leaving this particular vid up. Many readers here might have already seen it, but it provides clear as day detail and photo evidence that US DSoS Victoria Nuland et al knew exactly who they were dealing with when seeking to install Ukraine’s interim government – “Yats,” “Klitch,” and let’s not t forget those “New Nazis” – the Svoboda Party… A picture in the vid clearly catches all the key players in the same room plus the roles they’re each presently playing. It might not be new detail, but it’s certainly detail that’s been largely omitted by corpzi-media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWkfpGCAAuw
Speaking of Convenient Fascism.. Thanks, Cold H., for the link and WP article recommendation earlier. I read the full article… it contained plenty of insinuation and very little supporting detail… meh.
Ironically, Nuland found it entirely convenient to fraternize with fascist/xenophobes/ethnic nationalist thugs when overthrowing Yanukovich. Just wondering how many stories any of you have found regarding this side of the story in American corpzi-media?
Yet plenty of journalists find it to be extra spooky when Putin responds to these convenient dealings with fascists by the West in vowing to protect his own kind just the same.
How dare people want their own Nation! That’s Fascism! Right you are boyo. So what’s your alternative? Globalism? They will have to swim through an ocean of blood to attain their dream of a One World State – and they are willing to do it. Clueless people like you offer no coherent resistance. Just admit it: you don’t know which side you’re on.
Remember that movie where Burt Lancaster says to the President, You are not a Weak Sister. You are a criminally Weak Sister. Was it Seven Days in May? Oh for a General like that! But he would probably start WW3 with the Russians. I just want domestic reform not World War.
Now our Liberals say Fascism or Nationalism. They’ve never made a distinction before, at least not for several decades since Liberalism went Left. Fascism is the Philosophy of Nationalism. There is no distinction. There are good and bad Fascisms – as each Nation has it own unique features, strengths, weaknesses, and failures. No peoples are interchangeable. You can’t fill up Sweden with Somalis and call them Swedes. That is insanity. Fascism recognizes and condemns this evil – Liberalism doesn’t. Conservatism is just a softer form of Liberalism, its loyal or token opposition so to speak. Real Conservatism of the Edmund Burke variety was very close to Fascism. You people wouldn’t care to see any distinctions – which was close to my first point.
Hey Vlad wasn’t fascism a scheme cooked up by Mussolini in Italy back in the 30s? It seems to me its just another scheme where Big Business, Big Labor and Big Government team up to kick the sh-t out of ordinary people. Kind of like the GM and AIG bailouts, along with the private prisons springing up like mushrooms across the country. How could you support that?
=BRH
No what you are describing is Plutocracy or rule by the Wealthy. Fascism is the opposite where the Wealthy are Forced to serve the Nation or get out or go to jail. Fascism can go wrong too but it’s in other directions: cult like worship of a great leader, excessive militarism, or idolizing ones own Nation to the detriment of all others.
There is going to be centralization in the modern industrial state, right? Marx agreed with that as well. But who is going to be in control and who benefits? Is the State going to control and provide guidance or are private Corporations and Individuals going to be able to run rough shod over everyone?
JanKos’ variations of cum hoc & post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense:
“How dare people want their own Nation! That’s Fascism! Right you are boyo. So what’s your alternative? Globalism?” –
________________________
And then later:
“Clueless people like you offer no coherent resistance. Just admit it: you don’t know which side you’re on.” –
___________________________________
Vlad if you ever argue a coherent position not entirely laden with fallacy and defunct, discredited ideas on this site I’ll be sure to give you the credit you so desperately desire.
I love it when you talk trash because anyone who reads this site consistently knows that when a genuinely academic poster decides to really engage you point-for-point you quickly fall apart, abandon the original topic, or change the subject as quickly as you can to avoid having to test your own reasoning to its logical ends. Every time you back down. Every time. Yeah, you’ve managed to bully a couple of weak sauce dudes here into agreeing with you on superficial points of the sorts of reverse racism inflicted on whites, but the few big brains that visit their comments here now and again destroy you easily at every turn.
You’re the biggest coward here Vladdie… if not, tell us who you would support and why, which fascists’ doctrine sugars your Kool Aid – Putin or Tahnybok? C’mon, don’t be scurred tubby man.
Simple: Ukraine for the Ukrainians. Let the ones who want to go with the West go with the West. Let those who want to go with the Russians go with the Russians. And let those who want to join Russia join Russia. Of course I think those who want to join the EU are most unwise since they will fill the Country up with Muslims and Black Africans. Recovery from such a debacle is most unlikely. I’d like to see the Fascists and Right Wingers go out on their own without joining the EU. The True West in other words.
See how simple it is when one is clear? Maybe going their own way is difficult or unlikely. But at least we can formulate what should be as a star to guide us. Perhaps it can be work towards and become more possible as time goes on. Nothing but disaster comes when people lose their vision and only the easy is seen as possible. As Herzl told the Jews: if you think Israel is just a dream then that’s all it is. If you think it is possible, then it is if you work for it.
Simplistic. You’ve conveniently sterilized your response. Who knew you would avoid the tough details, Janos. Fascism is indeed convenient til you have to cop to a methodology… you’ve stopped short because you know the end game is disgraceful. You’re absolutely devoid of original ideas.
You are too small to think big Little Man. So you stick with the “details” of criticizing the status quo – and those who want to change it as well. Criticism is fine but if you refuse to offer solutions you are stalled in a negative stance.
Original? Truly creative people don’t worry about being original. That’s for show offs and jack off arteests. Quality is what matters whether it’s been done before or not. If you don’t worry about being original you may find yourself being it anyway. Worry about Truth and Quality.
The advice I just gave you is literally priceless – the Pearl of Great Price.
It is time to abandon the concept of the Chess game established by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his famous book. As Mr. Kunstler points out in this article, each one should become more concerned about his own fate.
I can agree with his claims. It is now five years from when I was travelling in Ukraine and Russia. What I have seen was not pleasant. Ukraine is extremely poor, and depends completely on Russia. Of course, there is some trade with its western neighbors (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and even with Romania), but Russia plays the prime role. And America should remember where it belongs, and stop playing global policeman, interfering in other’s business.
People in Ukraine, who live closer to the Russian border, have strong nationalist feelings towards old Soviet Union. And it is obvious – they are probably poorer now than they were as an integral part of the Soviet Union. Also, if you cross the border and go to Russia, you can see that they are better off than Ukraine.
There is no shame in admitting that Ukraine failed as a state, therefore it will be devoured by its powerful neighbor.
The battle for Central Asia was called “the great game” back in the 1800’s. England, Russia, Germany, and China were the main players. He who controls Central Asia will control the world or so they said.
Putin is indeed the weak sister, or as Obama correctly assessed: Russia is merely a “regional power” who threatens its neighbors out of weakness.
Putin all by himself has breathed new life into NATO, resurrecting NATO from its death throes. Way to go, Putin! Putin’s actions may play well in Russia, but at what cost. Putin is showing his stupidity and his weakness.
There is a very good road from the border of Ukraine to Kiev. Russian tanks could be in Kiev in four hours. But they have not crossed the border because Obama stopped the weaker Putin cold.
Putin’s forces can now do nothing but tramp around in the border snow. Obama is stronger and has superior strategic intelligence. Obama’s strength is amplified by his ability to rally support against Russia.
Putin, by his actions, has isolated Russia from the world community. Even China supports Ukraine’s sovereignty. The weak sister Putin is paralyzed.
Putin’s foreign policy objectives failed. Putin spent $15 Billion to bring Ukraine closer to Russia. Money ill spent. Money lost. Putin’s choice to run Ukraine, Yanukovych, left the country with his tail between his legs. Putin lost political control of Ukraine and can now only impotently amass troops on Ukraine’s border, but dare not cross it. Putin is a loser.
That’s parody, right?
Are you just trying to irritate the anti-Obama posters on this board with your “Obama vs. Putin” meme? Somehow I doubt, if Bush were at the helm, that you would be typing a similar narrative. Don’t get wrong; I’m glad President Obama has seemingly pulled military involvement off the table, and I realize that you’ll probably assert ‘what Bush would have done’ in order to delineate your curious personal cheer leading which would really read bizarre coming from you if cloaked in jingoistic generalities, i.e. “U.S.A…”.
BTW, I was reading the latest PCR piece and he seems to be making the case that the Neo-Nazi faction in Ukraine is an American embarrassment/miscalculation and hardly the ‘in-control’ narrative that you seem to be pushing.
I really don’t know what to believe one way or another but am curious as to what you might think.
I hope Kunstler has something to say about Zuckerberg’s purchase of Oculus in next Monday’s State of the Dystopia address.
When I responded to JHK’s rhetorical question, “With Detroit in bankruptcy, why would we send Kiev billions of dollars?” I mentioned both the DIA and the water system, but only gave a link to something about the DIA. Here’s a link to the most recent entry that I wrote about the water system. Unfortunately, I wrote it when talks over a regional authority were still going on. They’ve since broken down and a private operator is being sought. The seeds of that breakdown could already be seen in how things were going back in January.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/detroit-regional-water-authority-talks.html
The trouble with the Detroit water system is that nobody in Detroit bothers to pay their water bill. There is an effort to get surrounding suburban townships to pony up but they’re not too keen on the plan. I seriously doubt anybody’s water will be turned off, tho. Politically it would be a disaster; also think of the health and sanitary ramifications. The State of Michigan or the feds will have to bail out the water dept. along with the rest of the city.
–BRH
Speaking of decline –
I wonder if the Romans had problems similar to these, during their decline and fall?
“The operator of a passenger train that jumped the tracks and ran part-way up an escalator at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport early on Monday admitted that she dozed off and did not wake up until the crash, a federal investigator said.
The operator had been running Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) trains for about 60 days before the incident and was admonished in February for overrunning a station, Ted Turpin, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said on Wednesday.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/26/us-usa-chicago-derail-idUSBREA2P1J820140326
Everyone on this board gets three guesses to the gender and race of this train operator. Janos will probably win, though.
Politics, satire, and astronomy come into an unusual alignment:
“More than 7 billion miles away from the sun, out on the far reaches of the solar system, astronomers have spotted a planet-like object they’ve never seen before, and they’ve nicknamed it Biden.
Not that it has any real similarities to the vice president, other than a reddish tint and, arguably, its inclination toward the far-out.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/planet-like-object-nicknamed-biden-could-help-explain-solar-systems-origins/2014/03/26/1bb123fa-b52f-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html
Beantown Bill, are you no longer following the tread?
If not, I’ll miss you. I though of you when I saw this astronomy story.
=================
Bad fire in Boston today. My prayers and thoughts are with the victims, and the families of the two firefighters who were killed.
Yeah, Procon, I’m still around. I haven’t felt like commenting, just lurking. I suppose that’ll change pretty soon. Had a very minor ice dam leak on my ceiling over my kitchen window and got enough insurance money to paint over my kitchen, living room, dining room and hallway ceilings. We had “popcorn” ceilings and decided to remove the popcorn. Ceiling dust everywhere. I didn’t use a filter and got a lot of dust in my nose and throat, resulting in a bad cold. That didn’t help my desire to do postings either, but I’m a lot better.
Thanks for the kind words.
Bill
Home improvement, my nemesis. This place needs a lot of work and I just dread it. Of the things I dislike the most plaster dust is high on the list. And my carpentry skills aren’t good — split boards, bent nails, smashed thumbs. Did a pipe burst in the ceiling in one of these cold snaps, which are still with us?
–BRH
No, there’s an area of my roof which is susceptible to ice dams. I didn’t have a burst pipe, luckily.
h
and t
I miss Q, too. I suspect that he and JHK had a quarrel concerning the (then, newly falsified) identity of one of CFN’s very frequent posters – and that Q quit in a snit, or JHK banned him or both.
Q was (and is, wherever he is) always impeccably logical – as would befit a retired accountant for a DoD contractor. If he quit over JHK’s illogical defense of that one “certain poster,” I don’t blame him one bit.
And speaking of JHK’s nemeses – look in the trackbacks/pingbacks, and you’ll find one of them linking to his own recently created website. Check that website you’ll find complimentary words for BeingThere, and me, and a couple of others.
Fun times.
Remember he was also dealing with the serious illnesses of several relatives and in laws. I think his real life might have cancelled his cyber life for the time being.
In some ways cyber life is more real since it is the only “place” where free intellectual exchange is possible – and even that is to an ever diminishing degree thanks to “Liberals”.
What is the Politically Correct term for a bloke who is “Cockeyed”?
John McCain
I got an email from Amazon.com asking me to review a book that I bought through Amazon. The email was addressed to my “Handle”. “Pucker”. How does Amazon know about “Pucker”?
Oh Puck you are too much. They are spying on you thru the peephole of your cam. They know you when you’re sleeping. So be good for evil’s sake.
And I recently bought several pairs of Hanes underwear while in the US. (Underwear in China is usually too small for me and strangles my nuts.) In any case, I’m now getting email adverts from Hanes. How did they get my email address?
Some rare good news – extraordinarily good. Just an anomaly or is it a sign of real hope?
http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/26/fbi-severs-ties-with-liberal-domestic-terrorism-inspiring-southern-poverty-law-center/#ixzz2x8qdSIZP
I don’t know what to think of Paul Craig Roberts. He seems to have an ear to the ground – no doubt about that. But I wonder about ‘his eye’ in terms of preconception and bias. His current ‘Putin is a school boy, Obama a bully puppet’ mantra seems a good example of that. And not to imply that he doesn’t paint an entertaining picture, but it seems to me (again, only my impression and opinion; I could be very wrong), it’s a picture already painted in his head, without having to go outdoors and actually experience and apprehend the infinite variety and spur-of-the-moment idiosyncrasy that Nature offers and human life mirrors. In short, his narrative seems geared to a certain audience. And his promo image does nothing to dissuade me from that notion: Is that Thomas Jefferson behind PCR who is posing proudly in a noble three quarter view? I can’t really tell; all those old white guys with long, gray hair look the same to me. But what a marketing angle, enveloping oneself in the philosophical emanations of Founding Father sfumato, their misty spirits no doubt infusing and informing the mind and fingertips of PCR as he types out one predictable anti U.S.A. piece after another.
The other day I made the mistake of responding to an uploaded FB clip in which someone claimed to have filmed some UFO’s. I stated that these weren’t UFO’s only the visual infinitude and deceptive illusions of urban reflections at dusk. When I mentioned that ‘the big white bulb’ in the sky was actually a reflection of the lamp post down below the poster accused me of calling him a “dumb shit”. I was then attacked by a throng of true believers who accused me of everything under the sky but who never actually responded to my one simple observation. And so I conceded and admitted that yes, it most certainly must have been an unidentified flying object and not an illusory reflection. In fact, I joined in this orgiastic festival of delusion and posted my own “unidentified swimming object”: a bright white object shimmering mysteriously in the water on a full moon evening. Sometimes it just feels good to be hated.
Buck,
I’m no fan of Putin as such and I don’t think PCR is either, but as PCR is pointing out in “How much war does America want”, he explains what the issues are for Putin and in this case, I would agree with him.
We do have lie to ourselves and everyone else what our actions and agendas are about and indeed, I agree that with the extreme right wing taking over the government, this thing backfired on us.
Here’s what I would say, if you want to decipher this coup. Look at other things we say with impunity to get the war machine going. Look at our actions in South Ossetia with Karl Rove of all people going there to stir up trouble with Russia. (not to mention how we got into Iraq—-Ohhhhhh!)
Remember it’s all about the hegemony in financialization world-wide and military dominance. The war contractors are making out fine, thank you very much.
[This is what Putin thinks: The Americans promised Gorbachev that they would not take NATO into Eastern Europe, but the Americans did. The Americans withdrew from the ABM Treaty, which prohibited escalating the arms race with anti-ballistic missile systems. The Americans arranged with Poland to deploy anti-ballistic missile bases on Poland’s border with Russia. The Americans tell us the fantastic lie that the purpose of American missile bases in Poland is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian ICBMs. The Americans change their war doctrine to elevate nuclear weapons from a retaliatory deterrent to a pre-emptive first strike force. The Americans pretend that this change in war doctrine is directed at terrorists, but we know it is directed at Russia. The Americans have financed “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine and hope to do so in the Russian Federation itself. The Americans support the terrorists in Chechnya. ]……….
But even Zbig. had to step this back through the mouth of Carter. Let Putin have Crimea and his Black Sea Port. The Neocons overstepped the rhetoric to their own disadvantage.
Now, Obama says something interesting. He says, Putin is a mere regional power and what he’s most worried about is a bomb in NYC.
Just wondering as a New Yorker what he’s been told. Is it a false flagger—do I have to worry? Is it a canard to get out of this standoff since it’s going nowhere…….?
In PCR’s latest piece he asserts that the U.S, has military eyes on both Russia and China. I just find that hard to believe; no country could be that stupid and crazy? Of course there is no doubt the U.S. might win some military battles( a big maybe) but the occupation phase has never really worked out that well for the U.S. Just picture it, a “Blackwater” in China?
If a fighter gets in the ring too many times they inevitably get knocked out. And once knocked out they’re never the same–have a look at Tyson.
My former neighbor. After we found out he had 2 white tigers on his property, whenever the kids were out, we had to stand by with rifles.
–BRH
“In PCR’s latest piece he asserts that the U.S, has military eyes on both Russia and China. I just find that hard to believe; no country could be that stupid and crazy?” -BS
_____________________
Hahaha… Only in America.
“Asian pivot”? And did you forget Obama whispering to a Russian diplomat that after the election (his last) he might could be a little more flexible with missile defense systems already in place within Russia’s sphere of influence?
Nah, they ain’t so bold now are they, to maybe plan ahead a bit? Stop perplexing yourself. It ain’t complicated, or even conspiratorial for that matter. Just a little tit for tat, that’s all… Sometimes it backfires.
Oh I agree with your dismissal of an “Asian pivot”. But you might want to enlighten PCR.
Remember what Lao Tzu said: A man can know the whole world without ever leaving his room. Elphias Levi said the same thing about one who knew how to use the Tarot as an aid.
Good show on the cultists. Joan of Arc made fools of her interrogators: Do you hear voices? Yes, I’m hearing your voice right now.
Hate is an energy. You have discovered a great secret. You must take this lead and make it into gold. Watch the racial self hatred though. Whites are the most interesting and diversified looking race by far.
Perhaps you’ve read Mark Twain’s essay “St. Joan of Arc”? It’s an amazing essay; one of his best IMO.
I noticed last week you mentioned “your people” and ‘your followers’ –you must be coming up in the world. Should I now address you as “Ragnar Lothbrok”?
As I had blurted before, some holistic thinking might come in handy in the teeth of this deliberately manufactured kerfuffle that points out dangers and unintended consequences “un-mulled” by the creators.
Here’s some:
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-mar-25-2014-cold-warning/
It may be a lengthy way to outline a bunch of dots to be connected, but tiny, narrow jingoistic/anti-american soundbytes (such as those falling like rotted fruit from the lips of teevee pundits and politicians) are not going to get the picture painted.
(Also, as someone just e-mailed me, most sleepers do not desire awakening. JHK continues to write about this dangerous phenomena, but, as is typical, this warning is roundly ignored or vilified. So be it.)
Hey O3, What’s the difference between Beer nuts and Deer nuts? Hold it, Hold it. Beer nuts are $1.59 and Deer nuts are under a buck! A little humor from “The Walking Dead”.
But what a marketing angle, enveloping oneself in the philosophical emanations of Founding Father sfumato, their misty spirits no doubt infusing and informing the mind and fingertips of PCR as he types out one predictable anti U.S.A. piece after another.
Yes indeed. So much disinformation…for various reasons. There’s so very many dots.
Who Needs Revolution……..
“I don’t know what to think of Paul Craig Roberts. He seems to have an ear to the ground – no doubt about that. But I wonder about ‘his eye’ in terms of preconception and bias.” -BS
___________________________
I do too. His fondness of Regan and my own assessment that those years mark the pinnacle of his career (it was all down hill in America starting with Reagan) exemplifies how cognitive dissonance affects everyone’s judgment now and again; however, Roberts seems to be able to evaluate and challenge his own thinking far better than most men his age. Roberts knows exactly how the economy was systematically dismantled and re-oriented toward soft totalitarianism from there. In fact, if you watch PCR closely, he wrestles with the realization that America has been a faux democracy for quite some time, as he consistently points to imperialistic machinations post The Founders, another cherished meme of dissonance for so many. There’s too much elaboration needed here, so back to this:
“His current ‘Putin is a school boy, Obama a bully puppet’ mantra seems a good example of that.”- BS
____________________________
This is more your own characterization than his. Yes, he (PCR) likely admires Putin’s guile in dealing with the stage-trained actors running/performing plays in the West, and no one with a brain believes Obama to be anything but a chump at this point, but PCR isn’t makin’ Putin out to be a “school boy.” Nah… what’s happening is much of the media are branding Putin as some iteration of an ethnic purist from history’s long list of tyrants and dictators; meanwhile others, like me, recognize a political leader with backbone. I see Putin as possessing an unmistakable mix of intellect and bullish strength; something I’ve NEVER seen in American leader. Whether he’s good or evil is just a lame distraction from the fact that he’s presently uniting his country for a showdown. The rest of the narratives set forth by the intelligentsia are mostly bullshit.
On that note, could America unite as a people today if it had to? Only by accepting a lie, which they’re more than willing to do. On the other hand, Putin isn’t lying to his people about what the West is really up to. In that sense, guys like me will continue to sit on the sidelines as the Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton types continue to clamor for 2016, ready to stack Republican and Democrat voters as sandbags or toss ’em into the Alpo pit, if the time comes.
So Putin and Obama (face it, Obama’s already out of office) are in a stalemate. The article you recently read from PCR basically explains that all sides are weighing the costs of a military confrontation. Roberts has throughout argued that it’s not clear that the interim government of Ukraine can intelligently/reliably collaborate with Tahnybok’s Svoboda Party. The makeshift Ukrainian national guard is certainly no match for Russia without some level of military support from the West. It’s uncertain that the EU will support military action against Russia even if they do try to take additional parts of Ukraine. And, since Crimea is already settled, Putin has no need to squish ’em just yet. Despite the propaganda in Western media toward Putin, every journalist acknowledges that the EU can’t afford damaged energy relations with Russia. Putin dismissed from the G8 – Ha! That’s equivalent to what exactly? If Russia is absent at the next G20, pundits can talk trash then.
Reagan
Yeah, Unstoppable
It’s interesting to me that so many of those who worked for Reagan are disenchanted by what has followed. PCR, Wm K. Black, David Stockman to name a few.
What they didn’t realize was to dismantle the progressive era would eventually undo the nation state. I say this, because although the Republican Party may have had a decent platform at one time, the supply side economics that PCR devised with a partner would have been better off as a tool for a kick start, just as tax breaks for a small period of time can. But adopting this as economic cant, is what killed the country.
In the beginning when they turned Keynes around they were working with a fat economy. As quiet economic coup, they should have seen this coming as something we can’t get out of.
Now it’s way beyond Adam Smith and it is a breaking down of a public domain, which means a breaking down of We the People.
Now we are a corporatocracy. Now they’re freaked out and kicked out of the Republican talking points machine. They no longer have a voice in MSM and are left in the wilderness to howl to anyone who will listen.
He has his issues, but I still like to hear what he has to say. It’s usually good. He tells me I shouldn’t be blaming Milton Friedman for this……(but I do)
“…the supply side economics that PCR devised with a partner would have been better off as a tool for a kick start, just as tax breaks for a small period of time can. But adopting this as economic cant, is what killed the country.” – BT
_________________________
Yes, BT. I’ve listened to/read PCR’s defense of supply side economics as a cure for stagflation… he makes a good argument in a limited sense, for what a rather ignorant onlooker like me can understand. But I think he’s simply protecting his ego there… He feels a tremendous amount of pain and perhaps responsibility for what has transpired in the US beginning back then. When you see his grand-rug rats crawling around in the background of one of his vids… his bitter affect toward what America has become all makes sense.
Anyhow, Reagonomics, Keynesianism… all that kind of stuff is social science/philosophy to me, which I loathe. And Reagan was before my time, so when PCR speaks with seeming romantic admiration of the Reagan leadership legacy, or the virtues of this or that economic policy, I tune out.
Everything I’ve seen and read of Reagan from old video and speech transcripts is that he was no less a puppet than any recent president. My view is that Reagan’s image was the first totally concocted product of well-tuned integrated marketing gimmickry. Each American presidency after his demonstrates the perfecting of such techniques. How is “It’s Morning in America” significantly different from “Hope and Change”?
Anyhow, signs that Reagan was mostly out of his mind/demented during his second term are quite clear to me. Cabinet appointees with crafty agendas took total advantage of his mental deficiencies during his reign. He sho luved dem jelly beans, tooo! And his supposed tactful defeat/ending of the Cold War with Russia is total mythology as well. Dumb luck and the fact that Russia screwed itself played a bigger part than Reaganites will ever admit. Again…the PR machine makes these men what they are in the minds of adherents.
Indeed!
Still working the Left/Right paradigm I see. You think Hillary would have done anything different? Oh, Hillary is a fake Socialist? Show me a real one. Mandela? He backed off his radical take down the Corporations stand once he was on the verge of taking power. There is ONE Party Be. Communism has always been a front of the Globalist Bankers. You want real Socialism without these guys in charge? You’ll have to get involved in far “Right Wing” politics. Also called Nationalism and yes, also called Fascism.
Hillary is anything but a socialist. She’s a dedicated global neoliberal like her husband who restructured government in a policy to serve banking interests.
She’s a Walmart board member and she got $800,000.00 from Colombia to push CAFTA.
It’s inverted Communism. The money is taken from the former middle class and shot up to the stratosphere through financialization ie derivatives. The banks don’t have to back it.
The banksters can’t lose, so we the tax-payers will be forced to.
That’s not socialism!
I ask again: show us real Socialism. Anywhere, anytime. It will be either the Bankers in drag or and/or a Tyranny.
Neo-Libs set ’em up, Neo-Cons knock ’em down. Or something like that.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38060.htm
“Russia has pointed to America’s decision to go into Iraq as an example of Western hypocrisy. Now, it is true that the Iraq war was a subject of vigorous debate, not just around the world but in the United States, as well. I participated in that debate, and I opposed our military intervention there.
But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people in a fully sovereign Iraqi state that can make decisions about its own future.
Of course, neither the United States nor Europe are perfect in adherence to our ideals. Nor do we claim to be the sole arbiter of what is right or wrong in the world.
We are human, after all, and we face difficult decisions about how to exercise our power.
But part of what makes us different is that we welcome criticism, just as we welcome the responsibilities that come with global leadership. We look to the east and the south and see nations poised to play a growing role on the world stage, and we consider that a good thing. It reflects the same diversity that makes us stronger as a nation and the forces of integration and cooperation that Europe has advanced for decades. And in a world of challenges that are increasingly global, all of us have an interest in nations stepping forward to play their part, to bear their share of the burden and to uphold international norms.
So our approach stands in stark contrast to the arguments coming out of Russia these days. It is absurd to suggest, as a steady drumbeat of Russian voices do, that America is somehow conspiring with fascists inside of Ukraine but failing to respect the Russian people. My grandfather served in Patton’s Army, just as many of your fathers and grandfathers fought against fascism. We Americans remember well the unimaginable sacrifices made by the Russian people in World War II, and we have honored those sacrifices. Since the end of the Cold War, we have worked with Russia under successive administrations to build ties of culture and commerce and international community, not as a favor to Russia, but because it was in our national interests.” — Obama
Well, no one denies the man can roll a turd around in a pile of glitter like few others.
I read one of PCR’s articles.
Boy oh boy, Washington this, Washington that, it’s ALL about the US, ALL the time. Typically American.
I’ve heard similar views a million times. You’ve heard them, America pulls the strings, the CIA directs, the puppets dance.
Ukrainians? Stooges of the US. The present day government of the Ukraine? Especially them. The brick-fest at the Maidan? Marionettes, all of them, with no ideas, no interests, no objectives of their own.
Get realistic. Wake the fuck up to this especially: there’s not much that goes on in this world that Americans have the foggiest fucking clue about.
Consider this: Americans are 300 million. The world is SEVEN BILLION. How much can Americans know about, how much can they affect? The world is composed of far more ancient cultures, and the world, while having been recently influenced by America, is by and large a product of those older civilizations.
Americans apprehend only a minute sliver of what actually goes on. And even that small bit they interpret through the lens of their own interests and biases. There’s nothing unique about that. Everyone does it. But, as a result, there’s a lot of mis-interpretation and mis-understanding. The world isn’t what Americans think it is. How many times have I heard American pundits and academics and high office-holders say things about foreign climes that are hilariously wide of the mark?
A bunch of former Soviet satellite states joined NATO? Of course they did, having been brutalized and immiserated by decades under the Russian boot, they opted for a defensive alliance. What I’m saying is that the people in those countries have their OWN minds, they did their OWN calculation, they acted in their OWN self interest.
Is America influential? Sure. But don’t over-estimate this influence. Don’t UNDER-estimate the influence of other countries.
There’s also local and national history and politics. These can’t be discounted either. All of which Americans have zero idea about.
Ukrainians gave Yanukovich the heave ho? They sure did. Undemocratic? You bet. But it was Ukrainians that went to the barricades looking after THEIR own interests as THEY saw fit.
Thanks to Procon’s post of 9:49 last night, I looked at the trackbacks/ pingbacks listings below. What I found was disturbing, at least to me.
Basically, there’s a listing for Cold N Holefield’s new blog. I followed the link to his site.
I learned he (it?) is also the late, great Carol Newquist. This boy is a sick puppy. Paranoid.
In essence, his raison d’être appears to be to expose the fact (?) that most commenters on blogs are sock puppets of a few individuals. He particularly goes off on CFN. He claims that BeingThere, Janos, Procon, AJmuste, Marlin, Ozone, UFIA and most all other regular posters are all sock puppets of one individual, or possibly two. Even I made the list. In fact, I was so upset after seeing my sock puppet name outed, I ran into the bathroom to look In the mirror and see if there was a reflection of me. You can’t imagine the relief I felt when I saw me staring back at me (Ok, sarc off).
He says he learned who was a sock through careful observations of commenters’ posts. Apparently there’s a lot of tells to show socks, but the most detailed description of one is by observing paragraph structure. It seems that sock puppets use very short paragraphs of one or two sentences. The fact that often I do too was almost enough to send me back to the bathroom mirror again.
In all seriousness though, I believe I’ve had an on-line encounter with a true paranoic.
BTW, he really does a number on JHK, directly calling him a liar and a fraud.
The only thing I wonder is that even though someone is a paranoid delusionist, sometimes they can be right. Am I being very naive in believing everyone is who or what they say they are?
BTB, thanks for digging a little deeper into that newly created blog. I don’t know, is this the first of a new trend in creating blogs entirely devoted to lambasting an entire comments section of another blog? Wow, how interesting. I’m sure blogs like that will attract huge followings.
The thinly veiled ploy by that poster didn’t take to long to amount to nothing. Paranoiac, infiltrator, JHK dissenter or what not. They’re gonna collect information and spin it/use it anyway they wish anyhow, right?
I buy tube socks at sporting good stores in 8 packs. White of course. That’s all I can afford – just like Obama in his youf. Whitey did the same thing but stretched them out first so they didn’t cut of circulation to his feet. I’m not at that stage – yet. Whitey had a superb physique in his youth and was known as a street fighter. All things rise and fall. Or as Buddha said, “Decay in inherent in all compound things.”
Why does everyone have to be a sock puppet? I consider myself a marionette controlled by my higher self. I often see your wires. You are controlled by the egregor of the Jewish Race/Nation some of the time. Other times you are just Bill, a decaying real estate agent who lives just west of Boston.
Sorry, Janos, but I’m not a real estate agent, I’m not decaying and I don’t live west of Boston (you’re thinking Newton, aren’t you?). Three strikes – you’re out.
You’re in Real Estate in some capacity. You are decaying (just like everyone and everything). And you live in a Western suburb, say JP or Roslindale. A Home Run with the bases loaded.
I think this poster is asserting that “alternative media” is no less a slave to agenda and self-interest than the agenda and self-interest of the MSM they frequently rail against. And isn’t this true? IOW, when a blog site begins collecting donations or selling products that are permutations or even the seeds of a given ideology, then objectivity goes out the window. Put another way, people pay for what they want to hear or read and those doing the writing or speaking are working for the butter on their bread.
After all, how long would people stick around if they discovered that their glittering truths shimmering white like pearls of wisdom were actually bitter grains of salt imploring further investigation contrary to a personal belief system?
At any rate, what attracted me about this particular site and what continues to attract is JHK’s aesthetic proclamations concerning community/architecture and his denunciations of decadence. On that count, his opinions are very much in accord with my own and I eagerly await his “Eyesore of the Month” each and every month, for both the humor and visual tragedy.
“Still working the Left/Right paradigm I see.” — Janos
Janos, today all the political parties in Congress united and authorized $50 million in assistance to Ukraine for such things as improving democratic governance and anti-corruption efforts; supporting free and fair elections in Ukraine; and bolstering democratic institutions and civil society organizations. This is anti-fascist and anti-communist. It is pro-democracy.
There is uniform support in Congress for shared underlying democratic values. Suddenly, thanks to Putin, Congress is not paralyzed.
The congressional bill, passed by both the Senate and the House, authorizes an additional $100 million to enhance security cooperation among the United States, European Union and countries in central and eastern Europe and further authorizes the president to provide defense articles and services, and additional security assistance to Ukraine and countries in the region.
FUSA – Former United States of America is FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.
http://www.freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2014/03/he-cooperated-with-cops-and-is-paying.html
The guy was being savaged by a cop and the nurse told him to watch his language. That’s why I hate women sometimes. This is classic feminine form of evil.
Ha, Vlad
FUBAR—true enough I just call it Evil Dead Too!
Show me Socialism. Where, When, and Who. I grant you that Stalin threw off the Bankers to some degree and went his own bloody way. I’m not saying that Tyrants are good either. Fascism can be good or bad depending on the Leaders and the level of the people they are leading.
I found this guy on another blog. Read his article. One of his best.
http://visualizingintrinsicvaluealignment.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2014
BT, you’re spending too much time here.
Get back to work!
Soon, Back Row, soon.
“FUSA – Former United States of America is FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Repair” — Janos
What a provincial remark!
Do you know how much of the world’s population does not have electricity? Food security? Health insurance? Clean water? Internet access? Have you ever lived in a place where there is no presumption of innocence, where death squads operate with impunity, where people regularly disappear?
Have you ever spent any extended time living in the third world?
You don’t know how good you have it in the USA. To live in the multicultural and racially diverse United States of America is truly a blessing.
Cal. state senator Leland Yee, big gun control maven, in fact a regular guest on Piers Morgan’s gun control show on CNN, was arrested today for a scheme to bring automatic weapons into California from China and Russia. and sell them to street gangs What’s puzzling is there was nothing about it on the news tonite; but i did see a few more stories about Gov. Christie and ‘Bridgegate’. Strange media, indeed.
–BRH
Nice find, BRH.
Amazing… the idea that these politicians are to be trusted even a little bit gets obliterated further day by day. Expect the usual right vs. left finger pointing to follow… empty gestures and water cooler indignation only.
No respect goes out the the American public until some of these mofos start swinging from trees. And how much you wanna bet that all the literrati will respond with is yet another tabloidish news article or worthless book chronicling the depravity of these dirt balls.
“…but i did see a few more stories about Gov. Christie and ‘Bridgegate’” — BRH
LOL!
Yes, contrary to Q’s assertion that Christie’s troubles were just a “fart in a windstorm,” I have noticed Christie has not left the news for months.
Today the investigation by a law firm, contracted by Christie and paid for by Christie (with taxpayer money), found Christie innocent. So that should be the end of it, right? Christie investigated himself and found himself innocent. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
That misuse of taxpayer funds should be added to the charges against Christie, along with his illegal activities and his corruption all over New Jersey: Hoboken, Fort Lee, Trenton, etc. His illegal activities have not all been uncovered, and probably won’t be until Christie’s closest aides, who clammed up by taking the 5th and refused to produce documents, finally confess to what they know.
Too bad Q. died. He won’t get to see just how long the fart lasts. He won’t get to see Christie going to jail.
right vs. left finger pointing… who would’ve guessed?
Wait a minute AJ. Q died?
“right vs. left finger pointing” –UFIA
Nah. Justice is blind in NJ. Plenty of Democrats are in prison for their crimes. It is not right vs. left. It is right vs. wrong. How partisan of you.
“What’s puzzling is there was nothing about it on the news tonite” — BRH
Hey, BRH, the FBI nabbed the Democrat running guns in Calif. in the Democrat controlled state.
Justice does not play favorites.
Do you know how to do a Google News search? There are tons of stories about it:
ABC News
Leland Yee denounced by gun lobby as a ‘hypocrite’ and ‘scumbag’
Los Angeles Times-5 hours ago
As details of state Sen. Leland Yee’s alleged crimes trickled out, advocates associated with gun-rights groups jumped on the possible ironies.
California State Sen. Leland Yee Indicted on Weapons Charges …
ABC News-3 hours ago
State Sen. Leland Yee arrest casts light on complex corruption case
Featured-San Francisco Examiner-21 hours ago
State Sen. Leland Yee indicted on arms trafficking, corruption charges
In-Depth-San Jose Mercury News-12 hours ago
Second Amendment groups jump on anti-gun Democrat Yee …
Blog-SFGate (blog)-22 hours ago
California Senate’s Top Gun Control Advocate Arrested In Firearms …
In-Depth-Huffington Post-22 hours ago
A speech from my uncle Frank.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38073.htm
Great link – really good stuff. Thanks!
Can’t resist a Christie comment:
Just joining in on the Christie thing, since he’s exonerated himself from any wrong doing re: “Bridge gate”.
The taxpayers had to foot the bill for a crony lawyer to be his mouth piece. It’s ok, when the taxpayers pay for the “richies”. It’s when taxpayer money goes to those who are in desperate need, that it’s so wrong.–After the jobs get shipped to far-away shores….
But I digress. The US of A, aka in my book, Murder Inc. is about to get the Don it deserves. Just in time to go to Vegas where the freak show Sheldon Adelson is itching to write that big fat check to the most deserving Republican to fulfill his quest for war with Iran—but don’t tax me, boys. Gotta keep them casinos rollin’
Yes indeed, Christie is the fascist who will make sure the busses don’t get to school on time if he doesn’t like you. Just hope it’s not your kids on the busses.
There is uniform support in Congress for shared underlying democratic values. Suddenly, thanks to Putin, Congress is not paralyzed.
Yes, it is an enigmatically spectacular achievement for this Kabuki Congress and Executive, but this legislative anomaly is not quite for the reasons you imply.
Follow The Money
Indeed, Carol, follow the money. The United States’ $1 billion in loan guarantees is dwarfed by the $18 billion in loans that the International Monetary Fund has provisionally agreed to provide and the $15 billion promised by the European Union.
~~ Mr. Apple
Buck Stud, you ask if I am trying to irritate the anti-Obama posters.
Given the level of disrespect expressed toward President Obama, given the number of racist and provocative comments about our Commander-in-Chief, given the number of posters who do not respect for the American people, given the number who talk about the USA as “FUBAR,” why have I never seen you ask the USA traitors and haters if they are trying to irritate the patriotic pro-American supporters of President Obama?
Your question is revealing. The answer is no. A simple statement of facts, none of which you address or refute, is not provocation. Cheney was being provocative when he wrongly said Obama is weak and the USA would be attacked in the first six months of Obama’s presidency, especially since Cheney failed to protect America from the largest domestic terror attack in United States history. President Obama is stronger than Bush/Cheney. Obama has a spine of steel. But that is not all Obama has.
President Obama has a pen and he is using it: new federal contract workers will earn $10.10 minimum wage thanks to President Obama. The import/export process for American businesses has been streamlined thanks to President Obama. Millions now have health insurance thanks to Obama’s website, http://www.healthcare.gov which is enrolling millions who were formerly uninsured. And that is just a small list of how President Obama has helped American businesses and millions of American people.
Dude, are you yankin our chain, or what?
I didn’t/don’t ask the anti-Obama crowd because it’s obvious where they’re coming from. I wasn’t sure about you because you sort of reminded me of another past poster named Asoka, who was, quite frankly, all over the place when it came to President Obama. One moment Asoka would be praising President Obama and the next accusing him of “war crimes”. Of course Asoka was a real Walt Whitman kind of man, a self-described ‘man of multitudes’ so his vicissitudes and vacillations were better understood in that light.
I, on the other hand, was and have been pretty unwavering in my support of President Obama, although I get a bit frustrated when he doesn’t push the progressive envelope a bit more. But I also realize he presides over a very ideologically divided country, so absolutism, legislatively or otherwise, is simply not in the cards.
To reiterate: I thought you might have been the former poster Asoka who was frequently critical of President Obama’s past foreign policy.
I suppose you might wonder why, based on the aforementioned that I would have thought you to have been the same poster who now sings a completely different tune in terms of President Obama’s foreign policy. And that’s a good question. I suppose AFIA would tell you I am confused, and to be truthful, I would not argue against his charges: Guilty, in other words 🙂
Hello, backrow. I just left a comment on chain-yanking that seems to have vanished.
Let me investigate.
Because I suggested that the avatar known as ajmuste lives to yank chains.
And that the real person responsible for this avatar is named David Appell, according to some research I’ve been reading.
And oddly, the website “www dot davidappell dot com” will not post here at CFN.
Quite strange.
One can also use “david appell” as a google search in quotes, and get some pictures of the guy.
Is that really you, aj?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/world/asia/facing-rising-seas-bangladesh-confronts-the-consequences-of-climate-change.html
“It’s a matter of global justice,” said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies and the nation’s leading climate scientist. “These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States.”
(snip)
“Mr. Karim estimated that as many as 50 million Bangladeshis would flee the country by 2050 if sea levels rose as expected.”
Surely, someone with a PhD in physics will understand that NOW is the time to stop the population growth INSIDE the United States.
PhD in the fluid dynamics field of physics perhaps? .And a mathematician to crunch the numbers of “folks”? Lest we forget, with what livelihood shall we endow many, many millions of rice farmers? As far as I know, most all the Quickie-Marts are family owned and operated already, and as the US is drying up, I don’t know of any “monsoon-y” areas that will support all the rice farming paddies without extensive irrigation.
(I joke, but not too much.)
Those of us with a lick of empathy [who have also been paying attention] have been wondering about global warming refugees for a few years now.
Soon, a new refugee population will become worrisome also. IMF refugees. They’ll be created very quickly in Ukraine; our man Yats (illegitimate leader, installed by coup) will see to that by signing a bunch of agreements he’s not authorized to sign, Let the legal looting begin! Don’t fret for Yats though, he should win himself a nice, comfy, well-remunerated spot at the World Bank or some other predatory institution.
“Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.” -Woody Guthrie
Some things are for compromise, some things are for fighting.
(BTW, that Alaskan petition already has about half of the needed 67k; that’s pretty interesting. Who do these people trust? Probably not Sarah P. or aj’s Savior Figure.)
Ps. Here’s an interesting perspective and opinion from a Vietnamese immigrant concerning the Ukraine Job. Some of the same themes keep popping up everywhere. Whack-a-mole gov’t. employees had better get busier; things are oozing out! Is this why Obama declared the Krimean Kerfuffle a “national emergency”? That would make it ‘legal’ to put the intertubes to sleep to “preserve our interests”, wouldn’t it?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38095.htm
And it’s not just INSIDE the United States that, sometimes, the only thing that will stop bad guys with guns, is good guys with guns.
“KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban assailants apparently thought they were attacking an unprotected Christian-run day care center. But they mistakenly burst into the compound next door, where an American government contractor’s employees were heavily armed and ready, according to accounts….”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/world/asia/taliban-militants-attack-kabul-house-and-trap-foreigners.html
just a little test of the software
http://www.davidprogress.com
chosen at random
Democracy in action. Alaska back to Russia,
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/alaska-back-russia/SFG1ppfN
The southwest back to Mexico.
“The days of the pure whites, the victors of today, are as numbered as were the days of their predecessors. Having fulfilled their destiny of mechanizing the world, they themselves have set, without knowing it, the basis for the new period: The period of the fusion and the mixing of all peoples.” — from The Cosmic Race
La Raza Cósmica was written in 1925 by José Vasconcelos. The intervening 90 years have proven Vasconcelos was right. La Raza does not refer to hispanics or chicanos. Destiny belongs to the multi-ethnic and multi-racial “cosmic race.”
¡Qué viva La Reconquista por la raza cósmica!
Millions of Mexican-Americans cannot be wrong. The USA Southwest belongs to Mexico and is rightly being taken back through steady immigration that cannot and should not be stopped.
Stolen Birthright: The U.S. Conquest and Exploitation of the Mexican People [4 of 6]
By Richard D. Vogel
I think there is a lot of truth to the above. But here’s the ironic part that cuts both ways: many of the Mexican/Chicano’s are not longer militant enough to satiate the ideological pangs of the “Reconquista” voices–they’ve been subsumed by American culture. FB has been very revealing in this regard; a good old fashioned NFL football game arouses more passion than any political/ideological movement among the younger Mexican/Chicanos. And the old Brown Berets, well they sit on the far end of a lonely bench with the rest of us washed up types.
Hey Buck, how is this for “pushing the Progressive Envelope”?
The EEOC and Federal Trade Commission are fashioning policy which would make it illegal – punishable by law — for companies to perform criminal background checks on applicants for employment, on the grounds these checks are discriminatory against blacks and latinos. Similar law would make it illegal for states to keep convicted felons off the voter rolls.
As reported on the front page lead article in Investors Business Daily, 4/26/14.
–BRH
Wow BRH, that’s terrible news for the right-wing privatized for profit prison system. My gosh, this policy won’t allow society to engage in open-ended, retributive discrimination against those who have ALREADY ‘paid their dues to society–gasp!
And the irony. If progressives keep this up, somebody might accuse them of being the true Christians and start terming those who support life time retributive sanctions for past criminals as the fake Christians. You know, those sanctimonious pricks who will subjugate their fellow man while bemoaning civic bans on holiday ‘baby manger’ displays.
Yes, the right wingers cite ‘free will’ while they set a deterministic table against the less fortunate of society, and then term the contrived dynamic as ‘nature taking a just course’. But of course thinking people realize that endless discriminatory practices against past criminals is a self-fulfilling prophecy: Johnny Con can’t get a job so Johnny Con resorts to crime. You see how it works BRH,’ “those people” just can’t be trusted, can they?
Fear not: you desire for blood and revenge against your own Race will be sated in full within your lifetime. God will give you blood to drink.
I pray that you repent at the last.
???
–BRH
That was for Buckaroo.
I see you haven’t lost your knack for twisting and contorting the words of others. In fact, I love most aspects of European culture. And I also believe that if one wants a culture to thrive they should seek to manifest and embody a given cultures most noble qualities. For example, the Chinese reverence for Western classical music
Belongs to Mexico? Mexican people? They don’t exist anymore or soon wont and that’s a good thing. Remember the earlier part of your paragraph about the “Cosmic Race”?
But thanks for illustrating the Mexican bandito mentality – which is also the Liberal mentality. High idealism and pretty words that mask the lowest and most vicious motives. Amazing how many stupid Whites fall for it. We’ve been on top for so long that we’ve forgotten how the world works. Well, that’s going to change. The only question is whether we’ll lose everything before we wake up.
In other words, the American Southwest will turn into another dysfunctional, blood soaked, bankrupt, poverty-stricken, violent, dystopic 3rd world shithole like Mexico is now.
One question, once the ‘reconquista’ occurs, who’s going to pass out the food stamps, section 8 housing vouchers, free medical care and other largesse Uncle Sucker does now? The Mexican Government? The UN? Mexico is being abandoned because it has collapsed, and is a failed state.
–BRH
Maybe John Ruskin could have been talking to you, BRH:
Let me hear once more how it runs, to the men. “Oh foolish and ungrateful ones,” you say, “did we not once on a time give you high wages—even so high that you contentedly drank yourselves to death; and now, oh foolish and forgetful ones, that the time has come to give you low wages, will you not contentedly also starve yourselves to death?”
John Ruskin … sounds like an interesting chap. I’ll have to look into him.
Right now I’m stuck on William S Burroughs — Wasp turned inside out, beginning of the end for Whitey.
–BRH
Thats 3/26/14. Sorry to mislead.
One question, once the ‘reconquista’ occurs… — BRH
Hey, BRH, are you yanking’ my chain? Ask Janos; he will tell you the reconquista is real already. The reconquista is happening now.
Increasingly in the Southwest, the immigrants are becoming so numerous that they can wield substantial influence, including political power. Don’t take it from me. Listen to your buddy, Samuel P. Huntington:
“Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way. No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim.” — Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington
If Putin can take back Crimea (without firing a shot) based on historical claim, then immigrants can take back the USA Southwest (without firing a shot) based on historical claim. And they are, without violating international law like Putin has. Viva la reconquista! Es justo.
What do you mean ‘take it back”?
If these Mexicans wish to live in Mexican territory, why not stay home?
And if the American southwest did revert to Mexican control, which is highly unlikely, would these Mexican citizens still be eligible for Obamaphones, ObamaCare, WIC, AFDC, free public school education, section 8 housing vouchers, SSI, Snap cards and in-state tuition, courtesy of Uncle Sap in Washington DC? If not, what’s the point of moving El Norte to begin with?
The few Mexicans I’ve known have no wish whatsoever to return to that unfortunate narco terror state.
You sound a lot like Asoka a few years ago, who said the same thing. Are you two related.
–BRH
would these Mexican citizens still be eligible for Obamaphones, ObamaCare, WIC, AFDC, free public school education, section 8 housing vouchers, SSI, Snap cards and in-state tuition, courtesy of Uncle Sap in Washington DC? If not, what’s the point of moving El Norte to begin with?
Mexican citizens are not eligible for any of these services. Do you think the Obama administration is luring immigrants to the U.S. with the promise of a cushy $33.35 a week in food assistance? Could you live on $33.35 a week? Besides, the SNAP program you mention was actually started by Bush and an immigrant has to be in the country legally for five years before even qualifying for food stamps.
But whatever employment the immigrants do get, and taxes they do pay, should qualify them because the southwest is their country. We stole half of Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which the USA broke and did not honor. We denied Mexico of its important trade centers: Sonoma, Santa Clara, San Juan Bautista, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Fernando, Los Angeles, La Mesa, San Gabriel, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, El Paso, San Antonio, and Laredo — the Spanish names protest the theft. That is why the immigrants have been taking back the southwest.
These are my views. If they coincide with any other poster, it’s coincidence.
Typical chick-think from this site’s resident dummy. Convert 15 million undocumented democrats into shiny new citizens voting for more free stuff…..and the democrats will have a permanent national majority. The country would soon resemble turd world hell holes like Mexico and SoCal. James K. Polk was a one term president who stole half of Mexico and the best swath of Canada fair and square……and you want to give it back to them without a fight…..again, typical chick-think.
“you want to give it back to them without a fight” — nsa
Go ahead, nsa, try to “fight.” You can’t. The laws allow legal immigration and the borders are porous and allow illegal immigration … as your 15 million figure proves. It is not that I want to “give it back to them” … I’m just being a realist. The fact is they are taking it back. Have you visited the southwest recently? You call yourself nsa, so you should inform yourself about the success of La Reconquista. One thing is certain: bemoaning immigration by using impotent labels like “chick-think” will not work. Our society, like it our not, is multicultural. The political momentum right now is pro-immigration. Republicans will not get back into the White House on an anti-immigration platform. You can rant all you want, but here is what to expect: Expect an amnesty. Expect the borders to open wider. Expect new neighbors.
The question is, what do we owe these people who break in here illegally? How does their presence benefit us? The US Chamber of Commerce wants heap labor, Democrats want cheap votes. Niether side gives a sh-t about us, or about the United States.
BRH
To BackRowHeckler,
So again with this stuff about la reconquista. Couldn’t help noticing.
As was pointed out some time ago, this is to argue that the territorial claims of the national offspring (Mexicans etc) of a European imperial power (Spain) are superior to the territorial claims of competing national offspring (Americans) of another European imperial power (Great Britain).
But the merits of the argument don’t matter in the least for two reasons.
The first is that I do not believe that the argument for and about “la reconquista” is being made in good faith simply because advocating the “conquest” or reconquest – or use whatever term you like – of American territory on an American website is about as inflammatory as it gets, guaranteed to elicit an emotional response. This is the kind of thing that trolls do according to a wikipedia definition of the internet slang term “troll”.
You might note that Univision (Spanish language network) has an English language line-up of programs. Why? Because a majority of alleged “hispanics” in the USA are more comfortable in English than in Spanish. And that was the second reason.
Hispanics come to the US (legally or illegally) and start speaking English. They adopt American ways and become American. Reconquista? Going nowhere. Not happening. Anglo American language and culture is far too powerful and attractive.
So I wouldn’t waste my time arguing nonsense. But you can do what you want of course.
Good post V.
My family is a good example of that, my wife growing up speaking Spanish but now gets along fine in English. Around her family she still speaks Spanish tho.
In the military I was surprised to meet guys from out west with Mexican heritage and names like Chavez and Ibanez who didn’t even know how to speak Spanish, but with they had learned. In time these Latin American migrants assimilate and become smuks like eveybody else.
–BRH
So these little brown people with IQ around 90 are going to replace us? You a really think they can? Why didn’t they do it in Mexico if they are equal and what not? Just think about how American Culture will suffer? If you don’t care about anything else, focus on what will happen to basketball. They are short, a race of workers close to the earth – not Prometheans leaping for other planets or hoops. Unlike that most Promethean of Races, the Negro!
ajmust’s position “….is about as inflammatory as it gets, guaranteed to elicit an emotional response. This is the kind of thing that trolls do according to a wikipedia definition of the internet slang term “troll””
– volodya –
DONG! DONG!! DONG!!!
Ring the big bell of truth for volodya!
Kunstler has enjoined me from speaking such a truth – but maybe I can acknowledge that you are correct, without getting the both of us banned.
It does help, to now know what David Appell looks like.
And he does have a nice grey cat, after all.
Good post, Volodya.
I apologize for getting sucked in and feeding the trolls.
But when so many here on CFN (Janos, BRH, ProCon, etc.) were singing the praises of Putin and justifying the “annexation” of Crimea … while simultaneously bashing Obama, going over the top saying things like Obama’s is the “worst foreign policy” ever … on an American website … well, that is about as inflammatory as it gets, guaranteed to elicit an emotional response. This is the kind of thing that trolls do according to a wikipedia definition of the internet slang term “troll”.
“Reconquista? Going nowhere. Not happening.” — Volodya
“Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way. No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim.” — Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington
There are 51.9 million Hispanics in the United States.
There are more than 6,000 Latino elected and appointed Latino public officials in the United States, including governors of states, mayors of cities, etc. in the southwest.
Yes but how many are White Hispanics? Are you cool enough to cruise with Ted?