JHK’s Three-Act Play
A glance through the annals of history tells us that the Golden Age of Ukraine occurred just as western Europe was emerging from its long, dark, post-Roman coma around the 10th and 11th centuries, A.D. After that, it was a kind of polo field for sundry sweeping hordes of mounted hell-bringers: Tatars, Turks, Cossacks, Bulgars, Napoleon’s grand army. In modern times, its population was divided between allegiance to Russia or to the Germanic states of the west. The Russian soviet regime treated it very badly. As many Ukrainians starved to death under Stalin’s “terror famine” of 1932-1933 as Jews and others were killed later in Hitler’s death camps. Stalin went on to try and totally erase Ukraine’s ethnic identity.
The Nazis wanted to go even further: to erase the Slavic population altogether so that the great fertile “breadbasket” of Ukraine could provide lebensraum for German colonizers. Stalin foolishly signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939 — had he not read Mein Kampf? Less than two years later, Germany turned around and invaded Russia, using Ukraine as doormat and mud-room for a horrific struggle that left Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine, a virtual ashtray, and 28,000 villages destroyed.
Culture, as we know, is resilient. But given that history, one wonders what the current disposition of all these historical tides portends. The few thousand Americans not completely distracted by tweeting the content of their breakfasts or shooting naked selfies or texting behind the wheel — yea, even the gallant minority not mentally colonized by the slave-masters of Silicon Valley — must wonder what the heck happened in the streets of Kiev last week. Or, as Sir Mick Jagger famously said at the deadly Altamont Speedway festival, “Who’s fighting, and what for?” By the way, don’t count the editors of The New York Times among the aforementioned gallant minority of digital idiocy resisters. Today’s front page contained this rich nugget:
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s acting interior minister issued a warrant on Monday for the arrest of former President Viktor F. Yanukovych, accusing him of mass killing of civilian protesters in demonstrations last week…. Arsen Avakov, the acting official, made the announcement on his official Facebook page Monday.
Perhaps there’s a trend in this: all government information around the world will henceforth be transmitted by Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg will come to lead a New World Order of universal friendship. Remind me to send a friend request to Arsen Avakov and de-friend Victor F. Yanukovych.
I suppose the geopolitical bottom-line in all this is that the Ukrainians must feel more comfortable tilting toward a de-Nazified Germany than submitting to the attentions of a de-sovietized Russia. Both would-be patrons are dangling money before a rather cash-strapped Ukraine, which is faced by bond interest payouts that it can’t possibly come up with, not to mention some scratch to just keep the streetcars running. (Forgive me for pointing out that Ukraine at least has streetcars, unlike the USA, which just has cars on streets.)
Given the International Monetary Fund’s record as the West’s official loan shark, would a Ukraine government be wise to turn there for a handout? Meanwhile, is everybody pretending that the Ukraine is not crisscrossed by a great web of natural gas pipelines? And is it not obvious that the gas flows in one direction: from Russia to Europe. So, how exactly would it benefit western Europe if Ukraine got more cuddly with them? Russia could still shut down the gas valve at the source? If the Europeans had any common sense, you’d think they would just butt out of this struggle and quit dangling money and offers of friendship to a nation whose greatest potential is to be a perpetual battleground in yet another unnecessary dreadful conflict.
Let’s hope the American government is just grandstanding in the background because we have less business in this feud than in the doings of Middle Earth. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was flogging ultimatums around on “Meet the Press” yesterday — some blather about right of the Ukrainian people “to fulfill their aspirations and be democratic and be part of Europe, which they choose to be.”
If anything, the uprising in Kiev last week should remind us that Europe’s history is long and deep in bloodshed and that one particular Ukrainian politician who employs snipers to shoot through the hearts of his adversaries is not the only person or party across that broad region capable of reawakening the hell-bringers. There are quite a few other countries over there that could disintegrate politically in the months ahead, nations faced with insurmountable financial and economic troubles. The USA has enough problems of its own. Maybe it should tweet a message to itself.
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Yes, but
I enjoy watching riots on TV
They were more exciting that the Olympics.
It was like a “made for TV” riot
the protestors wore “uniforms”, mainly orange helmets and those silver shields. Where did they get those shields anyway ? stolen from the cops ? or maybe a TV producer ?
When will the awards ceremony be held ?
The equipment the rioters had is what we get for our $5 million per week, $5 billion total, that Victoria Nuland was bragging about spending on the Ukrainian destabilization effort.
That’s the part of the wiretapped conversation we’re ignoring in the US. When I point this out on online comment sections of MSM and related websites, my comments aren’t posted. It’s official policy, apparently. Just as Bob Costas’ “off-the-cuff” rant about Putin the other night on NBC’s Olympics coverage might have been written for him by Susan Rice’s speechwriter.
The clumsiness of the media production shows the lack of respect they have for our intelligence. I’ve worked in production so I have a concept of these things. Unfortunately, in their assessment of our ability to think critically, they’re probably correct. The shoddiness is the tip-off. Anybody who points it out has identified himself as one to get extra attention, and the lumpenproletariat who just accept it all at face value mark themselves as “safe” by their silence.
“Perhaps there’s a trend in this: all government information around the world will henceforth be transmitted by Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg will come to lead a New World Order of universal friendship.”
Don’t give Zuckerberg any ideas. Facebook is awash enough in calls for action and inaction as it is. A friend of mine who styles himself a Falangist shared an image of the riots in Ukraine from Occupy Wall Street (that alone is noteworthy) with the caption “People all over the world are standing up to their governments, while the media talks about celebrity bullshit.” My response was “Americans will take all manner of social, economic and political abuse, but will rise up with righteous fury when you disturb their Entertainment. That’s why this happens. It goes double when the abuse is of someone else, unless it can be turned into entertainment of a morality play sort, or is used as an explanation for why entertainment is being interfered with. Ukraine is messing with the Winter Olympics and makes for a good morality play.”
He liked it.
“The USA has enough problems of its own. Maybe it should tweet a message to itself.”
One of those problems is that we might turn to a home grown fascism, something you’ve been warning us about for more than a decade. Here in Detroit, the largest Neo-Nazi party in the U.S. has its headquarters. There is another Neo-Nazi party in the suburbs, and there are 23 other hate groups in the state.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/02/real-corn-pone-fascists-among-us-in.html
As was noted in the comments to last week’s essay, John Greer the Archdruid is in the middle of a series on fascism. Parts one and two are up; the third will be coming Wednesday.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-archdruid-on-fascism-part-1.html
How about black street gangs, got any of those?
What is this “might” turn to a home-grown fascism? Methinks we are there (the merger of state and corporate power) replete with thought crimes prosecuted not by a corn-pone dictator but a product of the ivy league.
Yes and the Druid demythologizes Fascism. It isn’t the boogey that you Liberal fools have made it out to be for all these years. That you did that just shows your mind is controlled by either Communism or Capitalism. Both groups claim Fascism for the other – morons.
Fascism means the Nation comes first. And business must play ball with the People and the Culture. What sane person can have any objection to that? Of course first the Nation must be defined. Obviously it can’t include minorities who have no interest in our Culture. Or Whites who hate our Culture. Don’t worry Neon, you can join the Black Nation – if they will have you. They’re great, right? You have no problem with that. You’ll be able to get away from all us evil Whites.
Somehow, I find a handful of fascist aholes less onerous than millions of “progressives” with a strong desire to see a full-fledged dictatorship in the US.
I kept wondering if Putin would send the Cossacks in, as we saw when Pussy Riot got horse-whipped.
Isn’t it charming to have white men in colorful outfits, doing interesting folkloric dances, to hate again! I’m sick and tired of swarthy men in what look like bathrobes, flip-flops on their feet, and wearing tea-cozies on their heads: they make such poor villains to blow up.
Bring on the singing Slavs and watch the steppes turn to ashes, again! We need the Ukraine and Russia to remind us corn-fed US fatties of what crazy white people can do when they get out of their chairs.
Susan Rice, John Kerry and Bob Costas should all be given leading roles in an updated version of the Ugly American: http://youtu.be/XrrB9PDBPjs
In fact it is good. In Traditional Culture, men danced. And the connection between Dancing and Fighting was understood. We’ve lost all that here, with Dance as just something for Women and men having to be dragged on the dance floor by their wives and girlfriends.You obviously have a lot of self hatred as a White. Either that or you are Tribe and want us weak and full of self hatred.
Balderdash, Herr Skorenzy. Nietzsche, whose ideas were twisted by the very sort of anti-semites he denounced in his writing, advised dancing once per day.
It’s not whites who are the problem. It’s Nazis: can’t live with them, can’t get them together in enough numbers to make a fire-raid by strategic bombers pay off. Damn.
“slave-masters of Silicon Valley.” That is good, really good.
It seems that Ukraine has to choose whether it wishes to be a vassal state of the EU or of Russia, in other words to choose which will loot its resources.
Ukraine will probably split in two, the east going to the Russians and the west going to the EU, so they both can loot it and turn its population into serfs.
Perhaps the EU will itself dissolve before then, as countries such as Greece and Spain tire of having their future sacrificed on the Altar of the European unity. I wonder as the European project collapses, will the snipers of Ukraine find employ in the streets of Athens as the bureaucrats in Brussels fight to hold it all together?
kunstler shoots himself in the foot!
http://subversesjournal.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/kunstler-on-time-is-it-when-or-if/
Really? So the podcast is on break. Get over it.
“Forgive me for pointing out that Ukraine at least has streetcars, unlike the USA, which just has cars on streets.”
Yes, the USA has cars and streets, but what good are cars if the streets are impassible? Streets (and other necessary associated infrastructure like bridges for instance) in the northern states have been damaged by successive encounters with the arctic vortex. Each time there’s another encounter additional damage is wrought and not all can be given over to temporary repairs before the next encounter.
The bottom line: when the cumulative permanent damage that’s been brought about by these encounters with the arctic vortex is added to the permanent damage brought about by decades of budgetary neglect, the grand total probably exceeds the financial capacity of the regions afflicted. There’s the very real possibility that there’re be at least one if not two more of these arctic vortex encounters before the spring thaw. Streets, what streets?
It may seem absurd to use off-road vehicles in cities, but with all the pot-holes, soon there may be little choice.
http://www.thesisa.org
I live in Minneapolis, in the city proper, in a middle-class area. We got 2″ of slush followed by about 10″ of snow on Thursday night, and then it got cold. Yes, a weather disaster for our road system. But it’s Monday now, and many side streets are still impassible. My daughter’s school bus never showed up this morning, and it’s no surprise to me, seeing how bad the roads are.
I’m a lifelong Northerner, so I know that the weather can kill you and some things are beyond human management. But this situation with our streets here is clearly more due to fiscal issues than Nature, Man and God. We’ve enacted rules restricting parking on side streets to the odd-numbered side, but on two trips to schools this morning, totaling 8 miles, I saw cars illegally parked on most blocks, not ticketed or towed; plowed around, creating a blockage that will last until at least April. Most of the side streets were only plowed the first rough-pass, and the cross-streets are blocked by mounds of frozen ice because the plows never came back to tidy up. Emergency vehicles, garbage trucks and school buses simply can’t get through.
Yes, it was the worst possible sort of storm as it affects streets. But it’s increasingly obvious that we aren’t paying what it costs to clear our transportation system. We know how. We supposedly have the equipment and personnel to get the job done. But it isn’t getting done. Nobody will admit that the job is being triaged for financial reasons.
But when you hear Chuck Hagel saying the Pentagon has to cut soldier’s pay, housing, health insurance and other benefits, with a $1 Trillion budget (when you count all inputs; the nukes are Department of Energy, for instance, and the mercenaries working for the Intelligence complex are off-budget), it’s clear the corporate finance capitalist system we use is broken.
This isn’t even the problem of EROEI we see with energy. The specific issue with the streets in Minneapolis today is not due to Climate Change (maybe the trend is, but this specific occurrence is not unprecedented). This is the collapse, intentionally not discussed, of our completely man-made abstract finance system.
One thing I’m noticing is that the Official Version of the Nuland-Pyatt intercepted phone conversation only includes the “F*** the E.U.” comment. There’s no mention of the other 99.8% of the conversation, where our stalwart diplomats discuss the funding, organization and direction of a coup d’etat against the elected government of a sovereign nation. Yes, yes, Yanukovych is incredibly corrupt. He was that 10 years ago,, when last we funded a coup against him. But now we’re to pretend Tymoshenko is no longer completely corrupt? It’s an insult to whatever intelligence we have left. Which may not be much.
Clearly this is just another example of our nation’s foreign policy, which is clearly to spread death and chaos by fire everywhere around the perimeter of Russia and China. It’s far more than just securing another victim for the IMF and the global banks, though that’s indeed a part of it. The grand goal of the neo-cons who run our foreign policy regardless of the red/blue wrapper in place at any given time is to cause a world war on someone else’s soil, so once again we can be the only power left standing, and with the muscle to take whatever resources we want.
Ironically, just now I heard Sec. Def. Hagel say that the Pentagon has to slash soldier’s pay and benefits, including housing and health insurance, or the Pentagon won’t be a military agency anymore; just a benefits agency.
It’s becoming inescapably obvious that our finance system has collapsed. And it’s not hard to tell why; it’s the chessboard paradox–the old story where the king owes the guy his life and tells him to name his reward; the guy says, “One grain on square 1, two on square 2, four on square 3, eight on square 4; etc.” The king snickers, until about square 16 when he realizes there isn’t enough grain in the world to satisfy the demand. The miracle of compounding is great on the way up, but it’s a bitch on the way down. Sooner rather than later we’re going to have to quit pretending that the model still works, rather than trying to hoover up short-term profits that only make things worse, and will be irrelevant anyway if we don’t completely re-set the system. Unplug it, lift it 12″ off the table and drop it. Then plug it back in. Use the printing press to zero out all debt–especially private, which though we ignore it in the US is 5x the much-discussed public debt.
Until then though, expect the ghouls like Susan Rice to demand payment in the blood of others.
Good observations.
Splitting sovereign nation-states into a polyglot of piffling little warring gangs makes them much easier to chew up and spit out… when the time is ripe. (No wonder the 5-sided wonder is worried about meeting the promised obligations of its’ warriors; they possess skills that can be turned to other ’employment’ should their contracts not be honored.)
Yes, I can’t imagine a problem with a million or more professional killers who aren’t getting paid and whose families have to subsist on welfare in shelters. Once they start free-range foraging we’ll be nostalgic for the problems we have now.
“Ironically, just now I heard Sec. Def. Hagel say that the Pentagon has to slash soldier’s pay and benefits, including housing and health insurance, or the Pentagon won’t be a military agency anymore; just a benefits agency.”
Recall our own US history regarding the so-called “Bonus Armies” and be very worried if Hagel’s Five-Sided Benefits Agency runs out of cash to pay its former employees.
[See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army%5D
Politically, the military is more conservative than the rest of the population. I suspect they are better-armed than the general population as well. I also suspect that – in contrast to, say the Occupy masses – given their training and history of following orders in a chain-of-command hierarchical structure, they could be more easily organized into an effective counter-government force. Given the anti-government vitriol spewed by Tea Partiers and their media mouthpieces, it might not take much of a trigger (so to speak) to get a group of underemployed veterans to form an effective insurgency in this country.
Would the US military follow orders to disband a Bonus Army march or occupation as they did under General MacArthur in the 1920s? Or would they sympathize with their former comrades and sit on their hands, effectively siding with the insurgents? The US could see its own version of Tahrir or Independence Square, only instead of a progressive anti-government Occupy-type opposition, it could be a corn-pone fascist movement.
Exactly the dark fears I was hinting at.
Excellent summary – 100% spot on. I guess the essential question is, why do you have a problem with this policy? It seems those who have difficulty accepting real world politics apparently believe(d) the bullshit fed to them in school, work and media, in sum, the entire cultural edifice of US ‘exceptionalism’.
What if you were to view the US in the abstract, through the eyes of perhaps a foreign or even extraterrestrial visitor? The ET would have an even better perspective, because he could evaluate ‘Mericans as simply a sub-species of H Sapiens, who themselves behave no differently that any other animal.
There’s a whole lot of complaining going on around the interwebs, but it seems no one is raising the question of what happens when the lumpen find out it’s all one gigantic lie? That is, we peaked years ago in global EROEI, the financial games are an attempt to cover up the rot, and 24/7 global war is the only thing left for the US to pursue in order to maintain “it’s way of life”.
Once you get it, there’s really nothing more to complain about. NDAA, NSA, et al completely make sense. In fact, a government intent on maintaining power through decline would be remiss in not enacting controls to make sure they were the last man standing.
“I guess the essential question is, why do you have a problem with this policy?” Now that you ask it, I see that it is indeed the essential question.
Why do I have a problem with it? I’d love to say it’s because I’m such a shining altruist, but that isn’t really true. I suppose it’s because I don’t think it will work, and I certainly don’t think it is intended to work for me. I’m not meant to be one of the “last men standing,” I’m sure.
I suppose I’d prefer to pursue what JHK predicts for Japan first; “going Medieval.” Not that I have the illusion that would be pretty. I’d prefer to see us using the energy we have now to build solar panels, windmills, waterwheels, tidal what-have-yous, desalination plants, etc. It will be easier now when we still have lots of carbon energy to use. And the transitory financial arguments will be irrelevant, since our money is fictitious anyway and energy and water will cost infinite amounts once we’ve exhausted the one and despoiled the other.
Even the “24/7 global war” won’t help us maintain our way of life. In fact, it will bring on the collapse all the sooner. There’s no consumption faster or more wasteful than running a military machine at full speed.
You’re right; it does completely make sense. It’s just needlessly cruel, wasteful and ultimately futile, and I oppose waste.
Your question is an excellent one, and all of us who enjoy our current lifestyle have a moral obligation to consider it fully.
“Once you get it, there’s really nothing more to complain about. NDAA, NSA, et al completely make sense. In fact, a government intent on maintaining power through decline would be remiss in not enacting controls to make sure they were the last man standing.” — B9K9
Well, that would be the very nub of why we are UNABLE to “change the way we inhabit the landscape” [tm JHK]. There is deliberate and well-funded resistance to a rational way forward!
I feel it’s pretty much too late as our small stores of common wealth (taxes) are spent on desperate attempts to control perception by any and all means. It’s become all about deception; how long do we expect this can continue before cynicism destroys the body politic?
Trying to put organized means of totalitarian control into every facet of human interaction portends a very nasty version of BAU.
A smoking gun of one of the “means”:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
(I first spotted them by the overuse of mimicry; probably one of the first, last or most emphasized as ‘effective’ bullet-points studied in the course. Those are the ones that stick.)
It may not be ‘savagery’, in essence, but it certainly can lead to it.
(And, yes, we’ve been treated like cultivated mushrooms on the subject of the Ukrainian “troubles”: Kept in the dark and fed horseshit.)
…A visual aid regarding Ukrainian pipelines:
http://en.ria.ru/infographics/20120117/170800440.html
Who will be manning these “tollbooths” of gas conduits, and why will it matter? (Likely to become relevant questions in the coming months.)
On ‘Face the Nation’ yesterday, the idiot John McCain was the first to declare that the partitioning of The Ukraine “could not be considered”. He was rather insistent on keeping that nation intact. McCain spoke as though he had a personal stake in the matter, but only god knows how or why. I remember him coming out against partitioning Iraq into three tribally based units (Sunni, Shia and Kurd) back when that war was aragin’.
The fact that both The Ukraine and Iraq (among others) are already well into disintegration mode seems to have eluded international policy makers…Or perhaps they are in denial.
In any event, why worry about keeping contrived nations intact? Why not simply let their populations reconfigure around common ethnic and cultural dispositions and sensible geographical settings?
After all, we’ll have our own painful adjustments to deal with soon enough as the Unites States itself moves toward disintegration,
Some proposed adjustments:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/02/petition-to-split-california-into-six-states-gets-green-light/
Ozone, Yes, I saw that article. Interesting stuff indeed! Add to this secessionist rumblings in Texas and Alaska, and continuing like sentiments in the South and the West, and you’ve got a gathering storm.
The destination may be fine but the journey will be be rocky.
We just may be at the start of the Ukrainian affair.
We can’t forget the big picture: Ukraine has an 800 mile border with Russia. Remember, Russia is a paranoid, insecure nation.
My fingers are too big for this damn iPad! Sorry for multiple posts. To continue. Russia is a paranoid, insecure nation. If Ukraine goes NATO, Russia will shit a brick. How would the US react if Mexico allied itself with Russia? We wouldn’t accept it, no matter the consequences.
With an EU-allied Ukraine, Russia would justifiably feel very threatened. How long would it be before nuclear-tipped missiles are situated along the Russian border? Russia cannot realistically accept this situation. This is a great test of Putin’s mettle. He’s no wimp, so I’d expect so e serious repercussions just down the road. If not, that would be a sign that Putin is taking orders from a higher authority.
As far as splitting up the country, that, too, should be unacceptable to Russia. All that does is shrink the hostile border a few hundred miles.
I’m getting a new Ipad Mini this week! A lot of money is made off the peripheral enhancements and personalizations of universally bland Apple gear. Same goes for Facebook and Google when it comes to their universally ascetic appearance. Facebook is very fascist because it fools people into believing they’re unique because they can post every little thing that they think/like on their “wall” along with personal photos. Nothing about anyone’s facebook page is exciting, innovative, attractive or unique; they all look confusedly desperate for attention, the ultimate reality of disconnection from real face to face 3D interaction! Everyone is stuffing themselves into Mark Z’s box, including Kunstler. (No, I will NOT LIKE your favorite local book store!) I thought he didn’t care about popularity…
The Ukraine is wanting to go EU because, from what I’ve seen of interviews from the streets, the young men who would rather die than live under Eastern Block rule yearn for the freedoms the West promise. Why can’t they become a MarkZ-ist and make millions off the internet?! From what I understand of those people, they’re very well educated and have a ton of computer programmers like Brin of Google fame. He’s from Moscow, Russia and we don’t read/hear a lot opinions from him about the state of that part of the world which is probably why over 5.5 million people follow him on Google+. While the “savagery” intensified, he was watching “the sun setting right behind the golden gate bridge”. He left behind “savagery” a long time ago and lives on a higher plain of reality sensitive to light and the innovations of Google Glass; glorified four eyes, nerdy geek to the extreme!!!
Putin is getting a lot of attention lately for not doing much of anything. He writes a letter in the NYT about America not being so exceptional because he being the ultimate diplomat (non-savage) can get Syria to agree to cough up it’s WMD, attends the Olympics without showing any of his teeth the entire time he tries to smile at his country’s performance and lets the Ukraine government disintegrate over the last few years allowing for its complete dissolution this year. He seems to avoid all the “savagery” like what happened to Georgia during Dmitry Medvedev’s watch:
” During the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, Georgia launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia, in an attempt to reclaim the(Russian) territory. “ Wikipedia.org
Then he just steps back into power like he never really left and was taking a vacation from any potential blame for “savagery” that might take place during the GREAT RECESSION. The irony being that Medvedev is considered to be very ERUDITE and NON-SAVAGE while conducting and winning a war that lasted a week.
There always seems to be this cloud of potential Civil or World War whenever nation states are conducting business nowadays. How can they possibly circumvent the people forever? I’m sure the savagery will continue and grow to encompass groups we never ever thought would be targets.
So what is your point exactly?
I’m not a professional writer.
I’m not required to have an agenda.
And I’m not advertising anything.
You know what, Bill, I don’t think the Russians would ever use nuclear tipped missiles, but they have plenty of tanks, and those they will use.
We have cell phones and laptops and maybe think of the tank as a primitive weapon from the middle of the last century. That might be true, but they’re still very effective, and can be great persuaders when any political questions need to be solved.
There is a new book out about the Battle of Kursk; the Russians were great tank jockeys in 1943, and they still might be pretty good in 2014.
–BRH
Sorry for not being clear. I meant that OUR side will have missiles pointing at Russia on the Ukrainian border..
Nah, that won’t happen either. The day of the nuclear tipped missile is over,
Savagery, a terrible word. Ukraine can be an unhappy place. A run down dog house of an apartment can go for $750 K but an average worker needs to save every bone he gets for 5 years for a $10 K shack in the boondocks with only a deep hole to poop in. What you goingtodo! It’s enough to make some dogs express anger issues on barricades. A savage act in a country where the law takes itself so seriously. A place where the economy is <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-02-24/ukraines-economy-heading-into-the-abyss/". Collapse, where growing your own vegetables is a fact of life.
The link. ‘heading into the abyss’
My take is that Putin waited until the Olympics wrapped up before showing his hand. Now that’s out of the way, I expect a replay of Czechoslovakia 1968 at a time of his own choosing. The tanks will role into Kiev, Yulia Tymoshenko and her supporters will be “disappeared”, Ukrainian pro-Russians will come to Putin’s aid and Putin will be daring the EU or the U.S. to do anything about it.
And frankly, short of drawing all of us into a shooting war with Russia, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Much to their dismay, American neocons will realize that they can’t and don’t make all of their own history.
Yes as Russia burned with impotent anger as the New World Order bombed Serbia for more than two months – all to set up a Muslim State in Europe. Pure Evil. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Russia is a Land Power and will not allow its borders to be chipped away.
These Neo Con scum are going to get us nuked one of these days if they keep on like this.
But the neo cons are not in power, Obama is. We’ll see how he handles a showdown with the Russian Bear. This could be dear leaders moment of truth, like Kennedy and Cuba in 1962, or Lincoln after Fort Sumter in 1861.
Remember when the Democrats had all the foreign policy answers prior to 2008? They would do things ‘smarter’. There would be a reset with Russia and the Muslim World? What, you think we forgot all that bullsh-t? Well, things are more f-cked now than ever. The whole world is boiling up around us, the President of the United States is become a sleazy insurance salesman, and we’re sitting around on our asses worried about the minimum wage!
–BRH
A 500 square foot apartment and then there is this. A private man made lake and a zoo with underground passageways linking it all together.
James,
Thanks for the history lessons. Like many ordinary Americans I have very little knowledge of European history. Heck, even American history knowledge is pretty lacking among most.
I guess what we see now is a new “managed history.” I can’t tell what counts for fact – beyond what I can actually see.
I do know that the limits to economic growth are starting to squeeze the developed nations’ commoners.
Two things – I’ve predicted, along with who knows else, crackdowns on wood-burning devices and new State sales taxes of gasoline……
The secrets of Mezhyhirya. I found it in Google Earth. On the sea of Kiev at the southern end of that enormous reservoir on its west shore. At Novi Petrivtsi. Victor F. Yanukovych’s main mansion house is so big it can be easily identified and the linked article can take you to his car museum. I’d sure like to have one of those. Wouldn’t you?
http://open.mapquest.com/?q=%5B50.6223645,30.4450972%5D
But you will still need to go through Google Earth to zoom in close!
Capitalist swine! Under Communism everyone was equal. The top Party members had no such amenities! The villas on the Black Sea were places of rest and recuperation – to allow for even greater work for the People!
But some are more equal than others. That is just life. Under Capitalism Men oppresses Man. Under Communism (even Kdog Communism), it’s the other way around.
But some are “more equal” than others.
Let me guess – you’re one of those *MORE EQUAL* types? I’m not shocked, vlad. Prove me *WRONG*, you fsck’n sockie.
A Nation is an Organism. It has borders just as an organism has skin. Anyone who disrespects your skin boundary disrespects you. Anyone who disrespects a Nation’s borders disrespects the Nation – and are enemies. Illegal immigrants are invaders that must be dealt with harshly by the white blood cells of the nation.
I dunno’ Janos…”the white blood cells of the nation”? It’s a little thin.
I’m not making it up. Google “white blood cells”. They are well known to oncologists. The House Committee on Un-American Activities was such a group and they did fine work, but alas too little too late.
Add to this secessionist rumblings in Texas and Alaska, and continuing like sentiments in the South and the West, and you’ve got a gathering storm
i’d prolly support it, but it’s a fairly laffable proposition. these seccessionist petitions been around for a long time.
texas’ and alaska’s oil wealth mean it’d never get off the ground. even a non-important state like [take your choice] wouldn’t be allowed, cuz it’d really fan the flames of other movements.
the only fairly rational idea i ever heard in this respect was for 10,000 libertarians to move to NH, get elected to all govt posts and then pass seccessionist agendas and pull out.
not sure why it fizzled out, but at least it has the correct mechanicz to get the job done legally.
peace peaceniks
I see what you mean; while its true that various internal outcries for independence have been a part of the cultural and political fabric of the U.S. since its inception, it is also true that the nation has always had the power – the ‘centrality’ if you will – to keep such movements peripheral …the exception, of course, being the Confederate rebellion of the 1860’s.
However, it is now becoming evident that the Federal Government – and all that it entails – is losing its grip, and its credibility. This is evidenced not only by a resurgence of various “we want out” factions (typically peopled by right or left wingers) but by more moderate folks as well – folks who are singing the praises of ‘Localism’ : local produce, local markets, local talent, local art, local government, etc…This new localism is coming on softly and may be viewed as the velvet glove of secession.
I’ve always considered myself rather typically liberal, with a belief that a good central government was a necessary component of a civilized nation. Now I’m more focused on what’s going on about town. Anything out of state might as well be happening on Jupiter. And I really don’t give a damn about the Feds anymore. They can’t seem do do much right.
Ah Susan Rice and the amazing willingness of Americans to get involved in things they know nothing about – for the profit of the very, very, few – and the torment of the many. The Ukraine is two nations at least. And the Russians many not even let the Western looking part go.
http://www.infowars.com/the-eastern-ukrainians-are-revoltingthe-eastern-ukrainians-are-revolting/
may not many. Many the tears that have to fall, but it’s all, in the game.
How many more light skinned Black Women named Rice can there be? Are they cloning them now?
“at least has streetcars, unlike the USA”
Some of us have streetcars. They are turning up in the places I would have least expected.
Houston, of all places, just opened another line with two more to come this year. It seems like almost all the new electric rail transit is going in west of the Mississippi.
I took a hike yesterday on the north side of Houston. Who’d a thunk it?
http://youtu.be/mrKIxqdBgEY
Your video is like something from a foreign movie, maybe even a si-fi movie!
Does anybody use it? Houston is not the most structured of cities.
Some of us have streetcars. They are turning up in the places I would have least expected.
Houston, of all places, just opened another line with two more to come this year.
hey no good news of rail transit allowed, dont you know this place only serves doomsday fare?
peace peaceniks
What time is it?
Oh yeah, it’s around 5pm-ish and, right on schedule, “there’s no more there, there”. Delusionland, dead ahead. Good luck!
NYT lead article today, US Army being reduced to 450,000 soldiers, roughly the level of 1940.
There’s your big Army of Empire. Plus you have to factor in combat units fleshed out with 20 year old females, and no doubt these girls are well versed in the EEOC manual. 450,000 troops would be the number of the casualties of just one side, in one battle, on the Western Front in 1916. You’re not going to have much of an empire with an army of 450,000. Of course, many here still insist we’re this big military power bullying everybody throughout the world and calling the shots. 450,000 is about the number of soldiers Bulgaria went into WW1 with.
–BRH
Don’t worry, the internal or civil forces will make up the gap as per Obama’s promise. The battlefield is here. As Malcolm said, our chickens have come home to roost.
You wont have to watch it on TV anymore, but just look out the window.
the humans are irrelevant, leapfrogged by DARPA. And I was about to buy night vision….
Most of the time, the Houston trams run SRO (standing room only). The Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority indicate that ridership on its new Northline is ahead of projections. They had not expected this many riders until September.
The cars on the new line run every 12 minutes, seven days a week. They start at 4 am and end after midnight. On Sundays, start is a 5:30 AM and the last car from the north side leaves for downtown and the Southside at 11:42 PM. Compare that to transit service in your town.
These neighborhoods are barrios. Transit ridership on the former 15 Fulton bus was already fairly heavy. Reserved streetcar lanes have cut the travel time in half.
This line took less than three years to build. In the eastern US, it takes longer than that to do a feasibility study. Case in point, Boston has been “studying” extending the Green Line from Lechmere to Harvard since 1952!
I enjoy posting this stuff because almost all the cities who are doing anything significant with public rail transit are in places Jim does not like. Kunstler cannot bring himself to the realization that the cities like Houston and LA, which he has long ago written off, are aggressively pursuing rail expansion. Ever try reading LA Metro’s rail projects page? It will take you a good hour.
Delusionland dead ahead
laff’s on you guys, as usual:
Most of the time, the Houston trams run SRO (standing room only). The Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority indicate that ridership on its new Northline is ahead of projections. They had not expected this many riders until September.
another nail in the leaky kustler coffin of busted projections. didn’t jimmy whine on about how that city was building major new highways? and ignoring rail?
funny how the real real world just keeps progressing. while the juveniles keep imagining the end of days.
i think at this point, with all the science that has been presented on alternative energy’s succes – to include hydropower – the kunstler case is pretty much closed.
we salute you as we rocket high, high above those who are unable to see and embrace technological progress and they become ever small in the rearview mirror of superabundance and cornucopia!
peace peaceniks
I had a dream last night. Susan Rice had Vladimir Putin tied up like a Clint Eastwood rape scene in “The Rookie”. Unfortunately I woke up before Vlad launched a missle.
Thanks for the history lesson, JHK. And yeah, the Russians are a paranoid people. They keep getting attacked from one direction across the plains of Poland and Ukraine. And they’ve been attacked from the other direction by the Japanese. Always remember – It’s not paranoia if others really are out to get you.
“If the Europeans had any common sense, you’d think they would just butt out of this struggle and quit dangling money and offers of friendship to a nation whose greatest potential is to be a perpetual battleground in yet another unnecessary dreadful conflict.
Let’s hope the American government is just grandstanding in the background because we have less business in this feud than in the doings of Middle Earth.” – jhk –
Well said. I don’t know what to think about all of this, because I’m not Ukrainian. If I were Russian – I’m pretty sure I’d suggest all parties back the Hell off, and leave the Bear alone.
Thanks for the week’s work, JHK.
Susan rice and some effiminate pissant from the EU have warned Russia not to make any moves in the Ukraine. Somebody tell me, what the f-ck will they do about if Russia does make a move? They’ve promised the new western leaning government aid in the billions, maybe $30 billion. Where the hell is that going to come from? The EU is falling apart, and the US has a national debt of $17 trillion.
Think of American statesmen in history whose portfolio was foreign policy — John Hay, George Marshall, George Kennan, Dean Rusk — and then look at Susan Rice. That’s what we’ve come to.
–BRH
Marlin, you’re one of the few posters here who has a sense of perspective. Reading and studying history does that to you.
I’ve known America’s been heading down the wrong path since I was a kid. When Dick Nixon actually obtained the presidency – and I don’t blame him for creating the mess we’re in now – it was hard for me to believe the voting public could be duped so easily.
Now we’ve got the likes of Susan Rice, but she’s just the latest in a long line of mediocre personalities who have been afforded some degree of power as we slide inexorably down the slope of mendacity.
“Fascism means the Nation comes first. And business must play ball with the People and the Culture. What sane person can have any objection to that? ”
Gods be good; our head racist just gave another example of his blatant ignorance; not to mention a plethora of propaganda bullshit. Oh, sorry, redundant, no?
In 1932 Mussolini wrote (with the help of Giovanni Gentile) and entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism.
Benito Mussolini:
What is Fascism, 1932;
…The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone….
This is why I mostly don’t comment here anymore; loons on the loose…
But you keep coming back – a true revenant. There are different kind of Fascism. I don’t believe in that particular statement – at least not the way it is written, but clearly there are social norms which no person should break just for his or her own pleasure – or just for the sake of breaking them. The former is childish and the second adolescent. Neither is mature responsibility.
The Founders would have been ashamed to write a Bill of Duties to match the Bill of Rights. Obviously people knew what they must do since Culture was still intact. That is no longer the case of course and your kind just wants to take and not give back – such is your puerile view of Freedom.
Kunstler uncharacteristically gives short shrift in this piece to the overarching influence of tribalism over geopolitical divisions. We’re headed back to a time when you and yours live west of the river and heaven help you if I catch you hunting, fishing, or gathering over here on the east side. Unless of course it’s your extremely attractive cousin in which case, send her over. We’re messy little animals on a slimy planet, not plastic-molded pieces on a game board.
I guess part of the problem with a blog is that if it becomes popular to any degree, commenters tend to use it as a social medium for chatting. That seems to be the case here at CFN. Too many of the comments don’t have any real connection to the subject at hand brought up by JHK.
BTW, get on the Zero Hedge website to look at one of yesterday’s articles about government disinformation campaigns wrt many blogs’ comment sections. Trolling, inane comments, character assassinations, sock puppets and the like are very common. Sound familiar?
How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations
“Claims that government agencies are infiltrating online communities and engaging in “false flag operations” to discredit targets are often dismissed as conspiracy theories, but these documents leave no doubt they are doing precisely that.
Whatever else is true, no government should be able to engage in these tactics: what justification is there for having government agencies target people – who have been charged with no crime – for reputation-destruction, infiltrate online political communities, and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse? But to allow those actions with no public knowledge or accountability is particularly unjustifiable.”
This is a better site than Zero Hedge, Bill. also, the things you mention, sock puppets, character assassinations etc, yes, they’re here, but its not that bad compared to other sites I’ve seen. Most posters here stick to the subject and are pretty civil to each other. I marvel at you putting up with some of the bullshit (antisemitic remarks) you do. As the week moves on things spin out of control a little, which is to be expected.
One thing that keeps me here are people like yourself, P2C, Ozone and others who are not too idiological and obviously have had some success in life (raised families, have careers, made money etc.) It takes not a little character to live 5, 6, and 7 decades and not grow bitter and still stay interested in the world.
–BRH
I’ve been reading Clusterfuck Nation for a few years now. I enjoy JHK’s wit, sarcasm and curmudgeonly humor, particularly when describing the lumpen American public, but I’m starting to believe Greer, who I’ve been reading more recently, may be more on target. Our decline has been and will continue to be slow and steady. As much as I’d like to see a quick and brutal crash (I think it would be easier and less painful) I don’t think it’s coming. Our masters have too much invested, too much at stake, to let it all crumble so quickly. In the meantime I will continue to look for James for more Monday morning humor.
I like Greer’s work too. His measured step-down collapse scenario is actually more attractive to me than the horrific crash that various other prognosticators envision. Still, Greer may be playing the optimist. He cites examples of other societies that have collapsed and lived to tell about it – even pre-digital modern nations.
But things are different now; the extent of interconnectedness that we employ – primarily due to computerization – is unprecedented, as is the level of complexity that underpins every aspect of everything we do or touch.To me, this means that a few not-so-major dislocations in the house of cards we call civilization could have dramatic reverberations throughout. You know, the whole ‘tipping point’ thing. I worry…not so much for myself, but I have offspring.
I don’t come down on either side of this issue, but a precipitous collapse would come as no surprise.
The interconnectedness of our society, specifically with regards to our unhealthy reliance on fossil fuels (the liquid type in particular), or our dependence on a weak and decrepit power grid, can indeed point to a decline that would be sharp and dramatic were either of these things to go away in a short amount of time. Nonetheless, I still see us sinking in quicksand, which despite its name, takes a relatively lengthy amount of time to kill.
You’re right about the grid and fossil fuels. In fact, I just read an article on theautomaticearth saying that Shell Oil is threatening to pull out of the North Sea entirely. Apparently, exploration and extraction costs are becoming prohibitive as that source depletes. Shell wants the British government to pay for development costs – I guess through tax abatements, grants and the like – but the Brits are balking…the cupboard is bare. Meanwhile, Shell is keeping its board members secure by appeasing stockholders with generous dividends – money that would otherwise have disappeared down the bottomless pit of Red Queen exploration and development.
Years ago, Matthew Simmons said it would be like this – that the major oil companies would incrementally divest through mergers and downsizing, all the while placating stockholders with dividends that, in more prosperous times, would have gone to expansion costs. In short, the oil companies are eating their seed grain.
The U.S. public has had enough of unnecessary wars; and enough of the U.S. trying to be the world’s policeman.
I applaud President Obama’s handling of Ukraine. I agree with Obama’s policy of restraint. Obama has done a great job of keeping our soldiers alive by keeping the United States out of crises like Syria and minimizing our involvement in places like Libya.
I also applaud President Obama’s effort to keep his campaign promise to get us out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though it has taken far too long and has been far too costly. After spending trillions of dollars on a dozen years of unnecessary war (that Bush started and Obama is ending), we should focus on the home front.
Nobody wins in war. Not the U.S., not those labelled as “enemies,” and not the taxpayers who send their sons and daughters to the slaughter. We should reduce the size of the military. That would allow us to divert funds to paying our national debt and to paying for strengthening our decaying infrastructure.
“I applaud President Obama’s handling…”
“I also applaud President Obama’s…”
How does it feel to be the only one clapping?
Count me in as a clapper. I agree with everything ajmuste said.
I’d vote for Mr O again if it were possible!
The tide is turning. Global Warming Mafioso beginning to be brought to justice, hoisted on their own petards, their vicious law suits turned against them. A Man once said, “Judge not lest you be judged.”
http://www.principia-scientific.org/michael-mann-faces-bankruptcy-as-his-courtroom-climate-capers-collapse.html
Hello Janos. Still doing a bit of character assassination yourself, I see. Of course, ‘ad hominum’ (from the Latin, in case you were wondering) attacks are among the most simple-minded of logical errors, and I would have expected better from anyone who had mastered the English sentence.
Why don’t you use some of that aggression as motivation for something worthwhile? There is no shortage of humanitarian projects needing an energetic person. Just think of it: Mother Janos.
Or, if a more personal satisfaction is more to your liking, why not learn some of the mathematics behind climate modelling? Then you can win a Nobel by exposing the error.
What have you got to lose? Get some knowledge for your intelligence to work on. You can start with calculus, then numerical analysis and differential equations. Tensor analysis and probability wouldn’t hurt either. Why not do it? Then you would be on your way towards an actuarial career, and that has large rewards, both personal and financial. Go on – you deserve it.
So you deny that Global Warming and Fraud have a most intimate relationship? Both scientifically and financially? Google Bilderberger Maurice Strong – he’s in charge of the whole thing.
Worship the Sun, not the Earth! He is in charge here. Close your eyes and let the healing rays stimulate your brain and bring the sluggish cells to Life. Then you will see clearly.
I certainly do deny it. All I see in your posting is assertion, and anyone can make an assertion, for any reason. Truth is a different matter.
As for worship, no thanks. I believe as little as possible.
Why not learn some science, and then demonstrate the error? There’s big bucks to be made, and a reputation for life. What are you waiting for?
Jews turn on Sandra Korn when she criticizes Israel. Truth be told, she no friend of anything good. But I think her critics mostly care about Israel and only Israel. Needless to say her ideas about “Academic Justice” as opposed to Academic Freedom are abhorrent.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-bawer/harvards-rebel-without-a-clue/
Janos, great news that global warming is false and IPCC findings are the findings of charlatans. I can stop worrying about that now.
Did you also know the Nazis discovered oil production is abiotic? The US govt tried to keep it a secret. It’s all laid out in the book, The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the U.S. Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil from the American People
You have made my day, Janos, by uncovering those who traffic in disinformation.
Now I don’t have to worry about global warming or peak oil.
What about Russian tanks? Ukraine? Economic meltdown? Nuclear conflagration? Should I worry about those?
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, Janos.
People who worry about their carbon footprint are neo-puritans who have lost the profundity to introspect and worry about their souls.
Why? Because it is written that the Lord will return and take the saved up with him to heaven? So it doesn’t matter?
Your smugness and self-certainty are revolting. Socrates once said “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”
Do you know you know nothing? Physician heal thy self.
…”among the aforementioned gallant minority of digital idiocy resisters” – wow, I am writing this down for memory.
Nice history overview, Jim, one thing can be added: Ukraine has never really been an independent country prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was a brief 6-month period in 1917, I believe, but other than that, this country has always been under someone else’s rule prior to this century.
Squeezed between a rock and a hard place, Ukraine does not have many options to “change things for the better”, but the devil you know is better than the one you don’t, so going with Russia is a lesser devil for Ukraine. There are no benefits with siding with EU other than a feeling of liberation from Russia.
It won’t be long before Ukrainians become in EU like like Mexicans in USA (laborers and servants), had they side with EU. Financially, it will cause further ruin, prices on most things will triple overnight, plus Russia will make sure to “tax” all the existing trade with a double rate and create more obstacles. In addition, it is not guaranteed that EU will be buying Ukrainian goods at higher volumes than Russia does now or that it will be giving Ukraine any preferential treatment over other countries. Hence, I don’t see any benefits for Ukraine siding with EU and pissing off Russia.
Ukraine needs to figure out how to please both sides…
Not to get off subject but there is some good info here for an fruit growers out there. All for free.
https://extension.umass.edu/fruitadvisor/sites/fruitadvisor/files/publications/pdf/2013NewEnglandTreeFruit.pdf
After a little more reading the site looks like it was posted by Monsanto and the pesticide industry. Myself, I don’t spray. Pears and peaches do great but the bugs and fungus take a serious toll on the apples. Fungus gets the grapes also. It cuts down on wine production!!!!! I had tons of cherry’s last summer but they all succumbed to early fruit drop. I didn’t get enough for a pie.
What about grafting? Is it Eugenics? What gives us the right to tamper with Mother Nature?
My crab apples are real and will sustain me in the hard years to come.
we tamper as we breathe, as we walk. We graft apples because they will not grow true from seed, and the Creator has given us the intelligence to understand this. Writ large our breath moves continents — slowly.
Ignore the idiots. They mean well.
Hey Rip its hard to think about growing anything with 3 ft of snow on the ground. Plus the polar vortex is back, the goddam polar vortex!!
–BRH
Polar Vortex my golden ass. It’s the Maunder Minimum – the new Ice Age, the Killer Cold which will purify our World and lead to the Ragnarok and Gotterdamerung. First will come a Wolf Age and then a Sword Age. At the last I will fight alongside Frey with a deer’s antler and be one of the last to fall.
Is that Wagner, Nietzche or Goethe? It sounds like one of those kraurts.
–BRH
The Eddas. The collection of Myths that were the life blood of the Ancient Germanic peoples. As Celsus said, “There are things that never were but always are.” I will fight alongside the Gods in the Fimbul Winter against the Giants and Schwertings. It has already happened – in the Future.
Actually Vlad it is more like a maximum sunspot period in the cycle. Not a Maunder minimum X-4.9 class flare today. .
http://www.spaceweather.com/
Sunspots are firing up. I have a solar telescope and the pictures are fine. We should be able to construct some very fine guitars and violins in the next few centuries :o)
BRH, it is really very simple. Global warming causes climate change. Climate change shows up as dramatic swings in climates, including heat waves and cold fronts. Therefore, global warming is the reason you are experiencing a polar vortex.
Polar Vortex My A## !! News speak for news sake. 24 hour a day news is the worst thing that ever happened. It’s called a cold snap and we have had them for years. The climate is somewhat fuc$$ though. I did see on the local news tonight that some guys are tapping trees and the sap is flowing. They can’t be getting much.
What about Russian tanks? Ukraine? Economic meltdown? Nuclear conflagration? Should I worry about those?
no. huge waste of time. plant some trees, maybe the sweetsop fruit, which i think grows indoors and fruits in 2 years.
never been cultivated in the US, outside of some experimental stuff in cali, in the 50s i think.
very unusual and slightly cinammony flavored white slipper fruit, kind of scaly looking.
of course all these fruits do marvellous things for you, its like we come from the earth and flower when we eat natural stuff.
all kinds of wonderful fruit here in brazil, passion, papaya, pequi (aromatic in food, just gorgeous too), acerola, cashew fruit (weirdass looking, the cashew nut grows on it), apple bananas, all kinds of little bananas, plus lots of cassava root (better than potato)
country is a glaring failure, but the food’s great
peace peaceniks
Some interesting news out of Brazil of late, Rube.
everybody seems to be nervous about the upcoming World Cup.
Are you nervous, or no, everythings cool..
–BRH
brh, we are all hoping that the Cup is a disaster and is marred by gigantic protests.
you never seen a fucked up country like this shithole where nothing works, yet they can spend $5 billion on football when the hospitals have no equipment.
theyll be lucky if no stadium collapses. the undercurrent here is huge anger at this spit in the face to the people, and there will be some carnage
FIFA has admitted that bringing the Cup here is the biggest mistake theyve ever made. i hope theyre right.
i am on the way out of this squalid dogpatch, even though, like all countries, there are some marvellous people.
but anyone with any brains would not stay here.
good riddance to bad rubbish.
peace peaceniks
“ The few thousand Americans not completely distracted by tweeting the content of their breakfasts or shooting naked selfies or texting behind the wheel — yea, even the gallant minority not mentally colonized by the slave-masters of Silicon Valley — must wonder what the heck happened in the streets of Kiev last week. “ –JHK
That is some kick-ass writing. But I wonder if posting on internet blogs or otherwise looking at a computer screen for large portions of one’s life is somehow less mentally colonized? I suppose it boils down to content.
Speaking of which, why do American women look so vacuous and empty as compared to say, Russian women? It’s almost as if American women, in their obsessive quest to be equal, have become men themselves and not necessarily the best sort of men. The simpering, preening, pretense; the bombastic laughter and antics modeled after Fox News blow-up blondes masquerading as reporters and whose voices sound as if they have smoked three packs of Camels for the last twenty years – well, an enclave of novel pimping “Carol’s” comes to mind.
In contrast, Russian women look so much more dignified and imbued with an authentic naturalness more like a bough of swaying leaves than a rolled up Yoga mat. They don’t seems to strive for an obsessive equality and yet they elevate themselves with a demeanor that will most likely always remain foreign and arcane to the majority of American women. One of the greatest artists I ever knew, a Russian, co-signed each and every canvass he painted with his wife Olga. He knew he could never really produce art without her spirit imbuing impasto inflections into the soul of his brush. And that is not “equality” or even power; it’s Beauty.
Yes the Sexes are Different! Who knew? Everything in modern life denies the polarity – but it is written into every cell. Fascism respects and even glorifies the Feminine – Liberalism denies it. Conservatism pays it lip service but the end products are as you describe.
“Meanwhile, is everybody pretending that the Ukraine is not crisscrossed by a great web of natural gas pipelines?” — JHK
No, it is just irrelevant in the scheme of things. In the south of France the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is about to recreate the energy of the sun here on earth.
ITER’s technology could solve the world’s energy problems for the next thirty million years, and help save the planet from environmental catastrophe.
Hydrogen, a primordial element, is the most abundant atom in the universe, a potential fuel that poses little risk of scarcity. Eventually, physicists hope, commercial reactors modelled on iter will be built, too—generating terawatts of power with no carbon, virtually no pollution, and scant radioactive waste.
The reactor would run on no more than seawater and lithium. It would never melt down. It would realize a yearning, as old as the story of Prometheus, to bring the light of the heavens to Earth, and bend it to humanity’s will. iter, in Latin, means “the way.”
SOURCE: “A Star in a Bottle” March 3, 2014 New Yorker Magazine
I salute you as I soar high above while you remain mired in concern over petty skirmishes between EU/Russia/Ukraine/etc. … while science and technology advances to make all those conflicts over who has control of a gas valve completely irrelevant.
Could. Many a slip twixt an experiment and a prototype. And many more before an industrial plant.
Even given all that – where’s the capital? We’ve spent (burned) all the cheap oil.
“We’ve spent (burned) all the cheap oil.” –sauerkraut
“Cheap” is also irrelevant. Or do you think all the world’s militaries are about to grind to a halt because “we’ve spent (burned) all the cheap oil”? Cheap is irrelevant.
“We’ve spent (burned) all the cheap oil” is not true. We have plenty of proven oil reserves left.
In fact, the amount of proven reserves is not a static figure. Proven reserves can increase at any moment. Canada’s proven reserves increased suddenly in 2003 when the oil sands of Alberta were seen to be economically viable. Similarly, Venezuela’s proven reserves jumped in the late 2000s when the heavy oil of the Orinoco was judged economic.
When human survival is at stake, being economically viable doesn’t matter at all. Or do you think the world’s militaries are suddenly going to become obsolete because they operate on fossil fuels and cheap fuel is not available? That is not going to happen as long as ANY oil is available … cheap or expensive or outrageously expensive. Extraction and refinement costs do not matter when national security is at stake.
The time between experiment, prototype, and industrial production is also insignificant (be it months, years or decades) compared to 30,000,000 years (that is 30 MILLION years) supply of cheap, clean, carbon-free energy based on the most abundant atom in the universe.
Well, perhaps you think that $100 oil is sustainable, but I don’t. And no, I do not expect the world’s militaries to grind to a halt – I expect your Chevy to grind to a halt.
As for proven reserves, ask yourself this question, “If you have $100,000,000 in the bank, but can only remove $300 per day, are you rich?”
I suggest to you that proven reserves are not nearly as important as either
1. rate of recovery
2. cost of recovery
As for cost being irrelevant, I am not talking dollars, I am talking real capital: stuff made with aluminum and steel. It costs more oil to exploit lower grade ores, and it costs more steel to drill in more inaccessible places. That defines an exponential increase, which is death to an economy on a finite planet.
Time is also relevant, because the longer we wait to take emergency measures, the harder they will be. See above.
In contrast, Russian women look so much more dignified and imbued with an authentic naturalness more like a bough of swaying leaves than a rolled up Yoga mat.
yes you nailed it bud, US american women are vacuuous, vapid, empty, and highly unattractive either physically or mentally.
i swore i’d never marry one, and have kept my promise twice.
peace peaceniks
Yes, there is a lot to be said for those Russian beauties, millions of ’em.
Only trouble is, from what I hear, they don’t age well, due to the brutal climate and harsh life in that unfortunate country.
–BRH
Your right about that Marlin, We have lots of Russian immigrants in town. Beautiful girls but after a coupla kids they blow up. Of course many American women do the same. I rented to a guy from the USSR, and I have to say he was a hard worker as was his wife. She used to sweep the sidewalk in front of the house and mow the lawn with an old push reel mower, and shovel the walks by hand. I never had another tenant do that shit. He worked two jobs, had five kids, saved up, and then bought a house in Florida. He said he never wanted to see cold weather again! The coldest city on Earth is Yakutsk, Russia. They’re having a heatwave right now.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Yakutsk,%20Russia
Another look at a city built by Gulag prisoners. Scroll down the page and check out the pictures of Syria.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/photo/what-real-russian-winter-looks-n21251
re ajmuste’s great post on ITER fusion, see this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
fusion is going to free us from fossil fuel dependence, and contrary to what the energy descenters believe, we are entering the era of energy ascent.
but keep the doubts coming as the EU, US, Japan and other technological giants make startling progress towards pollution-free energy sufficient to provide current and future needs ad eternum.
i get a kick out of you doomboys. one day you may wake up and see the light
we soar high, high above your doubt-filled minds into a future of superabundance and cornucopia, fuelled by the power of a thousand harnessed suns
peace peaceniks
Put TEPCO in charge of your prototype fusion plant……
Seems the state of the Ukraine has already faded into the murk of irrelevancy… who could have known it would happen so quickly?
Since we’ve “decided by overwhelming consensus” to ignore this week’s topic, allow me just a moment to propose a few short things…
1.) Hope is not [nor has it ever been] a strategy.
2.) Technology does not equal energy.
3.) Those employing/employed by the 4 D’s of JTRIG: please try and report back your results when you are forced to use them in the “real world”. Many of us will find it of interest.
A great a post right on top of a new page. Harder to bury by an onslaught of seemingly innocuous comments the purpose of which is to merely move attention away from matters of substance by a planned vacuity.
We need clarifications:
JTRIG – Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group
the 4 Ds – Deny Disrupt Degrade Deceive
More explanation can be found here.
It is as if Julius Caesar has led his troops from Gaul to cross the Rubicon a second time. It is hard to see how the genie can be stuffed back in the bottle this time but I won’t underestimate the power of a pay check just yet. Sock puppets can be quite resilient.
Perhaps a quote from A.J. Muste is in order. – “The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.”
Was this on the mind of Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein (a close Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) when he, wrote a controversial 2008 paper proposing the US government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups.
A lesser of two evils sort of thing?
Meanwhile millions of Americans persist in the delusion that they are free thinking and immune from the Helgian Dialectic.
Delusion in a cacophony of Pavlovian bells.
Love Lawman
A quote from Professor Cass Sunstein paper –
“Another dilemma is whether to target the supply side of the conspiracy theory or the demand side. Should governmental responses be addressed to the suppliers, with a view to persuading or silencing them, or rather be addressed to the mass audience, with a view to inoculating them from pernicious theories?”
Angst in other words. “To be or not to be” but there is nothing noble about it.
Pernicious theories would be those not Harvard Law approved.
good blog on Ukraine.
The two most visible Pussy Riot rockers,Maria Alyokhina, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were detained in Moscow on Monday, as they displayed support for the earlier jailed protestors. Nadezhda in particular is telling truth to power. But her determination, her values appear to have her heading back to prison in the near future.http://www.nytimes.com/…/europe/moscow-ukraine.html…
“we soar high, high above your doubt-filled minds into a future of superabundance and cornucopia, fuelled by the power of a thousand harnessed suns”
My Lord, I do get tired of the assertion game. Please do some engineering and report back.
Apologies to you, Ozone, and to JHK, for abandoning the theme, but I find it hard to just let this stuff pass.
A superabundance of hot air and delusion fuelled by the power of an infestation of sock puppets.
Those who abandon the theme do so without qualms. Having some qualms I always try to tie what happens in the world of reality back to the theme.
Through the use of telephone technology and the new anti-protest laws (now up for review, Yanukovych claims), government forces are able to pinpoint, profile and message anyone near protest locations.
And that’s what they can do. Imagine what our own men in black can do with the latest and greatest toys. When it happens to you it is very impressive.
Apologies to you, Ozone, and to JHK, for abandoning the theme –sauerkraut
Good Lord! JHK himself brought up the theme of energy consumption this week. Since when is a discussion of energy production … that is carbon-free and non-polluting and limitless … off-topic for this blog?
What seems to irk some is any evidence that we are in a period of energy ascent, rather than energy descent. Kind of takes all the air out of your doomsday balloon. But then Malthus was proved wrong a hundred years ago and the hangers-on here still haven’t gotten the memo.
“There has been considerable discussion of late as to the possible length of time that the petroleum supply of the United States and the world will hold out.” –Oil industry executive J.S. Cullinan, “Petroleum consumption enormous.” Tractor and Gas Engine Review, 1918.
Yes, peak oil concern has been around since 1918. And JHK this week is stirring the pot with Ukrainian gas pipes, questioning who controls the valves, joining concern we are in energy descent … since 19fucking18.
The best minds from 37 countries are working on energy solutions and “engineering” is not the problem and no one is depending upon hopeium and changeium. But progress toward limitless energy is being made daily.
We salute you, and your classic Newtonian age models, and your horse-blinder mentality … as we soar high above into a cornucopian quantum age.
By your logic, Churchill was wrong about Nazi intentions. After all, he was wrong in 1933, and 1934, and 1935, and 1936, and 1937, and 1938, and …. ah yes.
You are quite right to bring this up, but there is vastly more data now which contradicts your hypothesis. The world has been explored, and the easy oil has been found. Or why would we be sludging Northern Alberta and fracking Montana?
No-one disputes that a Herculean effort MIGHT turn the tide – but where is the political will to even maintain the infrastructure we already have? It is in the context of “the American Way is non-negotiable” that science and engineering must provide a dirt cheap way to get free energy, and that is a much taller order.
No Churchill knew the Nazis had no ill will towards Britain – he just lied that they did. It is well known that Hitler was a tremendous Anglophile.
Good point, ajmuste. I have about 1/2 dozen National Geographics from 1918. In one is an article on the subject you mention: how much oil is there, and might it not soon run out. They go into how much was used at the beginning of WW1 (not much) and how much was used at the end of the war (a lot). Almost all of it came from the US. Another article discusses the oil sands in Wyoming and Colorado, which was said to contain unlimited amounts of petroleum. So these questions have been around for a long time.
“There’s nothing new under the sun”, Ecclesiastes, as quoted by Hemingway in “The Sun Also Rises”.
–BRH
No-one disputes that a Herculean effort MIGHT turn the tide – but where is the political will… — sauerkraut
sauerkraut, this problem is not “American” and America will not solve it alone. 35 countries working together built ITER’s five-floor headquarters in France two years ago. 35 countries are working together to conduct an unprecedented scientific experiment on one hundred acres of land. That is evidence of political will.
You have every right to doubt scientific advance. It has always been that way. There have always been doubters of science.
But you cannot say there is no political will, given the level of funding, and the level of international scientific collaboration in evidence, and given what has already been accomplished by ITER through political collaboration in just eight years.
Fusion is the Energy of the Future! And always will be!
Just kidding, almost. The engineering challenges should not be minimized or wished away. And even if successful we are still left with the words Einstein is reputed to have said regarding fission-energy applied to electric power generation: “It’s a hell of a way to boil water.” Yeah, maybe the Second Law of Thermodynamics is but a limited case in the same sense that Newtonian mechanics are a limited case in Einstein’s universe. There are very smart people working on it. But the academicization (neologism alert!) of science breeds conformity and politicization — regard the great climate science debate. The major scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century took place outside the academy. Einstein was — what? A clerk in the Swiss patent office?
I do not doubt science, because science is way of knowing, a method. I understand that science proceeds by successive approximations. I also know that the rate of progress is inscrutable, especially for very hard problems.
As for “this problem not being “American””, I agree that I was framing it that way, because JHK’s blog is “American”. So is it your view that the USA is unlikely to profit from a breakthrough, if any?
Before we go completely ga-ga over fusion, we should at least be aware that it has some areas of environmental concern. While I would be personally thrilled if we could establish a commercially viable source of fusion energy, pollution issues are still in play.
Hydrogen is by far the most abundant atom in the universe, and one of the two components of water. Thus hydrogen is abundant on the Earth. Hydrogen has two isotopes, deuterium and tritium. One out of 6500 atoms of hydrogen is deuterium. The most economical and practical material for producing fusion is a nuclear reaction using deuterium. Tritium is needed to sustain this reaction. Tritium is radioactive and is very hard to contain.
Tritium probably would be released into the atmosphere as a by-product of the entire process. Over time, one fusion power plant could release a fair amount of Tritium. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of reactors in the world, and there could well be adverse health effects. Also as tritium would be used over the years, the construction materials of the power plant would become highly radioactive and useless. They then become nuclear waste and must be disposed of. So, in fact, fusion power is not harmless.
Even so, tritium has a half-life of only 12.3 years, and the radiation produced is much less energetic than in nuclear fission. Waste by-products would only have to be stored for 50 years for the radiation to be lowered to a non-damaging level, and for 300 years to drop to minuscule amounts.Compared to the radiation produced by nuclear fission (uranium has a half-life in the billions of years), the magnitude of this issue is far less.
All in all, nuclear fusion is one very good way to go. I just wanted to inform the commenters here that it is not a risk-free, non-radioactive source of energy.
I guess what everyone is going on about is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor currently under tinkerage in the South of France. There is a humongous article in this week’s The New Yorker magazine about this very project. It’s well worth the read, but I’ll summarize in as few words as possible – it’s a colossal circle-jerk.
The target date for activation has been pushed back to 2024 (from 2015, from 2010, from etc…) and this is just for getting the damn thing to generate enough net energy to power a bathroom night-light for a few seconds. The costs of designing and constructing this monstrosity are beyond calculation, and this doesn’t even include the fossil fuel and other material inputs…I was shocked when I read the article. All this for a test model! The whole energy picture is quite daunting.
I’m reminded of the alchemists of bygone times – men of renown all. And they discovered many things, and made advances in metallurgy and chemistry. They also developed the basic premise of the scientific method. But they failed to turn a single speck of lead into gold.
All true, Greg. But the possible payoff is huge. Remember, the reward is proportional to the risk. Unless we develop alternate energy sources like fusion and solar, we will eventually run out of energy. If we run out of energy, then at the least, billions will die and possibly the human race goes extinct. Right now, as AJ says below, we are expending enormous energy on our military – a useless waste of effort. If our attempts at fusion never come to fruition, we won’t be any worse off than we are now – we may even go extinct just as if we never made the attempt. We got nothing to lose and everything to gain. It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
Good point; why not take a swing at it. The New Yorker article is very pessimistic about the whole energy picture, without really meaning to be. The author sees the ITER project as a vital effort, and he tries to be upbeat about it. But the facts he lays out paint a picture of a truly Quixotic undertaking.
It is as if Julius Caesar has led his troops from Gaul to cross the Rubicon a second time. It is hard to see how the genie can be stuffed back in the bottle this time but I won’t underestimate the power of a pay check just yet. Sock puppets can be quite resilient.
lol, you people are mental dimwits. any time anyone cites scientific fact that threatens your failure-dominated world, you trot out the sockpuppet epithet. the last refuge of the dimwitted as modernity speeds past them at warp factor 9.
thanks for the laffs.
“we soar high, high above your doubt-filled minds into a future of superabundance and cornucopia, fuelled by the power of a thousand harnessed suns”
My Lord, I do get tired of the assertion game. Please do some engineering and report back.
let’s see, we werent supposed to be able to fly, the atomic bomb (and hence nuclear energy) was impossible, we couldnt go to the moon and the stars, we couldnt communicate through wondrous invisible waves, we couldnt eradicate diseases that killed off mankind through the eons, we will never be able to communicate instantaneously around the world, the paralysed walk again and the blind see again, lifespans are pushed ever upward, man travels between continents easily in the space of a few hours, there is food for all, there is liberty for vast swaths of mankind, war is receding due to intercommunication and trade…
report back when you get your ‘engineering’ straight, it really is tiresome pointing out the obvious to you. you’ll be doubting until the day you get your power bill from a fusion-supplied utility company.
name a resource that have ever been entirely used up and no replacement has ever been found.
doomsdayers are a dime a dozen and litter the historical landscape in the didnt-work-out category.
we soar high, high above you as we rocket into the age of superabundance and cornucopia.
peace peaceniks
More good points, Rube. Like I said last week, you, ajmuste and a few others aren’t buying into the terminal energy depletion, financial collapse scenario,That much is clear.
Myself, I don’t know one way or the other. And I pay close attention to what’s going on, too.
One question: What’s causing the turmoil in Brazil? We read about the crime, brutal police response, riots, deforestation, poverty etc. At the same time you seem to have had success turning sawgrass into motor fuel, on a large scale. Plus there are those massive petro strikes off shore. True, the oil is under 20,000 feet of water, and 10,000 feet of salt rock. But that’s just a minor technicality; the oil is there for the taking. So why all the discontent?
–BRH
Every advance which you mention, every one, is based on a new use of energy or a new source of energy. You are pinning your hopes on a source of energy which is exceedingly difficult to master, while ignoring all the infrastructure needed to make it work. Doesn’t sound very convincing to me.
Efforts redoubled on the happy-talk I see.
Be that as it may, I can guaran-damn-tee you that things will get seriously dicey over energy flows in the Ukraine and the bulk of Europe looooong before the hoping and wishing “strategy” gets a fusion reactor [etc.] up and feeding its’ glorious elec-trickles to the grid to power that oft-mentioned fleet of self-driving cars.
Have a look here:
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-feb-25-2014-bombshell/
Please advise as to whose ass the U.K. is going to pull its’ energy supplies out of now that Maggie’s Big Boom Bonus is all but over. (Whomever that might be is likely going to want some actual assets in return. The age of Pretend is in steep and irreversible decline.)
fusion is a ways off.
just keep doubting it though. you know it’ll never pan out, right?
that’s why the entire advanced world is going after it.
guess they havent read this board. they should, if they want to keep informed.
necessity is the mother of invention, haven’t you heard?
peace peaceniks
“no longer – sufficiently – profitable.”
And the answer is more hijinks to make it profitable again; for the same players naturally. I can’t seem to get this pilot light going. The gas won’t light. This is not a good answer.
Heck, don’t worry about it! Think warm thoughts; that’ll do ‘er til they think of something… ;o)
Warm thoughts, no way, I’m cold and wet and want to dry off. I want gas for my shivering ass. How do we fix this?
Upthread commenter “stelmosfire” posted this link, looking at what a real Russian winter is like:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/photo/what-real-russian-winter-looks-n21251
But the real fun is in comparing the National Geographic article (that’s where the NBC News photos originated) with statements like
“the city is so polluted that residents suffer high rates of cancer, lung disease, blood and skin disorders, and depression. The amount of sulfur dioxide in the air is so high that vegetation in an almost 20-mile radius has died, and residents are forbidden from gathering berries or mushrooms due to high toxicity.”
To statements from the Norilsk Russia tourism website:
“Norilsk sits atop a lush green landscape, bathed in oxygen rich, clean arctic air. Thick forest and dense grasses spread out in each direction for hundreds of miles.”
and
“So clean, blue and transparent is the air above Norilsk that when standing on tippy toes Sarah Palin can be seen just above the horizon… …In the West, in supposed democratic, tolerant countries, baby seals are clubbed to death in a murderous frenzy. Polar bears are hunted for sport. In Norilsk, people and animals live as one, enjoying the same rights and privileges…”
The site is a hoot to read.
Militaries are the most wasteful organizations on earth. They do nothing but conduct “exercises” and “war games” and “checks on readiness” etc. all of which involves burning massive amounts of fossil fuels.
This is why I laugh when I read words on CFN like “we have burned all the cheap fuel” and then others say “the USA is broke” … do you not see a contradiction there? If there is no more cheap fuel and we are broke, how can we afford to have a military?
The answer is we have plenty of fuel left and the military will not be hindered at all. Military organizations and their soldiers are on permanent welfare status and receive their checks without fail, regardless of how much goldbricking, waste, fraud, and inefficiency is uncovered in the military.
Another case in point: Putin just ordered “maneuvers” (i.e., more waste of fossil fuel resources) involving some 150,000 troops, 880 tanks, 90 aircraft and 80 navy ships. What a massive waste of fossil fuels!
Militaries do not care about costs. They know they can just emphasize “threats” from “enemies” and scare the taxpayers into forking over more taxes. They do whatever they damn well please with the money, Trillions of dollars down the rat hole. All their activity is completely unproductive. None of their activity solves any of the central problems facing human survival on earth.
Militaries are just a reflection of ourselves. Since when have we ever tried to act efficiently?
This is true. Russia is massing 150,000.troops, in full combat readiness, on the Ukrainian border.
Russia has plenty of oil, producing over 10 million bpd. Oil is the least of Putins worries.
–BRH
Russia is justifiably paranoid. We better watch out. So far the Ukraine situation is several levels less intense than the Cuban Missile Crisis, but things could change in a heartbeat.
Maybe the American public needs a scare to shake it out of its lethargy.
Just be careful looking up at the sky. If you look at the wrong time, you could burn your eyeballs out.
Contrast this video from RT with a fluffy article from NBC:
http://rt.com/news/radical-opposition-intimidating-techniques-882/
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/ex-boxing-champ-vitali-klitschko-run-ukraine-presidency-n38236
And expert opinion from PCR:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/02/26/ukrainian-neo-nazis-declare-power-comes-barrels-guns/
So what does the blog-less, crackpot scholar of CFN’s comments section think? That’s for you, Yanko-can’t-even-spell-his-idol’s name-right-Skorenzy… seems real Neo-Nazis with actual balls and an ideology might find vindication in Ukraine first, then end up motivating the as yet spineless wannabes over here… maybe you’ll get a chance to lead something for once in your life afterall, Crank Yanker. Who the fudge knows?
PCR is on fire!
Contrast this video from RT with a fluffy article from NBC:
http://rt.com/news/radical-opposition-intimidating-techniques-882/
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/ex-boxing-champ-vitali-klitschko-run-ukraine-presidency-n38236
And expert opinion from PCR: link in second post
So what does the blog-less, crackpot scholar of CFN’s comments section think? That’s for you, Yanko-can’t-even-spell-his-idol’s name-right-Skorenzy… seems real Neo-Nazis with actual balls and an ideology might find vindication in Ukraine first, then end up motivating the as yet spineless wannabes over here… maybe you’ll get a chance to lead something for once in your life afterall, Crank Yanker. Who the fudge knows?
PCR is on fire!
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/02/26/ukrainian-neo-nazis-declare-power-comes-barrels-guns/
I feel PCR is usually hyperbolic over many issues, so why do I generally agree with his article you linked? My only disagreement is his opinion of the inevitability of war over Ukraine. Sad to say, I believe what he says about our government. Isn’t there any good that comes out of Washington?
Beantown, I had the same reservation. In the middle of the piece PCR says:
“War is unavoidable, because the Western public is out to lunch.”
Then in the closing paragraph PCR says:
“Let us all cross our fingers that another war is not the consequence…”
So which is it? Unavoidable is a strong word.
PCR seems to be contradicting himself.
Use of snipers as mean to incite civic unrest and violent revolution is a well-known technique employed by NATO military intelligence throughout its history – in Prague in 1967, in Russia in 1993 (during the anti-constitutional coup by Boris Eltsin), in Syria couple of years ago and now, it seems, in Kiev.
Indiscriminatory shooting of BOTH police and civilians by anonymous snipers is a sure way of heating up civic tensions in the target country.
One must listen to intercepted and leaked conversation of State Department Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt to understand who paid for Neo-Nazi Putsch in Ukraine and taking power in Kiev by former members of SS Division “Galichina”
BTB says,
“So far the Ukraine situation is several levels less intense than the Cuban Missile Crisis, but things could change in a heartbeat.”
======================================
Hey Bill,
I know next to nothing about the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I have little sense of the reference you make. There’s a lot of controversial interpretations floating about the web regarding just about any historic phenomena we can name, from the armchair historian types, of course. So I wonder if you could elaborate on your statement above. How are the CMC and the Ukraine coup alike or different in terms of scale and overall stakes? Why is one more or less important than the other?
My own ignorant sense of all this is that the US, resentful of Putin’s interference in Syria, created the situation in Ukraine as a bold, if not foolish, test of Russia’s direct capacity and willingness to respond to a direct challenge leveled in it’s own backyard.
I don’t know… in a silly sense, I wonder what I would do if I caught my belligerent neighbor takin’ a shit in my yard, just because he thought he was big enough and powerful enough to withstand any recourse from me. A few more questions: would I simply go out and build a new fence placing the turd just outside my boundary, chopping off part of my own land? Or would I go out and rub the dude’s face in his own mess, risking a bigger ass kicking, out of sheer principle? Is Russia too proud? Is Russia a paper tiger, as ass poker says?
I don’t think PCR is using too much hyperbole in the least. I think we’re finally seeing a real conflict between two Super Powers gain momentum. Pride is on the line here, perhaps less so than money and resources, making it even more dangerous in my view; the question is… who blinks next? Obama folded on Syria. Will Putin on Ukraine? If Klitschko becomes president, we’ll know whether PCR was full of hot air.
UFIA, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the USSR and the US went head to head and very, very closely averted a nuclear war. Today, Russia and the US are like 2 boxers just entering the ring. Baleful glances directed at each other, but no punches yet thrown.
In the CMC, the US instituted a naval blockade of Cuba because it couldn’t live with enemy nuclear missiles 90 miles from the mainland. The Soviets responded by sending warships steaming to the area. In a matter of a few days, the soviet ships would encounter American naval vessels and if no one backed down, then the 2 navies would fight each other, and most likely nuclear war would ensue. Luckily for all of us, both the American president and the Soviet premier didn’t want that to happen, and both sides worked the issue out.
In the present, Russia can’t live with the idea that a country they share an 800 mile border with could be allied with their enemies (or perhaps more accurately, with their rivals). As of now, neither side is moving to confront each other, like in the CMC.
The stakes are the highest possible: nuclear war. I know you may think I’m being foolish or unreasonably fear-mongering, but such a confrontation is definitely possible. I was a junior in high school during the CMC, and like many youths was blissfully ignorant and optimistic: I just couldn’t believe the world would end. Now, as a much older and more experienced man, i realize how foolish I was.
The CMC is an historical event – it already played out, but the Ukraine situation is unfolding in real time; in that sense, the 2 events are different, but otherwise the current scenario is eerily like the CMC in that the same 2 superpowers are setting up to confront each other and potential stakes are the end of the world (or TEOTWAWKI). In 1962 the USSR overplayed its hand; in 2014 the US is probably doing the same.
So, my young friend, take this situation seriously. Hopefully everything will work out ok.
If Putin misbehaves, I would not doubt President Obama’s resolve to take him out. Obama does not shy away from a fight and does not scare easily. War hero John McCain went up against Obama and got his ass whupped by Obama. Billionaire Bully Romney went up against Obama and got his ass whupped by Obama. Obama has deported millions of illegals from the United States, something Bush never did. Obama has a spine of steel and did not hesitate to give the order to take out the Somali pirates with bullets to the head. Obama will even take out American citizens who badmouth the United States overseas. Obama never ceased the hunt of Bin Laden, the guy who did attack the United States, and ordered Bin Laden be taken out. Obama has been killing people all over the world, perfecting his drone assassination program … with no American casualties (cf. Bush). Obama knows Putin’s coordinates. Do you think Obama is going to blink with a pussy like Putin? If you do, then you don’t know your dictator president very well. If Obama dictates your death (political or physical), you are dead.
ahaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ahaaaa hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhhhaaa ahaaa …
Barack Obahamahaha should be singing backup for the Pussy Riot! Oh, wait a minute, he’s not black , he is white, so I guess he can’t jump or sing. We should stay out of the Ukraine business. Why does it concern us? Bring the military home from all the oversea bases. They can protect our borders , which is what they were mustered for. If Canada or Mexico attacks we will be prepared!
Mexico has already attacked: Invasion by Osmosis.
You forgot the “bwa” which is de rigueur in portraying maniacal laughter on the internet.
Have you complied? http://www.wvwnews.net/content/index.php?/news_story/gun_confiscation_connecticut_(the_constitution_state)tells_unregistered_gun_owners_to_surrender_firearms.html
Registration, Confiscation, Extermination – the pattern of history.
The Governor’s entire staff, the AG, most of the Judiciary, many state senators and their staffs, heads of the public sector unions, and rank and file govt. workers, are proud homosexuals, and of course democrats
This is what homoexual rule looks like.
This is a political movement based upon getting down on all fours, maybe 2% of the population tops. But look at the power they’ve been able to accumulate.
Only in a diseased body politic like the one here could this ever happen.
–BRH
BRH, with all due respect, you should read Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book “Double Down” about Obama’s savagery for all America’s enemies. Obama oversaw the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, 145 Predator drone strikes in NATO’s 2011 Libya operations, the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and drone strikes that killed the Pakistani Taliban leader and a senior member of the Somali-based militant group al-Shabab. Obama also expanded the drone war: There have been 326 drone strikes in Pakistan, 93 in Yemen, and several in Somalia under Obama, compared to a total of 52 under George Bush.
In 2011 two of those strikes killed American-born al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and his American-born, 16-year-old son within two weeks. Jeremy Scahill, author of “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield” told NBC News that Obama will “go down in history as the president who legitimized and systematized a process by which the United States asserts the right to conduct assassination operations around the world.”
Who’s laughing now? Not America’s enemies. Putin better watch his step in the Ukraine.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/24/volcanic-eruptions-causing-global-warming-slowdown-study-says?CMP=dis_829
Volcanoes are just giant smoke stacks. Natural Industry. We need to go back to coal in order to stop global warming. Luckily America has lots of coal. So we could solve the energy crisis and stop “global warming” at the same time.
The coolest thing about the Ukrainian crisis is the whole medieval ambiance. The shields, the armor, the clubs. It’s kind of a Central European Mad Max. If only we could get rid of guns and go back to a less destructive form of warfare where skill and courage were required. Drones are the epitome of Kali Yuga – combining both cruelty and cowardice.
Vlad, this might interest you.
Last nite on BBC a reporter (presenter) was in Cardiff, Wales, doing a story about Somali immigrants in that city, of which I gather there are many. Of course there the usual bullsh-t about the wonders of diversity. Suddenly she began interviewing actual native Welsh who claimed to have ‘gone native’ and joined the ‘Somali Community’, and consider themselves more Somali than Welch. They loved the food, the sense of community, etc. Then the interviewer began talking to people on the street, Welch people, haranging them for not assimilating themselves to Somaliland and the African way of life. This was the BBC, in Cardiff itself, in the middle of Wales. I was thinking, these people have been in this part of England before it was England. at least 2500 years, and they have no idea …
–BRH
What is left? Once you give up the Tribe, what is left? Industrialism finished off the folk ways and what was left of the Clans and Villages. So the Nation is left, right? Wrong in this case since it was the British Empire. The Queen is not the Queen of the English but of England – and all her realms. So the Paki is just as “English” as the Englishmen, nay more so since Mulit-Culturalism is the State Religion. So that extends to the Somalis apparently as well since they are closer to the Pakis than the English ever will be.
So you have something dying (Whites) and something surging in power (Islam). One provides nothing but discrimination and the other both a close knit community AND the blessings and benefits of the State. Which are people going to choose? As Bin Ladin said, “If you see a strong horse and a weak horse, you will like the strong one better.” Only the Rhett Butlers among us are going to fight for what seems to be a lost cause: the White Race and his Civilization.
Janos, you ever read the stories of Poul Anderson about Captain Sir Dominic Flandry? The way you describe the White Race’s present situation is exactly Anderson’s theme of the Flandry saga.
No, but I’ve read one or two things by him. Can you give me a synopsis? I might be interested in reading it.
I want to fix Ix up with Tariqa.
http://www.amren.com/news/2014/02/girl-soldier-tariqa-ignites-online-firestorm-after-she-posts-picture-of-herself-hiding-from-flag-salute-with-caption-i-dont-give-a-f/
Another one was photographed last week licking a MIA sign. Imagine what the founders would think of having Negresses in the United States Army. Oh how the mighty have fallen, brought down low by the dark forces of commercialism and egalitarianism, the Republican and Democratic Parties respectively.
More racist nonsense.
Begone, racist fool!
Shoo! Shoo!
OK, Vlad – that woke me up.
But you need to post links. Here’s one from Stars and Stripes, that actually includes a picture. What the FUCK is wrong with this woman?
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/air-force-will-take-appropriate-action-over-viral-pow-mia-emblem-photo-1.267780
And Looooongerbeard – is that all you got? Racist name-calling?
A fair question.
I guess I don’t feel the need to qualify why racism has no place in this discussion.
Sometimes though, I’ve just had enough of it, and I want the perpetrator of racist ideology to just hear that he/she is unwelcome here!
Oh really? You don’t have to explain why the White Race has to die? Boy do you have another thing coming. The Far Right is surging in Europe and sooner or later it will here as well. Get ready to fight or get run over. Get out on the field and play or just go home.
“I guess part of the problem with a blog is that if it becomes popular to any degree, commenters tend to use it as a social medium for chatting. That seems to be the case here at CFN. Too many of the comments don’t have any real connection to the subject at hand brought up by JHK.” – beantown bill –
I’ll ask you to elaborate on this one, beans, if you will. And I’ll ask you if this is based on one of your email communications with JHK, or if it’s something you cooked up on your own.
I’m rather impressed with how the “regulars” here – which includes you, ozone, k9, and a couple of others – have made a conscious effort to give JHK what he wants, specifically “NO QUARRELING.”
“asmuste” and rube-i-con did not get the memo about this – but everyone else seems to have received it loud and clear.
Every time I post, lately, I think it will be my last.
Fuck* it.
*One of JHK’s favorite words, as he has demonstrated in multiple private emails to me – in his defense of “one poster.”
Just my opinion, Procon.
I stay on this blog because JHK’s subject matter interests me – in general. My own shtick is how our country has blown it – having felt this for 50 years, and in how critical thinking can straighten the mess out. As you know, I’m also interested in science and technology, particularly how it can overcome many of the issues we face today.
Being on CFN is oftentimes very hard for me because most here really don’t appreciate how science works and what it can do for us, and act very negatively and fearful in the face of problems. That is definitely not my personality. Nevertheless, I appreciate many insights I have gotten from posters here. For instance, what I got from you, way back, was to expend energy on really thinking about immigration. You may remember I originally was all for it, as my father was an immigrant, but you led me to change my mind. You should feel satisfaction that you influenced my thinking.
Occasionally I lose my cool, and make harsh posts
…and make harsh posts because I believe someone has crossed the line, but I really don’t want to argue. I figure I have something to say, and to waste bandwidth and my time on arguing doesn’t make me feel good. I wish you felt the same way.
“Every time I post, lately, I think it will be my last.”
May your wine be sweet.
Back Row Hecker – right back at you, as regards being a voice of reason here, with some life experiences to back it up. You, especially, I will miss.
Janos/Vlad – you need to drop the use of the word “fascist.” There’s too much brainwashing.
You can talk all you want about a government that puts the people of the nation first – and keeps the corporations in line. In my opinion, only an idiot could object to a government like this.
Call the system “fascist,” though – and half-baked and fully-baked objectors come crawling out of the walls and floors.
As we see demonstrated on CFN weekly.
Excellent post at ADR this week, and the commentary is superb. Kunstler keeps getting positive mentions over there, as well.
You are right I fear. Fascist is a European concept and it will never catch on here after all the Propaganda and of course World War Two. And truth be told, even Fascist theory says that each culture will be different. By our very history we are more individuated and less collectivized. England was the most individuated Nation of Europe and they came here and got even more so. A pity since conditions have changed and we need to be more socially conscious now. And the Founders would be appalled at how far we’ve fallen from the one for all and all for one ethos that ALL cultures must have to some degree. Fascists have looked at our Founding documents and concluded that they are not at odds with Fascism.
But back to you point: Greg Johnson of Counter Currents doesn’t use it. He contrasts the Old Right of Fascism with the New Right which he is trying to give birth to. I’m a Don Quixote type who enjoys tilting at windmills. But I actually think there is value to it in certain forums. Obviously not for political campaigns. And for White Nationalists it’s essential to understand our European Brothers who do look back to this word and aborted tradition with hope for the future.
How Bout Maggie’s Big Boom Bonus and Boys gone Bust travelling Blues Band.
[..] … the industry believed “the fiscal regime failed to provide sufficient incentive to explore”. He said there was a “fundamental view” in the industry that the 62% tax rate for new oil and gas fields was “too high” [..]
It just fracks you up. No planning like no planning is the only planning we know.
I don’t know if anybody else saw the story on the CNBC site yesterday (which is a pretty good site by the way, lots of info) about the US in the next 25 years.
Suffice to say, everything will be rosy. So don’t worry.
News this morning that out of the top 10 most violent mid level American cities, 4 are right here, New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport and Springfield. Like I mentioned, not long ago, these were quaint, prosperous Yankee cities. Now look. Who is responsible for this? Why is it, in places run on socialist principles, there is so much violent crime?. Look what happened in Venezuela. The main complaint of the street protesters there is high amount of violent crime in the cities and the countryside.
Jim gave a lot of pages in Too Much Magic to Ray Kurzwell and his singularity theory. Kurzwell is back in the news, Googel hired hired him to run a robotics division.
–BRH
BRH, I thought we have gotten beyond this. Other Cities have gone socialist without this kind of carnage. It’s Blacks yo. Venezuela is full of mestizos who also tend to be violent though I admit social inequality and poverty can add to the racial aspect. Obviously revolutions are violent and crime past a certain point becomes revolution or civil war. That’s how the English gentry saw our Revolution. But as an American, I’m sure you see it differently as do I. Our Revolution was about Principles – as well as money. Criminality had little to do with it. With Blacks and Browns, you’re not going to have nearly so fine a line of distinction.
Do ya have a breakdown of % by race of population, and arrested?
“NO QUARRELING.”
“asmuste” and rube-i-con did not get the memo about this – but everyone else seems to have received it loud and clear.
thats pretty funny because we two are the constant target of non-germane comments about being paid to post, because we generally cite technological advances that counter the gospel of descent
you`d think people on this board would be interested in discussing such matters, since theyre central to kunstlers proposition
lemme know if disagreement is not allowed, i didnt get that particular memo
funny how everyones so tolerant, except for dissenting opinions
peace peaceniks
“because we generally cite technological advances that counter the gospel of descent” – rube-con admits what “we* do” –
Honestly, I’m just trying to flesh out the rules of this new ClusterFuck.
And one of the rules appears to be that you two* can post as many provocative variations on the above theme as you prefer – but if I attempt a response in the negative that I am engaging in a quarrel.
What you are doing is the equivalent of going on a Muslim website and saying “Mohammed was a pediaphile,” over and over in various ways. Or going on a gay marriage website and saying “Gay marriage is disgusting,” over and over in various ways. Or going on a ….. well, I hope you get the idea.
It makes you a legend in your own mind, because of the rules in apparent force here. And it has gotten me, and apparently several others – to the point where we don’t want to comment much at all.
I can’t see much other purpose .
*It’s interesting that you said “we,” thus acknowledging something.
Pointing that out has never been my shtick.
But thank you for the confirmation.
Do you have a Facebook or private email you are willing to post?
Id like to have a private chat.
*It’s interesting that you said “we,” thus acknowledging something.
precisely what i mean, you focus on inanities like whether someone is who they say they are, or whether they are a group, etc.
in other words, anything but energy-related technologies.
you need to counter what is said about the demonstrable successes of alternative energy, youre getting tired because your arguments are weak.
how is stating that the largest source of electricity generation in Spain, for example, is wind power?
how is stating that Brazil gets 84% of its electricity from clean, renewable hydropower equivalent to your absurd muslim analogy?
These are demonstrable successes that counter the unsubstantiated allegations of energy descent on your side`s part
i think youre probably tiring of your side’s inability to base its arguments on solid data.
look at the major rail advances in Houston, for example. That trashes a major kunstler argument that no rail efforts are underway.
i`ve cited tons of advancements in alt energy that make a real dent in fossil fuel usage. if that equates to quarrelling, then this board has major issues.
peace peaceniks
If JHK wants to let certain commenters keep posting, that’s entirely his business. It’s his website.
But who you personally engage with is your own business.
There’s no requirement here that anyone has to argue with people they consider trolls. If you think someone is a troll then they’re a troll. You get to make that judgement.
Stay away from the trolls.
“Nevertheless, I appreciate many insights I have gotten from posters here.” btb
Yeah, me too Bill. I miss the diversity of viewpoints, and the honest argument.* And the reason I asked you about “Too many of the comments don’t have any real connection to the subject at hand brought up by JHK,” was to see if it was JHK’s view, too.
I keep trying to see this discussion thread from JHK’s point of view.
Maybe he doesn’t want any interaction between posters at all – everybody just logs in once/week, tells him how great he is; a few posters tell him how bad he sucks – and then we all wait for the next Monday.
Maybe he has something else in mind. Maybe he hasn’t figured out what he wants. Maybe if he ever does – he’ll list some written posting guidelines so the rest of us can then try to figure it out as well. haha!
*honest argument – I don’t see a problem with it, even if it’s heated.
Dishonest argument bothers me – but maybe I’m the only one?
And thanks, as always, for the response, bill.
Thought this might be of interest in the news today for those looking at how Alt-NRG-Tech might help US. The only question is what the “true costs” might be If you know, I’m sure you’ll let me Know.
Cambridge Crude/MIT-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/13/cambridge-crude-mit-battery_n_875996.html
A chorus of voices predicting a dollar collapse in 2014, and even these are by the endless oil types. US foreign policy trumped by Russia in Syria and now likely the Ukraine. Police brutality on the rise, the state on steroids. People cannot withdraw large sums of money out of the bank without jumping through rings of fire, walking on hot coals, laying on beds of nails, or otherwise being treated like a criminal. The US blocking or making it hard for americans to expatriate (they don’t want their tax slaves to escape). The NSA has been spying on all of us using our tax money without our knowledge or consent.
Does anyone else see the writing on the wall? This is it. The joyride is ending in 2014
There are 2 countires [to my knowledge] that require citizens to pay taxes in full, regardless of where they sleep.
USA and Phillipines.
Now if you are referring to ‘renouncing their citizenship’ thats another story.
Teddy ‘traitor’ Kennedy referred to those types as ‘Billionaire Benedict Arnolds’.
Yes, I was referring to those few who are awake and are trying to jump off this sinking ship by expatriating and renouncing their citizenship. They then do not have to be extorted by Uncle Sam any longer by paying “taxes” to the US
From what I have learned, the US is exerting pressure on Latin American countries to make US citizens wait longer to obtain citizenship, and pay a hefty exit fee when they do.
You look at the Flying Cobblestone Festival in the Ukraine and the many related and popular attractions like the Burning Barricades and interactive diversions like Dodge the Sniper Bullet.
And what do you hear? What should Obama do? Will Obama intervene? Should Obama intervene? And the most hilarious: if only Reagan were here.
So what could the US do? Draw – ahem – “red lines”? Let’s say Putin crosses them? Then what? Go to war?
No, no, no I know. A stiffly worded UN Resolution. That’ll show-em. Or maybe sanctions. Gasp.
The Russkis have got Europe by the cojones. Or maybe Europe has got Europe by the cojones. at any rate, it’s in a frightful state, it is bankrupt, its cafe layabouts (JHK’s words) have not remotely got the intestinal steel to re-do WW2. Germany vs Russia? Again? I don’t think so.
And the US is no better. How many Red State Patriots will the US sacrifice for um, what was it again, the Freedom of the Ukrainian People? Is that the cause?
The US has not got the means, that is, the industrial capacity to take on the Russians, nor the financial capacity. And, least of all, the will.
The best thing it can do is state the obvious, that the fate of the Ukraine is beyond its reach.
The US didn’t learn from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan just like Hitler didn’t learn from Napoleon’s adventures.
The US came out of Korea with a stalemate, got its ass handed to it by Vietnamese peasants, pissed away trillions and and accomplished nothing in Iraq, got whipped by a few toothless illiterates in Afghanistan. Imagine, armored fighting vehicles vs a few donkey riders and the donkey riders won.
And there’s knuckleheads that want to take on Russia? Jesus give me strength.
You’re not going to take on Russia with an army of 450,000 soldiers either, most of whom are support troops, leaving perhaps 80,000-100,000 combat infantry and artillerymen. (Or should I say women, the EEOC manual and makeup pouch being essential in this New Model Army’s kit).
This is why it is so funny when I read Kerry and Susan Rice warning Putin not to cross the line (into the Ukraine)
Anyway, finished reading Mark Leibovich ‘This Town’, about Washington, where the media scumbags and political scumbags(both parties) are one in the same, getting rich at our expense, not giving a shit at all about this country, in fact despising it and the people in it. The media and political elite do not care, why should we?
–BRH
The US warning Russia not to cross the line? Like the US did in Grenada, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Panama, etc. Look at the face of Obama these days, with lips drawn down and the deer in the headlights eyes http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/obama-ukraine_n_4876826.html?1393625399&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing8%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D449138
Action in the Ukraine would be “destabilizing”. To me, this is like the meow of a kitten rather than the roar of a lion. The US is over as a world super power and will soon no longer be an industrialized nation, but crash into a third world nation.
I am no expert on military technology, but the Russians have the Brahmos cruise missile, a joint venture with India (the Brahmin River and the Moscow River) that produced a supersonic cruise missile, with a hypersonic version on the drawing board. They supposedly have supersonic torpedoes and an anti aircraft system that cannot be defeated, deceieved, or jammed that can see our stealth planes. While the US stagnates and is finally talking about cutting back on its military, broke and about to collapse, Russia is growing and developing some pretty good weapons. Point being, it would be no turkey shoot like Iraq. Not even the British would likely support the US in a head butting contest with Russia, let alone China.
Also, don’t forget the Affirmative Action Operations Manual, 6 inches thick of rules and regs. in small print (AAOM) This manual supersedes all others.
–BRH
US imposed sanctions worked as long as the dollar reigned supreme. The US would use the IMF to put the squeeze on anyone who didn’t do their bidding. That is no longer the case. BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South America) are dropping the US petro dollar out of their bilateral trade. I believe our ally Australia has now agreed to dump the dollar out of its bilateral trade with China. A run on the dollar as a prelude to its collapse is inevitable and will likely happen this year. Then its game over. I shudder to think of what this country will become like after its collapse. Resources spent, little mass transit, mass foreclosures and evictions, riots, violence, starvation, people are armed to the teeth and many groups hate other groups and will be quick to scapegoat them. Most everyone I know is totally oblivious to what lays ahead in the future, even those whom could be described as “highly educated” (i.e., doctors). Their daily world consists of what Justin Bieber is doing, the super bowl, who will run for president in 2016 (like as though that will make a difference, if there is even an election in 2016). The majority of people will get blind sided when the shit hits the fan. Even economists like Peter Schiff and accurate forecasters like Gerald Celente do not take fossil fuel depletion into consideration, they have little or no clue that the role energy plays in societies. Schiff probably thinks the free market will adjust things over time, Celente believes there is some magical mystical yet undiscovered technology that will step in and save us.
Russia and China tell these countries that if they are being bullied by the US, come and join them and they will protect them. So the sanctions are not working anymore. The game has changed, and the US is becoming like a toothless dinosaur. Cant really hurt you, but likes to roar, but soon to be extinct. When the run on the dollar which has already started accelerates, it gets dropped as the world’s de facto currency of international trade. Another spike in energy prices, and it’s lights out for the USA. The government knows this is coming, and has taken steps to try and maintain control at all costs. Tens of thousands of armored, mine resistant vehicles, untold millions of rounds of hollow point bullets. Point is, they cannot force the rest of the world to march to the beat of their drums and fight its own population at the same time. The empire is in its death throes
Despite the distractionary “social issues” feverishly posted below, it’s important to stay on topic because some of the Devil’s Business in Ukraine is in sore need of perspective, and more fog is unhelpful (to say the very least).
Who was sniping the riot police and protesters alike? And why?
What’s it all about Ms. Nuland? …Wife of Robert Kagan, proud neo-con asshole; be warned, these people NEVER go away and their meddling always ends in the blood and revenge of striking from the shadows. Nice moves, Vicky, but you’re about to be ensnared in your own web of black-op deception.
(Sidebar: Nuland is reported to be a prime mover in the Benghazi coverup; that should have a familiar ring for the tiny minority who have been paying attention.)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37803.htm
Oopsie, more context yet:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37789.htm
Swedish documentary about innate Negro criminality in children and the White adult response to it – none. Just allow White children to be victimized. Political Correctness is a religion of human sacrifice.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1376717/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
The real question is not what the rate of immigration should be, but rather the rate of deportation. The fewer non English minorities the better obviously – if you love England.
http://www.amren.com/news/2014/02/mass-immigration-has-left-britain-unrecognisable-says-nigel-farage/
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/court-okays-high-school-ban-american-flag-t-172900062.html
The famed Ninth Circuit betrays Americans as usual. That’s its job evidently. Mexican Flag in America? No problema. American Flag? Problema grande.
For anybody who witnessed Obama’s 3 minute speech to the Nation yesterday about Ukraine, you missed the real speech, yes, the one that really mattered. That came about 30 minutes later, at a posh hotel in DC, to DNC activists, and more importantly, super rich bundlers and donors, billionaire 1%ers, those it turns out, angling for plum ambassadorships and State Dept. appointments. There laughs and jokes, very convivial, free drinks, back slapping and asskissing all around.
And I’ll bet, in this sober tense time, you thought our President was consulting the Joint Chiefs, or the Russia experts at the Hoover Institute, or the National Security Advisor.
Jokes on you, suckers!
–BRH
And for all of you who think the US needs to get rid of the Pentagon, the army and navy, the whole defense apparatus, in fact become like the Swiss and Swedes, we’re beginning to see what the world will look like with a disengaged, weakened America.
Clue: its not sweetness and light across the planet.
Be careful what you wish for..
–BRH
“….it’s important to stay on topic because some of the Devil’s Business in Ukraine is in sore need of perspective, and more fog is unhelpful (to say the very least).
Who was sniping the riot police and protesters alike? And why?”
– O3 –
Your article (and some accompanying commentary) says the snipers were US-backed, maybe from NATO, or maybe from the German government. That’s quite possible, even likely, and certainly logical.
But what am I supposed to do? Call Pres. Obama and tell him to please stop? Write Senator Chambliss and tell him to defund NATO? I’m pretty sure a couple of government agencies know what I think already – should I really go looking for more trouble?
And I’m genuinely curious about your ideas Oz – certainly not picking a quarrel.*
And backrow – to second your ideas –
Anyone who thinks the US will intervene against the Russians in Ukraine – definitely needs to look at a map.*
*no quarrel picking! Maybe I should embed a permanent message at the end of each of my posts to that effect. hah!
Here’s the Wildcard: Eric Snowden, the antihero special guest of the Russians.,,
everything he knows about US defense capability, plans, strategies, everything, Putin Knows. Do you doubt it? It gives the Russians the advantage, don’t you agree? I bet they can’t believe their good luck, that a dupe like this would fall into their hands, and at such an opportune time. Putin: Its serendipity, he’s heaven sent …
–BRH
Do you really think Snowden told them anything they didn’t know already? The biggest damage he did was to tell our allies and the American people that they were all being spied on. Why our allies? Because they are slowly turning away from us, knowing a dollar collapse is imminent. Why the American people? Because the economy is going to collapse, and so they have probably have been categorizing people into “threat” levels. Words like “Snowden”, the “Constitution”, “freedom”, “martial law”, “secession”, etc probably intensify their surveillance efforts
When the shit hits the fan, after the internet kill switch is utilized and cell phones and other communications are silenced, anyone with influence or a following that continues to talk, call for or lead resistance will get carted off to “FEMA camps”, probably never to be seen again. Those who openly revolt against martial law will realize why the “DHS” purchased tens of thousands, armored mine resistant vehicles and billions of rounds of hollow points.
Snowden tried to warn us of this police state on steroids. If he knew a collapse was imminent, he hasn’t mentioned it. His intention seemed to be to warn us, not help the Russians or the Chinese.
You know MN, I do think Snowden revealed much to the Russians they did not know but were trying to find out. This sort of international intrigue predates the cold war and even WW1. Some even suspect Russia was in with Snowden from the beginning, like they were with the Cambridge 5, and Alger Hiss, and it was no accident he ended up in Moscow.
As far as Snowden himself is concerned, Americans who have sought asylum in russia historically have not had happy endings. Thousands of emigrants in the 30s, American communists seeking the promised land, disappeared, never to be seen nor heard from again. Turns out many were shot in sheds on the pier when their ships tied up in Murmansk, their passports confiscated. John Reed was beaten to death; Big Bill Haywood, Wobbly, died an early death regretting the day he set foot in Russia. There were many others. Snowden is a man without a country. Let one, just one, 19 year old US Marine or Army private be killed as a result of Snowden’s activities and God himself will not be able to rescue him. Barring that, when the Russians are thru with him, anyway, there won’t be much left to hunt down.
–BRH
Here we go again: war hysteria. Are you seriously suggesting that we should do something? That we have the right to do something? Or that the only reason we shouldn’t is because we’re not at full strength? You seem to want another World War to give your life meaning.
Ever hear of the Monroe Doctrine? Think they don’t have their version of the same thing? Why is it right for us and wrong for them? Certainly they have the right to the Crimea which is very pro-Russian and where their Black Sea fleet is as well. They’re not giving that up. As for the rest of the Country, time will tell.
America is alienating its best – men like Snowden. He’s a hero against enemies within. Enemies foreign AND domestic? Ring a bell? Obviously Russia is one of the few places that can protect him. The Elite have said they want to kill him. Remember?
In this case I agree with you – for the exact reason you state.
Prog, you sez,
“But what am I supposed to do? Call Pres. Obama and tell him to please stop? Write Senator Chambliss and tell him to defund NATO? I’m pretty sure a couple of government agencies know what I think already – should I really go looking for more trouble?”
Hollering to the likes o’ them will get you flat-out nothing (as you most certainly could guess). ;o) …Plus, as you say, even more unwanted attention.
I DO suggest that it’s all about who you might know to trust (and who NOT to, of course) with your life and small treasures in the future! Personally, I think it a very good idea to know these things very concretely before they come to the point of being life-or-death for us and ours. That would apply to the “micro” society (neighbors and acquaintances) as well as any “macro” centralized authorities. This is all we have to build upon after the present psychopaths finish pushing us all off the cliff. The grinding gears of the cosmos care not a whit, so we’d better find out which of us can find commonality with the natural world and who is intent on conquering and subjugating it. (That last, a very bad idea, as we know who’s going to win that contest before it’s even joined.)
Have no fear, no quarrel picked, parried or pursued! :o)
Indeed, be careful what you wish for.
BRH, there are people that think along those lines, that a disengaged America, or alternatively an economically and militarily incapacitated America, will be a calamity for the wider world.
If you subscribe to that view then the unthinkable may become the unavoidable. I don’t see how an industrially and financially emasculated USA can summon the man-power and military hardware to keep doing what it did in the decades after WW2.
Let’s say that the US did Europe a service in fending off an expansionist USSR in the 20th C. Is there still a threat from those quarters? Does Russia still have the wherewithal to mount a challenge to Europe?
Never mind of Russia, is Europe doomed anyway to cultural and demographic senility, coming apart under migratory pressure from poorer parts of the globe?
Maybe the US and USSR did use their armed might to smother various conflicts around the globe during the Cold War. Like, for example, the rat’s nest of rivalries in the Balkans, which post-Cold War, well and truly blew up.
Or maybe, with the military and financial backing of the US and USSR, other conflicts flared that otherwise wouldn’t have.
Either way, I think those days are at an end. If there are going to be so-called “proxy wars”, there are going to be new and different financial backers.
Like who? Like maybe the Saudis, using their accumulated trillions to fund opponents to Iran or to extend the influence of their religious establishment for the purpose of troublemaking unmitigated and unfettered by Americans and Soviets.
There are people that live to make mayhem. Money is nothing to them, they live to see things blow up and burn. Nine to five? A wife and the peaceful domestic life? Not a chance, the idea of bringing the same lunch to work for thirty years is repulsive to them.
Or like maybe Iran who, in the past limited by its own incompetence and hobbled by its own backwardness, nonetheless never feared the US. And now having had sanctions removed, fully sees American weakness and uses its new-found financial flexibility to act as paymaster for allies in the centuries old Shia-Sunni dust-up.
And once this current silliness about “negotiations” is over and the Iranians get to where they are inevitably going and unveil their nuclear weaponry, then the Middle-East, at the very least, will be a very different place.
Who will be pushing who around then? I don’t know, if you abhor the idea of nuclear proliferation, find something to take your mind off of it. Because I cannot think of a greater incentive for Sunni peoples to up-arm than a nuclear equipped Iran. Or Israel for that matter.
Put yourself in their shoes. What would you do if you were them? Remember they don’t have the buffer of two wide oceans on either side. In one direction, maybe a stone’s throw, is a nasty cut-throat running things and in the opposite direction is another. Maybe the dividing line is a river, maybe it’s an arbitrary line in the sand put there by Winston Churchill or maybe it’s just a street in a big city, the border being invisible to anyone not infused since birth with factional hatreds. If your rival has a gun there’s not much point carrying a knife.
Yankeedoodle is a newcomer on the world stage. Yankeedoodledom’s influence is limited. Cars and fridges and Mcdonalds and Coke. But with the US on the sidelines, whether we like it or not, the world will change. Will it be an improvement? I don’t know, there’s a very good chance that the alternatives will be worse.
Good points, all V. Thanks for responding.
–BRH
Yeah, excellent post, volodya. And take it as a compliment that I’m learning to spell your screenname. This blog is pretty US-centric, and I take it you’re not from the US?
As far as what Snowden “told” the Russians. I doubt he had very much at all that he could tell them verbally – compared to the gigabytes of data that he may have carried TO them. I consider it doubtful he knew what all he had, or even had a chance to do more than glance through it.
I’m not even sure that the boys at the CIA/NSA will ever figure out exactly what all he walked off with. (Hi, guys!) If he gave it all to the Russians – definitely not good.
But, if it’s out there in cyberspace, encrypted, with the keys stashed around the globe in various gifted minds that lean toward anarchy – –
Wow! That is worse than the worst spy novel.
No Vlad, I don’t want another war. What I’m suggesting is that America is perceived as weak, with weak leadership, and even if we wanted to do something in the Ukraine, probably couldn’t. As a matter of fact our leadership wears this weakness with pride. Do you think Iran, NKorea and China is taking our measure right now, sizing us up? That maybe SKorea, Taiwan, Israel and Japan are a little bit nervous?
Don’t forget the words of Comrade Lenin, “You are not interested in war, but war might be interested in you”.
–BRH
They’re trying to queer America. Is this what you want? Zone? Loonger than (Dan Fogelberg), Kdog? Zip?
http://clashdaily.com/2014/03/sick-ny-middle-school-forces-girls-ask-lesbian-kiss-pretend-theyre-date/
Feeling paranoid of “they”?
But, to answer your question. I don’t give a damn about a person’s sexual orientation. Live and let live.
Years ago, I enjoyed attending the wedding of the women who live next door. Guess what, they have not “ruined the neighborhood”.
They are actually great neighbors!
So in other words, since it “doesn’t matter”, you agree with me that the attempt to queer children is wrong. Good for you for not being reactionary.
Would they be such great neighbors if you were conservative – and they knew you have voted against gay marriage?
Where are you on the new gender map?
Well, congratulations everybody! We finally entered a new 21 century TODAY. The unipolar world is over. The American Century is over. And quite frankly, to hell with it.
CIA stooges tried too hard in Ukraine to start a new “semi-controlled” chaos in the heart of Europe near Russian border, they apparently succeeded in Kiev and the filth of their new “revolution” started to spread all over Ukraine.
And sure it wouldn’t stop there. The real coveted goal of the chaos masters was to spread the Nazi fires inside the Russian territory. Can’t really blame them for lack of trying.
Unfortunately for them they ran into two best Russian allies – Russian Army and Russian Fleet.
Cambridge Crude/MIT-
another advance from the folks that are using technology to better our lives. when observed in its entirety, spanning centuries, technological progress is ineluctibly leading us to the point where energy concerns will be secondary.
we are on our way to replicating on earth what you see at night when you look up – the controlled emission of clean energy from fusing hydrogen and other elements.
leave your doubts at the failed altar of skepticism and shortsightedness.
peace peaceniks
James, the current situation is critical, but around the world there are so many. But, do not fear many of us here in the USA are worried about Duck, and Kim. I read your blog, and am watching House of Cards on Netflix, man if any of that is true, we are in deep trouble.
I’m now in California on business.
In California, Does one get “Frequent Flyer Points” for parking tickets?
Thank you.
More information that the “free press” of the free-est, most democratic-al and very bestest nation in the known Universe is not freely disseminating:
“The picture emerging from the above [information] seems to show that:
Turkish intelligence helped with training Tatars in support of a local Crimea anti-Russian coup
Russian intelligence has thoroughly penetrated the coup-plotters communications (see Nuland tape) and knew what was coming
Russian aligned forces secured the Crimea and prevented infiltration of more Tataric units from Turkey
On the Crimea, as well as in other Russian aligned areas in east Ukraine (Donetsk, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk), counter coups are establishing separate regions which will ask for Russian support and eventual incorporation into the Russian Federation
If all this goes well for the Russians the “western” coup in Kiev will have resulted in the “west” acquiring a bankrupt, dirt poor west Ukraine while Russia will acquire the industry and resource rich east Ukraine and will keep the Crimea as its strategic asset
In the context of the war of Syria the coup in the Ukraine was a countermeasure to Russian support for Syria. Unless the Crimea falls to coup forces that countermeasure will have failed.
There is little the U.S. can say against Russian troops in Crimea. According to the status of force agreement Russia can post up to 30,000 soldiers there. The normal size of its forces there is just half of that. If Russia wants to reinforce those it can do so without breaking any national or international agreement.
Today the government of Crimea brought forward a referendum on the region’s status to March 30 and called for Russian help. What is the “west” going to say against that? If self-determination applies to Kosovo it surely also applies to the Crimea as well as to other east Ukrainian areas.”
********************
President Obama might want to stop listening to know-nothings before he makes threats and assertions without any credible backing. For instance; has he even thought to read/skim the SOFA (status of forces agreement) between Ukraine and Russia? I seriously doubt it; otherwise he wouldn’t be making such stupid/empty statements, designed only to gull the american populace. I would have liked to have been listening in (as you-know-who most certainly was) on that phone call between Obama and Putin; I’ll bet somebody got more of an earful than they had originally thought they might. (I’ll give you 3 guesses who I think that might be — and the first 2 don’t count.)
Go here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Lots of viewpoints and info [that aren’t in the official narrative] on the “sitch” we’re not hearing a peep about.
Sorry, but you’ll have to do your own sifting and filtering to decide what the holistic picture consists of. (The more information we have at our fingertips, the more we are required to think critically, the “free press” in this country is not going to do it for us. That’s one thing you can count on as a certainty.)
A great place to go is Tarpley’s World Crisis Radio. Most enlightening. As Celente always says, when they run out of economic options, they’ll take you to war.
We’ve been duly warned where this country is taking us.
Speaking of Information Clearinghouse.
Another little goodie is that Glenn Greenwald is working for a billionaire who is behind the funding of Ukrainian unrest. Greenwald denies knowing about this.
Getting back to one more thing that people deny. Back in August, Tarpley tied Snowden to Limited Hangout Psyop : Snowden Has Revealed Nothing New, but Helped Susan Rice Sabotage Obama-Putin Summit, Launch New Wave of Dangerous US-Russian Acrimony.
Does this picture start to make sense? Worth thinking about at least.
So Ibendet, this whole Snowden Affair is much deeper and more complex than we thought? And the implications are much greater, and potentially more disasterous, than we were led to believe?
I know comparison’s are odious, but when the Arch Duke was assassinated in Sarajevo almost exactly a century ago, the general consensus was “Who cares, nobobdy liked the guy anyway”.
–BRH
M.
I think it’s worth a fair consideration.
It seems the information clearinghouse gave a parallel view of Greenwald connected to the money of a billionaire willing to shell out money for the uprising.
That’s gotta tell you something.
The Neo-Con/Leo-Lib contingency is about financial/military hegemony and Russ and China get in our way.
There’s also the gas line thing–oh yeah, that. Hmmmmm.
Still trying to above everything Be? Susan Rice and Obama are what you fought for. You should have investigated them more thoroughly. You are like the Conservatives who love MLK and refuse to admit that he was a Communist.
You’re right about that, Oz.
I’m not a NYT reader, but this morning I sought a copy out, get the ‘high lib’ perspective on the events in East Central Europe.
Lucky for me it was free. The theme of this weeks Sunday editorial section might well have been titled “Gay Marriage Triumphant!”, because that’s what almost every column was about.
So are you surprised Putin takes Obamas threats with a grain of salt? and look askance at EUs handwringing?
–BRH
Really, BRH…?
Is that all everything comes down to for you? Gay people and the one-sided corruption and pervasion of the “librul” democrat agenda are what lie at the root of the nations’ problems? Cheez and rice, talk about a filter. Is that just the myopia of seniority, partisan mindedness, and generic social upbringing, or, was this some sort of learned insight gained from years of examining historic national trends?
I was looking for some insight from our vaunted national newspaper of record on events in Ukraine and Russia. Was that a mistake on my part? But all I found was a sort of victory celebration, and it wasn’t the victory of Ukranians chasing their elected president from office either.
–BRH
“I was looking for some insight from our vaunted national newspaper of record on events in Ukraine and Russia.” -BRH
By your own admission you don’t trust The Times, yet what you did “seek out” and report upon, as per usual, are your gripes about MOs and Democrats. In fact, when I look back at most of your contributions here, they’re always slanted to this complaint about Gays, Women in the military, Nigs and Mexies, and, of course, the hypocrisy of Elite Libs, as if they own it all. What’s the thought process behind this? or is there any real thought happening?
Isn’t it really just some sort of junk philosophical conclusion that historic social turnings involving things like this are what collapsed Greece and Rome, and so goes America? No one has argued that before.
Ah, and when that no longer satisfies… blame the youth for turning up their noses at canned food, huh?
Is this what a lifetime of reading and introspect/retrospect leads one to? It comes across like a boring manuscript. Time to burn that page, bro.
Wow.
Here’s the latest audio from PCR, a recorded interview on King World News. It’s dated 3/1/14, and is a little behind with regard to Russia’s preemptive occupation in Crimea. PCR is interviewed early on when it was reported that Russia was simply testing force readiness. However, he speaks more in-depth about the seemingly under-reported threat of Ne-Nazis who sought to co-opt the semi-successful coup attempt by the West?! I don’t watch much cable or broadcast media coverage of anything, so I’m not sure the Neo-Nazi angle got much coverage… wonder why that is? Does anyone out there agree that that this aspect of the situation in Ukraine is credible/legitimate?
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2014/3/1_Dr._Paul_Craig_Roberts_files/Paul%20Craig%20Roberts%203%3A1%3A2014.mp3
Also, Being There… I wasn’t sure where you were going with this statement:
“Getting back to one more thing that people deny. Back in August, Tarpley tied Snowden to Limited Hangout Psyop : Snowden Has Revealed Nothing New, but Helped Susan Rice Sabotage Obama-Putin Summit, Launch New Wave of Dangerous US-Russian Acrimony.” -BT
I didn’t hear this revelation…can you link a story? Thanks in advance. And are you thinking that somehow Snowden was part of a COINTEL Psyop employed by the US to actually stir tensions between it and Russia?!… seems a bit far fetched, but I’m open. Maybe I’ve misunderstood?
Greenwald seems to have been blindsided either way… loses a lot of credibility, but I’m not so sure that the Billionaire’s support for whatever part of the Ukrainian revolt that was truly grassroots amounts to tacit support of Neo-Nazism… or am I just naive?
Finally… I’ve been all over ICH an ZH all day…. Anyone here have any thoughts about the next unfolding in Crimea and Ukraine that doesn’t amount to just rephrasing what they’ve read on either of those two sites? Even utter dumbshits like me can do that.
I guess what I’m wondering is if any of the longtime analysts of all this stuff will venture some predictions of their own?? Or does paraphrasing articles that we all can read still pass for original thought ’round here? Hell, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ll go out on a limb and guess that either Russia has already solidified its position and the US and EU will just have to eat the shit pile they laid on Russia’s lawn, or, a first shot or false flag (real flag?) event sets this clusterfuck ablaze once and for all. Not so original I ‘spoze. But hey, how much more complicated need it be?
Not for nothing, but HOT DAMN, V. Putin’s got some massive shiny HUEVOS which just don’t crack! The US seems totally dumbstruck, despite the puffed chests displayed on mainstream media. While I’m not partial to any side in this fuckin’ joke of a calamity, I have to say I’m impressed by the man, Putin, once again. The other question is… how does Obama save face this time?
Some interesting pics of the stand-off in Crimea from a Euro-journalist:
https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fnews%2F2014-03-02%2Fukraine-orders-full-military-mobilization-acting-pm-says-russian-actions-declaration&tw_i=440098062464077824&tw_p=tweetembed
The Ukraine military’s holding of a base seems nothing more than symbolic, while Russian grizzlies simply roam the perimeter, chortling and clawing the fence line. Ha-ha… see the pic of the Ukraine tank “fleet” in an adjacent field… followed by what looks like a more modern tank, just one mind you, just inside the fence, behind a handful of Ukraine soldiers who look like they’re waiting for NATO to swoop in an save ’em? ImPrEsSivE!?!
Huh, I guess I need to go back and re-read Greenwald’s piece. Did it come out that the Billionaire was directly supporting the Neo-Nazis?
“It seems the information clearinghouse gave a parallel view of Greenwald connected to the money of a billionaire willing to shell out money for the uprising. That’s gotta tell you something.
The Neo-Con/Leo-Lib contingency is about financial/military hegemony and Russ and China get in our way.” -BT
Whole lot of speculation and clustering goin’ on there. I guess what I’m having trouble with is the thought that the US was willing to risk Snowden becoming much more accepted and supported by the American public than he actually was… Seems the chance that ordinary people finally rallying behind such clear revelations of rampant NSA spying and policing of citizens, leading to a genuine protest and revolt, was reasonably high…
But nope, the insouciant ‘Mericun consumer just rolled over and farted, mid-sleep. So now, months later, the same small minority who actually did believe in Snowden’s symbolic heroism are now entertaining the notion that he was a PSYOP decoy all along? Good grief, everything is a conspiracy.
Perhaps the conspiracy theories abound because all we get is corporatist truthiness from MSM.
I had run across someone posting the Info clearing hs piece and remembered Tarpley saying this about Snowden over the summer.
The tie-in seemed interesting enough to pose to whomever wants to check it out.
I don’t know anymore than this, but there are strategic interests for getting the Ukraine under the auspices of the IMF and NATO at the same time they could cut Russian gas from EU members. (offering a different source–perhaps from our fracking)
At the same time we can get those pesky Russians to not get in the way of our exploits in the Mideast.
Ukraine has no money and will have to borrow. Then the IMF neoliberal programs will sell off the public infrastructure.
Where have we heard about this MO before?
“At the same time we can get those pesky Russians to not get in the way of our exploits in the Mideast.” – Being There
Well, on this point I read you loud and clear BT. I think Putin routed the broader gameplan in swift, ingenious fashion. American totalitarians heads’ are spinning right now. I’m quite fascinated by Putin’s move to clamp down his position in Crimea, side-stepping any phoney bologna(ey) negotiations with the other antagonists involved in this fiasco. Quite brilliant of him, I think.
I am also quite curious what the so called American public will do and say if called upon to support a military move against Russia… I’m absolutely enthralled by this situation right now. How many people here at home see Russia as an unreasonable aggressor in this circumstance, after the Nuland leaked call? Just a guess, but I think most people will buy the anti-Russian propaganda coming from the the gub and msm.
They trotted out Madeleine Albright & Zbig on GPS with huge anti-soviet baggage out with the same old tripe. It’s a gin-up of cold war hostilities with threats of isolating Russia if it dares to stand up for itself. Sorry, but it makes the Georgia/ Ossetia look like a dress rehearsal for this latest move.
They also had the Ukrainian opposition saying he wants NATO backing-meaning troops.–What an obvious set-up.
Maybe we know we don’t really have the fossil fuels that we say we do.
Most people have no idea of the Nuland call or her speech with the Chevron folks with their logo in the audience.
I know, I know, somehow the regulars have come to suspect me as just another iteration of Asoka…
But here’s the 6 min vid you referenced earlier, BT:
http://tarpley.net/2013/08/13/snowden-helped-susan-rice-sabotage-obama-putin-summit/
Tarpley’s just hand waiving and making a lot of unsubstantiated claims. It would take a lot more than what he said in the vid to convince that Snowden was actually part of some sort of master maneuver to keep Putin from convincing Obama to quit interfering in the Syrian crisis. Gimme a break.
My own guess, Snowden was tryin’ to wake up the common person and failed tragically… I doubt he really believed he was going to convince other world powers that they were one-sided victims in the espionage and surveillance industry.
After all, what was the “Nuland-Fuck-the-EU” leak all about… A fortunate accident of unintentional eavesdropping? The Russian’s, or some other covert agency didn’t facilitate that? I mean aren’t there too many spy-games being played now to really be certain?
I’ll guess that months from now the same people who found the Nuland phone call to be incontrovertible proof of the US’s overt attempt to conduct a coup was actually only a ploy to cause Russia to over react, to justify a first-strike nuclear knock out, right?! Not me, however, there was a sort of dastardly authenticity to Nuland’s voice in that call to be anything other than what is was reported to be – an insider talk about a coup. The same with Snowden, he came across a too authentic to be some sort of double-agent. But what do I know.
I’ll be watching… I think I understand the Doomer Porn mentaility now. Every possible scenario is a fetish, an itch, just waiting to be scratched.
If the aim of all this is to be informed about the “who dunnits” behind all the scandalous machinations, it seems the real consequence is that the one’s who set with these issues the most will only end up ever more confused and uncertain when the final shake-up occurs. A self-inflicted deceit if ever there was one. Good luck.
Gotta get a load of this… Ukraine military leader(s) are already defecting. Well, one has anyway. Who’s next? What does this say about the faith in support from Western Powers against the mother of all grizzlies? The American Congress is gonna have a busy week next week, eh? What kind of intervention resolution will be put on the table by US?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26410431
Tea and sandwiches, anyone? Hahahahaha
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-crimea-photos-tweets-434/
events are turning on Snowden..
Perhaps he isn’t such a hero after all, but a provocatuer and traitor.
A few weeks ago financial Times ran a long piece about Greenwald by Martin Wolf. His motives remain unclear as well.
Looks like your going to have to look elsewhere for a hero. Snowde ain’t gonna it.
–BRH
Snowden ain’t gonna be it.
Hero, provocateur, traitor? That’s the same coin looked at from different angles, BRH.
It comes down to what the individual chooses to think:
1.) Snowden didn’t reveal anything new but, intentional or otherwise, brought the debate about NSA spying and the police state front and center to mainstream public discourse – the people failed to respond, or, just didn’t give a shit and refused to, depending again, on one’s point of view in the first place.
2.) Snowden didn’t reveal nothin’ new and is simply a slimy traitor and agitator, who, regardless of motive and ultimate affiliation, succeeded in bringing the debate about a government out of control – front and center – to which the public response to the treason was, again, nil.
Either way, nothing was accomplished. No official recourse against any power allegedly involved in overt and supposedly unlawful(?) or unconstitutional espionage faced open charges of any kind, anywhere. Yet the slow and steady build up to what ever conclusion we’re headed towards continues unimpeded in every sense. We all know we’re either on or watching a runaway train by now, don’t we?
And let’s not get it twisted, Snowden, like any other historic figure involved in things even mildly similar would only have ever been a symbol. Heroism is a myth, BRH. It just doesn’t exist. Neither do dystopias or utopias. I’m sure you know this by now, in spite your romantic affinity with a certain brand of History.
So… just openly state your position: you believe Snowden to be a traitor, whether symbolic or in point of fact. His actions go against your own sensibilities and closely held dream of what kind of country we are, or ought to be, living in. I get it. Goes to the heart of your perceptions of all of this kind of stuff. It’s about you. And I’m sure you’ll find a piece of creative non-fiction to substantiate your suspicions on these matters, eventually. Mythology is cool like that.
You are showing rare commonsense on the Ukraine while BRH is dragged down as usual by his cold war patriotic meme. I’ve told him about spiritual warfare and how to fight against himself but he wont listen.
No Heroism? I mean sure not everyone is going to agree on who is a hero but that doesn’t equate to it not existing at all. Bin Ladin isn’t our hero, but the man did give up a lot to go live in caves and fight America. Likewise with Snowden: would you have given up a six figure salary in Hawaii with a hot pole dancer girlfriend to live in an airport? With the most deadly nation on Earth gunning for you? And he may not have wanted to stay in Russia but who else can protect him?
Self sacrifice for the group in the essence of Heroism – and History is full of it. Not being able or willing to see it speaks volume about You. And BRH’s view of America is rigid but it was once functional. Your viewpoint was never functional and will never be functional. Such acquiescence to selfishness does not produce viable culture. It may help an individual become wealthy or powerful of course. You may be the very thing you so often critique.
Vlad, UFIA
Points well taken.
Neither of you are the least bit suspicious of Snowden, living as he is in what might turn out to be the enemy camp?
You don’t think Russian Intelligence is shaking him down, right now, for every last shred of intelligence they can get, interviewing every day, day in and day out? It might go on for years. Did they just let him stay in Russia out of the goodness of their heart?
Vlad, I realize the cold war is over. We had enemies before the cold war. In 1903 Germany had plans to land 300,000 troops on the US east coast. There was a dust up in Korea in 1870, in China in 1900, in the Philippines in 1899, with Chile in 1880 etc, etc. etc. There will always be conflict. When it comes down to it I back the Home Team, this is true.
–BRH
Someone once said, speaking for the common man, “My Country right or wrong.” He was corrected, “My Country right or wrong – if right to be kept right. If wrong, to be put right.”
Snowden revealed the extent to which we are already being spied on. We owe him a debt of eternal gratitude. If and when we put America right, he will be invited back and given the Congressional Medal of Freedom.
Prog: You are starting to see Ozone but just starting. Zone and his coterie operate with code words and dog whistles. If you ask for an explanation that just proves that you are an outsider who cannot and will not ever understand. To ask for clarification or an open discussion is an attempt to undermine the cult.
Greenpeace founder says Global Warming a scam. He left Greenpeace because it and the Environmental movement as a whole has been co-opted by the Left.
http://usactionnews.com/2011/01/greenpeace-founder-says-leftists-hijacked-environmental-movement-and-warming-is-natural/
I learned my first Ukrainian word from this video: “Sah Dee”, which I infer from the video to mean “Sit Down!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT35J5C3EWs#t=30
If you ask for an explanation that just proves that you are an outsider who cannot and will not ever understand. To ask for clarification or an open discussion is an attempt to undermine the cult.
nicely put Vlad
they really are pathetic howling little doggies who add nothing and are going nowhere
peace peaceniks
When you’re watched by a dog, you know that what you’re doing will go no further than the dog. The dog can’t remember the details of what you’ve done. The dog can’t tell anyone else. When you’re watched by a computer, that’s not true. You might be told that the computer isn’t saving a copy of the video, but you have no assurance that that’s true. You might be told that the computer won’t alert a person if it perceives something of interest, but you can’t know if that’s true. You do know that the computer is making decisions based on what it receives, and you have no way of confirming that no human being will access that decision.
“Neither of you are the least bit suspicious of Snowden, living as he is in what might turn out to be the enemy camp?” -BRH
I’m always suspicious, BR. However, I’m not sure the threshold for me between suspicion and paranoia is the same as it is for others. I look at all things using at least four levels of experience: my feelings, my thoughts, the facts, and the ideas. It’s not fool proof, such is the human condition, but I try not to get stuck in any given level for too long.
With Snowden I can only judge his character and motivation based on what struck me when I first heard and saw him in the interview he did at the outset of the scandal. All I can say is he seemed authentic, didn’t give me that feeling that he was out for fame and notoriety. If you felt different when you saw it, then I can’t argue with your impression.
Remember, he could have easily disappeared and offered his revelations only to the governments willing to pay the most for his “info”, bypassing Glenn Greenwald (sp?) altogether. My thoughts from there temporarily led me to think his story, the national debate to ensue, might just break through to an otherwise docile public.
Nope… Snowden is barely an afterthought in the mind of the average Joe, if that.
Next, there are no facts that I’m aware of behind Snowden’s alleged collusion with the Russians prior to his defection. All that shit comes directly from our government. If you dig some credible evidence up, besides Tarpley’s whinning, I’m open to reconsideration. Lastly, the idea behind your suspicion doesn’t quite make sense. Plenty of people say Snowden didn’t reveal anything new, and still others say he’s ruined the effectiveness of these not so unfamiliar spying methods. So which is it, BRH? What has Snowden accomplished? The government keeps passing more laws to ensure the policies continue… where’s your outrage? If Snowden did have a bigger bombshell, it would have been dropped by now. if he has any value to Russia, it amounts to not more than PR symbolism.
And as for being loyal to the home team, well, just who exactly comprises the home team? The government? Or are you talking about the blindly patriotic types; soldiers who in the age of information have access to all of the corrupt practices and immoral wars instigated by these trusted bureaucrats and so called leaders and still sign up for service, vote. Talk about collusion and guilt by association, talk about traitors. How can these types of people look themselves in the mirror after Iraq and Afghanistan, after the lies of the run-up to both wars have been so thoroughly exposed? How can the voters?
What exactly are you being loyal too then, BRH? Which era of bullshittery about what America supposedly ought to be do you believe escapes the influence of a Power Elite, who certainly don’t give half a shit about you or me? Sorry to be rude, but seriously, with as much as you read and use digital media, you should be fully aware of the breadth and depth of vile acts perpetrated by this government, at any point in history, no matter the party brand associated with the deed at the time.
Surely, for all your investigation, you can’t possibly believe America was once and truly that shinning city on a hill. That’s quite a fairy tale for a mature person to hold dear, isn’t it.
Phew! I met my match with you guys. I give in.
BRH
I know, apologies are in order. To whom, I’m not so sure…
My bad – Maybe it’s, “all good” – and I’m the one who creates TENSION. It’s all my fault! Blame me, and feel good!
There’s no exponential depletion of resources – there’s no exponential growth of pollution – we all love swimming in swamps of toxic heavy metals/carcinogenic hydrocarbons/radioactive materials ([tm] Fukushima)/./
One drink down?!.. (1971 Gerry Rafferty). Let’s be *CLEAR* – we all swimmin’ in this wasteland of toxins – you’re not “clear”… Blame it all on me.