"... Russians are very well aware of their past and how/why they’re in conflict today—and their leaders don’t mislead them on any of that, which is why Russia’s so tight nationally today and will continue to be so for quite some time—maybe to the end of the century, well beyond Team Putin’s reign. China and much of the Global Majority are in a similar condition. The dysfunctional nations and peoples are those living on myths and magical thinking that allows for the construction of a false reality..."
How true that is!
The imperialists cannot understand Russia and consistently underestimate its capacities (take " a gas station with nukes" as an example) because they always believe their own propaganda. When they had installed Yeltsin in power they completely forgot how amazing were the social, cultural and economic achievements of the Soviet Union and the transformation it had produced in the ramshackle extractive Russian Empire which it replaced.
Instead the "West", despite knowing that it was propaganda of its own manufacture, believed in the myth of a terrorised population trembling at the approach of the GPU in the early hours, a factory system based on slave labour incapable of producing basic consumer goods (though it could come up with Sputniks and Space stations- a contradiction that they would attribute to the Soviet obsession with war, aggression and threats.) The Red Army-which marched hundreds of kilometres on high morale and faith in the rectitude of its cause- was seen as a cleverly calibrated slave hierarchy in which commissars played a magical role.
Evrerything that they knew/know about the Russian past is wrong-and demonstrably so. The rest of the world-much of which has fond memories of Russian assistance in national liberation struggles and Soviet treatises on equality and human dignity- has a very different view of the Russians as the imperialists are beginning to find out.
The way that they rationalise is instructive: is one of the reasons for China's strength massive popular support for the regime? Or is it that China garners support by promising its people that they will rule the world? The imperialist mind has no doubts-it must be the latter.
In the case of Russia despite the graphically presented evidence of a popular election victory, Putin's grip on power is still said to be tenuous, largely because he doesn't fall in with US plans. Which it assumes every sentient Russian (the likes of Pussy Riot and Navalny) supports.
And then there is the Empire's 'mini-me' Israel which has swallowed its own racist, supremacist propaganda to such an extent that it not only cannot understand how vulnerable it is to revolution among its slaves but it cannot believe that Europeans and Americans-as Israelis are- can sincerely sympathise with its victims. When it holds a lynching it expects everyone to enjoy the party, bring a bottle and watch from a nearby vantage point, leave with trophies like the ears of a torture victim or looted lingerie. They can't understand that they are criminals offensive in the eyes of the world- they are having a ball."Lighten up! World!" No wonder that they can only explain million strong marches of protest in terms of anti-semitism. To them racism is natural and normal- to pretend otherwise is to be seeking an excuse for hatred.
There is a Spenglerian dimension as well in that civilizations tend to go through up and down cycles. From what little I can tell from afar, it seems Karlof is quite right about Russia being tight for the foreseeable future and probably China too, whereas the West as Baud, Todd, Crooke and Karlof argue, is a lunatic asylum for criminals. But it wasn't too long ago, say the fifties to nineties, that (warts and all) it was pretty together and the majority of the citizenry was doing pretty well.
Though cycle analysis is apropos, I think of it more as seasonal or organismic in that flowers go from sprouting to blooming to withering and dying. The nature of the flower depends upon the nature of the seed or bulb. America's essence, its seed, has always been problematic, internally conflicted, of questionable morality, ambitious and extremely dynamic (because largely a fresh start in relatively open country free from the red tape and other restrictions of more established polities in the Old World). All the many deficiencies we see now in the West are the flowering of various seeds there from inception centuries ago. So we can regard the current malaise, or seeming collapse, as the end of a growth or upward cycle, but it is also the flowering of evil planted there from the get-go, in other words a quite natural, even healthy, fruition. We do indeed reap what we sow.
Similarly, both Russia and China have been through an extraordinary crucible in the past century, reaping what they earlier sowed. I am not sure if China has come out as clean as Sinophiles believe but their huge size makes them hard - at least for me - to gauge, though for sure it's not the cartoonish monster of American propaganda. Russia seems to be in a somewhat deeper place sociopolitically as they stablize their systems, handle serious geopolitical challenges and also regain their national spirit almost broken last century with too many and too radical rapid changes. So they too are now flowering: their suffering and struggle is yielding noble fruit, that of a people who have had a rich, challenging history and are now ready to get it right for a while. It's quite heartening to witness, albeit from afar. Meanwhile the West has to deal with a very different type of fruition which is surely going to involve large servings of humble pie. The current leadership class is constitutionally incapable of doing such a thing. It's time for We the People to kick them out. It's going to be a long century!!
It certainly is. The question is how to do it? Or What is to be Done? As Marx observed "Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point is to change it."
What is needed is a fulcrum.
One thing that will not change the world is waiting for cyclical changes, at best they merely restore the forms of past dispensations.
Man makes his own history, He doesn't have to but if he wants to he can. And he will need help from other men too.
Examples are there for the rest of Humanity to follow and avoid. And there are leaders too. The West's #1 problem is its wedding to Magical Thinking and the control that's allowed the few to gain over the many.
History is informative and essential. However, some understanding of biological systems is too. Whether on a culture plate in the laboratory, or at the scale of the species, biological entities live in a band of equilibrium conditions that permits thriving, stasis or entropic failure (death).
My suspicion is that there is very little that can be done by the individual to hasten change in the US or West as the “nutrients” and “environment” are controlled from above. A series of systemic failures across multiple sectors may not lead to a complete collapse — but the organism is weakened until it can find conditions at which survives if not flourishes (biology: “finds a new level of homeostasis”).
These breakdowns in the West will, of course, involve financial solvency. China is playing a very subtle strategic game with the US/UK by offering them a “menu” of hedging alternatives in place of their absolutist positions. While they may continue to decline, there is a measurable chance that others may not. Many of us in finance are watching for surprises from Germany…and possibly France.
"...the “nutrients” and “environment” are controlled from above..."
Are they ? There is certainly disproportionate influence 'above' but it does not amount to anything like control- it can be broken at any moment.
Your point about China seems correct, though. And the same applies to Russia- the real challenge to the US in Europe is that it can offer Europeans a lot less, and at inferior terms, to what the eurasians have to tempt them with. A greater eurasia-from Harbin and Vladivostok to Lisbon or Galway makes a grat deal of sense.
US influence in European countries is ideological- on the whole Europeans see the US as a project worth emulating and follow the Americans in demonising their neighbours to the east. But this is an ideology with a rapidly diminishing material basis. As China and Russia thrive while the US slowly disintegrates one European state after another is going to drift away from US controlling influence. In doing so they are merely taking up again- almost a century later- the option that was almost chosen in 1945 when, across Europe Communists were dominant forces in the triumphant Resistance and in the UK one of the cardinal appeals of the Labour Party's landslide victory campaign was that as socialists they could enter into fraternal relations with the USSR and the widely admired Red Army.
The US government has absolute control — this was shown in covid19. The people, disgruntled as some were, fell in line completely. And the nature and degree of the resistance have been observed closely so the government will try not to repeat their mistakes when the next “pandemic” arrives which is almost certainly in gestation.
I don’t at all agree that the influence of the US on Europe is primarily ideological. Promising to blow up Nordsteam II, and doing so, are not acts of based on ideology, they are acts of economic sabotage.
I don’t contest your history — I merely believe that, unless it includes economic data and facts, it is insufficient to make predictive observations. Everyone knows “of” the Opium Wars, but only those who studied balance of payments can really understand why the British resorted to dastardly drug pushing at that time.
The refinancing of French sovereign debt at 400+ basis points above maturing debt this year is probably Macron’s most serious problem (somewhat like Milei’s debt owed to the IBRD) but owed to international investors. France has six times the level of debt to GDP than is permitted under EU rules.
Let's keep this courteous. I not only know about the Opium wars but I understand, as I recently explaned in an unrelated comment at MoA, the nature of the balance of payments problem that the EICompany had in its dealings with China, which absorbed increasingly large amounts of silver which it overvalued in relation to gold (5:1 as opposed to 15.5:1 in London).
But that is by the way.
I feel that you are wrong about Covid- far from having absolute control the US government probably had less success in enforcing quarantines and mask wearing, to name only two activities, than any of its European or Antipodean allies. And far less than China or other south east asian countries.
What the US did have, and long has had, is a massive and extraordinarily efficient propaganda system: after having spent threequarters of a century blackmailing taxpayers by terrorising them with the Communist threat it found a ready audience for its fear selling. But the facts are that Covid was a much greater threat and killed in a few months, by orders of magnitude, more Americans than a century of communism had done.
What the pandemic showed us was that all governmental communications have lost credibility for a large part of the population and that Healthcare is such a profitable sideline for capitalists that they will not surrender its profits for Public Healthcare schemes without going to every available length to trivialise public health concerns.
We learned not only that the government has a masive propaganda apparatus but that anti-government neo-liberal forces have one too. And ut is still churning out denunciations of the automatic response to all pandemics for at last a millenium: quarantines, trace and treat programmes and a recognition that masks help in the avoidance of airborne iagents if infection.
What you say about France's debt is extremely important- the whole matter of debt, private and public, seems to me to be on the verge of exploding. In Canada the RCMP are predicting violent uprisings when, inter alia, the crises of refinancing cheap (and therefore large)_ mortgages begin. I look forward to future communications from amoeone who is obviously well acquainted with the practical working of the economy.
I found both the Truckers' and Farmers' Revolt s in Canada and Europe encouraging. The working class are the ones who ultimately throw the bums out but I suspect usually only unite around a single issue. It could be mass starvation, or as in the above examples something that direly effected all in a particular sector. Absent a clear issue, a leader must arise to serve as the single focal point. And therein lies the challenge since most people attracted by power fall prey to evil intentions. When I consider what it might take to fix what ails the West literally nothing comes to mind. Nothing. Not a clue!
I wonder, though, whether a rational for a public policy looks threadbare or not is actually the issue?
Yes, the Russian (and Chinese) peoples have a rich culture to draw from. And their leaders leverage that common vision of history to advance their goals.
We, being Western, have abandoned our history for, well, sloganering. And of course it looks shallow.
I guess what I'm saying is: All leaders leverage their nations' belief systems, whatever they are. But do leaders leverage their nations' beliefs to *build* their own nation or merely to destroy another to improve their own relative position and can they actually discern the difference?
You'll see a similar philosophy of competitiveness in economic or business systems: while we would still build a new pipeline for profit, for example. But if a business competitor has a lucrative pipeline, would we also consider building another at a loss to cripple that competitor. The energy we spend "destroying the other" does not build a nation and so we stagnate.
Plain and simple, their leaders are workaholic builders and ours don't believe in industriousness anymore, or even our own ability to be so.
I'd like to expand on your reply to bevin just a tad. Yesterday, I visited FDR's "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia for the first time, curious to see how he was portrayed. FDR's very abridged history was slated to his being the great friend of the poor, which he was to a certain extent, but focused mostly on the main event that occurred there, which was his death. IMO, a much better history lesson could be provided to visitors than the snippets provided, but then I'm a student of his presidency and notice what's missing. In the entryway is an exhibit where one feature tells about the life of one of the women that epitomized the "Rosie the Riveter" character--she made 12 cents an hour as a welder making Liberty Ships, worked 10 hour shifts six days a week, or about $375/year, which was considered good money back then. But there was little to spend their earnings on, so the savings rate went crazy as many bought war bonds with their pay. All the infrastructure that was built to support the war effort was then turned to civilian use and those savings along with the GI Bill helped provide the further investment needed to Make America Great, or at least a good portion of it. But then the backlash against labor solidarity came with Truman's second term and the potential advancements were truncated by Imperialism as that was the only way seen by elites to continue the great profits provided by Industrial Capitalism. By 1960, the polarization of America was again at full speed and something had to give. Many didn't want to understand or admit to the reasons behind the massive social ferment, that wasn't just Blacks seeking justice, but workers also as the best post-war socio-political program--the GI Bill--was allowed to lapse while the Draft continued.
The point is socio-economic conditions for millions weren't improved by the New Deal or the War economy. It was noted that the 18 million unemployed Americans at the outset of FDR's first term was seen as a crisis to be solved, while today that number is 5X larger and seen as nothing unusual. The wanton killing of WW2 degraded the elite perception that they needed to be responsible for basic social conditions, something which was already seen in the opposition to Social Security and later Medicare. The Rent Seekers won and have made the USA the economically and legally dysfunctional nation it is today.
The term “racism” so casually tossed about is not accurate. A casual read of Talmud shows this belief is in the bestial status of the “other” — the goyim. To fail to even mention this issue, in this specific context and while we still have the ability to do so, results in an incomplete discussion. Thus, the endless repetition and talking in circles.
After a lifetime of exposure to the 'West's' non-stop obfuscating of all historical and contemporary factors that may undermine, contradict or expose, the 'official' narratives, I find the premise that this is a consequence of ineptitude and ignorance, willful or otherwise, to be as disingenuous as the relentless primary obfuscation.
Once a party is outed as a predictable and constant prevaricator, why should anyone believe the excuses of ignorance, blindness, ideology, naivete, civilizational character, etc.. as rational explanations or excuses for the promotion of consistently false narratives.
Reminds me of the scorpion and frog fable. Stop making excuses for the scorpion. If you want to understand the rational of the so-called 'west' look no further than the M.O. of the average criminal mind.
It is all theatre to achieve ends, facts be damned. The official mouthpieces making all sorts of noise know exactly when they are lying. By making lots of false/meaningless statements, they bury the facts (i.e., signal) in an avalanche of noise. We need to stop parsing the noise for nuggets of truth, you will never reach a rational conclusion without accepting the fact that we are all being played by the Scorpion.
I bought Baud's book back in January, and it is a fantastic read, warts and all, for all parties to the conflict. As per the subtitle, it lays out in no uncertain terms the lies, propaganda and hypocrisy which has led the west, and ultimately Ukraine, down a dead end to a thrashing. Tragic for Ukraine, but utterly predictable for anyone paying even scant attention to the wests forays into nation building and its justifications for endless war on everyone else.
The book is fully referenced throughout, and is up-to-date as of November 2023, so I fully recommend that you get a copy and read it.
If anyone is interested the Duran interview with Jaques Baud provides some information about the early days of the SMO that may have been forgotten over the last two years, in addition to an explanation of the book. It's two and a half hours but well worth it if you're not going to buy the book.
Not sure when he said it, but M. Baud stated that following the start of the SMO on 24th Feb Zelensky telephoned Moscow on the 25th to request negotiations! That was new information to me and puts Z's subsequent performances into a more withering light.
I have often posted here and elsewhere that I do not understand the Western approach to all things Russian - a consistent and seemingly willful mischaracterisation of its motives and concerns along with severe underestimation of its resilience and capabilities. This seems to me to be grounded in some sort of odd Russophobic racism. At least that is the opinion one might gain from reading western media reports. However one must think there are some in positions of influence and power who actually know the reality. Most of these have kept silent until now. But we are seeing more of this sort of thing. It seems the doubters are becoming more publically vocal. It suggests the sands are shifting. However if you honestly believe that you have a dangerous adversary, the last thing you do is underestimate them.
There is indeed a Ukraine debacle in the making - well at least IMHO. It remains to be seen whether that occurs before or after the US November election. But in any event, I am rather taken with Garland Nixon's view on The Duran recently. He says that the USA is going to walk away from all this leaving Europe in the brown stuff, and Ukraine even worse - assuming it still exists when the fat lady sings. However I doubt Russia is going to accept a negotiated solution that NATO will find palatable. My opinion the war will continue until Russia achieves its objectives. And I also consider that the collapse of Ukraine will start a lot sooner than most people think, possibly towards the end of May.
I don't as a rule accept over generalisations of nations and people, even organisations. However the preferred defining narrative seems to be to demonise ones adversaries and treat them accordingly. See https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/04/05/americans_differ_on_ukraine_and_gaza_150760.html I normally like VDH, but here he makes the error (IMO) of treating the Ukraine and Gaza situations as a left/right issue in US domestic political terms. He cannot see that the common factor is that both Russia and the Palestinians have a legimate grievance. Instead he focuses on them being the "bad guys" in terms of US interests - which he then conflates with a wider world over "good thing". In a sense he is correct as US politics affect both situations, but his starting point is narrow and mistaken - and so must be his analysis and solutions. And like Western thought as a whole, that seems to be the pattern.
Crooke is informative, as usual, but Baud seems hardly worth the effort to read when he asserts that “unscrupulous media” act as unbiased agents. Todd seems elliptical as well.
OTOH you, in the final paragraph, are direct in your coupling of the US and Zionism. The élites, unfortunately, are mistaken in their belief that the masses are unable to perform basic pattern recognition. We can clearly see the family tree resemblance between Palestine and Ukraine and the White House.
The "masses" haven't been deluded by the circular thinking in the closed-minded realm of the upper echelon, plus they/we're closer to the reality of day-to-day life.
I love the header that video game screenshot makes for this post. "Your choice is not final. You can change the faction at any time"—the Confederation players all seem to have missed that part.
Reverse image search says it's a mobile game called Art of War 3, which unfortunately doesn't look remotely as good as it was made to when put in this context. So funny how they nailed the descriptions of the two factions it sometimes superficially seems or at least feels to be warring IRL.
Thanks for your feedback! I always try to find a header pic that is symbolic of the material, which isn't an easy task, although the photos from meetings, interviews and pressers are easy enough as they're provided.
"... Russians are very well aware of their past and how/why they’re in conflict today—and their leaders don’t mislead them on any of that, which is why Russia’s so tight nationally today and will continue to be so for quite some time—maybe to the end of the century, well beyond Team Putin’s reign. China and much of the Global Majority are in a similar condition. The dysfunctional nations and peoples are those living on myths and magical thinking that allows for the construction of a false reality..."
How true that is!
The imperialists cannot understand Russia and consistently underestimate its capacities (take " a gas station with nukes" as an example) because they always believe their own propaganda. When they had installed Yeltsin in power they completely forgot how amazing were the social, cultural and economic achievements of the Soviet Union and the transformation it had produced in the ramshackle extractive Russian Empire which it replaced.
Instead the "West", despite knowing that it was propaganda of its own manufacture, believed in the myth of a terrorised population trembling at the approach of the GPU in the early hours, a factory system based on slave labour incapable of producing basic consumer goods (though it could come up with Sputniks and Space stations- a contradiction that they would attribute to the Soviet obsession with war, aggression and threats.) The Red Army-which marched hundreds of kilometres on high morale and faith in the rectitude of its cause- was seen as a cleverly calibrated slave hierarchy in which commissars played a magical role.
Evrerything that they knew/know about the Russian past is wrong-and demonstrably so. The rest of the world-much of which has fond memories of Russian assistance in national liberation struggles and Soviet treatises on equality and human dignity- has a very different view of the Russians as the imperialists are beginning to find out.
The way that they rationalise is instructive: is one of the reasons for China's strength massive popular support for the regime? Or is it that China garners support by promising its people that they will rule the world? The imperialist mind has no doubts-it must be the latter.
In the case of Russia despite the graphically presented evidence of a popular election victory, Putin's grip on power is still said to be tenuous, largely because he doesn't fall in with US plans. Which it assumes every sentient Russian (the likes of Pussy Riot and Navalny) supports.
And then there is the Empire's 'mini-me' Israel which has swallowed its own racist, supremacist propaganda to such an extent that it not only cannot understand how vulnerable it is to revolution among its slaves but it cannot believe that Europeans and Americans-as Israelis are- can sincerely sympathise with its victims. When it holds a lynching it expects everyone to enjoy the party, bring a bottle and watch from a nearby vantage point, leave with trophies like the ears of a torture victim or looted lingerie. They can't understand that they are criminals offensive in the eyes of the world- they are having a ball."Lighten up! World!" No wonder that they can only explain million strong marches of protest in terms of anti-semitism. To them racism is natural and normal- to pretend otherwise is to be seeking an excuse for hatred.
There is a Spenglerian dimension as well in that civilizations tend to go through up and down cycles. From what little I can tell from afar, it seems Karlof is quite right about Russia being tight for the foreseeable future and probably China too, whereas the West as Baud, Todd, Crooke and Karlof argue, is a lunatic asylum for criminals. But it wasn't too long ago, say the fifties to nineties, that (warts and all) it was pretty together and the majority of the citizenry was doing pretty well.
Though cycle analysis is apropos, I think of it more as seasonal or organismic in that flowers go from sprouting to blooming to withering and dying. The nature of the flower depends upon the nature of the seed or bulb. America's essence, its seed, has always been problematic, internally conflicted, of questionable morality, ambitious and extremely dynamic (because largely a fresh start in relatively open country free from the red tape and other restrictions of more established polities in the Old World). All the many deficiencies we see now in the West are the flowering of various seeds there from inception centuries ago. So we can regard the current malaise, or seeming collapse, as the end of a growth or upward cycle, but it is also the flowering of evil planted there from the get-go, in other words a quite natural, even healthy, fruition. We do indeed reap what we sow.
Similarly, both Russia and China have been through an extraordinary crucible in the past century, reaping what they earlier sowed. I am not sure if China has come out as clean as Sinophiles believe but their huge size makes them hard - at least for me - to gauge, though for sure it's not the cartoonish monster of American propaganda. Russia seems to be in a somewhat deeper place sociopolitically as they stablize their systems, handle serious geopolitical challenges and also regain their national spirit almost broken last century with too many and too radical rapid changes. So they too are now flowering: their suffering and struggle is yielding noble fruit, that of a people who have had a rich, challenging history and are now ready to get it right for a while. It's quite heartening to witness, albeit from afar. Meanwhile the West has to deal with a very different type of fruition which is surely going to involve large servings of humble pie. The current leadership class is constitutionally incapable of doing such a thing. It's time for We the People to kick them out. It's going to be a long century!!
"It's time for We the People to kick them out. "
It certainly is. The question is how to do it? Or What is to be Done? As Marx observed "Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point is to change it."
What is needed is a fulcrum.
One thing that will not change the world is waiting for cyclical changes, at best they merely restore the forms of past dispensations.
Man makes his own history, He doesn't have to but if he wants to he can. And he will need help from other men too.
Examples are there for the rest of Humanity to follow and avoid. And there are leaders too. The West's #1 problem is its wedding to Magical Thinking and the control that's allowed the few to gain over the many.
History is informative and essential. However, some understanding of biological systems is too. Whether on a culture plate in the laboratory, or at the scale of the species, biological entities live in a band of equilibrium conditions that permits thriving, stasis or entropic failure (death).
My suspicion is that there is very little that can be done by the individual to hasten change in the US or West as the “nutrients” and “environment” are controlled from above. A series of systemic failures across multiple sectors may not lead to a complete collapse — but the organism is weakened until it can find conditions at which survives if not flourishes (biology: “finds a new level of homeostasis”).
These breakdowns in the West will, of course, involve financial solvency. China is playing a very subtle strategic game with the US/UK by offering them a “menu” of hedging alternatives in place of their absolutist positions. While they may continue to decline, there is a measurable chance that others may not. Many of us in finance are watching for surprises from Germany…and possibly France.
"...the “nutrients” and “environment” are controlled from above..."
Are they ? There is certainly disproportionate influence 'above' but it does not amount to anything like control- it can be broken at any moment.
Your point about China seems correct, though. And the same applies to Russia- the real challenge to the US in Europe is that it can offer Europeans a lot less, and at inferior terms, to what the eurasians have to tempt them with. A greater eurasia-from Harbin and Vladivostok to Lisbon or Galway makes a grat deal of sense.
US influence in European countries is ideological- on the whole Europeans see the US as a project worth emulating and follow the Americans in demonising their neighbours to the east. But this is an ideology with a rapidly diminishing material basis. As China and Russia thrive while the US slowly disintegrates one European state after another is going to drift away from US controlling influence. In doing so they are merely taking up again- almost a century later- the option that was almost chosen in 1945 when, across Europe Communists were dominant forces in the triumphant Resistance and in the UK one of the cardinal appeals of the Labour Party's landslide victory campaign was that as socialists they could enter into fraternal relations with the USSR and the widely admired Red Army.
The US government has absolute control — this was shown in covid19. The people, disgruntled as some were, fell in line completely. And the nature and degree of the resistance have been observed closely so the government will try not to repeat their mistakes when the next “pandemic” arrives which is almost certainly in gestation.
I don’t at all agree that the influence of the US on Europe is primarily ideological. Promising to blow up Nordsteam II, and doing so, are not acts of based on ideology, they are acts of economic sabotage.
I don’t contest your history — I merely believe that, unless it includes economic data and facts, it is insufficient to make predictive observations. Everyone knows “of” the Opium Wars, but only those who studied balance of payments can really understand why the British resorted to dastardly drug pushing at that time.
The refinancing of French sovereign debt at 400+ basis points above maturing debt this year is probably Macron’s most serious problem (somewhat like Milei’s debt owed to the IBRD) but owed to international investors. France has six times the level of debt to GDP than is permitted under EU rules.
Let's keep this courteous. I not only know about the Opium wars but I understand, as I recently explaned in an unrelated comment at MoA, the nature of the balance of payments problem that the EICompany had in its dealings with China, which absorbed increasingly large amounts of silver which it overvalued in relation to gold (5:1 as opposed to 15.5:1 in London).
But that is by the way.
I feel that you are wrong about Covid- far from having absolute control the US government probably had less success in enforcing quarantines and mask wearing, to name only two activities, than any of its European or Antipodean allies. And far less than China or other south east asian countries.
What the US did have, and long has had, is a massive and extraordinarily efficient propaganda system: after having spent threequarters of a century blackmailing taxpayers by terrorising them with the Communist threat it found a ready audience for its fear selling. But the facts are that Covid was a much greater threat and killed in a few months, by orders of magnitude, more Americans than a century of communism had done.
What the pandemic showed us was that all governmental communications have lost credibility for a large part of the population and that Healthcare is such a profitable sideline for capitalists that they will not surrender its profits for Public Healthcare schemes without going to every available length to trivialise public health concerns.
We learned not only that the government has a masive propaganda apparatus but that anti-government neo-liberal forces have one too. And ut is still churning out denunciations of the automatic response to all pandemics for at last a millenium: quarantines, trace and treat programmes and a recognition that masks help in the avoidance of airborne iagents if infection.
What you say about France's debt is extremely important- the whole matter of debt, private and public, seems to me to be on the verge of exploding. In Canada the RCMP are predicting violent uprisings when, inter alia, the crises of refinancing cheap (and therefore large)_ mortgages begin. I look forward to future communications from amoeone who is obviously well acquainted with the practical working of the economy.
Yes, everything is based on Nature. not the Devine as many are duped into believing.
I found both the Truckers' and Farmers' Revolt s in Canada and Europe encouraging. The working class are the ones who ultimately throw the bums out but I suspect usually only unite around a single issue. It could be mass starvation, or as in the above examples something that direly effected all in a particular sector. Absent a clear issue, a leader must arise to serve as the single focal point. And therein lies the challenge since most people attracted by power fall prey to evil intentions. When I consider what it might take to fix what ails the West literally nothing comes to mind. Nothing. Not a clue!
Hello Bevin!
I wonder, though, whether a rational for a public policy looks threadbare or not is actually the issue?
Yes, the Russian (and Chinese) peoples have a rich culture to draw from. And their leaders leverage that common vision of history to advance their goals.
We, being Western, have abandoned our history for, well, sloganering. And of course it looks shallow.
I guess what I'm saying is: All leaders leverage their nations' belief systems, whatever they are. But do leaders leverage their nations' beliefs to *build* their own nation or merely to destroy another to improve their own relative position and can they actually discern the difference?
You'll see a similar philosophy of competitiveness in economic or business systems: while we would still build a new pipeline for profit, for example. But if a business competitor has a lucrative pipeline, would we also consider building another at a loss to cripple that competitor. The energy we spend "destroying the other" does not build a nation and so we stagnate.
Plain and simple, their leaders are workaholic builders and ours don't believe in industriousness anymore, or even our own ability to be so.
I'd like to expand on your reply to bevin just a tad. Yesterday, I visited FDR's "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia for the first time, curious to see how he was portrayed. FDR's very abridged history was slated to his being the great friend of the poor, which he was to a certain extent, but focused mostly on the main event that occurred there, which was his death. IMO, a much better history lesson could be provided to visitors than the snippets provided, but then I'm a student of his presidency and notice what's missing. In the entryway is an exhibit where one feature tells about the life of one of the women that epitomized the "Rosie the Riveter" character--she made 12 cents an hour as a welder making Liberty Ships, worked 10 hour shifts six days a week, or about $375/year, which was considered good money back then. But there was little to spend their earnings on, so the savings rate went crazy as many bought war bonds with their pay. All the infrastructure that was built to support the war effort was then turned to civilian use and those savings along with the GI Bill helped provide the further investment needed to Make America Great, or at least a good portion of it. But then the backlash against labor solidarity came with Truman's second term and the potential advancements were truncated by Imperialism as that was the only way seen by elites to continue the great profits provided by Industrial Capitalism. By 1960, the polarization of America was again at full speed and something had to give. Many didn't want to understand or admit to the reasons behind the massive social ferment, that wasn't just Blacks seeking justice, but workers also as the best post-war socio-political program--the GI Bill--was allowed to lapse while the Draft continued.
The point is socio-economic conditions for millions weren't improved by the New Deal or the War economy. It was noted that the 18 million unemployed Americans at the outset of FDR's first term was seen as a crisis to be solved, while today that number is 5X larger and seen as nothing unusual. The wanton killing of WW2 degraded the elite perception that they needed to be responsible for basic social conditions, something which was already seen in the opposition to Social Security and later Medicare. The Rent Seekers won and have made the USA the economically and legally dysfunctional nation it is today.
The term “racism” so casually tossed about is not accurate. A casual read of Talmud shows this belief is in the bestial status of the “other” — the goyim. To fail to even mention this issue, in this specific context and while we still have the ability to do so, results in an incomplete discussion. Thus, the endless repetition and talking in circles.
After a lifetime of exposure to the 'West's' non-stop obfuscating of all historical and contemporary factors that may undermine, contradict or expose, the 'official' narratives, I find the premise that this is a consequence of ineptitude and ignorance, willful or otherwise, to be as disingenuous as the relentless primary obfuscation.
Once a party is outed as a predictable and constant prevaricator, why should anyone believe the excuses of ignorance, blindness, ideology, naivete, civilizational character, etc.. as rational explanations or excuses for the promotion of consistently false narratives.
Reminds me of the scorpion and frog fable. Stop making excuses for the scorpion. If you want to understand the rational of the so-called 'west' look no further than the M.O. of the average criminal mind.
It is all theatre to achieve ends, facts be damned. The official mouthpieces making all sorts of noise know exactly when they are lying. By making lots of false/meaningless statements, they bury the facts (i.e., signal) in an avalanche of noise. We need to stop parsing the noise for nuggets of truth, you will never reach a rational conclusion without accepting the fact that we are all being played by the Scorpion.
I bought Baud's book back in January, and it is a fantastic read, warts and all, for all parties to the conflict. As per the subtitle, it lays out in no uncertain terms the lies, propaganda and hypocrisy which has led the west, and ultimately Ukraine, down a dead end to a thrashing. Tragic for Ukraine, but utterly predictable for anyone paying even scant attention to the wests forays into nation building and its justifications for endless war on everyone else.
The book is fully referenced throughout, and is up-to-date as of November 2023, so I fully recommend that you get a copy and read it.
If anyone is interested the Duran interview with Jaques Baud provides some information about the early days of the SMO that may have been forgotten over the last two years, in addition to an explanation of the book. It's two and a half hours but well worth it if you're not going to buy the book.
https://rokfin.com/stream/46793/Russian-art-of-war-w-Jacques-Baud-Live
Glad to read that you took a break to smell the roses.
yes, i saw that a few days ago.. it was worth watching for the first 30 minutes, which is as much as i got thru.. thanks..
Not sure when he said it, but M. Baud stated that following the start of the SMO on 24th Feb Zelensky telephoned Moscow on the 25th to request negotiations! That was new information to me and puts Z's subsequent performances into a more withering light.
That's certainly possible as Russia's decapitation feint looked very real at the time, and of course negotiations did occur.
For the "west" reality has been usurped by policy.
They believe their own propaganda and shutter any dispute.
Orwell's 1984 was not meant to be an operational plan!
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/looming-ukraine-debacle-210160?page=0%2C1
I have often posted here and elsewhere that I do not understand the Western approach to all things Russian - a consistent and seemingly willful mischaracterisation of its motives and concerns along with severe underestimation of its resilience and capabilities. This seems to me to be grounded in some sort of odd Russophobic racism. At least that is the opinion one might gain from reading western media reports. However one must think there are some in positions of influence and power who actually know the reality. Most of these have kept silent until now. But we are seeing more of this sort of thing. It seems the doubters are becoming more publically vocal. It suggests the sands are shifting. However if you honestly believe that you have a dangerous adversary, the last thing you do is underestimate them.
There is indeed a Ukraine debacle in the making - well at least IMHO. It remains to be seen whether that occurs before or after the US November election. But in any event, I am rather taken with Garland Nixon's view on The Duran recently. He says that the USA is going to walk away from all this leaving Europe in the brown stuff, and Ukraine even worse - assuming it still exists when the fat lady sings. However I doubt Russia is going to accept a negotiated solution that NATO will find palatable. My opinion the war will continue until Russia achieves its objectives. And I also consider that the collapse of Ukraine will start a lot sooner than most people think, possibly towards the end of May.
Continued...
I don't as a rule accept over generalisations of nations and people, even organisations. However the preferred defining narrative seems to be to demonise ones adversaries and treat them accordingly. See https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/04/05/americans_differ_on_ukraine_and_gaza_150760.html I normally like VDH, but here he makes the error (IMO) of treating the Ukraine and Gaza situations as a left/right issue in US domestic political terms. He cannot see that the common factor is that both Russia and the Palestinians have a legimate grievance. Instead he focuses on them being the "bad guys" in terms of US interests - which he then conflates with a wider world over "good thing". In a sense he is correct as US politics affect both situations, but his starting point is narrow and mistaken - and so must be his analysis and solutions. And like Western thought as a whole, that seems to be the pattern.
Hubris, then Nemesis.
VDH provides an example of what Crooke was pointing-out.
Indeed! “There is no way to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been” — I hope you had a good break!
Thank you! I'm still in Georgia and have a few more days before retuning to Oregon. A few more windows of opportunity are open here to write.
In that case, enjoy rest AND writing!
Lay a wreath on Tom Watson's grave, for me.
i was wondering where you got to! now, i know!
Crooke is informative, as usual, but Baud seems hardly worth the effort to read when he asserts that “unscrupulous media” act as unbiased agents. Todd seems elliptical as well.
OTOH you, in the final paragraph, are direct in your coupling of the US and Zionism. The élites, unfortunately, are mistaken in their belief that the masses are unable to perform basic pattern recognition. We can clearly see the family tree resemblance between Palestine and Ukraine and the White House.
The "masses" haven't been deluded by the circular thinking in the closed-minded realm of the upper echelon, plus they/we're closer to the reality of day-to-day life.
this is called the Dunning Kruger effect
I love the header that video game screenshot makes for this post. "Your choice is not final. You can change the faction at any time"—the Confederation players all seem to have missed that part.
Reverse image search says it's a mobile game called Art of War 3, which unfortunately doesn't look remotely as good as it was made to when put in this context. So funny how they nailed the descriptions of the two factions it sometimes superficially seems or at least feels to be warring IRL.
Thanks for your feedback! I always try to find a header pic that is symbolic of the material, which isn't an easy task, although the photos from meetings, interviews and pressers are easy enough as they're provided.
++good