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Links 6/12/2023

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‘Encouraging News’: Endangered Vaquitas Hanging On in Gulf of California, Expedition Finds Eco Watch

Côte d’Illusion The Baffler

Cosmic Luck: NASA’s Apollo 11 Moon Quarantine Broke Down New York Times

 

Climate/Environment

Ancient fish, modern problem: How the pallid sturgeon could be a warning for the Missouri River Harvest Public Media

Shell pivots back to oil to win over investors Reuters

The case for a (mostly) car-free world Canadian Dimension

 


Water

Kazakhstan: Authorities declare state of emergency over Caspian Eurasianet

#COVID-19 

Someone in Ohio is shedding new strain of COVID into sewers, professor says Cleveland.com

China?

China wants to launch a moon-orbiting telescope array as soon as 2026 Space.com

New Not-So-Cold War

The Object of War imetatronink

Security guarantees, then Polish troops, and finally US troops The Duran (video).

***

The Problem Child of Europe Foreign Affairs. From 1940, still germane. Lambert: “Gets wilder and wilder as it goes on.”

D-DAY: HOW THE US SUPPORTED HITLER’S RISE TO POWER The Real News Network. From 2019, still germane.

Bitter at US Snub, Kosovo Leader Signals Hard Line Amid Flareup Bloomberg

South of the Border 

The AMLO Project New Left Review

Honduras requests entry to BRICS-led development bank on China trip Reuters

Development Banks Fund Factory Farming in Ecuador Consortium News

Syraqistan

Turkey-UAE honeymoon on horizon after Erdogan’s win, economic deals Al Monitor  

Turkey’s increasing balance sheet risks Intellinews

2024

CORNEL WEST, THE PITFALLS OF BOURGEOIS POLITICS, AND FORGING A NEW FUTURE AMONG THE RUBBLE Hampton Institute

Healthcare

Why Does Research Focus on Treating Depression Rather Than Preventing It? Mad in America

B-a-a-a-a-d Banks

UBS Completes Credit Suisse Takeover to Create Bank Titan Bloomberg

Imperial Collapse Watch

US Military is NOT PREPARED For What Is Coming | Scott Ritter Exclusive Interview

 

Our Famously Free Press

Jonathan Swift’s Lilliputian Reasoning Consortium New

Class Warfare

A Microsoft worker who successfully unionized sees a ‘wave of labor organizing that will take over the country.’ Insider

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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210 comments

  1. griffen

    Our best and brightest corporate powers (GM, IBM, Ford) helped and assisted to arm an eventual foe in Hitler’s Germany. American history is so much different in comparison to the topics I excelled at learning in school and the few college courses. I remain shocked and dismayed at what I was taught and at that time naive enough to believe what I was being sold, and this was roughly 30 to 35 years in the past.

    To borrow a quote from Guns N Roses…”and billions shift from side to side, still the war goes on with brainwashed pride..”

            1. The Rev Kev

              That comment kinda reminds me of how a year or two ago how people who wanted to research information on the vaccines were mocked by the media and the professionals-

              https://theconversation.com/vaccine-hesitancy-why-doing-your-own-research-doesnt-work-but-reason-alone-wont-change-minds-169814

              https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/30/you-must-not-do-your-own-research-when-it-comes-to-science/?sh=63a0eeb1535e

              https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/19/media/reliable-sources-covid-research/index.html

              Good times.

    2. Aurelien

      The US had nothing to do with Hitler’s rise to power, which was essentially complete by 1934 (see Richard Evans’s magisterial book on the subject.) In an effort create a stable government with a working majority, Von Papen and Hindenburg offered the Nazis (still the largest party in the Reichstag but starting to lose votes) a handful of Cabinet posts, including Chancellor. Once installed, Hitler unleashed the SA to take over the country. No Americans were involved.

      It was universally recognised that the Treaty of Versailles could not last, and that Germany could not be permanently disarmed: it was only a question of what kind of government would eventually scrap the Treaty. The only way of preventing German rearmament would have been an aggressive war with more millions of dead, for which the capability and political support simply didn’t exist, followed by indefinite military occupation.

      American exceptionalism never ceases to surprise me: it really is actually true that there are important events in history where the US was only a minor player.

      2. Objective Ace

        Hitler’s rise to power and just how succesful his military & extermination campaigns were are two entirely different things. Just because American companies didnt help with the former does not mean they did not with the latter

        1. Aurelien

          I was taking issue with the title of the piece: “the-us-supported-hitlers-rise-to-power.” It didn’t.
          The actual content has nothing to do with the title, and makes more of an arguable case, though the “expert” who’s being interviewed isn’t actually an expert on the period at all, and manages somehow to work in World War 1 and Winston Churchill.

      4. griffen

        Well my college level courses featured archaic programming languages like ForTran or COBOL and also varied levels of Accounting and Business courses, so I wasn’t going for an Art History or a Philosophy degree. “Art History doesn’t pay the mortgage”

        If I want a history lesson this place always offers a good start. But this wonderful place will also, usually, be absent the undertones of being, ahem, perhaps condescending to the audience. I said in the above I was young and naive, but not unschooled mind you. Important events in US history feature my grandfather’s generation, so it’s a welcome reminder how little a role they may have played after all based on one’s view from afar. Doubtful this singular and personal anecdote is unique to myself, either.

      5. TQ

        This analysis overlooks Michael Hudson’s contribution on the post WWI settlement. By not forgiving French and English war debts and not giving Germany a pathway to earn sufficient dollars to pay back reparations, America forced impossible economic conditions on Germany that directly contributed to failure of German Social Democrats.

        1. Aurelien

          It wasn’t the US who insisted on this it was the French, and especially Clemenceau. French governments had promised their people that the Germans would be made to pay for the reconstruction of the country after the Armistice, and any French government that agreed anything else would have been thrown out of power. The US and UK were much more moderate in their positions, and the US in particular played a quite helpful role in the 1920s, notably through the Dawes Plan, which enabled French troops to leave the Ruhr, and provided loans to Germany to pay reparations with.

          1. jsn

            IIRC, the French were also paying off substantial debts to their wartime ally, the US.

            According to Hudson at least, these were debts that would historically have been forgiven, but the US was on the make.

        2. tevhatch

          There is also the intellectual support in Mien Kamph (1925) where frequent reference to USA’s practice of lebensraum, genocide, eugenics, and some economic protectionist theories were borrowed to give credence to the platform.

          1. Revenant

            Is this a Vietnamese text we should be familiar with, Mien Kamph? Apparently it means “Free of Charge” (miễn kamph) so perhaps those US practice’s were not borrowed but donated.

            1. tevhatch

              It’s the spelling so it shows up correct for dyslexia. Get alexia and you’ll see it correctly. :-)

      6. Val

        No oligarchs or Prussian nationalists high up the financial sector were harmed in the propagation of this narrative.

      7. Keith Newman

        @Aurelien, June 12, 8:38am
        You are over-emphasising what the article says. “Support” does not mean having a significant role in the Nazis’ rise to power. (see below)
        However the support of German industrialists and bankers was one of the most critical factors in the rise of the Nazis. They saw it as a bulwark against the powerful influence of unions and left-wing forces in the country. “The (Nazi) party needed large sums to finance election campaigns, … meet the payroll of hundreds of full-time officials and maintain the private armies of the S.A and S.S. which by the end of 1930 numbered more than 100,000 men…The businessmen and the bankers were not the only financial sources….but they were the largest.”*
        Regarding Von Papen’s offer to Hitler to make him Chancellor, this too was the work of the party’s business backers: “In the 1932 elections, the Nazi Party did not have an outright majority. According to the Nuremberg Trial transcripts, on January 4, 1933, bankers and industrialists had a secret backroom deal with then-Chancellor Von Papen to make Hitler the Chancellor of Germany in a coalition.”**
        The Nazis acted on behalf of business interests by privatizing significant industries: railways, public works projects, construction, steel, and banking, and guaranteeing profits for the private sector. Accordingly, “many American industrialists and bankers gleefully flocked to Germany to invest.”**
        And of course the Nazis attacked the unions: “On May 2, 1933, Adolf Hitler sent his Brown Shirts to all union headquarters. Union leaders were beaten, and sent to prison or concentration camps.” **
        *Shirer, W.L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Fawcett Publications, 1962, p.202
        **https://www.historicly.net/p/the-economy-of-evil

      8. Lex

        Not the US officially, but Wall Street bankers were fans and did help move money around that was used to support the Nazis pretty early on. Of course that wasn’t unusual, lots of the rich – especially in finance – across Europe and into the US were sympathetic to at least making money if not the Nazi ideology.

        So while it’s incorrect to blame the US for the rise of the Nazis, it’s also incorrect to fall into the trap of self-presented US history that it was always against the Nazis. A lot of very important people (see, Allen Dulles) were generally helpful to Nazis before and after the war.

        Evans is pretty good on a lot of subjects, but his blind spots are huge. Believing that the US is good at its root but corrupted being the most important one.

      9. Cetra Ess

        My thinking is the Americans contributed to the rise of Nazism but not for the reasons given here. As I think you likely know, much has been written about how American race theory and eugenicism was borrowed by the German eugenics movement. Without that, the Nazis wouldn’t have had an “racial superiority” or supremacy platform to rise to power on. American corporatism was also key to both Italian and German fascism. Indeed, I think if we let the corporations run the world we’d probably be back to Nazism.

      10. Yves Smith

        Tom Ferguson and Peter Temin, who did extensive archival work, disagree with you vehemently on your rearmament claim. Breunig proposing to form a customs union with Austria when Germany was still financially super wobbly led French investors (then the big funders in Europe, particularly of the German budget) to sell bonds aggressively to scupper that plan. That led to the Creditanstalt collapse.

    3. SocalJimObjects

      Maybe Captain America The Winter Soldier wasn’t so far off the mark after all ……………..

      2. griffen

        The best of those film efforts, in my most humble opinion. I can’t be bothered much to pay heed to every single film Marvel / MCU entry anymore, but I really enjoy seeing that film and will watch it again if I’m a little bored.

    4. Ignacio

      Don’t worry griffen we are all naive when we are born and it is a miracle if we can remain naive when we die.

      1. griffen

        Naive but also drinking in the kool aid….which fortunately was not the grape flavor. I mean my maternal grandparents were involved in the war effort during WWII, which doesn’t seem trivial to me in retrospect but that’s generally true for many. The grandfather was in the Pacific along with quite a few of his brothers (big family from eastern Tennessee).

    5. Tim Mason

      Why Wall Street and The City backed Hitler:

      “in 1931, two years before Hitler, the German Kaiser gave an interview at Doorn in which he expressed his scorn for any pan-Europeanism that would link Germany in an economic and spiritual alliance with Western Europe, above all with France and England. In fact, he made the statement, startling from a conservative at that time, that Germany’s next of kin was Russia. “Western culture has reduced itself to mere utilitarianism, but the pendulum of civilization is switching to Eastern Europe and its way of life. We are not Westerners. . . . We cling with all our roots to the East.”

      https://www.foreignaffairs.com/western-europe/problem-child-europe

      1. Greg

        And the Lancet is a fancy milspec drone. I’d be surprised if an FPV drone (lightweight chinese drone+abundant munition from stores) runs more than $3k a pop. Admittedly they wouldn’t take out a tank without a lucky hit, but they seem to do fine on the thin skins, including the Bradley.

    4. The Rev Kev

      Before I forget, I thought that I would mention something that I saw tonight. So on the news they had video of Ukrainian troops moving into a settlement which is still in the grey zone. A group of soldiers faced the camera and one rattled off the slogans – which were translated – ‘Hail Ukraine, Ukraine over everything’ which made me do a double-take. If you translated that second half into my rusty German, I do believe that it would come out as ‘Ukraine Über Alles!’ Now where have I heard this before?

        1. Wæsfjord

          No. You are wrong. In fact, it’s hard to see how you could be more wrong.

          “America First refers to a policy stance in the United States that generally emphasizes American exceptionalism and non-interventionism. The term was coined by President Woodrow Wilson in his 1916 campaign that pledged to keep America neutral in World War I.”

          The other thing is National Socialism. It’s never too late to take an adult literacy class and join a library.

          2. Ratzicriming

            Marjorie Taylor Greene launching ‘America First’ caucus pushing for ‘Anglo-Saxon political tradition’
            By Daniella Diaz, Annie Grayer, Ryan Nobles and Paul LeBlanc, CNN
            Updated 3:37 PM EDT, Sat April 17, 2021

            1. JBird4049

              Marjorie Taylor Greene is an ass, and CNN and Time Magazine are no longer reliably accurate or even honest sources of information.

              Going by memory, America First as a slogan from the efforts during the First and before the Second World Wars in an effort to keep the country out of the war. It was used by the Isolationists, which was an extremely broad movement to keep the country out of the wars.

              Conflating past use and intent by American nationalists trying to stop the country’s participation in a massive war, or the later use to fight against the destruction of the American economy in the late twentieth century, with the current use by bigoted American politicians verges on dishonesty.

      2. R.S.

        Yep, “Ukraine over everything” in this exact form seems to have appeared in the 1930s. It’s already quoted in 1935 as a slogan of Ukrainian Nationalists, for example. The other variant was “Nation over everything”.

    5. Schtumpy

      The FPV section was fascinating and appalling. I work on this class of open-source hobbyist flight controllers, a little bit of my code was unfortunately in these weapons. The relevant flight controller boards cost $40 USD and use analog video signals pioneered in nanny-cams from the 90s. The screens go to static just before impact/explosion because the video transmitters from the planes go out of line-of-sight from the receivers where the pilot sits. I’ve experienced just this effect when crashing dozens of times.

      Normally an FPV pilot would have enabled a home arrow and GPS coordinates so they could get home, but of course that’s irrelevant and tactically wrong in this case. Sigh.

    6. Henry Moon Pie

      Mercouris has a new video out that was quite interesting. Besides an update on the battlefield, there was extended discussion of a couple of recent article in Politico and elsewhere by “realists” getting concerned about how things are going in Ukraine. The main point was that most of the Blob agrees with the Republicans that China is target #1, and wasting all this weaponry on Ukraine is regarded as stupid, especially considering that it will take $1+ trillion to make more bombs and even then, the improved manufacturing capacity won’t be available for 5-10 years.

      What I’m wondering is the next stage of this if Ukraine’s offensive continues to flounder and waste men and equipment. If the Ukrainian army collapses at that point, and the Russian take Kiev and Odessa, what really stands in their way going west? Do you suppose Nuland will still have a job at that point? Do you think the Finns might begin to question their decision to join NATO? Will any European nation have an equipped and ready-to-to army to stop the Russians should they decide to answer some of the provocations they’ve received?

      1. Michaelmas

        Henry Moon Pie: even then, the improved manufacturing capacity won’t be available for 5-10 years.

        It will never be available. For example ….


        These may be the world’s best warships. And they’re not American

        https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/02/asia/japan-south-korea-naval-shipbuilding-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html

        …Not only is China’s navy already the world’s largest, its numerical lead over the US is getting wider, with the head of the US Navy warning recently that American shipyards simply can’t keep up. Some experts estimate China can build three warships in the time it takes the US to build one ….

        …experts who spoke to CNN before the summit say a potential solution to … the Chinese fleet’s numerical advantage … is within reach, if the US is prepared to think outside the box. Washington, they say, has something Beijing doesn’t: Allies in South Korea and Japan who are building some of the highest spec – and affordable – naval hardware on the oceans.

        Buying ships from these countries, or even building US-designed vessels in their shipyards, could be a cost-effective way of closing the gap with China, they say ….

        —

        Blah, blah, blah. Essentially, the Chinese can produce better and far more numerous ships at one-third the unit price. And so, since US allies in Japan and South Korea can produce slightly better ships than the Chinese at reasonable prices and can build them in numbers, the experts’ ‘solution’ is to get those allies to manufacture those ships.

        Because the Dunning-Kruger empire cannot.

        Its elites’ desire to dump the costs of manufacturing and enrich themselves through financialization of everything mean that high stateside costs for things like housing, food, medicine, and so on create high wages and costs that in turn make manufacturing — in this case, ships — prohibitively unprofitable.

        To bring manufacturing back to America would mean ending that. Also, ending US elites’ currently-existing income streams.

        So it won’t happen. I cannot think of a stupider empire of grifters in human history. (Readers who can, please educate me.)

        1. ilsm

          usa/mic is for profit unilateral disarmament

          f-35, ford class, etc. are built to keep the stockholders’ dividends…

          pass a rigged test, and build for profit.

          no one ever lost money selling to Uncle Sam….

          seems like new orders rolling in for patriot systems, good for Raytheon tech and Lockheed…..

        2. marku52

          Yes, astonishing that the 2 ruling halves of the Uniparty haven’t yet realized that each of their deepest ambitions (finance and endless war) are completely incompatible

          Parasitic financialism destroys the host you need for Forever War.

          It looks like some sliver of that is starting to sink in..

    7. Ignacio

      I guess that the spiral movement of the missiles is the result of continuous correction of trajectory. Are these laser guided things that correct themselves or guided from the launcher?

        1. Ignacio

          Thank you. On my side I have learned the K52 that launch those use stereoscopic infrared vision (two infrared eyes) allowing precise distance measurements. Not laser.

          In more peaceful times that technology has many other interesting applications. With some machine learning combined you could analyse in minutes, for instance, the heating/cooling demand of a room and identify the cold/hot spots where thermal leaks occur.

          1. digi_owl

            Or just get a hand held thermal camera (there are some rugged smartphones with them build in even these days) and scan the room manually.

            Around here i have been told that such a check is part of the building specs these days.

      2. Greg

        This is the missile in question, it’s a little faster and longer and thinner than a Hellfire missile but basically the same.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K121_Vikhr
        It’s closely related to the Kornet that MT_Wild’s comment suggests uses angled rockets to maintain stability. My guess is probably the answer is that it is both spinning for stability *and* constantly correcting to the beam projected from the chopper.

  3. The Rev Kev

    “The case for a (mostly) car-free world”

    Yeah, good luck with that pal. The author states that he grew up in Los Angeles and that city is notorious for its traffic jams which is what may have sparked his interest. And I can see why-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVWBvgL7tQ (31 secs)

    But where is there mention of the Los Angeles rail system that they use to have until it was ripped out? If it was still there, it would have taken a lot of the cars of the roads and highways for Los Angeles-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Railway

    Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of merit in what he says. But this is only addressing an urban situation and ignores the rural setting. As an example, I live over an hour away from Brisbane here in Oz. Without a car, that is a helluva bike ride that. And what about the transport of goods between urban centers? Besides, there is no neat line between urban and rural as shown by suburbs. You would have to allow as many people as possible to work from home and you can see the resistance to that idea already.

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      American suburban sprawl where cars are daily necessities is the result of policy choices to favor cars.

      Ripping out the light rail in LA is the villain’s scheme in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

    2. ambrit

      Well, one of the first things that would have to go would be the suburbs themselves. Densepack cities would become the norm. Earlier, most of the populace lived “on the farm.” Now, with factory farming and increasingly AI run equipment, small scale farming is no longer a population sink. All those people have to live in urban zones now. Unless, of course, something like the Jackpot “just happens.”
      The Cynic in me sees phantoms and haints all around me now.
      Oft times, paranoia is but a rational response to a hostile environment.

      1. The Rev Kev

        I think that both James Howard Kunstler and John Michael Greer have suggested that if things fall apart, that the suburbs will become the new slums. The reason for this is that they will have no economic underpinning and so will degrade. Richer people will move back into the cities for their goods and services and probably poorer people will be pushed out of city properties and out to the suburbs. So, something like this perhaps?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ga_64WrYHo (2:05 mins)

          1. Chris Smith

            John Michael Greer has something to say about that in his novel “Retrotopia.” Hint: the security guards turn on their masters.

            1. The Rev Kev

              Got a copy of that book myself. And it does have an intrigued picture of a future that might just work – by viewing the past as a resource that can be mined by the present.

            3. The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit

              Read it when he was serializing it on his web page. Nodded along a lot. A number of friends claimed to have found “mistakes,” but were strangely quiet in regard to specifics.

              The “drones as skeet” competition was … fun!

        2. Carolinian

          Things are falling apart and the accounts I read suggest the population of the big cities are declining. So, not to toot our local horn but the real trend may be to smaller cities where cars still rule but driving can be far less. When I lived in Atlanta I racked up maybe two or three times the yearly mileage that I do in my hometown of less than 100,000.

          While some young people may still move to big cities simply for the glamor and excitement and social variety, the real reason they have dominated in the past was that was where the jobs were. In a digital age this become much less compelling and I believe the notion that Americans will willingly return to an era of mostly public transportation is far fetched if an alternative exists. Eventually carbon fuels will become very expensive and people will have to drive less but doing so in a city like Atlanta is today may bankrupt you. Some of Atlanta’s bedroom suburbs are twenty or thirty miles out of town.

          What happened in the last century was not a conspiracy, or at least didn’t need a conspiracy, but was a response to the available cheap energy and the real estate calculations that Michael Hudson talks about. Technology has changed, natural resources have diminished, the new world is likely to be different. IMO.

        3. tevhatch

          StrongTowns.org make much the same arguement, and have an active effort to lobby in USA and Canada for sane development, with some sucess.

      2. NotTimothyGeithner

        Urban dwellers don’t even need to be that packed. Light rail and building code changes are a huge deal. We do need a major building campaign in the US, but I went to an event last year and drove by a golf course miles away from the nearby town and surrounded by homes that resembled the nearby tow or city (30 minutes away). These people weren’t living a rural life. They were just driving an extra hour and a half to do anything to have “green space” which was basically a lawn.

        More frequent busses will help people adapt especially if it was free in places like the Philly metro region. The have good bussing.

        There are other things like moving federal workers out of DC, undoing Al Gore’s effort’s to create some of the worst traffic in the world to in theory save money on office space. Northern Virginia just needs to be dismantled. It’s such an ungodly mess.

        1. tevhatch

          Take my lawn, please.

          I like the remote summer garden/tiny cabin culture in Germany and Finland for city dwellers. Not sure it would work in USA, where theft and hooliganism are prevalent. Cracks me up to see Ontario developments with yards too small to do anything with, being mowed, fertilized.

          1. digi_owl

            Sadly the cabin culture here in Norway has mutated in to turning hillsides into cabin “suburbs”. Often next to a ski lift.

      3. OnceWere

        You’d be surprised. Australian cities don’t exactly pack them in, by and large they’re still pretty damn suburban, but it’s still quite viable in the vast majority of cases to get along fine without a car.

      4. GramSci

        I’ve noticed how what little manufacturing remains in the US has been relocated far from urban centers – this no doubt to prevent workers from gathering in beer/union halls.

        This will complicate reshoring in a carless future.

    3. digi_owl

      Frankly rolling back to the 50s in terms of distributed facilities and transportation may be the only real option.

      Meaning things like combined buses carrying both freight and people, and small scale regional industries covering local needs using mostly local materials.

    4. Geo

      Trying to turn a lot of American cities into car-free places is a noble idea but a bit like trying to remodel an office building into an apartment complex. Pretty much would have to gut it to the bare structure and redo the entire thing. Possible but costly, would require long term planning and commitment. All things we seem to lack the ability to invest in society.

      Not my area of expertise but having lived car-free in NYC for nearly two decades and now being in LA and dependent on a car I cannot fathom how this sprawling *familyblog* of a city could ever be made car-free without the aid of a tectonic plate just dumping us in the ocean.

      1. OnceWere

        LA county (940 people per square km) is from what I can tell significantly more densely populated than any major Australian city – yet its possible to get around quite comfortably without a car in all of them – so I don’t really understand why it would be a insuperable problem – beyond the obvious of course – people wouldn’t like it.

      2. notabanker

        We have a family car, which is really just me a my wife, that I used to drive back and forth to work. Wifey now uses it for the same. After 7 years, it averages 13,000 miles annually. After covid my job was switched to WFH 100%. I leased a vehicle knowing I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth to work, and just use it to run errands, go to the grocery store and haul stuff around. After two years, it averages 4K miles annually. That is a 70% drop and includes a one time 1300 mile work-related round trip.

        This stuff ain’t hard, but the CRE spice must flow, so get in those cars and drive to work at least three times a week so you can burn that gas and spend $15-20 a day on overpriced downtown sandwiches and lattes.

        These corps are not in the least bit serious about reducing fossil fuel consumption. All they care about is filling out the annual S&P survey for ESG to get their ranking for the year. And get ready, there is an entire nascent ESG reporting industry that the PE’s, VC’s and banks are all over and throwing money at.

    5. Once Were

      The urban setting encompasses the vast majority of people in the west. And as someone who is 100% anti-car it still wouldn’t bother me in the least if anti-car measures were scaled to population density. I’d even subsidize car usage for really low population density areas. I suspect the savings from getting city people out of their cars would pay for that and then some.

        1. OnceWere

          Including cars (rented at cost) as part of the broader public transport system would certainly ease the pain of transition to a car-free world for a lot of people.

          1. marku52

            Scott Ritter was in Russia on a book tour and commented that rental cars were just parked by the roadside. If you needed one, you paid over your phone and the car opened up for you.

            Pretty cool idea.

      2. Tomfoolery

        I like that, and it’s also SO much more politically viable. First, it does rural citizens the favor of recognizing that they exist and treating them with something other than disdain, which would be such a new idea for Dems. It also directs the policy at the big impact areas of city/suburb folks, who also have at least some transit options. And it has the merit of showing that people who worry about these issues (majority urban-dwellers) pay the cost first.

        Which of course means it’ll never happen.

    6. ilsm

      elon’s vision is robot/ai/itself drive teslas on call to take you every time and where-ever!

      no one need own a car or infrastructure to charge etc!

      just use the app the telsa shows delivers you and use the app for return…

      the pay plans are being simulated with ai.

      1. Wukchumni

        The Red Cars stopped running in LA on April 9, 1961 and a few days later Yuri blasted into outer space, preceding me blasting into inner space.

    8. Hepativore

      Much of the Upper Midwestern US where I live is similar. You have some major cities, with a lot of farmland or forest between them, as much of the industry here is still agricultural with miles of corn and soybean fields. Most of the driving that people do here is on highways, as much of the Upper Midwestern US is very sparsely populated, and our winters can add to the transportation headache with cold and snow.

    9. Bsn

      Yes, I remember Angels Flight as a fun “down the road a piece” for our family growing up in LA. Right near Olvera Street. Beautiful funicular that was quite effective. Nice and shiny now but it was very functional back then (50’s & 60’s)

    10. Ignacio

      And this is something Reverend that will take us all to somewhere very different but all too hot. We are unable to even imagine a world without cars, or many less of them.

      The Major of some city in Northern Spain decided to remove car transit from the city center (a smalish one) with few exemptions/permits and everyone was in rage about it. Impossible, you idiot! plus other similar comments. As a result, the incidence of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases plummeted in the city. What a disaster (for the HC industry, i mean)!

    11. BlakeFelix

      I live in rural America and my grandparents could bike to a train and be in NYC in a couple hours, about as fast as a car, now they’ve torn out the tracks. Cars certainly have their uses, but with good urban/rural design they can be a lot more optional which makes them more useful and efficient. If everyone needs one then you need more infrastructure which makes cities sprawl which makes people drive more and farther which requires more infrastructure which makes the city sprawl more in a vicious cycle. Which is alright for rich people who can spare a couple hours a day putzing around in traffic (ideally being driven, our parkway designers considered driving menial labor and were about as likely to do it themselves as wash their own dishes) and maintain their cars, but the farther things get from that the worse it gets. In WWII IIRC the gas ration was 1 gallon per family per week, I don’t even know how America would react to something like that now.

      1. Omicron

        I think maybe you don’t RC. In WWII my family had an “A” sticker (lowest level in terms of entitlement) and we got 4 gallons a week. Didn’t seem like much of a hardship at the time….

    12. Glen

      It is interesting to me that we have a couple of trends that seem to align which could provide opportunities:

      Vehicles cause global warming – we need to drive less.
      Covid outbreak causes a lockdown.
      People have been working from home – not having to drive.
      Buildings downtown are empty.
      Homelessness is on the increase – what can we do? How do we provide homes?
      Converting CRE to provide shelter is expensive, and who could do it?
      America is discovering off shoring industries has lead to supply problems everywhere including MIC.
      Jobs programs to provide training is required for on shoring industries, building housing.

      So I look at this bullet list, and I see opportunities. People say it’s expensive, to which I say yeah, but contrast that to bailing out Wall St, all we really got is even larger banks, and richer rich people. If I start funding this other stuff, I’m basically building infrastructure, training people, providing housing, potentially reducing traffic. It would seem like we could analyze/organize this to get the country moving forward rather than trying to get back to a disappearing “normal” that was failing the country.

      Just spitballin’ here.

    13. Cetra Ess

      Back in the 90’s someone I used to know suggested a solution would be cars on rails. I think this may be coming true with Tesla and autonomous cars, basically running on invisible rails. Traffic run by systems would (presumably) be vastly more efficient.

  4. Geo

    “temperature anomaly charts and maps”

    As I sit on my patio in Los Angeles it’s another mildly gloomy and relatively chilly mid-June day. Not complaining personally because I love this kind of weather but something really ain’t right when LA is like this in June while places like Siberia are having heat waves in the 100’s. Not that Siberia should ever be in that range if we expect to have a habitable planet much longer.

    Gonna enjoy the pleasant weather here and push that existential dread into the back of my mind since I’m sure we’ll be back to sun-bleached and drought-ridden soon enough. Interesting times ahead for all of us.

    1. Ignacio

      And probably Los Angeles is not the best place to notice the warming because ocean temperature buffering. In Madrid, many miles from the coast, the difference I have noticed in the last years is enormous.

      1. Michaelmas

        Geo: Not that Siberia should ever be in that range if we expect to have a habitable planet much longer.

        Indeed.

        The world is about to become very science-fictionally interesting.

    2. Lee

      There are numerous differing microclimates within just a few miles of each other her in the San Francisco bay area. At my location, an island off the coast of Oakland, we are experiencing more lingering high fog and cooler temps than usual. I contemplate my tomato plants with concern.

    1. Mikel

      Just spitballin here, but I don’t think Martin is revealing or seeing the full implications of what he his saying.

      And it has to do with this part:
      “In 2002, a university in North Carolina initiated a study to develop an “infectious replication defective,” which Martin interpreted as “a weapon to target individuals, but not have collateral damage.”

      It’s been discussed how that is not happening. Targeted viruses…part of the derangement of eugenics. The supporters have been trying for centuries and no go.

      But…a virus could be targeted to specific groups if everybody was forced to get a shot.

      Again, just pondering various angles to the testimony being given.

      1. hunkerdown

        The single-victim use case of a replication-incompetent coronavirus as a less detectable replacement for something like polonium or TCDD seems pretty clear to me. “He caught a bad cold, what do you want from me?” To introduce eugenics only serves up a red herring.

  7. mrsyk

    “I know there are a million people sharing temperature anomaly charts and maps lately, but there’s a good reason for that. This is totally bonkers and people who look at this stuff routinely can’t believe their eyes. Something very weird is happening.”
    It’s called abrupt catastrophic climate change.

    1. frank

      I don’t have the background to understand what this means. Can you dash off a brief explanation.

      1. tim

        The Ice core drilling On Greenland has shown that back before the last Ice age, the world had catastrophic changes on the order of 2-3 degrees Celsius warming within 20-30 years.

        This reversed the Ocean currents, so no more Gulf stream etc.

        Climate change modeling do not consider this, they only look at gradual changes (due to their model setup)

      2. mrsyk

        For a visual metaphor think pingpong balls and mouse traps. In a sentence, a family of events (loops) which cause atmospheric changes that are both self reinforcing and introduce and nurture other loops which in turn have the same self reinforcing and propagating tendencies. For example, (simplified) surface ice of arctic waters. Ice reflects heat. Exposed ocean surface absorbs heat. Introduce some greenhouse gasses and set to the seasonal rhythm, and a self reinforcing loop is created. Warming arctic waters introduce new potential self reinforcing loops, such as release of once frozen crystallized methane hydrates from the ocean’s floor into the atmosphere causing more warming, and the weakening of the jet stream, which is causing all kinds of mayhem. As for the abrupt part, suddenly rising oceans and wildfires are certainly risks worth keeping an eye on (ask anyone living northwest of Montreal), but mass starvation can and will happen in the blink of a spoiled growing season. Not much fun writing this down.

        1. mrsyk

          More on “abrupt” and wildfires in Quebec (emphasis mine). “Quebec wildfires have already scorched 740,000 hectares of boreal forest, more than 300 times the average during the spring season over the past decade. From The Guardian.

    2. Geo

      Was reading a fun thread of climate change denialists ripping on a Greta Thunburg tweet from five years ago saying climate change will wipe us out if we don’t stop it in the next five years as if the fact we’re still here means she was wrong and not that we’ve passed a tipping point and are in the path to eradication.

      How anyone sees what is going on and still denies it is baffling. Not sure which is worse though, the denialists who laugh at those who are trying to make things better or the people who believe the science yet ignore it. Vasectomies are cheap and I haven’t regretted it for a moment. Have talked with friends who have kids and it seems they just push it to the back of their minds and hope for the best for their kids. I try not to judge but how it’s not their 24/7 focus to make sure this place is habitable for their kids and grandkids makes me feel even more hopeless for our future than those who deny it.

      1. digi_owl

        I suspect it is an expanded version of that old Upton Sinclair quote about not understanding to continue being paid.

        In order to maintain the relative life of luxury of the present (even a relatively poor American has the energy footprint of tens of Africans or some such), people have to willfully deny the horrors it will bring in the future (often the excuse will be that they are dead by then anyways).

        1. vao

          It gets increasingly difficult to maintain that life of relative luxury.

          The authorities managing the Panama canal have just sharpened the existing restrictions on the ships that can sail through it: there is not enough (sweet)water in the lakes that supply the sluices along the canal because of insufficient rains.

          Consequence: the cost of transporting goods by ship is going up.

        2. there's always the sun

          I suspect it is an expanded version of that old Upton Sinclair quote about not understanding to continue being paid.

          “It’s difficult to get a person to understand something if her salary depends on her not understanding it.”

          I believe it’s much deeper than this, and more often actually has to do with a person’s entire “ego-identity” for lack of a better term.

          I intentionally used “her” although Sinclair’s original quote used “he.” All genders, races, cultures, religions, etc are quite susceptible to this to one degree or another, and increasingly much more so in a global commodified marketplace.

          Which I imagine is the point. No true identities other than transacting and consuming in a “wowweee!!!” technocratic marketplace where everything is branded (superficialized) – including human beings – and even your experiences must be purchased.

  8. schmoe

    Regarding the article about Hitler’s rise to power, while it was generally a good interview, the interviewee says that the West had many changes to stop Hitler, going back to the mid-1930s. That is a dubious proposition since, depending on where you set the clock back to, there would have been major obstacles.. What if France and the UK declared war after Germany took over most of Czechoslovakia in late 1938? World War II in European theater would have started 11 months earlier. What difference would that have made? Neither side was ready for war, hence the “Sitzkreig” once the war actually started. The speaker mentions the mid-1930s, and the book From Hitler’s Germany to Saddam’s Iraq took a stab at what would have happened if France and the UK tried to take over Germany in 193\6, and doubted if they had the forces to pull off an attack and occupation. To say nothing of getting public support for such an adventure during the Great Depression. And then what happens when the occupation ends?

    At least that article did not raise that argument to state that we need to intervene in Ukraine before Putin launches a land invasion of the Romania, Poland, Miami, etc.

    1. Kurtismayfield

      If the French declared after the Rhine reoccupation, or forced the Germans to go back, it would have sent a message. They wouldn’t have to had to fire a shot, as the Germans were woefully unprepared at that point.

    2. Mildred Montana

      >”…the West had many chances to stop Hitler, going back to the mid-1930s.”

      Some argue that the UK and France weren’t all that interested in checking German power. They saw a strong Germany as a useful counter to the Soviet Union specifically and communism generally.

      1. tevhatch

        Not just the UK/France, but quite a number of the real politic in the USA were busy getting Germany up and armed.

      2. Kurtismayfield

        France reached out to the Soviets about an mutual defence pact to counter the Germans in 1935. They were looking to form an Entente against the Germans solely.

        It was ineffective, but it was the beginning of an encircling of the Germans. If the French had said no to the Rhine the Germans would have stood down. Guderian has said so, they were in no way prepared for war. Some of the German officials were ready to pull the 20k soldiers back in 1936 upon hearing rumors of French mobilization.

        1. tevhatch

          Maxim Litvinov deserves most of the credit for the treaty. Unfortunately the UK abused as an excuse to help relieve Germany of some of it’s treaty restriction. Further, during electioneering by the next French government the treaty was used to beat on the extant government to the extent that it was clear to the Soviets France would be unlikely to honour the treaty.

    3. Michaelmas

      schmoe: the book From Hitler’s Germany to Saddam’s Iraq took a stab at what would have happened if France and the UK tried to take over Germany in 193\6, and doubted if they had the forces to pull off an attack and occupation. To say nothing of getting public support for such an adventure during the Great Depression.

      In the UK’s case, a German occupation would have been impossible at any time.

      When one goes into the historical accounts, the extent to which the UK’s land military even at the British empire’s height wasn’t much more than a gendarmerie — though a globally deployable one — is striking. It concentrated its military spending on its naval sea power.

    4. Bruno

      The British (+French) could have not only stopped Hitler they could have got rid of him entirely simply by refusing to capitulate, because they knew all about the Oster Conspiracy whereby the Wehrmacht would have overthrown Hitler the moment he ordered them into war (plunging the German state apparatus into total chaos) whereas Hitler’s own commitments made it politically impossible for him to stand down. The systematic memory-holing of that fact reflects the central reality–for the ruling classes of Britain and France the Nazi regime’s preservation was crucial because it’s breakup would have opened the door to a resurrection of the 1918-1919 proletarian revolution, which this time the Social-Democrats were in no position to betray and suppress again! The West (plus Stalin) by their genocidal “strategic bombing” against the German working class and their “Unconditional Surrender” doctrine followed the same strategy into the War: Hitler had to remain until Germany could be totally occupied by the Allies.

      1. schmoe

        It is not all fair to say that the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler if he was forced to invade Czechoslovakia without France/UK’s consent has been memory-hold. I have seen many discussions of it (granted, my reading habits are a bit different than most people’s), and I would also state that many historians are skeptical that such a plot would have succeeded given how entrenched Nazism was at that point, especially after Hitler’s apparent successes in Austria and the Rhineland.

      2. vao

        A French slogan of that time: “Plutôt Hitler que le Front Populaire” — i.e. “rather Hitler than the Popular Front” — is telling.

    5. Aurelien

      Magical thinking about “stopping Hitler” is as old as the War itself. What’s usually forgotten is that war with Germany was generally assumed to be inevitable from the time the Versailles Treaty was signed – Foch called it an “armistice for twenty years” – and indeed there was bound to come a time when a German government decided to throw off the shackles of Versailles, and that would have meant war. Hitler’s coming to power simply made it certain, since the Nazi regime was explicitly focused on recovering its lost territories and expanding towards the East, which meant dealing with France first. The Nazis were not in a hurry – they foresaw a war in 1942/3 – and were extremely cautious while they were just beginning their military build-up.

      A declaration of war by the French in 1936 would have changed nothing. The French Army had no capacity for a massive expeditionary war at the time (neither did anyone else) and such a declaration would simply have united the German people behind Hitler to no purpose. And few governments would have relished explaining to voters that their sons would be sent off to die to stop the Germans moving troops from one part of their country to another.

      By 1936 the British and the French governments and political classes had decided that war with Germany was highly likely, if not inevitable, although they still hoped that some way could be found to prevent the worst. That’s why both countries began massive re-armament programmes: the Spitfires and Hurricanes that won the Battle of Britain didn’t come from nowhere.

      1. tevhatch

        Hitler probably saved the Soviet Union. A less odious and more flexible man would have worked with Poland and the West to bring down the Soviets. No way the UK and USA were going to let the Germans get sole proprietorship over Russia. Stalin early on predicted that the Soviet Union had only 20+ years to get ready for the storm, a repeat of the 20+nation invasion post WW1 in spades.

        1. hk

          A telling demonstration of this–something that surprised me throughout 2022 as this was basically repeated very often–is the widespread belief in the West that Finland somehow “won” World War 2 (and the Winter War). Apparently, being a not-as-odious-as-Romania-and-Hungary ally of the Nazis that played deft diplomacy makes them an honorary Western ally complete with a fantasy history. You gotta shudder at what might have happened if Hitler had half the political savvy of Mannerheim.

          1. Kouros

            Pray tell what was odious in Romanian behavior during WWII?
            First, no Jews were deported from Romanian territory nor were they put in concentration camps.
            The Vienna Diktat forced Romania to relinquish N. Transylvania to Hungary (Germany bribe to have Hungary join future war against USSR). Then Molotov Ribentropp accord allowed USSR to occupy Bessarabia (R of Moldova now), which became an “incentive” for Romania to join the Germans in the attack on USSR. Romania was between a rock and a hard place and had no capacity to carry a war of defense all on herself (Finland lost too, and their behaviour in helping with the Leningrad siege is rather more problematic than anything Romanians have done while allied with Germany).

            1. tevhatch

              https://medium.com/the-collector/the-hidden-mystery-of-what-happened-during-the-romanian-holocaust-during-world-war-ii-d95bae458392
              https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/romania

              Curzio Malaparte in Kaputt wrote something about Romanian Army’s participation in ethnic cleansing of Ukraine. The book is a mix of fact and fiction, but that’s all I have at hand. I believe he wrote that Antonescu advocated a policy of racial purification of the Romanian nation, and Romania’s participation in Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union provided Antonescu with the opportunity to put these ideas into practice. That’s why I went to dig up some links.

              1. Kouros

                Advocating racial purity was the done thing by everyone in Europe as well as in the Anglosphere during those times. However, little or anything was done on actual Romanian territory, either with Jews or with the Gypsy…

                1. tevhatch

                  Vapniarka was reserved for Jewish political prisoners deported from Romania proper. Of its several thousand prisoners, very few were able to survive. I guess it’s all relative.

                  1. Kouros

                    Interesting tidbit. The things official history books hide. Wiki is saying that the numbers were smaller though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapniarka_concentration_camp

                    Also, the official history doesn’t say that the last great peasant revolt happened in Romania in 1907 (11,000 peasants killed) and it started in a village in Moldovan region (were Jewish population was forcibly settled after 1860) on a latifundia managed ay a Jewish company…

        2. Stephen

          He tried. Or at least he tried to do so with Poland. Clearly an odious man but actually quite a flexible one too in foreign policy. As AJP Taylor noted in the 60s.

          I think that war with the USSR was probably the one war Hitler always likely desired. His diplomacy in early 1939 was intended originally to create an alliance with Poland against the USSR. As early as October 1938 Ribbentrop offered such a deal to Beck, Poland’s Foreign Minister.

          What made this impossible was partly Beck’s unwillingness to ally with Germany and to give up the Polish Corridor / Danzig as well as the British guarantee to Poland of May 1939 that meant the Poles thought they would be saved. This altered the calculus. But much evidence suggests that Hitler never wanted a war in the west as opposed to one in the east.

          It is often forgotten too that Britain supported the foreign policy aims of reuniting German speakers anyway. The elites had bought into the nationalist principle. What changed British policy and made the country actively seek war in 1939 was the embarrassment of the Munich Settlement being overturned. At that point Hitler was arguably master of Europe: the newly independent Slovaks were grateful, so was Hungary who had feasted on territory whilst Poland had taken Teschen. Even the USSR was allegedly appeased by the fact that Hungary had taken Ruthenia and would snuff out Ukrainian nationalism there.

          Chamberlain though could sense that Britain was slipping into irrelevance as a Great Power and therefore determined on a war to “save” a far away country that could not be saved anyway. Does sound very similar to today but with the clear difference that modern day multi ethnic Russia is not 1939 Germany.

          Just one extra point relating to flexibility: Hitler knew that he needed an alliance with Mussolini in the 30s. So he never ever tried to get the southern Tyrol back from Italy, even though it is full of ethnic German speaking Austrians / or to him Germans. His nationalist principles were adjusted where it suited him.

          1. tevhatch

            Beck didn’t help, a rarity, a man as odious and with twice the egotism and nationalism. It’s seldom one man makes big history. Maybe Genghis. I think Munich was just an excuse, it was Hitler getting into bed with Stalin that scared the UK silly, their groomed Pit Bull was getting in bed with the Bear. Horrible service by Nazi diplomatic corps in UK, but even if they had known for sure that Hitler was going to take on Russia, it was the idea of Germany getting all for itself that put them in a fright. The idea of having the great game contest with Russia was tolerable, but a rampant Germany loaded to the hilt with resources, slave labour, and a backdoor into the Empire that didn’t need sea leggs …. no way.

      2. Keith Newman

        @Aurelien
        June 12, 2023 at 12:17 pm
        The British and French declined to counter Germany militarily when offered an alliance by the Soviet Union just prior to the war. According to ChurchillI, in August 1939, the Soviets were prepared to send “more than three hundred ” divisions to the front. The French were prepared to send “about a hundred” and the British “Two and two more later”.*
        The British government definitely did not want to counter the Nazis in 1939 whatever the state of their country’s military.
        *Shirer, W.L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Fawcett Publications, 1962, p.702.

        1. Aurelien

          This is a very controversial issue (Shirer is not a good source, way out of date) but it’s clear that the British and French were not much attracted by Stalin’s offer of an alliance, not least because the only way the Red Army could engage the Germans was by going through Poland. No-one had asked the Poles. (Quite who promised what is much disputed, and it’s only now that historians are working through the Russian archives. I have yet to read the second volume of Stephen Kotkin’s biography of Stalin, which probably has the best information) The British desperately hoped to avoid another bloody continental commitment, and thought that the war could be won by economic and naval means without the need for a land campaign. Such was the level of mutual distrust between the West and Stalin’s government that it’s doubtful if an agreement was ever possible: ironically, Stalin and Hitler, as ruthless dictators, found agreement much easier.

          1. flora

            Shirer was working in Berlin in the 1930’s an American newspaper and radio foreign correspondent for Universal News Service and for US CBS news covering the rise the Nazi power. He covered their fall as a war correspondent. He was there. He may have had an American-centric view, may not have had access to French and UK documents at the time. However, he is not out of date.

            1. The Rev Kev

              Fully agree as he was a witness to what was happening at the time and is not to be disregarded as a major source. In his books he gives the flavour of the times. The UK and France could have had an agreement with Stalin but they sent their negotiators on a boat while the Germans sent theirs on a plane which was relatively new at the time. Stalin may have feared a joint UK-France-Germany agreement which would leave his country as a target and so chose to form a pact with Germany first.

          2. Keith Newman

            @Aurelien, June 12, 2023 at 5:18 pm

            Whatever controversy there may be, Shirer is reporting Churchill’s own account of his conversation with Stalin in August 1942. Discounting Shirer as out of date on this amounts to saying Churchill’s account of a conversation he himself was part of in 1942 is “out of date”. That is not a valid or believable criticism.
            In any case, the most obvious conclusion is that Stalin first tried to make an alliance with the British and French against Germany. They refused. So Stalin made an non-aggression pact with the Germans to gain time to prepare for the war that was coming.

    6. Kouros

      If the French and the Brits would have entered in a pact with the Soviets, and with Poland accepting the transit of Russian forces over its territory, in 1938/early 1939, maybe the war would not have started. The west has consistently refused the outstretched hand offered by the Soviets…

  9. The Rev Kev

    “Security guarantees, then Polish troops, and finally US troops”

    That is why war will break out – at the NATO summit in Lithuania. It will be between the neocons who want to push troops into the Ukraine and those who will take one look at what the Russians are doing to the Ukrainians and say aww, hell no. There are already ten NATO nations that have totally rejected bringing the Ukraine into the alliance for this reason. Right now you cannot have a western politician visit Kiev without the permission of the Russians so what happens when a few brigades worth of troops crosses the border unannounced? If troop formations went across the border I would expect Mr. Kinzhal to pay a visit to their logistics train and then it would be all over, red rover. Remember, if western troops crossed the border, it would still be near on 1,000 kilometers to get to the battle front. That is an awful long supply line that.

  10. Wukchumni

    Goooooooood Mooooooooorning Fiatnam!

    When the Unit got a FNG (Financially Non Grata) we tried to act as if it didn’t exist, cognizant that on the basis of an agreement 79 years ago, we could do whatever we damned well pleased, ooh ungowa yes we got hegemonic power!

    Another salvo in the ongoing War On Cash, this time @ Mount Rainier National Park, which has declared itself a fiat-free sanctuary, although you couldn’t help but notice the donation box in the visitor center is angling for your long green and/or jingle-jangles.

  11. The Rev Kev

    “The Problem Child of Europe”

    Is this a re-print of something from the 50s and the 60s? Growing up you had this general idea that there must have been something wrong with the Germans as a people to allow what happened in WW2 and you saw this idea, for example, in the 1961 movie “Judgment at Nuremberg.” This idea was everywhere. But then I went to Germany and got to know the people but more important, I read more and more history. That the worst camp guards were not Germans but were Ukrainians. And then you had all those Nazi SS Divisions raised in all those occupied countries. They weren’t German. Nor were they responsible for the Cambodian genocide decades later either. So I realized that every country always has this pool of people who would gladly if not enthusiastically man a concentration camp and become a Nazi. So this idea that this was only a German thing needs to be buried for good and it be recognized that all countries have this capability for evil. What makes a person become a Nazi? I have no idea. I only know what you do with them.

    2. Michaelmas

      Rev Kev: Is this a re-print of something from the 50s and the 60s?

      The 1940s. It was first published in 1940, by a correspondent for the old Herald-Tribune.

      So this idea that this was only a German thing needs to be buried for good and it be recognized that all countries have this capability for evil.

      Perhaps. And yet if you look into histories of the Prussian high command from about 1850 onwards, you find this cadre of often intellectually brilliant people at the center of German culture who were all utterly committed to the primary precept that (A) there will inevitably come a war of Germany against everybody else, in which (2) German victory will require the most ruthless means necessary.

      And so over the course of one-hundred years or so, the Germans — nobody else — repeatedly initiated wars that plunged the continent and then the world into blood.

      So there’s a specific historical cultural tendency there. And the author of the 1940 piece — when the enormous loss of the Great War was still very much in everyone’s living memory and when, too, she’d literally lived in Germany and watched the Nazis rise — would very much have reason to ask: “What is it with the Germans again?”

      1. Anonymous 2

        The Serbs pretty clearly murdered the Archduke with the view to provoking the Austro-Hungarians into starting a war so I do not think you can say nobody else other than the Germans was responsible for WW1. There were war-mongers in every major European power in 1914, not just in Germany.

      2. tevhatch

        The article smells of, Damn, look at that Russian Bear, how big he is. We need more of those Nazis, not less. Can’t easily whitewash the NAZIs, so we’ll go the Christian route and proclaim us all sinners, it also helps that it’s true for many Western States and in particular the model for Hitler, the USA.

      3. The Rev Kev

        You do realize that that could be turned around for another country, don’t you? A country that has been at one war or another for near it’s entire existence. That in response to an attack from a former protege group, bathed the Middle East in blood with the deaths of millions. Whose citizenry is armed to an unprecedented extent to the point that mass massacres of it’s own citizens is constant? Who has firebombed entire cities causing people to burn to death by the tens of thousands? Who is the only nation to have not only nuked a city but done it twice? Of course, some people never got the word-

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2UEnuq8Ec (4:22 mins)

        1. tevhatch

          Sadly, many Japanese youth who are being sold they must die to contain China do not know it was Uncle Sam who nuked Japan twice. The bombing is mentioned in text books, but not who dropped it. I suspect they want to leave room for imagining it was either China or USSR/Russia, or even North Korea.

        2. Michaelmas

          Rev Kev: You do realize that that could be turned around for another country, don’t you? A country that has been at one war or another for near it’s entire existence.

          I do realize that. I have left that country after decades of residence there. Indeed, I think that it would probably be for the best if that country — at its inception, founded by slaveholders to preserve slavery — disappeared into the garbage can of history where it now belongs.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Michaelmas -There is nothing wrong with America that a change of management could not fix. The problem is that the present management will not go quietly into the night.

            1. Michaelmas

              Rev Kev: There is nothing wrong with America that a change of management could not fix.

              I no longer believe that. You yourself pointed out the continual mass shootings. It’s an essentially psychopathic culture at this point.

              Perhaps if it breaks down as badly as Russia did in the 1990s, it may reconstitute itself.

      4. Melissa

        What about the Zionists? Zionism predates the 1850 mark you set, and the bloodlust found in Zionist writing is frankly off-the-charts.

        Have you ever read Moses Hess? Or Nahum Goldman’s “The Spirit of Militarism?

      5. Melissa

        And so over the course of one-hundred years or so, the Germans — nobody else — repeatedly initiated wars that plunged the continent and then the world into blood.

        “The historical mission of our world revolution is to rearrange a new culture of humanity to replace the previous social system. This conversion and re-organization of global society requires two essential steps: firstly, the destruction of the old established order; secondly, design and imposition of the new order.

        The first stage requires elimination of all frontier borders, nationhood and culture, public policy ethical barriers, and social definitions. Only then can the destroyed old system elements be replaced by the imposed system elements of our new order. The first task of our world revolution is destruction.”

        The Spirit of Militarism, 1915

    3. Carolinian

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=dorothy+thompson

      She was a prominent Hitler critic in the 1930s and married to Sinclair Lewis.

      As others here are pointing out Hitler was merely the loony spear point of a widespread elite sentiment of the time–anti-socialist, anti-semitic, anti-masses.

      Her husband was once considered a big deal and won the Nobel Prize for literature but seems like a fusty historical character now. Perhaps she does too. I recently re-read Main Street and wasn’t too impressed. He had sociological insights but it all seems a little heavy handed in retrospect.

      One does sense that we have plenty of people now who would be happy to play the new Hitler–and that doesn’t mean the doofy Trump–but the example of Hitler number one is holding them back. It could be the authoritarian impulse is a bit older than the 20th century.

    5. spud

      crack pot religious, libertarian, conservative, free trade economic beliefs all contribute to certain segments of the population becoming fascist.

      Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the baltics were all allies of Hitler and Mussolini
      who were essentially libertarians.

      the dutch who have a mean libertarian streak contributed a lot of volunteers for the fascists.

      https://www.historynet.com/in-the-uniform-of-the-enemy/

      “In the wartime Netherlands, however, collaboration was far from uncommon: far more Hollanders fought on behalf of the Nazis than in the armed resistance to the German occupation of their country.

      Verton and his compatriots were among the 22,000 to 25,000 Dutch who served in the Waffen-SS, the elite armed wing of the SS—the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel or “Protective Echelon”—infused with the doctrines of National Socialism and loyalty to Adolf Hitler. The armed resistance, in contrast, numbered only between 5,000 to 12,000, most joining in the last year of the war.”
      —————–
      What Fascism Is & Isn’t
      http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/chpt1.htm

      “In various speeches made shortly after the March on Rome, Mussolini stated, “We must take from state authority those functions for which it is incompetent and which it performs badly… I believe the state should renounce its economic functions, especially those carried out through monopolies, because the state is incompetent in such matters… We must put an end to state railways, state postal service and state insurance.” The state returned large monopolies to the private sector after returning them to profitability such as the Consortium of Match Manufactures, privatized the insurance system in 1923, the telephone system in 1925, and many of the public works.

      In Germany the Nazis announced they would end nationalization of private industries when they seized power. In 1932, Hitler returned control of the Gelsenkirhen company to private hands and in 1936 returned the stock of “United Steel” to private hands. Throughout 1933-1936, the Nazi returned to private hands the control of several banks: Dresdner, Danat, Commerz and Privatbank, the Deutsche Bank, and several others. In 1936, the steamship company Deutcher Schiff and Maschinenbau was returned to the private sector. In 1934, Dr. Schacht, the Nazi Minister of Economy, gave instructions to hasten the privatization of municipal enterprises. These enterprises were especially coveted by the rich industrialists, as they had been prosperous even during the depression.

      Both in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the tax system was changed to one favoring business and the wealthy. The Nazis allowed industries to deduct from their taxable income all sums used to purchase new equipment. Rich families employing a maid were allowed to count the maid as a dependent child and reap the tax benefit. In Italy, the Minister of Finance stated: “We have broken with the practice of persecuting capital.”73”
      —————–

      https://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/09/the_origins_of_.html

      “The Nazi Heritage of Privatization, by Michael Perelman: Privatization is very popular among laissez-faire types today. The recent issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives offers a … tale in which the term privatization is falsely credited to Peter Drucker. In fact, Nazis coined the term. Their intent was to skew the distribution of income toward the rich, with the objective of reducing consumption. After all, the rich have a lower marginal propensity to consume. ”

      so when you look at what bill clinton and albert gore did to america, you will understand that not only were they libertarians, but fascists ones to boot.

      1. Henry Moon Pie

        That’s an angle I had never considered. Very interesting. So is the rabid nationalism and leader worship is just a way to keep the plebes occupied? If that’s the case, I don’t think it’s going to work too well these days.

        “Rich families employing a maid were allowed to count the maid as a dependent child”

        As a youth, I frequently did overnights at the homes of wealthy classmates whose family’s had maids. More than once I heard, “They’re just like one of the family.” Another thing I had never realized before seeing a film clip recently was that the wearing of uniforms by maids was in part necessitated by the need to navigate de jure or de facto segregation on public transportation. Buses had signs permitting black riders only if they were in uniform.

        1. tevhatch

          Uniforms were important for managing the slave patrol ah hem, the police. Just like the police know not to go into certain neighborhoods to check for drunk driving, particularly near prom nights, they also know you don’t want to get the mayor or more importantly, the man who owned the mayor, mad because his dinner was late or his underwear un-pressed. Driving while black probably happens a lot less to men dressed as chauffeurs, now that would be an interesting statistic.

        2. spud

          Hitler and Mussolini were in the firm camp of the free traders

          protectionism is the foundation of national self-determination and is fundamental.

          https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nationalism-is-rising-not_b_10281138

          “Recently, there have been a number of articles and statements asserting that fascism is rising in Europe, and that Donald Trump is an American example of fascism. This is a misrepresentation of a very real phenomenon.

          The nation-state is reasserting itself as the primary vehicle of political life. Multinational institutions like the European Union and multilateral trade treaties are being challenged because they are seen by some as not being in the national interest.

          The charge of a rise in fascism comes from a profound misunderstanding of fascism. It is also an attempt to discredit the resurgence of nationalism and to defend the multinational systems that have dominated the West since World War II.

          Nationalism is the core of the Enlightenment’s notion of liberal democracy. It asserts that the multinational dynasties that ruled autocratically denied basic human rights. Among these was the right to national self-determination and the right of citizens to decide what was in the national interest.

          The Enlightenment feared tyranny and saw the multinational empires dominating Europe as the essence of tyranny. Destroying them meant replacing them with nation-states. The American and French revolutions were both nationalist risings, as were the risings that swept Europe in 1848. Liberal revolutions were by definition nationalist because they were risings against multinational empires.

          Fascism differs from nationalism in two profound ways. First, fascists did not consider self-determination a universal right. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, to mention three obvious fascists, only endorsed nationalism for Germany, Italy and Spain. The rights of other nations to a nation-state of their own was, at best, unclear to the fascists.

          In a very real sense, Hitler and Mussolini believed in multinationalism, albeit with other nations submitting to their will. Fascism was an assault on the right of nations to pursue their self-interest, and an elevation of the fascists’ right to pursue it based on an assertion of their nations’ inherent superiority and right to rule.”

          1. tevhatch

            “Hitler and Mussolini were in the firm camp of the free traders”.

            Nope. Hitler clearly was not. I’m less confident with Mussolini, but still don’t believe he was a free trade/open markets guy based on how he ran monopolies using state labour unions (a key part of Fascism, the original Italian one). Hitler clearly stated his economic beliefs in The “Shrinking Markets” model in “Zweites Buch (Secret Book): Adolf Hitler’s Sequel to Mein Kampf.” Jaico Publishing House, 2017. Junkers had his factory seized very early on because he resisted government intervention in all aspects of his business, and his letters make an interesting history of how bad the Nazis were at running an economy, and run or ruin it they did.

            1. spud

              https://braveneweurope.com/robert-tombs-percy-anderson-a-devastating-indictment-of-the-eu

              “The second article, ‘Ever Closer Union?’ (7 January) is a close examination of the history and functioning of the EU’s principal institutions: the Court, the Commission, the Council, the Parliament and the Central Bank. The founding fathers of the Court, notes Anderson, included former Nazis, an Italian fascist, and a French collaborator: nearly all appointees were not lawyers but politicians, as they remain. The Court has always been ‘the driving force of integration’ at the expense of the legal rights of nations and civil-society bodies such as trade unions. It has brazenly ignored or distorted European treaties and laws, acting beyond its powers in more of Middelaar’s ‘coups’. Most fundamental was its assertion that European law overrode national law—a theory first formulated by another former Nazi lawyer, Hans Peter Ipsen, but which had no basis in the European treaties. Most significant of all, the Court is unique in the world in being entirely unaccountable to anyone. Its decisions are secretive, final and effectively irreversible. In short, powers ‘that no analogue in a democracy has ever possessed.’”
              ——————-

              Globalization led Hitler to the American dream: hitler clearly was enamored by globalization and free trade, he based Mein Kampf on it, he also based the E.U. free trade zone on on it

              https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/03/nazi-germanys-american-dream-hitler-modeled-his-concept-of-racial-struggle-and-global-campaign-after-americas-conquest-of-native-americans.html

              “British advocacy of free trade, he believed, was political cover for British domination of the world. A prosperous Germany required exchange with the British world, but this trade pattern could be supplemented, thought Hitler, by the conquest of a land empire that would even the scales between London and Berlin.

              Once it had gained the appropriate colonies, Germany could preserve its industrial excellence while shifting its dependence for food from the British-controlled sea lanes to its own imperial hinterland.

              It was reassuring to Hitler that such an alteration of the world order, such a reglobalization, had been achieved before, in recent memory. For generations of German imperialists, and for Hitler himself, the exemplary land empire was the United States of America.”

              1. tevhatch

                Hitler does not equal all Nazis, particularly Nazis who survived WW2. The man/monster was all about Autarky, and a true believer in “The Shrinking Markets” model.

                Aly, G. “Hitler’s Beneficiaries: How the Nazis Bought the German People.” Verso, 2016. (Original German 2005).
                Barkai, A. “Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory, and Policy.” Yale University Press, 1990.
                Bel, G. “Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany.” Universitat de Barcelona, PDF.
                Birchall, I. “The Spectre of Babeuf.” Haymarket Books, 2016.
                Bosworth, R. “Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Dictatorship 1915-1945.” Penguin Books, Kindle 2006.
                Brown, A. “How ‘socialist’ was National Socialism?” Kindle, 2015.
                Engels, F “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.” Written, 1880. Progress Publishers, 1970.
                Evans, R. “The Coming of the Third Reich.” Penguin Books, Kindle 2004.
                Dilorenzo, T. “The Problem with Socialism.” Regnery Publishing, Kindle 2016.
                Farrell, N. “Mussolini: A New Life.” Endeavour Press Ltd, Kinde 2015.
                Feder, G. “The Programme of the NSDAP: The National Socialist German Worker’s Party and its General Conceptions.” RJG Enterprises Inc, 2003.
                Feder, G. “The German State on a National and Socialist Foundation.” Black House Publishing LTD, 2015.
                Friedman, M. “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition.” university of Chicago, Kindle 2002. (originally published in 1962)
                Grand, A. “Italian Fascism: It’s Origins and & Development.” University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
                Geyer, M. & Fitzpatrick, S. “Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared.” Cambridge University Press, Kindle 2009.
                Hazlitt, H. “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest & Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics.” Three Rivers Press, 1979. (originally published 1946)
                Hibbert, C. “Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce.” St Martin’s Press Griffin, 2008.
                Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932). (English translation)
                Hobsbawm, E. “The Age of Extremes: 1914-1991.” Abacus, 1995.
                Hoppe, H. “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism.” Kindle.
                Hitler. A. “Mein Kampf.” Jaico Books, 2017.
                Hitler, A. “Zweites Buch (Secret Book): Adolf Hitler’s Sequel to Mein Kampf.” Jaico Publishing House, 2017.
                Kershaw, I. “Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis.” Penguin Books, 2001.
                Kershaw, I. “Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison.” Cambridge University Press, Kindle 2003.
                Keynes, J. “National Self-Sufficiency,” The Yale Review, Vol. 22, no. 4 (June 1933), pp. 755-769.
                Marx, K. “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume I Book One: The Process of Production of Capital.” PDF of 1887 English edition, 2015.
                Marx, K. “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume III Book One.” PDF of 1894, English edition, 2010.
                Marx, K. “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume III Book One.” PDF, English edition, 2010. (Originally written 1894)
                Marx, K. “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume III Book One.” Penguin Classics, Kindle edition. (Originally written 1894)
                Mises, L. “Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.” Liberty Fund, 1981. 1969 edition (roots back to 1922).
                Moorhouse, R. “The Devil’s Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941.” Random House Group, Ebook (Google Play) 2014.
                Mosley, O. “Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered.” Black House Publishing, Kindle 2019.
                Muravchik, J. “Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism.” Encounter Books, Kindle.
                Mussolini, B. “The Doctrine of Fascism.” Kindle, Originally published in 1932.
                Newman, M. “Socialism: A Very Short Introduction.” Kindle.
                Luxemburg, R. “The Accumulation of Capital.” Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1951. (Originally written in 1913.)
                Luxemburg, R. “The National Question” 1910.
                Reimann, G. “The Vampire Economy: Doing Business under Fascism.” Kindle, Mises Institute, 2007. Originally written in 1939.
                Siedentop, L. “Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism.” Penguin Books, Kindle.
                Smith, A. “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” Kindle.
                Sowell, T. “Economic Facts and Fallacies: Second Edition.” Kindle.
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                Spengler, O. “Prussianism and Socialism.” Isha Books, 2013. First Published 1920.
                Temin, P. “Soviet and Nazi Economic Planning in the 1930s.” From The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Nov., 1991), pp. 573-593 (21 pages). Jstor.
                Tooze, A. “Wages of Destruction: The Making & Breaking of The Nazi Economy.” Penguin Books, 2007.
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                The American Economic Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, Papers and Discussions of the Twenty-third Annual Meeting (Apr., 1911), pp. 347-354
                Hitler’s Confidential Memo on Autarky (August 1936) http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English61.pdf
                Deficit Spending in the Nazi Recovery, 1933-1938: A Critical Reassessment

      2. Lex

        I’m more and more reminded that in the 30’s, Georgi Dimitrov – as committed a communist as one could be given that he was blamed for the reichstag fire and managed to get himself acquitted without giving up his political beliefs – said, “fascism is the political expression of finance capitalism”.

        For a communist to modify capitalism with a qualifier is significant. Which leads me to believe he saw the finance part as the real danger. Your post puts a lot of flesh on those bones. And helps to explain why Wall Street bankers were generally fond of European fascists.

      1. The Rev Kev

        True story here. During the Korean War the British had an officer who had been in Changi and so missed a coupla promotions. So they sent him out to Korea as he was familiar with the region and it would help his career. First day in his office they sent a Korean officer to be a liaison with him who went into his office. The rest of the staff then heard a loud bang and when they rushed in, found that the guy had shot that Korean officer stone dead. The British officer said quite calmly that yes, he recognized that b****** from Changi and that he was one of the worst guards so knew what to do straight away.
        His replacement was an officer who also spoke Finnish and who had ever been in Asia at all.

        1. tevhatch

          A Vietnamese classmate told me The South Korea Marines had an even worse reputation than the Australians for cruelty and fetishization of body parts. That’s probably an important ingredient in their ability to toady up to the US MIC/DOD. The South Korean Government, Reunification Church, and many Chabol organs are chock-a-block full of collaborators with the Japanese occupation. What’s one cruel master compared to another?

          1. rowlf

            The South Korea Marines responded that they acted in the manner of their opponents. A college classmate’s father was a ROK Marine Vietnam veteran and was one of the most intimidating people/veterans I ever met. Two sides of the same coin.

            Ben Ferencz says war crimes can only be avoided if countries avoid war in the first place. Not only will the bad guys commit them, the good guys will commit them, too. This is the natural course of humanity’s most destructive activity.

              2. rowlf

                South Korea aided the US war effort in Vietnam by providing troops in the border area between South and North Vietnam. There was a lot of controversy decades afterwards.

                (Thanks TRK for posting within my edit period)

                1. tevhatch

                  The South Korea Marines responded that they acted in the manner of their opponents. A college classmate’s father was a ROK Marine Vietnam veteran and was one of the most intimidating people/veterans I ever met. Two sides of the same coin.

                  Ah, so the Vietnamese didn’t invade South Korea, burn hamlets, and cut up people. Same side of the coin indeed.

  12. ChiGal

    thanks for the Hampton Institute article, whose analysis is exceptionally cogent. Makes a great case for supporting Cornel West so long as he uses his voice to articulate that it is capitalism itself that disenfranchises workers. Makes the case that he is less likely than Bernie was to be derailed by party politics and the whole electoral shit show.

  13. ChiGal

    thanks for the Hampton Institute article, whose analysis is exceptionally cogent. Makes a great case for supporting Cornel West so long as he uses his voice to articulate that it is capitalism itself that disenfranchises workers. Also argues that he is less likely than Bernie was to be derailed by party politics and the whole electoral shit show.

  14. Wukchumni

    Cosmic Luck: NASA’s Apollo 11 Moon Quarantine Broke Down New York Times
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Maybe a week after the trio got out of quarantine, our family went to the ticker-tape parade in Manhattan and we were about 4 lines of people back from the curb, with yours truly perched on daddy-o’s shoulders as the moon men came and went, and i’m pretty sure Neil was waving at me in particular…

    …every parade has paled in comparison since

  15. Carla

    From Medpage Today’s links:

    Attacks against medical workers and healthcare in conflict zones was the worst on record in 2022, with at least 232 workers killed and 298 kidnapped, a new report from the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition found.

    https://insecurityinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/SHCC-Report-Ignoring-Red-Lines.pdf

    Hhhm, USA USA is not listed as a “conflict zone,” although I had a pretty good hunch attacks against healthcare workers are up here as well, so I looked. Sure enough, from June 2022, still germane:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/03/tulsa-shooting-medical-health-assaults/7490186001/

  16. Chet G

    New Not-So-Cold War
    At this stage in the war, I would have hoped that there would be appearing a serious attempt by someone or some country being willing to negotiate, but everything seems as bad as ever. My example is Iceland closing its embassy in Russia and its requesting the Russian ambassador to leave Iceland.

  17. Darthbobber

    I see the old Dorothy Thompson article is already being weaponized, as Howie Klein incorporates lengthy quotes from it into his “Nazis then, Nazis now” screed on his ill-named Down With Tyranny blog.

  18. Roger Blakely

    Someone in Ohio is shedding new strain of COVID into sewers, professor says Cleveland.com

    The article says that wastewater surveillance is picking up a new strain. The article posits the theory that one person with long COVID-19 has so much diarrhea that the wastewater surveillance is picking up a new variant. The article also posits the theory that the variant is not contagious.

    Why can’t the variant be contagious? Why does it have to be one person with an extraordinary amount of diarrhea?

    What makes sense to me is that we have a variant that is harder on the GI tract than other variants. People use the restrooms in public buildings. Commercial toilets aerosolize the virus. HVAC systems distribute the virus to everyone in the building.

    BTW, I think that whatever variant we have right now, whether it is XBB.1.16 or XBB.1.9, generates a rash. I have a rash on my face and chest.

  19. Edward

    I want to make sure I understand this.

    Today Strelkov wrote:
    “Когда и их прорвут, можно будет говорить о том, что контрнаступ прошёл удачно. Если нет, то будет просто новая лбс с потенциалом заморозки конфликта.”

    Google translate:
    “When they break through, it will be possible to say that the counteroffensive was successful. If not, it will just be a new LBS with the potential to freeze the conflict.”

    What does “лбс” mean? In English it’s LBS, “laughing but serious.” But is that really what Strelkov said?

    Assuming the answer is yes, I interpret his words as meaning something. Namely, if the Ukrainian offensive stalls, then US/NATO could compel Kiev to come to terms with Russia immediately, regardless of whether Russian troops withdraw.

    Am I reading this Russian-language statement correctly?

    1. ThirtyOne

      ЛБС — линия боевого соприкосновения.
      LBS – line of combat contact

      1. Maxwell Johnston

        Exactly. Or simply “front line” or “line of contact.” Strelkov is saying that if UKR achieves a major breakthrough, then The Counteroffensive can be deemed to be successful. And if not, then the front line has just been moved forward and the possibility of a frozen conflict continues. Though I personally don’t think a frozen conflict a la Korea is even remotely in the cards.

        1. Edward

          “Though I personally don’t think a frozen conflict a la Korea is even remotely in the cards.”

          How do you see it turning out? Will be there be an actual ‘winner’ and ‘loser?”

  20. semper loquitur

    A request:

    I’m having a discussion with a friend about the recent Trump indictments. I’ve made the claim that these indictments constitute political lawfare on the part of the Democrats. I’ve gleaned this from some shows I’ve watched as well as some comments posted here but my argument is second hand at best. I try to avoid this topic generally.

    Does anyone have a nice juicy link or two detailing the unusual nature of these indictments? I’ve heard for example that Marvin Bragg is bundling a bunch of smaller charges into a (supposedly) bigger, more serious charge. I’ve also heard said that Biden has openly stated, ala NordStream, that they will take steps to stop Trump from running. I just need a few solid points to make my case and thanks so much in advance.

    2. flora

      I look at the timing and see this as MSM cover for bad news about B from getting much airtime. (I also agree it’s political lawfare to keep the leading B opponent from running again.)

      Over-the-top raid on Mar-a-Lago happened, iirc, 2 weeks after someone in gov (secret service?) discovered B was keeping classified govt papers in his garage.

      This T indictment came out the same week – last week ? – the FBI was compelled by the House Committee to produce the unclassified document from a trusted FBI source claiming B took a $5 million dollar “gratuity” for guiding US govt policies in some particular direction. Now the T indictment is taking up all the airtime, nary a peep from the MSM about the FBI disclosure.

      Probably all just a coincidence. / ;)

    4. semper loquitur

      Thanks everyone, of course I should have looked into Taibbi. I did catch the Greenwald video, which is a great overview of the tilted playing field when it comes to elites mishandling classified documents. I have the talking points I need to build on.

    5. Hickory

      Look for the msnbc Rachel Maddow segment posted here on NC in the last day. She discusses very clearly that Trump could get the charges to drop if he just agrees not to run.

      Hard to get more clear than that messaging!

  21. playon

    Why Does Research Focus on Treating Depression Rather Than Preventing It?

    Perhaps because prevention would necessitate a radical restructuring of modern civilization.

    1. Pat

      As in that treatment might mean an ongoing profit stream, whereas prevention probably wouldn’t.

      Why do I think they have modeled the “treatment” for obesity?

      1. hunkerdown

        No, as in the entire capitalist order is built upon pervasive and ubiquitous threats of abuse, and un-bent people have no interest in helping such an order continue to exist.

    1. Carolinian

      I’ve listened to that. I do think when Kirn is not funning around he may be a little too apocalyptic.But he does live in the state that once held the Unabomber (RI-not-P) cabin!

      Turley thinks a Trump trial before the election is unlikely given his challenges but if there is such a trial then hoo-boy. And if Turley is right any next president not named Biden (including a self-pardoning Trump) would surely cancel the whole thing.

      Bottom line: somebody, anybody must save us from Biden. DeSantis, RFK would be better. Ok Nikki might be worse but that’s about it.

      2. Wukchumni

        The cabin dimensions of a Unabanker in his G800 are very close to that of Ted’s, and most were also self-styled hermits similar in a fashion, who would never fly commercial.

        Their manifesto was the dangers financially if we didn’t go all in on high tech.

        1. Carolinian

          The FBI flew his cabin out of there by helicopter. They would probably do the same to Mar-a-Lago if they could but a bit larger.

          Our G-men are thorough.

    2. griffen

      I found the discussion about having a bland, generic party just to have some sort of meaningless cause but a cool looking flag to be a fun thought experiment. I think Matt led off that with the example of the Subtropical Russia Party. Might be a worthwhile thought exercise, maybe even have a little fun during a next open thread.

      “Let there be bananas in the Banana Republic” is a slogan I can get behind.

  23. semper loquitur

    How Powerful US Institutions Co-Opted the 2SLGTBQIA+ Movement

    System Update with Glenn Greenwald
    Jun 11, 2023

    A great discussion of the use of cultural issues for political ends including how the security state apparatus as well as the professional activist industry have hijacked LGBT etc. issues.

    “Activists can’t ever win.” is a choice bit. It’s because they would be out of a job. So the professional activist needs to always find a new fight…or better yet, create one. (Not all activists are like this!)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF2lbm_4H7Q

      1. Keith Newman

        @britzklieg, June 12, 2023 at 1:03 pm
        Trump is a shrinking violet compared to Silvio Berlusconi who named strippers to his cabinet and held wild “bunga-bunga” parties.

  25. Willow

    UK is obsessed with taking the battle to Russia & strongly believes , like in WW1 & WW2, that if a hot war starts in Europe US can be coaxed into joining. Which is what UK is telling Poland & Baltic States. If they make the first move against Russia, UK and then USA will follow them. This is UK’s last throw of the dice as a world power. Economically UK is failing and doesn’t have much time left. UK is a cornered rat and is motivated to do something very risky & stupid.

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