Links 8/13/2024

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1. Antifa August 13, 2024 at 7:01 am

   INSIDE THE HARRIS CAMPAIGN
   (melody borrowed from If You Could Read My Mind  by Gordon Lightfoot, 1970)

   Joe Biden’s been disposed of
   (Shoulda heard Jill Biden yell!)
   Joe got so frail and puny
   Not a chance of him getting well
   Cease your facile snark for the artless throngs!
   Campaigns must stay upbeat!
   Turn out for his VP!
   The White House doesn’t come for free
   His Veep’s dumb as a post but so was he

   Kamala gets a blind shove
   Willie Brown’s ersatz bombshell
   A rush choice—truly awful!
   We do as donor cash compels
   This could fall apart ere we beat the drums
   Of final victory!
   Kamala’s going stale
   She’s often called a scatterbrain
   Whose forte is to make all words opaque

   (musical interlude)

   Our big payday is some boozy bar
   Counting votes as we watch it flip
   Members of the coup . . .
   Our choosy queen will make the scene
   Proclaiming LGBTQ and T
   While the other side shouts, ‘Steal!’

   Each working day is a roundelay
   Bring her words to say without taking credit
   Ninety days looks awful long
   Miss those prelims that the Party had to hack

   She needs a hand in her glove
   Or she’ll fail and not speak well
   She gets so mad and moody
   We’re all toast once she starts to yell
   In her gravel bark—says we don’t belong
   Campaign faces defeat—just look at polling trends!

   She really must be mean at times
   And always has to have the upper hand
   No pats upon your back

   Are we stuck with her till Election Day?
   We sure earn our pay but her team’s not close-knit
   We try hard to get along
   But we’re dealing with a boss who’s just a flack

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2. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 7:18 am

   “The government of Pennsylvania seriously posted this. Check out the replies.”

   A quick bit of research suggest that there are maybe 9 million voters in the great State of Pennsylvania. You think that some intrepid reporter will dig into the archives and find out the average time for counting votes over the years? Especially when it was hand-counted paper ballots before computer-based voting was introduced to make counting votes more efficient and more faster? Yeah, I know. I would not be holding my breath waiting for this to happen-

   https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/dos/resources/voting-and-elections-resources/voting-and-election-statistics.html

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   1. marym August 13, 2024 at 8:26 am

      I don’t have specific information about PA, but it’s likely that through the 1960’s PA was using mechanical voting booths. The second link does show someone voting by placing a ballot in a box in 1948, so there must have been some variation. Total presidential votes in PA in 1948 was about 3.7M

      “By 1929 twenty-four states had passed laws permitting the use of voting machines as follows:…Pennsylvania 1929”

      https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/itl/vote/chapter7.pdf
      https://www.wsls.com/news/politics/2020/11/03/voting-throughout-the-years-these-photos-will-make-you-realize-how-much-has-changed/
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania

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      1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 9:03 am

         Never understood the need for introducing even mechanical voting booths over simple paper ballots as that only introduces one more additional step where things could go wrong. Case in point – the fiasco with the “hanging chads” in the 2000 Florida recount of the Presidential elections-

         https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting

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         1. marym August 13, 2024 at 9:30 am

            Starting at p. 259 of the first link above there’s a list of pros and cons for mechanical voting machines at the time (1933 per p. 249) followed by a 22 page detailed discussion. These machines were introduced in the late 19th century. They weren’t the technology used in the FL “hanging chad” election.

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         2. JTMcPhee August 13, 2024 at 5:05 pm

            Chicago voting booths were regularly “fixed.” Including having a ward committeeman or other “official” go in behind the curtain with the voter to be sure they pulled the lever for a straight Dem ticket. Dead voters, stolen ballot boxes. Interesting that DDG/Google makes it hard to find the history.

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      2. Posaunist August 13, 2024 at 4:51 pm

         I first voted in 1972 in PA. It was a pull-the-lever voting booth, don’t remember any more specifics. I lest PA 20 years later, still the same. Now that I’m in Colorado it’s all mail/drop off voting. Very convenient, although I understand the possible problem with early voting. Being a lifelong procrastinator, I don’t have that problem.

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3. JohnA August 13, 2024 at 7:37 am

   Re Pigeon left cannabis at a cafe in Stockholm

   Well it was in Södermalm, the hipster district of Stockholm.

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4. griffen August 13, 2024 at 7:50 am

   City in California becomes first local PD to have an all electric vehicle fleet of new Tesla….shades of the early 90s film Demolition Man? Funny as that was movie running last evening on one of the usual movie channels, it’s still a crazy but fun film, if not weirdly unsettling. Cops in the futuristic era of the film just weren’t equipped to fight much of anything.

   Be well, comrades! I shall dine at the Taco Bell of San Angeles this fine Tuesday. \sarc

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   1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 8:00 am

      ‘Cops in the futuristic era of the film just weren’t equipped to fight much of anything.’

      Got that right. And it is an excellent film which I can fully recommend-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlyMZNURdmc (1:34 mins)

      Think that I might go for a rat burger now.

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      1. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 9:20 am

         I can’t help but think of this parody. Hybrid Power

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      2. griffen August 13, 2024 at 10:05 am

         I always found the future scenario with speech cleaned up to an Orwellian phase, possibly the director or producer using it as a means for a lighthearted attempt* at inside humor. As it turns out instead…the film has a high degree of predictive quality as to acceptable speech and what is loosely termed today as harmful. I think many can perhaps agree, harmful rhetoric is a little different from straight out political bullcrap ( no matter it’s source, a politician or news media ).

         The mounted speech monitors in the police force location, for example….and that toilet paper is deemed harmful for the environment!

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      3. Laura in So Cal August 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm

         My husband and I watched it for the 1st time last weekend. It was a good time!. My husband actually said “put me back in the freezer” before Stallone did.

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   2. Mikel August 13, 2024 at 11:27 am

      Running Man still cuts too close to home.

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5. begob August 13, 2024 at 7:58 am

   I believe that ‘Mr Bean’ speech is from 2012. His brother, Rodney Atkinson, posts at freenations.net – seems libertarian, but with emphasis on protesting the resurgence of fascism in Europe.

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   1. Mr. Woo August 13, 2024 at 8:38 am

      Good spot. Was about to say the same

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      1. Revenant August 13, 2024 at 6:31 pm

         Rowan Atkinson is an (cough!) “unusual” person, especially for luvvie. He has an Oxford MPhil in electrical engineering and briefly began a PhD. Other actor types accuse him of being rigid and not suffering fools. I suspect he just has a stubborn physical scientist’s Asperger’s/male trait argumentative certainty in his view of the world, which puts him at odds with the people pleasers.

         On the topic of liberty, he has long been on the side of the angels and he was a major star in the daring early Secret Policeman’s Ball shows by Amnesty in the 1980’s.

         https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Policeman%27s_Ball_(1979)

         https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uWJ7bhKYsuw

         Mr Bean is funny but the least witty of his triumphs. It showcases his amazing rubber physicality and his intelligence, to make a comedy that could sell globally and be understood by all, rather than the sardonic wordplay that made his name in sketches and Blackadder.

         Blackadder is his best work because the wit and mockery and dysfunction never died but weirdly in that hostile space real pathos grew across the series. Series 3 is the most consistently funny, with the Prince Regent, but Series 4 is the greatest. Blackadder is Britain and died in WW1….

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         1. Terry Flynn August 14, 2024 at 3:06 am

            Thanks Revenant. I had spotted that the video was actually about a potential Cameron era law but said nothing when others already pointed this out. I didn’t know the details of his degrees but knew of his more general reputation.

            I remember the first time someone on TV explained what was hitherto incomprehensible to me: why so many people across the planet love Mr Bean. Of course – it’s the fact its humour has little to do with language. I liked the very first Mr Bean episode, then after watching the 2nd I vowed never to go near that rubbish again.

            As you say, Blackadder was his finest. I am also in a minority who think the first Blackadder was pretty funny. Granted, the humour was obviously different and the quality could be inconsistent, but there definitely were a lot of good jokes in it. I do understand that Blackadder worked better when they were highly budget constrained.

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            1. Lazar August 14, 2024 at 8:43 am

               Here’s some trivia for Blackadder fans. In Serbian, black adder translates to crna guja. There is a Blackadder inspired series called Crni Gruja.
               https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375289/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_2_nm_0_in_0_q_crni%2520grujo

               P.S. British humour have always been popular in the region, and John Challis (known as Boyce from Only Fools and Horses) became an honorary citizen of Serbia.
               https://www.boycieinbelgrade.com/

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               1. Terry Flynn August 14, 2024 at 8:47 am

                  Wow. We get such anti-Serb propaganda here in UK I’d never have known something like that – thanks!

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                  1. Lazar August 14, 2024 at 9:32 am

                     Serbs have always loved Brits, and Germans, and French, just like Russians have (in spite of all the crap they got in return). That’s why Slavs have been considered naive (and even dumb). You can imagine the disappointment Russians and Serbs feel for “the collective west” in the recent decades.

                     P.S. While on the subject of trivia, and TV, and Brits, some of the best Yugoslav children’s TV series were made by a guy from UK, Timothy John Byford.
                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_John_Byford

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                     1. Terry Flynn August 14, 2024 at 9:44 am

                        I remember watching a YouTube channel about the “frankly weird” kids’ TV we watched in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some of it came from the then Yugoslavia (but I think I’m right that it was predominantly Serbian creators). It was WILD…..like so much 1980s TV.

                        It’s the kind of thing we’d look up to watch if we’re on something (sadly I’m on too much prescription meds to risk naughtiness these days) but I remember thinking “WTF is this? But I gotta watch!”

                        It’s like what they did to Japanese adult cartoons to give us Battle of the Planets……something seemed “off” even to us 8 year olds but that’s partly what made it so watchable.

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6. KD August 13, 2024 at 7:58 am

   There is a lot of criticism of the Kursk offensive, but its been reported that Russia de-mined the borders around Sumy and Ukraine was anticipating a future Russian attack on that front (and why would the Russians de-mine the border near Sumy if they did not have such a plan). By going in, Ukraine caught the Russians with their pants down, and gained the tempo. Even if it does turn into an attritional kill-box for Ukraine, at least its on Russian soil and scored some PR points.

   Ukraine could have put more reserves in Donbas, but that would leave a potential hole in Sumy that the Russians could exploit, and the road to Kiev is shorter from Sumy than Chasiv Yar. Yes, its probably going to be an attritional kill-box, but so is Donbas. Ukraine has a huge problem with man power and material, but I’m not sure Kursk wasn’t a clever gambit, given the hand that Ukraine has to play.

   On the Russian side, its unclear where Russia is going. Their military spending is up around 8% of GNP, they have an economist in the MOD to help manage the economic impact of the war. I wouldn’t say Russia is on the verge of collapse, but they are getting to an economic scale with military spending where it begins to significantly distort the economy as well as future prospects for Russia’s development (schools increase human capital, wars, bombs and soldiers effectively waste it). Hopefully for the Ukrainians, the Russians have enough concerns about the long-term impacts of the war on their society that they might come to the table. The diplomatic signal is the opposite, but one would assume the Russians would make that signal even if they wanted to get to the table because they wouldn’t want to encourage the Ukrainians in their behavior (for both domestic and geopolitical reasons). But hope is about all the Ukrainians have going for them at this point.

   My 2 cents. Now everyone can point out how I’m wrong.

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   1. Safety First August 13, 2024 at 9:38 am

      Addressing only a few of the possible points.

      1. Mines.

      Minefields, and all field fortifications, only mean anything if there are troops to cover or occupy them. In other words, without military units covering a minefield, the enemy will just deploy sappers and engineering vehicles and clear lanes through it. Conversely, as had happened in the summer of 2023, a minefield combined with overwhelming firepower from nearby defenders can quickly break up and destroy attacking columns, who cannot deal with either threat.

      The problem faced by the Russians in the Kursk region is that, for reasons that can be debated, they left that part of the border pretty much unmanned. It does not matter whether the mines were there or not if the Ukrainians had several hours to cross the region with relative impunity. [Besides which, you would not expect the main roads to be mined once you’re a mile or two past the border in any case, and that’s how the Ukrainian mobile groups made their mad dash.] I would argue the real “pants down” moment for the Russians was the Ukrainian use of electronic warfare to effectively shut down their comms and recon capabilities over the border in those first few critical hours, though obviously that success was relatively short-lived.

      And meanwhile, the thesis that they “removed the mines in preparation for an offensive” – and we do not have any official source confirming this, by the way – fails when you consider that they had to rush troops from various regions to establish a battle line once things got underway. If you had a reserve corps hanging out even 30 miles past the border, waiting for the go signal, there would not be a rush, nor would there be a hodgepodge of units acting as first responders.

      2. Ukrainian strategy.

      The military problem the Ukrainians have to solve is that they are facing an enemy with a much bigger military force, with more firepower, and with relative dominance (at least on their side of the line of contact) in the air. There aren’t many solutions to this, but none of them entail something like the Kursk assault.

      One – you could use terrain to neutralize the numerical disparity, e.g. pull back to a shorter front line. Strictly theoretically, if you could reduce the attack surface to a single village, as opposed to >1000 kilometres, you’d be in much better shape.

      Two – you could skew the casualty exchange ratio in your favour by pulling back to a near-impregnable position, like…the Dnieper River. One of the largest rivers in Europe, by the way. You’d still be pounded by Russian bombs, but at least they’d have a much tougher time carving you up with tanks and assault units.

      Three – emphasis on counter-attacks. Hold the first line with relatively few troops, and have them pull back at the first sign of real trouble instead of dying in place, but every time the enemy bursts through your first line, you hit him with your mobile striking units. Or, at least, try. Which necessitates not frittering away said mobile striking units in offensives in the Kursk region.

      Four – attack the enemy’s morale and logistics. I don’t see what the Ukrainians could do to undermine Russian morale at this point, given 80% war support (and only about 10% against, with the remainder in the “undecided” column), and Russian logistics are too vast and too deep to meaningfully disrupt using what firepower Ukrainians actually have on hand, but at least it’s a thing you could try. Kursk has nothing to do with this, however.

      So from a strategy standpoint, the Ukrainians abandoned all of this pretty basic stuff, and decided to try the good old British “coup de main”, a quick, flashy, costless offensive somewhere on the periphery that magically wins the war. Maybe they wanted to replicate Kharkov 2022, maybe they wanted to take the nuke plant and threaten a dirty bomb, whatever. The Brits used to love these kinds of ops, most of which, however, never actually achieved anything. I suspect this is why even Western analysts are, for the most part, shrugging their collective shoulders. Yes, there are short-term PR benefits, and maybe the Ukrainian leadership thinks that stunts like this will somehow lead to more American weapons. Or, perhaps, they have convinced themselves that if or when the Ukrainian army collapses, NATO troops will step in and save the present Kiev regime, so in the meanwhile might as well spend the few reserves available on flashy ops. Who knows.

      3. Sustainability of the Russian war effort.

      This is where I point out that even if the Ukrainian war were to end tomorrow, the Russians would decidedly not wind down their defence industry, probably quite the opposite. This is why, I think, they put an economist into the Defence Ministry, to integrate a permanently elevated level of defence production into the broader economy. And, meanwhile, the government somehow finds the time and the resources to start making massive, massive civilian infrastructure investments, everything from roads to hotels inclusive. I mean…they could be doing all this knowing that their economic resources will only last for a year or two. Or they could simply be restructuring the economy along more Keynesian lines, fully expecting that this new structure can be self-sustaining for at least a few decades, e.g. the US from the 1930s to the 1960s.

      You are correct that human capital is their biggest problem, and this is partly why their tactics in Ukraine have been so…parsimonious with troops. It’s even the small things, like sitting back and shelling the Krynki bridgehead for months instead of spending a hundred or so lives to clear it out once and for all. In the long run, unless they somehow correct Russian demographics via higher birth rates and higher in-migration, they are going to have a problem. Not China’s expected minus 500 million population problem, but something similar. In the next few years, however? I rather doubt there’ll be a big hick-up within that time frame, provided they don’t do anything wildly stupid.

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      1. jsn August 13, 2024 at 10:52 am

         To your last point, it appears the last century of US meddling in Central Europe has simply pushed something very much like Prussia, but with more colorful cultural traditions a bit further East.

         Took a hundred years to drop the P.

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         1. Polar Socialist August 13, 2024 at 12:33 pm

            Since Muscovy centralized the Russian state in the 16th century, it has always retained the capability of rising and arming huge armies. Czar has always had imperial armories making and storing quantities of arms.

            Russia has never had naturally defensible borders, and since big standing armies are expensive, the solution has always been a relatively large cadre army supported by a large reserve corps. My grandmother’s father draw a reserve company position in lottery when 22 years old, and so had to spend 3, 2 and one week of the next three summers respectively in training camp with the regular army.

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            1. jsn August 13, 2024 at 12:51 pm

               Living next door to Prussia, give or take the periodic recrudescence of Poland in one place or another, the Russians were forced to pay attention to Prussia.

               The adaptations you mention make perfect sense.

               I wonder if the the Russian General Staff had a rot set in as ours does now toward the end of the Soviet period. I remember the Kursk Submarine disaster, their navy then looked alot like ours now.

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      2. Maxwell Johnston August 13, 2024 at 11:20 am

         Thanks for this long and thoughtful comment.

         UKR displayed some clever EW during this attack. They assembled a sizeable force without drawing RU attention. As per RU media, they even took control of the traffic cameras on Kursk region’s main roads, in order to observe RU troop movements in real time. And RU troops complained of disrupted communications networks which hampered their response. Well played, I tip my hat.

         As for RU economy: putting the technocratic Belousov in charge of the defense ministry (and the ongoing purges and arrests of Shoigu’s old guard) is a clear signal that RU plans to keep military expenditures elevated for many years to come. RU’s demographic situation is actually better than that of many EU countries, but there are growing signs of a labor shortage in many sectors of the economy. A solution will have to be found: either more immigration (tricky), more babies (trickier), or more robots and automation (the most likely answer, IMHO, using Chinese tech). But I don’t think that demographics will impact RU’s ability to wage war over the next decade or so.

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         1. urdsama August 13, 2024 at 11:56 am

            Well played tactically, but ultimately stupid on their part.

            The Ukraine now has no hope, if there ever was much, of peace talks. And Russian can now label them as terrorists based on the UKR attack of a nuclear facility.

            Putin couldn’t have asked for a better setup.

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            1. jsn August 13, 2024 at 12:17 pm

               This was NATO genuses testing some new kit, they don’t care about the Ukrainian cannon fodder.

               We’ve heard these were “elite” Ukrainian troops, I though Azov was on their Brown Shirt tour of the EU, but it has occured to me part of the Zelensky motive for this effort would be to get rid of some of the ultras who’ve been threatening him.

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               1. urdsama August 13, 2024 at 12:33 pm

                  Not seen any evidence of NATO involvement, beyond the standard.

                  Pretty sure Armchair Warlord or Russians With Attitude would have brought this up if it was the case. They usually have a balanced and informed perspective. Their info so far points to the Ukraine wanted to cause chaos and disruption…with unclear end goals. Maybe it will come out in the coming days.

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                  1. jsn August 13, 2024 at 12:41 pm

                     I don’t buy that Ukraine has the surveillance capabilities and the EW capability to do what they did without NATO assistance.

                     Without NATO, Ukraine is blind.

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                     1. urdsama August 13, 2024 at 1:33 pm

                        But such surveillance is nothing new. It has been suspected they have been getting such aid for months, if not longer.

                        To clarify, I was responding to the “testing some new kit” theory. Even more doubtful in light of the coming US elections.

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   2. ilsm August 13, 2024 at 9:39 am

      Note well, some in US consider pentagon consuming less than 7% (as was in the 50’s to 70’s) of US GDP is letting Putin win!

      Nice for you to worry about the Russian economy.

      Russian considers the incursion into Kursk a terrorist operation, noting war crimes on civilians and property.

      Will Russia talk to NATO?

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   3. jsn August 13, 2024 at 10:46 am

      The Kursk RT and the Indian Punchline Bangladesh articles seem to indicate the collapse of US competence fallen to the level where actual competence remains, at least in Ukraine and South-East Asia.

      In Ukraine, amazingly and for the first time in this war NATO launched an offensive without telling Russia exactly where and how, months in advance. Some Command deadwood appears to have been removed, or maybe attrited in Kinzal strikes.

      In Bangladesh, we see Donald Lu can still manage a Color Revolution, apparently absorbing all the Langley talent from the West-Asia and South/Central American desks.

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   4. Maxwell Johnston August 13, 2024 at 11:18 am

      Shortly after the Crocus City terrorist attack last March, I posted a comment on NC predicting that RU might blame UKR for the attack and use it as an excuse to upgrade its SMO to either an anti-terrorist operation (КТО) or even a formal declaration of war vs UKR.

      Well, it’s now a KTO, but on RU soil: Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions are now KTO zones….. not quite what I expected! So let’s count this as yet another failed prediction from my side.

      Of course this incursion is a silly gambit on UKR’s part (Hitler’s Ardennes offensive in late 1944 looks sane by comparison) and will be crushed with heavy losses borne by UKR, but it’s embarrassing for RU. I still think that at some point, RU will have to escalate in order to bring this conflict to a victorious finish. But RU doesn’t seem to be in any hurry.

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   5. Ignacio August 13, 2024 at 11:44 am

      One has to sniff or smoke something very strong to come to the belief that the Kursk offensive (or stunt) will bring the Russians to a negotiation table.

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      1. TomW August 13, 2024 at 1:04 pm

         This is an attempt to manipulate the US into additional engagement. They are getting info war PR out of this. The US MSM doesn’t have a developed narrative, so the vacuum is being filled recycling early ‘plucky Ukrainians’ narrative. The US public is viewing this as an extension of the Paris Olympic Games. The US Presidential election is the single most important event for Ukraine’s hopes.
         Meanwhile, Russian escalation might suck the US in deeper. After crossing every other ‘red line’, if Ukraine can get the US officially on board, this is undefendable.. This was done largely without knowledge or permission of the US. but already there is a feeding frenzy… WSJ editorials, Lindsey Graham, ISW, the bloviating generals, etc. See the latest ISW piece…https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-and-problem-restoring-maneuver-contemporary-war. Ukraine and the Problem of Restoring Maneuver in Contemporary War

         Wars are promoted in the US by reference to WW 2 and Munich. Not WW 1. So the static lines in Ukraine were a pr problem.

         When this is over, no one will believe how little anyone achieved.

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7. griffen August 13, 2024 at 8:05 am

   Looking at the antidote above, and to make note I’m not a pet owner. Indeed that’s a magnificent pose. I spy…a field mouse?

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   1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 8:18 am

      It’s remarkable that photo. That cat was 16 years old and yet it’s hunting instincts are as sharp as ever. It’s ears are flared up and its eyes are wide open.

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      1. Nikkikat August 13, 2024 at 10:08 am

         That is one beautiful cat! Love the spots and stripes. For 16
         Looks in very good shape. Lovely pose.

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8. Ben Panga August 13, 2024 at 8:10 am

   Re: Labour/social media.

   Keir, to much media cheering, has already said “we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder “.

   This means strengthening the Online Safety Act (reasonable overview here).

   I shudder to think what this will look like. Dystopian is overused but may be appropriate here. A key phrase will be “legal but harmful”, a type of speech that will likely be made illegal. I’d expect them to put strong conditions on tech companies to police this together with (selectively) prosecuting individual posters.

   Who will decide on what is “harmful”? Presumably the usual combination of government and disinfo-complex goons.

   What does “harmful” mean? In the great British tradition this can be kept conveniently vague, allowing 1. Discretionary punishment and censorship and 2. Citizens to be generally anxious about wrong-speech.

   Given e.g. Keir’s willingness to propagate the Corbyn antisemitism hoax, and his utter commitment to a nation that obeys the state this should be awful.

   The legacy media will cheer him on as they mostly lean repressive and would love to see their commercial rivals (FB etc) crippled. Any voices against this will be peripheral.

   God knows what other new repressive ideas they will come up with to add to the revised act.

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   1. Carolinian August 13, 2024 at 9:42 am

      The guiding principle of the Biden administration is that there is no downside to being wrong about everything as long as you can use your power to censor those who are right. Clearly Keir etc. are offering Joe the sincerest form of flattery with the lack of UK free speech protections further turbocharging the police (state?) repression.Orwell knew his fellow Airstrip One inhabitants well it seems.

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9. Mark Gisleson August 13, 2024 at 8:14 am

   Strongly disagree with Mizrahi. I find it noncredible that he has never met any truly selfish people. Mizrahi dismisses greed far too easily, sees it as a one-step process. Greed is multi-layered. It starts with need, then becomes wanting, then attaining, then protecting. Paranoia is the prize for the victors.

   Fear of losing wealth drives rich people crazy. Other people want your stuff. Which people? And that’s when the hate kicks in. Fear of losing power/wealth tricks employers into hating employees, it’s why slave owners hated slaves. If you oppress someone to get rich, you will always believe those you oppressed will seek revenge.

   Slave owners preached racism to enlist poor whites to their cause. Employers funded police depts to help break up unions. This process spreads the “othering” that leads to hating the oppressed.

   Israel right now is an extreme example of this. Greed for a homeland has led to hatred of those who rightfully own what Israel has stolen.

   Hate is a byproduct of other emotions like greed, envy and paranoia stemming from the need to have more stuff than the others around you. How often have you hated someone on first sight? it’s rare unless the context is compelling. Hating others is common but there are always reasons. Love can be irrational but hate is always focused and as the hate grows the justifications become myriad.

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   1. eg August 13, 2024 at 8:21 am

      With respect to Mizrahi’s “Maybe Murder and Humiliation is the Whole Point” those of us who understood Conrad’s Heart of Darkness already knew this, though I would observe that it’s never just one thing where large scale human endeavours are concerned — sadism in some does not negate the possibility of greed (along with other motivations) among others …

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   2. vidimi August 13, 2024 at 8:45 am

      His is an interesting thesis. I don’t know to what extent it is true. Human behaviour is messy and complicated. Maybe sometimes the motivator is cruelty; maybe other times it’s greed. I suspect fear and guilt play a role. Maybe you don’t intend to murder, but once you’ve stolen something from someone, as long as that person is there, you will never know peace because in your mind they will always want it back. Death – yours or his – becomes the only way out if you don’t intend to give back what is not yours. Settler-colonialism, therefore, is always destined for genocide.

      Reply ↓
      1. Hank Linderman August 13, 2024 at 9:18 am

         I didn’t agree with his thesis. It seems to me that greed for wealth and power remain as the primary motivators for those at the top – but implementing these goals? You need a special sort of human monster to do the actual work of subjugation and exploitation, thus the cruelty and murder.

         Of course those who benefit are complicit, but their physical hands are clean. Or so they believe…

         Best…H

         Reply ↓
   3. dingusansich August 13, 2024 at 9:11 am

      Mizrahi confuses cause and effect.

      Power corrupts. That corruption alters moral frameworks, the sense of right and wrong. People who see peers as co-subjects begin to see the dominated as objects, less than fully human, even animalistic. That’s an engraved invitation to the id. What had been unthinkable becomes doable.

      Reply ↓
      1. t August 13, 2024 at 9:58 am

         But some people are just born to wake up every day determined to “win” and see everything as a battle to defeat losers. Some people go wrong and spend all day, every day, trying to force the world to conform to the grandiose fantasies in their own feverish brains.

         Not a huge percentage, but not to be ignored.

         (And autocorrect is having a day! “Everythin” = wrestling. “Defeat loser” = defeat lovers.)

         Reply ↓
   4. PlutoniumKun August 13, 2024 at 10:05 am

      His notion that cruelty to native peoples is somehow unique to European colonialism is deeply unhistoric. There are numerous examples of conquests that involved extreme cruelty and slaughter, often beyond anything that can be ascribed to just greed – across history and prehistory. The Aztecs where famously cruel to ‘lesser’ tribes – as were most of the Uto-Aztecan peoples (including the Comanche). The San hunter gatherer peoples of Africa were largely annihilated by the Bantus long before the Europeans arrived, and for that matter, the Arabic peoples were enslaving and killing Africans en mass before then too. The Maori and other Polynesians often waged seemingly pointless wars of utter annihilation and cruelty against other tribes that showed weakness. The herding people of Central Asia regularly carried out genocide against whoever they rolled over, from Europe to China. The Japanese were cruel in the extreme when conquering Korea, and the Koreans in turn had wiped out many of the tribal peoples of the north by the 18th Century. And as for New Guinea… The list goes on and on.

      While there are all sorts of reasons for it, there are certainly cultural elements involved. At the moment I’m doing a little reading about the Elizabethan Wars in Ireland. The Irish Gaelic chieftains at the time loved a bit of war, but they seemed genuinely horrified by what they saw as the pointless cruelty of the English invaders (the likes of Drake and the Earl of Essex regularly slaughtered surrendered soldiers and civilians). This made no sense to the Gaelic peoples – they whole point of war as they saw it was to win captives and then use them for negotiation to get what you want, and this depended on a series of unwritten rules as to how the defeated were treated. No doubt part of the success of some European imperialists was their particular ruthlessness, but they were by no means unique in this historically.

      Reply ↓
      1. begob August 13, 2024 at 10:57 am

         The lives of Humphrey Gilbert, Peter Carew, and the Norreys brothers give an eye-popping insight on the Elizabethan urge for conquest.

         Reply ↓
         1. chuck roast August 13, 2024 at 4:24 pm

            And here we have William Walker and his various spawn…is there a gene?

            Reply ↓
      2. Albe Vado August 13, 2024 at 4:11 pm

         It wasn’t just in Korea; the ‘Japanese’ were cruel to, well, the actual Japanese. The term shogun was originally sei-i taishogun, which basically (almost word for word) means ‘barbarian subjugating general’. Purging the natives was foundational for the Yamato Japanese state.

         Related, how often does any of this even get a mention in Japanese fiction? How often are Emishi or other Jomon groups featured in fiction? Very seldom. Seldom even mentioned, rarer still any sort of sympathetic portrayal (Princess Mononoke is probably the most famous one). There is, so far as I know, no Japanese equivalent of something like Last of the Mohicans, or Dances with Wolves (and I’m not saying such things are flawless in their portrayals, but they’re at least trying).

         Reply ↓
      3. JTMcPhee August 13, 2024 at 10:53 pm

         Not a word in here about the once and future champs of slaughter, the Hebrews? And their present incarnation by adoption in our ever-murderous, ever-greedy, determined-to-never-be-a-freier Israel ites?

         Reply ↓
   5. JohnH August 13, 2024 at 11:00 am

      I found what he was driving at has a parallel with an observation I’ve made with regards to US police forces and the “particular individuals” that do that work, which is that I think a lot of these guys are attracted to the job due to the nature of the work (license to act violently, etc) despite the pay, rather than to the pay, despite the nature of the work.

      Reply ↓
   6. lyman alpha blob August 13, 2024 at 1:50 pm

      Maybe it’s just semantics trying to determine whether power or greed is more responsible – they are pretty interrelated.

      I do agree with him though about the power aspect. It is in some humans’ nature to want to control others. Most of those who would like to never get the opportunity to on a large scale. But almost everybody can do it on a small scale, something to which anyone who has ever waited tables for any period of time can attest to.

      You learn a lot about human nature when you are getting paid $5/hr and depending on tips to pay the rent, and it is no fun at all to have to bite your tongue as a customer orders you around on multiple small tasks that aren’t really necessary, just because this is the one time in their life they are in charge of someone else. The majority of patrons do not behave like this, but a significant enough portion do, and they do it because they can.

      Reply ↓
   7. Kouros August 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm

      David Graeber in his work on Debt argues that the debt incurred to cross the Atlantic and all equipment, etc. made the invaders overly sanguine so that they can pay their debts and make some profit…

      Reply ↓
   8. Albe Vado August 13, 2024 at 3:50 pm

      The whole article is an exercise in idealism over materialism.

      Greed is the ultimate point of empire and colonialism. No one would bother with the expense and effort for any other reason.

      On the smaller scale, call it the tactical level, the colonial environment may provide opportunities for psychopaths to rise to power, and the intricacies of specific incidents may not directly map to the profit motive. But at the strategic level the colonies wouldn’t exist in the first place if there was no money to be made. No government or corporation (fur traders, mining firm, oil company, whatever) would bother investing if they saw no future profit in doing so.

      Reply ↓
10. Lovell August 13, 2024 at 8:15 am

    Re: “US offering Maduro amnesty”

    Is that a joke or utter hubris?

    Reply ↓
    1. JohnA August 13, 2024 at 8:35 am

       Let us hope it is hubris, and to be inevitably followed by nemesis.

       Reply ↓
    2. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 9:28 am

       It’s a thinly veiled threat, and another thread in the narrative. This is American “diplomacy”.

       Reply ↓
    3. Wukchumni August 13, 2024 at 10:03 am

       Interesting parallels with Francisco Madero, who would’ve filled the role of say Guaidó about 110 years ago in Mexico, while in exile in the USA.

       Similar name, similar game on our part.

       Reply ↓
11. Captain Obvious August 13, 2024 at 8:25 am

    Want to know how kinky you are? This new scientific scale can tell you PsyPost (Chuck L)

    There is a new scientific scale that tells how scientific scientific scales are. This one rates about four fifths less than yesterday’s article about planning and strategising horses.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs August 13, 2024 at 10:50 am

       Yeah, I’m apparently very kinky according to that silly measurement. I sincerely doubt the rest of the world is as boring as all that…

       Reply ↓
12. upstater August 13, 2024 at 8:27 am

    Democracy in action, NY State edition:

    Judge rules against RFK Jr. in fight to be on New York’s ballot, says he is not a state resident AP

    Clear Choice Action, the Democrat-aligned political action committee that backed the legal challenge on behalf of several voters in the state, said the ruling shows Kennedy intentionally misled election officials and betrayed voters’ trust.

    Jill Stein apparently didn’t obtain enough signatures to get on the ballot in NY State and filed suit. Kennedy will do the same. I believe there will be no third party options in New York. This is the intentional result of Cuomo’s COVID-era election reforms, rubber stamped by the legislature.

    Reply ↓
    1. doug August 13, 2024 at 9:06 am

       34 pages worth of ‘no soup for you’ for RFKjr.
       I recall Hillary was instantly a ‘new yorker’ with not that different of a domicile. Perhaps my memory is failing me there.

       Reply ↓
       1. t August 13, 2024 at 10:04 am

          Her campaign had years of expensive consulting prior to her selecting an office to run for and groundwork was likely laid. Very likely they had a pied-à-terre in Epstein territory, for convenience if there wasn’t already a home in the state somewhere. The foundation is based there, too, I think. But like you, I am too lazy to look up anything Clinton related.

          Reply ↓
       2. Bugs August 13, 2024 at 11:08 am

          The Clintons bought their Chappaqua house in Sept 1999 when HRC was already in the running for the Senate seat (she declared July 7) and was getting attacked for not having a residence there.

          The financing was classic Clintonian flimflammery: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/03/nyregion/with-some-help-clintons-purchase-a-white-house.html

          I don’t see how this is any different from RFK2 having a house in NYC that he doesn’t spend much time at. She was living in the White House until Jan 20, 2000.

          Reply ↓
       3. doug August 13, 2024 at 5:02 pm

          Spouse reminded me of Libby Dole, who claimed to live at her mother’s house for her NC Senate run. not an issue…..She did not by the way…

          Reply ↓
13. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 8:28 am

    “Want to know how kinky you are? This new scientific scale can tell you”

    Wait. Is this an offshoot of the Rice Purity test? Asking for a friend-

    https://ricepuritytest4u.com/

    Lots of opportunities for blackmail if you could get a hold of other people’s answers.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ben Panga August 13, 2024 at 8:42 am

       I found the kink test to be very vanilla. There are other much better tests around but I will not sully this family blog with them.

       And I’m definitely not sharing my rice purity score!

       Tangential: I’ve long been wondering why the Venn Diagram of table-top game (DnD etc) enthusiasts and kink/poly folk overlaps so much. If you’ve been around the kink community you’ll know what I mean.

       Reply ↓
       1. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 9:34 am

          The kink test may be tame, but the article is a treasure trove of pre-written parody. Imagine administering the preliminary 27-item Kink Orientation Scale to a sample of 200 university students.

          Reply ↓
       2. t August 13, 2024 at 10:09 am

          Me too. I got nothing. But literally everyone I know who has told me or talks about being into some flavor of kink is also a tabletop gamer.

          Perhaps the gamers are just more open and honest with outsiders while the people who present vanilla (or are swingers) keep it secret.

          Reply ↓
    2. Goingnowhereslowly August 13, 2024 at 12:29 pm

       I remember that as the MIT purity test, circa 1981.

       Reply ↓
14. Joker August 13, 2024 at 8:33 am

    The first person ever diagnosed with COVID-Monkey-AIDS-Pox.
    This is getting serious guys. pic.twitter.com/xG2Lt5N83f
    — Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) August 12, 2024

    Those Ibiza parties are really something special.

    Reply ↓
15. eg August 13, 2024 at 8:44 am

    Re British Army Chief Says UK Must Be Ready To Fight a Major War in 3 Years at Defend Democracy Press

    How stupid does Gen. Roly Walker think people are? Under prevailing ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) conditions along with asymmetric warfare massively advantageous to cheap defence over expensive capital equipment (surface vessels, airframes, armoured vehicles) NO country can exert occupying force over distance anymore. Sure, you can wreck places from far away, but you can’t conquer them without good old fashioned occupation forces. Nobody is going to bother invading the UK in any event — the place is a resource poor basket case.

    “Credible UK land forces.” It is to laugh.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 8:54 am

       The good news is that even if they wanted to do so, the Starmer government could never use the British army to militarily occupy the UK as a military dictatorship. With the British Army run down to only about 75,00 people and the population of the UK being about 67,000,000 people, that means that each soldier would have to keep in line about 893 people each. Yeah, a bit of a stretch that.

       Reply ↓
    2. Kouros August 13, 2024 at 2:27 pm

       I have seen worst. A retired Canadian general opined in a piece – space provided by the very compliant/captured/in synch media with CSIS – that Russians can/will invade Canada over the Arctic Ocean. The uproar and laughter from the Russophobic reddit commentators (you are remove if you are even neutral) was to behold.

       Reply ↓
       1. eg August 13, 2024 at 10:56 pm

          That precise scenario is the one I use to mock the usual Russophobic morons I encounter here in Canada (either in person or online) — it requires a credulousness which beggars belief.

          Reply ↓
16. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 8:48 am

    “The Prisoners Who Gave Their Captors the Bird’

    The USS Pueblo is still a sore spot with a lot of people. That is why the spy ship USS Pueblo is still in commission, even though it is a tourist attraction in Pyongyang, North Korea where people can go aboard and see the secret code room and other parts of the ship. Of course in February 2021 a US court awarded the survivors and their families $2.3 billion from North Korea in compensation so good luck trying to collect that from the North Koreans as the US has no ties with that county. They are more likely to get a coupla billion compensation from the Israelis over their attack on the spy ship USS Liberty. And it was only a year ago that the House introduced a resolution saying ‘[The] USS Pueblo is the property of the United States government and it should be returned to the United States.’ I think that for the US government, demanding the return of this ship is like the Democrats and Roe vs wade. Much more useful in fighting for it than actually getting it done-

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/01/24/USS-Pueblo-North-Korea-House-resolution/9811674543851/

    Reply ↓
    1. Kouros August 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm

       All the while the lid is kept on the USS Liberty story… No bird pictures there…

       Reply ↓
17. timotheus August 13, 2024 at 8:53 am

    Berletic has good data. However, his failure to acknowledge any level of human agency when people rise up against tyrants is annoying. Sure, the NED/CIA are eager to jump in, but they can’t create unrest out of whole cloth. The Bangladeshi PM was a brute (note the political prisoners who emerged into the light of day years after “disappearing”), and it caught up with her. It’s tunnel vision to say everything is just a “color revolution.” The U.S. clearly has designs in Myanmar, but that doesn’t make the ruling junta a nice bunch of guys.

    Reply ↓
    1. vidimi August 13, 2024 at 9:29 am

       would the coup have taken place without US involvement? Precious few do. Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 come to mind but nothing since then, and even those may have been sponsored by other states (ie Qatar).

       Reply ↓
       1. Aurelien August 13, 2024 at 10:08 am

          I remember both, and in each case the fall of the governments (neither was a coup really) came as a surprise to the West and was actively against western interests.
          I’ve grown tired of Berletic, who is a man with only one song. As you say, he seems incapable of understanding that non-white people can also have agency.

          Reply ↓
          1. Lazar August 14, 2024 at 9:05 am

             Yea, it’s all about race (Slavs being non-white, of course). The only mystery is, if you consider Jewish and/or Zionist to be white or non-white, but such discussion may be problematic and considered anti-semantic by some.

             Reply ↓
    2. PlutoniumKun August 13, 2024 at 10:15 am

       Berletic is good on Ukraine and military matters, but he is way out his area of expertise when he starts to opine on Asian politics (you could say the same for most of the Duran gang).

       Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League were deeply corrupt and regularly used anti-US, anti-Indian or anti-China rhetoric whenever convenient to try to distract attention from their failings (although as neighbours, she was always careful to balance out the rhetoric on China and India). There is no particular evidence that the US, or anyone else for that matter, paid much attention to what she said in public, it was all politics. The government had simply run out of excuses for its numerous failings, some sort of collapse was pretty much inevitable, there is no need to evoke color revolutions, or any other outside intervention for that matter. While nobody particularly liked the government, its not in anyone’s interest, including the US, for Bangladesh to fall apart.

       Reply ↓
       1. pjay August 13, 2024 at 12:49 pm

          Let’s agree on the fact that (1) the Hasina government was corrupt and increasingly heavy handed toward any political opposition; and (2) there were legitimate reasons for protest, and legitimate protesters with “agency” (meaning they were not just agent provocateurs of the CIA); and (3) Berlectic is often one-sided in his analysis to the extent that he often underplays these factors and the unique historical/political conditions of the particular nation at issue.

          Having agreed to all that, based on extensive past experience you could certainly argue that it is in the US interest (1) to have a pro-Western government in power rather than one attempting to walk the “neutrality” line; or (2) in the absence of a friendly government, then the next best thing is, indeed, chaos and instability on the Chinese border. We have demonstrated this policy preference over and over again. Further, (3) there is very clear evidence of long-term US investment in “democracy promotion” of exactly the type described by Berletic in Bangladesh; and (4) this strategy of elite infiltration and political destabilitzation by the US is not some sort of CT fantasy, but has been used, again, *over and over* by the US and various allies.

          Once again, please – there is no need to whitewash the leaders or governments that are toppled, nor deny the “agency” of much of the opposition. Nor is it necessary to assume that the US is completely “in control” of any of these situations. But to deny the obvious is to deny much of our postwar history. There are means, motive, and evidence that this is business as usual.

          Reply ↓
          1. vidimi August 14, 2024 at 5:40 am

             I think that it may be shortsighted by America. It is a clear provocation to India, which the US needs to counter China. If it leads to strenghtening Chinese-Indian ties in the long run, then this is an unmitigated disaster for the US. They might have just won the battle but lost the war. The US is incapable of long-term, strategic thought.

             Reply ↓
    3. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 13, 2024 at 10:21 am

       Berletic actually does say, MULTIPLE TIMES, that US interference was not the only driver of these democracy movements. So you are straw manning him.

       But he does get so het up that it’s easy to miss his caveats.

       Reply ↓
       1. Lazar August 14, 2024 at 8:58 am

          The biggest problem that (some) westerners have with Berletic, is that he is constantly telling them that they have been the bad guys all along. That is the song that Aurelien’s ears are “grown tired of”, and the reason they prefer the tune of laying all the blame on the “non-white people” (including Slavs, of course).

          Reply ↓
18. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 8:58 am

    Doodles is very handsome, and looking sprightly at sixteen. Nice cat!

    Reply ↓
    1. anahuna August 13, 2024 at 10:30 am

       Doodles? Doodles?

       For that magnificent predator?

       He must have a secret name, known only to himself.

       Reply ↓
       1. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 11:57 am

          Cats excel at subterfuge. The name is Bond…..

          Reply ↓
19. Randall Flagg August 13, 2024 at 9:05 am

    >Navajo Tribe Says Short-Term Deal Reached to Halt Uranium Transport on Its Land Amid Talks Sputnik. Robin K: “US press anywhere to be found?”

    I think your question about the US press was answered further below with the post from X and the Washington Post reporter.
    They are too busy working for the DNC and the Kamalala campaign ( not that Trump appears to be sinking himself) to inform about other issues going on in the country. Not that they ever cared about Indian Nations in this country anyway.
    It is somewhat comical to hear that reporter ask about “misinformation”, and KJP respond about it when it seems legacy media, such as what he works for, and the White House had been doing their best to hide the deterioration of President Biden over the course of his presidency, if not longer. Among numerous other issues.

    Reply ↓
    1. GF August 13, 2024 at 12:39 pm

       Here is a link to ICT News (Indian Country Today) about the Navajo tribe vs uranium hauling through their reservation:

       https://ictnews.org/news/tribes-condemn-transportation-of-uranium-ore-on-tribal-land

       Reply ↓
    2. chuck roast August 13, 2024 at 4:57 pm

       I lived in Nuevo for awhile and the paper-of-record for the state is The Albuquerque Journal…nothing going on there except a car crashing into a massage parlor. Very, Albuquerque…you have to suspend your disbelief when you go there. The picture of the auto penetrating the massage parlor was perfect. Anyway, nothing about the peace-pipe here.

       Similarly, The Santa Fe New Mexican. All the pols and connected read this newspaper. Quite shocking, but I haven’t been there for twenty-some years and this is really bad. Back in the day they were pretty good with on the Four Corners Generating Station. It was rated by EPA as the filthiest power plant in the US…it probably still is. Owned and operated by the natives. Yet no news about the natives obstructing the filthy rich…our wokeness has its limits.

       Reply ↓
20. Steve H. August 13, 2024 at 9:24 am

    > The Dark Surrealism of the UK’s Totalitarian Turn Simplicius (Kevin W)

    >> Keith Woods: A special advisor to the government is quoted as tying Labour’s embrace of neoliberalism and abandonment of Keynesian economic policy directly to its radical new immigration policy”

    Turchin, “End Times”:

    >> A key development in shutting down the wealth pump was the passage of the immigration laws of 1921 and 1924. Although much of the proximate motivation behind the laws was to exclude ‘dangerous aliens,’ … their broader effect was a reduction in labor oversupply, something that the business elites were well aware of. Shutting down immigration reduced the labor supply and provided a powerful boost to real wages for many decades to come.

    Both “End Times” and “A Darwinian Survival Guide” were published after Covid was active, and both take pandemics seriously. But they went to press before UKR and ISR blew up. Turchin was already more pessimistic than previously, with ideological splits putting the edge on intra-elite competition. His last paragraph of the main text contains the phrase ‘feeding us a load of bullsh_t’.

    Relevant to upcoming events, in Chicago the Black community is aware and upset about accelerated immigration into the city. It affects their jobs and dilutes their votes. There are also about a half-million Muslims in the area. If one in a thousand show up unhappy about Democratic Party treatment of (*unnamed*), that’s a brigade-sized force. I’ve suggested kith-&-kin stay away.

    Reply ↓
21. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 9:36 am

    “Musk hosts friendly chat with Trump on X after tech delays”

    Just to prove that he is not biased, Elon Musk has offered to interview Kamala Harris live on X like he did for Trump-

    ‘Elon Musk has proposed to interview US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on his X Spaces platform. The invitation comes after the billionaire spoke at length with former US President Donald Trump on Monday. The interview with Trump, which was hailed by his campaign as the “interview of the century,” lasted around two hours and, according to Musk, has since garnered 1 billion views. The conversation included discussions on a number of issues, including the upcoming election in November, the recent assassination attempt on Trump, the Ukraine conflict, and US relations with Russia and China.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/602560-musk-offers-kamala-harris-interview/

    Hopefully she will not go into deer-staring-at-headlights mode but will use her charm to make her case for being made President. It’ll be a blast.

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 9:55 am

       I’m finding the backlash directed at Musk to be the more compelling part of the story. Twitter (I just can’t bring myself to call it “x”) is yet unfettered, at least in the eyes of the keepers of the narrative. Remember Kim Dotcom and TikTok. Harris can’t accept Musk’s invitation because it will validate twitter.

       Reply ↓
       1. Socal Rhino August 13, 2024 at 11:38 am

          This reminds me of something Taibbi said after attending Trump rallies during his first campaign: It is very different hearing Trump speak at length versus hearing him filtered by unfriendly media. A lot of people will get a chance to listen to this conversation unfiltered.

          Reply ↓
    2. 123 August 13, 2024 at 1:18 pm

       Spot on! Maybe Harris will even agree with trump in praising musk for firing workers, and being so anti-union, but in a humorous, good ole boys, even gilded-age sort of way. Maybe even joke about terminating the communist and marxist working stiffs,and they do mean stiffs. Who knows what the richest s.o.b. will incite anyone to say. Maybe musk can even coax linden crow and that hustler on the supreme court, clarence thomas, out for some fun and laughs. And if litigious trump turns up, he’ll get those laughs (he always does) by belting out Johnny Cash’s tune, ‘A Boy named Sue,’ a song trump swears was written just for him by Cash, one time when they were riding a heliocopter about to crash into a big, heaping pile of trump IOU’s. Some fun. BTW, the chopper crashed, Cash was dead, but Trump laid hands on the Man in Black, and yada, yada,yada, it was all good. I expect trump and musk are certain that Harris will sing and dance up a storm on the x platform. Can’t wait.😜

       Reply ↓
    3. John Anthony La Pietra August 13, 2024 at 3:15 pm

       Maybe he’s trying to show he can ignore alternative parties and candidates as much as any Establishment Media does? . . .

       Reply ↓
22. .Tom August 13, 2024 at 9:51 am

    Can’t say I’m sold on Simplicius’ account of the motives for immigration in the UK, which he sums up in the last paragraph of the free sample starting “There are always multiple layers to the conspiracy…”, that a trans-national group of Straussians wants more immigration to put the white English in a state of torpor so as to make them more ideologically biddable and generally controllable.

    I think there are a number of reasons for immigration in the UK and Simplicius account sounds like opportunistic punditry in the moment to me. But if he’s right about the conspiracy and its social control goals then I don’t think it worked very well.

    Anyway, Yvette Cooper really sounds like an old-school, hard-right Tory MP from the 80s, doesn’t she?

    Reply ↓
    1. Anonymous 2 August 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm

       Simplicius seems to ignore that Neather wrote another article three days later in 2009 correcting what he argued had been a misreading of his original piece.

       Reply ↓
    2. chuck roast August 13, 2024 at 5:03 pm

       And they were ably assisted by the likes of Bolton, Nuland, Pompeo et. al. who Simplicius forgets about. Sounds equal opportunity to me…and I mean that literally.

       Reply ↓
23. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 9:56 am

    Working link for “Western firms insuring Russian oil tankers despite sanctions” article at-

    https://www.rt.com/news/602370-western-firms-insuring-russian-oil/

    It’s capitalism. If the Russians put down hard cash on the table, you cannot expect those western firms to just get up and walk away. They have shareholders to answer to and drumming up business leads to bonuses whereas listening to demented politicians leads only to major losses. Ask any German firm about the later point.

    Reply ↓
24. Wukchumni August 13, 2024 at 9:57 am

    You ask how much the DNC needs you, must I explain?
    They need you, oh, my darling, like a drought needs rain
    You ask how long they’ll love you, I’ll tell you true
    Until the 5th of November, they’ll still be loving you

    Hold them close
    Never let them go
    Hold them close
    Hopefully she doesn’t sabotage their show

    They’ll love you ’til the Dow Jones forgets to boom
    They’ll love you even after the clover has lost its perfume
    They’ll love you ’til the online poets run out of rhyme
    Until the 5th of November, and that’s a long, long time
    Until the 5th of November, and that’s a long, long time

    The Twelfth of Never, performed by Johnny Mathis

    Reply ↓
    1. Pat August 13, 2024 at 10:40 am

       Ooh this lends itself to so much (and not just to the feckless Harris/Walz ticket).

       They’ll care about jobs…until the 5th of November…

       Insert taxes on tips, reproductive help, climate change, inflation, immigration, pretty much every issue they will even deign to talk about into the lyric line.

       Nice

       Reply ↓
25. spud August 13, 2024 at 10:10 am

    the Simplicius article The Dark Surrealism of the UK’s Totalitarian Turn, is spot on. thatcher/reagan may have wanted to institute fascism, but they never did or were able to. its was clinton/blair that did it to the western world.

    they have set the west back to almost third world status, and their economies are in shambles, heading downwards fast. so they unleash the dogs of war onto its peoples, and any country they can terrorize.

    police states never work for long these days.

    in the end it will fail. if we survive that is.

    Reply ↓
    1. thump August 13, 2024 at 12:59 pm

       I read what I could (before paywall) of the Simplicius article, and was mostly nodding until the “world government” part. My world view, and it seems often covered here in NC Links, is that countries are almost always vying for self-advantage / neighbor-disadvantage. It’s a phrase I’ve run into before, but I don’t see how, in this sort of inter-state (country) competition, there could ever be anything remotely close to a world government. Maybe you or someone else could outline this theory for me? Thanks.

       Reply ↓
       1. vidimi August 14, 2024 at 5:44 am

          I don’t fully agree. In the non-aligned part, that may be true – Putin, Orban, Erdogan, Ibrahim are a few that come to mind – but with the WEF managers leading western countries, it’s clear they are using the same playbook and that national interests are nowhere near the top of their concerns.

          Reply ↓
26. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 10:15 am

    “Russian navy trained to target sites inside Europe with nuclear-capable missiles”

    ‘Russia has trained its navy to target sites deep inside Europe with nuclear-capable missiles in a potential conflict with Nato, according to secret files seen by the Financial Times.’

    In other news, grass is green and water is wet. Of course Russians have nuke plans for Europe and even North America, The same way that the US has nuke plans for Russia and China. It’s what all professional militaries do – that is partly what makes them professional. Must be a slow news day at the Financial Times is all I can say.

    Reply ↓
27. Art_DogCT August 13, 2024 at 10:17 am

    I propose that going forward it should be QueMala Harris.

    Reply ↓
    1. MRLost August 13, 2024 at 1:00 pm

       Very good. I will definitely use that.

       Reply ↓
28. t August 13, 2024 at 10:22 am

    Covid-HIV-Monkey Pox guy last tested negative for HIV in 2021 – according to him – so possibly infected and imuno compromised before the trip. Counts low so docs expect fairly recent HIV. No idea if PrEP would suppress anything, if he was using it from sketchy sources.

    Why is this national news only when he seems on his way to recovery? Because the paper was published? Seems like headline news.

    Reply ↓
29. Pat August 13, 2024 at 10:31 am

    More possible celebrity anecdata
    Rachel Lillis Pokémon voice performer dead at 56

    She was diagnosed with breast cancer in May.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bsn August 13, 2024 at 11:24 am

       ‘Tis a mystery. I’ve used that line quite a few times – Thanks Lambert and NC. Hubby and I are baseball fans and there is a huge surge in pitcher’s injuries. ‘Tis a mystery.

       Reply ↓
       1. tawal August 13, 2024 at 8:26 pm

          No mystery to me Bsn: It’s the Slider.

          Reply ↓
30. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 10:31 am

    ‘Lord Bebo
    @MyLordBebo
    Abandoned BTR-4E “Bucephalus” in Kursk region.
    More and more such videos appear, indicating the struggle of the AFU’

    Another parallel with the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans went in with not enough fuel and were unable to sustain their operations as they could not seize any and started to run out. The Ukrainians are really screwed now as they have created their own fire sack and Zelensky was idiot enough to send in more top formations into this grinder. The Russians are actively hunting down any formations or armoured vehicles as payback for what they did in this area. If the Ukrainians keep on throwing more units here, the Russians may decide to keep it open as being too good an opportunity to miss. But you can bet that this attack has hardened Russian public opinion and will make them determined to finish the job.

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    1. Pat August 13, 2024 at 10:47 am

       Not so surprising considering their advisors are from the same school of military strategy and purpose as those who had the IDF hit the guy who was negotiating the cease fire.

       These people want continuation and escalation and think they are protected. Screw anybody who doesn’t matter. Unfortunately they are also deluded so really are bringing about their own destruction. The missteps are only obvious to people not mentally impaired by hatred of the feared other.

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       1. Polar Socialist August 13, 2024 at 1:28 pm

          Also the first thing the Russians did was using long range artillery and glide bombs in Sumy region to separate the battlefield. There have been reports of 200 or so FABs per day (only limited by Russian targeting capability). So getting fuel, ammo or food from Ukraine to the troops is very difficult.

          I’ve also noticed that in all videos I’ve seen of the destruction of Ukrainian vehicles by Russians, the vehicles have been moving towards the border. The sample size is rather small, though.

          All in all, it seems that Russian did study the “Kharkov operation” by Ukranians, and came up with working counter tactics.

          Reply ↓
31. Katniss Everdeen August 13, 2024 at 10:36 am

    RE: “An Intricate Fabric of Bad Actors Working Hand-in-Hand” – So is war Inevitable? Alastair Crooke

    In the article, Crooke quotes Aaron Kheriaty, MD and Jacob Siegel at Tablet, two people I’d never heard of, on the state of our current “election” politics.

    “More recently, the whole of society political machinery facilitated the overnight flip from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, with news media and party supporters turning on a dime when instructed to do so—democratic primary voters ‘be damned’. This happened not because of the personalities of the candidates involved, but on the orders of party leadership. The actual nominees are fungible, and entirely replaceable, functionaries, serving the interests of the ruling party … The party was delivered to her because she was selected by its leaders to act as its figurehead. That real achievement belongs not to Harris, but to the party-state”.
    —
    “To avoid the appearance of totalitarian overreach in such efforts”, Kheriaty argues,“the party requires an endless supply of causes … that party officers use as pretexts to demand ideological alignment across public and private sector institutions. These causes come in roughly two forms: the urgent existential crisis (examples include COVID and the much-hyped threat of Russian disinformation) – and victim groups supposedly in need of the party’s protection”.

    The implications for “voters,” who are eagerly awaiting some sort of “policy” utterance from harris which is promised at some time in the near future, are profound.

    What does she need specific “policies” for? biden was “elected” in 2020 with only one–his not being Trump. A harris “pivot” to “the middle” is widely anticipated, but that would open her up to, at the very least, charges of “flip-flopping.”

    The most unpopular VP evah at 29% was run through some machine and miraculously turned into the very 1st savior-esse of the republic, not unlike bundled junk mortgages were run through the “ratings agencies” and miraculously came out the other side as AAA “investments.”

    If there is a machine that can accomplish that, then it can surely turn “fighting for american families” or “supporting our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters” into an inspiration that requires no further explanation or clarification, only adoration and unwavering “support.”

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    1. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 12:15 pm

       Thank you. As much as like your analogy to junk bonds (Ain’t that america), I don’t believe Harris’s ascent is due to algorithms or that she holds net negative value. My memory is not so good that I can definitively tell when team blue hoisted their banner on the hill named weaponized identity politics, but her being the figurehead of the party indicates that this is still their main play (besides Not Trump!). Oh, and I could be wrong and you may very well be right. Either way, the lot of us get dealt a losing hand any way the wind blows.

       Reply ↓
    2. Alice X August 13, 2024 at 12:34 pm

       re Jacob Siegel (that you never heard of)

       A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation
       by Jacob Siegel March 28, 2023

       Sometimes described as the definitive take on the Russia Gate miasma. The piece was much discussed hereabouts.

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32. Carolinian August 13, 2024 at 10:41 am

    Re the Alastair Crooke, also discussed under the ME post–Crooke keeps warning us of a regional explosion but it hasn’t happened yet. Weren’t the Israelis supposed to invade Lebanon in mid-July? Crooke says Netanyahu is trying to inveigle this country into a war with Iran but he’s been doing that for years and it still hasn’t happened–with even George W. Bush saying no (and to Cheney as well).

    And for it to happen within the next six months Dems would have to do it and not Republicans such as Bibi’s fellow wacko Lindsey. Given the drastic self preservation steps the Dems have taken with the Kamala coup this seems unlikely. As Kamala would (and did) say to dissidents: “do you want to elect Donald Trump?”

    The passive/aggressive Biden administration is more into Netanyahu’s own approach. Let somebody else do the fighting. We’ll supply the bombs.

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    1. Socal Rhino August 13, 2024 at 12:07 pm

       Crooke is just looking at events and failing to see a path that breaks the pattern of escalating strikes and responses. Very different IMO from McGregor’s repeated warnings that Turkey will invade Israel.

       Once Israel and Iran started trading blows directly, the calculus changed I think.

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    2. John k August 13, 2024 at 2:04 pm

       Maybe us avoids sending troops because it doesn’t have many, and can’t even fill low quotas. So they provide tech support/advisors plus bombs/missiles etc. that are hopefully running out. Public would really be pissed to see a lot of body bags, let the proxy have those.
       But the armada we’re sending now, specifically including nuke sub, is clearly a threat to nuke Iran. I assume the counter threat is Iran taking out Saudi oil plus substantial destruction in Israel plus maybe sinking a carrier.
       And their aa defenses might be able to stop a nuke missile. And what is russia thinking?
       Lots of risks all around.

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    3. Antifa August 13, 2024 at 3:30 pm

       Facts on the ground all indicate preparation for a hard blow on Israel, especially the steady influx of Russian jamming radars and anti-missile weapons, and the presence of well-trained Russian troops to man them. All that’s to defend Iran from conventional and nuclear attack, and to preserve it as a key member of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Russia is now the main supplier of missiles to the Houthis, who will probably join Iran’s attack.

       If Israel is not put into deterrence from attacking other states, those attacks will continue. About half of the Israeli public is just fine with Bibi’s plans for smiting Israel’s neighbors whenever needed for Zionist expansion. Israel’s neighbors know that their cities will eventually look just like Gaza if they let Israel continue.

       The two big risks Over There are Israel using nukes on Iran (which Russia will try to stop so it doesn’t turn into WWIII) and Iran reducing the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz (crashing Western economies).

       The goal of making Israel the chief bully of the Middle East looks like a small goal compared to either of these two outcomes. In real terms, Israel is a roaring mouse.

       Reply ↓
33. diptherio August 13, 2024 at 11:03 am

    Waldman just shared this on Masto: https://syntheticassets.wordpress.com/2024/08/13/late-cycle-financial-innovation-are-private-credit-funds-the-new-mbs-cdos/

    Definitely a piece for this crowd to sink it’s teeth into. One of Yves’ articles gets a citation, so you know it’s good. Here’s the concluding paragraph, which gives you an idea about what he’s on about:

    These then are my questions: Are the LPs being set up to be the bagholders in a private equity downcycle? Have they been paying attention? Do they understand how the risks of their ‘equity’ investments are being concentrated by fund borrowing? Do they understand that private credit funds may end up behaving like MBS CDOs – just like the senior creditors in the underlying MBS were the only ones who were not wiped out, it may be that only the senior creditors in the underlying portfolio companies will be left with a valuable claim?

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 13, 2024 at 11:12 am

       I will read this more closely but yes, the LPs are the bagholders.

       However, as Chapter 9 of ECONNED sets forth in gory detail, the leverage of the Magnetar strategy was 500x due to resecuritizations + use of derivatives, so leverage on leverage. I do the math.

       Moreover, the bagholders were, unlike LPs, at the heart of the financial system, undercapitalized and systemically important banks.

       And the cliff risk was worse. 8% default = CDO is money good. 11% = wipeout or substantial wipeout of AAA tranche.

       But her general point about the danger of being a subordinated creditor is spot on.

       Reply ↓
       1. CA August 13, 2024 at 12:36 pm

          “In finance, LPs, or Limited Partners, are investors in private equity and venture capital funds. They are similar to shareholders in a corporation, with limited liability to the extent of their investment and no management authority.”

          Reply ↓
          1. mrsyk August 13, 2024 at 1:44 pm

             I would not want to be a LP in private equity land right now. In my hedge fund days the LP agreements had a clause in the terms and limits on redemption that allows the fund manager to postpone redemption requests if it is deemed that it will have a negative effect on the remaining LPs. I’ve seen this clause get abused first hand. Of course, a LP could point at Buffett dumping Apple over the first six months of this year, and then point at Apple’s stock price since. Never the less, legal challenges take time, where as fund wipeouts happen rather quickly.

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             1. chuck roast August 13, 2024 at 5:25 pm

                Like a permanent co-co.

                I’m wondering if the bagholders may be more wide-spread. The only thing more prevalent than NGOs are ‘wealth managers’. Bullshit artists to a fault. Ask one of them if they are prepared to sign a Fiduciary Standards form. My throw-away guess is that these knuckleheads are out on the golf-course and PE is taking care of their cash.

                Reply ↓
34. Mikel August 13, 2024 at 11:13 am

    “Emmanuel Todd, Defeat of the West – the main ideas explained in English” Jeff Rich

    Nothing excuses the arrogance of the West, but all of these fall of Empire and Defeat of the West narratives do not mean there is any escape from oligarchy, authoritarianism, divide and conquer, etc. in a “multi-polar” world.
    EX: There still could be multi-polar oligarchy and neoliberalism.

    Reply ↓
35. CA August 13, 2024 at 11:18 am

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-cease-fire-talks.html

    August 13, 2024

    Israel Was Less Flexible in Recent Gaza Cease-Fire Talks, Documents Show
    The country made five new demands, according to documents detailing its newest negotiating positions.
    By Ronen Bergman, Patrick Kingsley and Adam Rasgon

    For weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has denied that he is trying to block a cease-fire deal in Gaza by hardening Israel’s negotiating position. Mr. Netanyahu has consistently placed all blame for the deadlocked negotiations on Hamas, even as senior members of the Israeli security establishment accused him of slowing the process himself.

    But in private, Mr. Netanyahu has, in fact, added new conditions to Israel’s demands, additions that his own negotiators fear have created extra obstacles to a deal. According to unpublished documents reviewed by The New York Times that detail Israel’s negotiating positions, Israel relayed a list of new stipulations in late July to American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators that added less flexible conditions to a set of principles it had made in late May…

    Reply ↓
36. antidlc August 13, 2024 at 11:18 am

    Fauci caught COVID for a third time.

    https://www.msn.com/en-my/health/other/dr-anthony-fauci-urges-some-americans-to-wear-face-masks-again/ar-AA1oFvlQ
    Dr Anthony Fauci urges some Americans to wear face masks again

    The 83-year-old told people with comorbidities and seniors ‘you should be wearing a mask’ in crowded places.

    He also revealed he had contracted Covid about two weeks ago. It was his third Covid infection and he has been vaccinated and boosted a total of six times.

    Reply ↓
    1. Tom Stone August 13, 2024 at 1:10 pm

       Thanks for the good news on Fauci, it sounds like he is paying down his immunity debt in installments.
       I hope there aren’t many more installments.

       Reply ↓
    2. Late Introvert August 13, 2024 at 4:10 pm

       There is some justice in this world after all.

       Reply ↓
37. Margaret August 13, 2024 at 11:50 am

    America’s refusal to keep paying high prices…

    “a key question now is whether shoppers will pull back so much as to put the economy at risk”

    There is a de facto campaign to stop discretionary spending while BidenHarris are still in office. Goals; discredit them and debunk “the economy’s great” BS coming out of the White House, to lower prices, which is working, and to save the spending for Trump’s four years as rebellion against the system, which does jackshit for us.

    All the talk of inflation rates coming down by economists. But when do the prices come down?

    Reply ↓
    1. CA August 13, 2024 at 4:29 pm

       “All the talk of inflation rates coming down by economists. But when do the prices come down?”

       Prices rarely come down in the American economy. The point is to have low to low-moderate inflation indefinitely, and a sensible household policy is to count on low general inflation and protect as much as possible against high specific price increases such as for health care or private tuition…

       Reply ↓
38. Carp August 13, 2024 at 1:06 pm

    That consumers refuse to pay high prices article has a howler inside it:

    “In a speech a couple of weeks ago, Jared Bernstein, who leads the Biden administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, mentioned consumer caution as a reason why inflation is nearing the end of a “round trip”

    This Jarend Bernstein?
    
    Awkward moment Biden’s economic adviser Jared Bernstein admits he can’t explain how money works

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13381631/amp/Jared-Bernstein-Biden-economic-adviser-fails-explain-money-works.html

    Reply ↓
39. Tom Stone August 13, 2024 at 1:08 pm

    Although it has dropped out of the headlines the Park Fire is still burning with containment at 39%, it has burned 429,000 acres to date.
    If the winds pick up…
    California is now entering the peak of its historical fire season and it is tinder dry from North to South with lots of fuel.
    IMO two of the highest risk area are the Tahoe Basin and Marin County, dead pines and dead oaks by the million.
    The rains will come sometime in October, until then the risk of catastrophic fires will be very high.

    Reply ↓
40. DavidZ August 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm

    yes lots of little cubs for that Mommy Cheetah, in the wild it rarely happens. Probably in a zoo or Safari Park somewhere cold – oak leaves in fall colours (doesn’t happen in Africa + don’t think there are many oak trees in Africa.)

    Reply ↓
41. johnnyme August 13, 2024 at 5:57 pm

    2 Israeli ministers join illegal settlers in storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound

    At least two Israeli ministers on Tuesday joined hundreds of illegal Israeli settlers in storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem to mark a Jewish event.

    According to the Israeli Ynet news website, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, his fellow Otzma Yehudit party minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Knesset member of the Likud party Amit Halevi stormed into the complex to commemorate Tisha B’Av, an annual Jewish fast day that marks the occurrence of several disasters in Jewish history.

    Reply ↓
42. flora August 13, 2024 at 6:52 pm

    “An Intricate Fabric of Bad Actors Working Hand-in-Hand” – So is war Inevitable? Alastair Crooke

    Truly a must read. Thanks for the link.

    Reply ↓
43. willow August 13, 2024 at 10:46 pm

    Kishida is toast: ‘Japan Set for Another New Leader as PM Kishida Steps Aside’

    Zelensky kiss of death strikes again.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/japan-pm-kishida-won-t-run-for-party-leadership-race-kyodo-says?srnd=homepage-asia

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2024 at 11:12 pm

       ‘Zelensky kiss of death strikes again.’

       Hah! I wonder who’s next? Just go to the videos and see who actually hugged the guy. You might get away with just a handshake but hugging the guy makes you a marked person.

       Reply ↓
       1. willow August 14, 2024 at 1:56 am

          Albanese

          Reply ↓
44. willow August 14, 2024 at 1:48 am

    Albo

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev August 14, 2024 at 2:41 am

       He deserves it. The guy is a party hack who has inclinations to be another Keir Starmer.

       Reply ↓
       1. Willow August 14, 2024 at 3:13 am

          Yep. not exactly the brightest light on the hill (apologies to Chifley ;-) ) I’d be more inclined to say Albanese is the Biden of Australian politics..

          Reply ↓
45. Alan Sutton August 14, 2024 at 3:50 am

    “Maybe Murder and Humiliation is the Whole Point”

    I thought this article was fairly typical of some articles coming out now from what are and might politely be called “colonialised people”.

    Obviously they are angry, as I am too about what was done in “my” name.

    My Nan used to grumble that the “empire never did anything for us”. She was born in 1904 and lived through the General Strike in England. She hated Churchill and his ilk.

    This article, by reducing the oppression to an imagined block misses the point.

    There were two types of people running the Empire. The first was the rich capitalists that funded it all. They didn’t care how many people got killed but they never got their hands dirty.

    The second was the people actually involved in the administration of the repression. The best example we have of these is George Orwell who hated it and gave us the literature on the subject we have today.

    But, there were, no doubt, many of these functionaries who fell for the joys of repression. In some ways these poor sods were as much victims of the situation as the people they were beating.

    Everybody degraded while the invisible richies got richer.

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