Can an elephant sue to leave a zoo? Colorado’s top court must now decide AP
3%: Great Depression, GFC, 1970s & 2020s? Barry Ritholtz
Climate
Peak population may be coming sooner than we think FT
Solar was the largest source of new power generating capacity the past 12 months S&P Global
* * * Climate Game-Changer: Fossil Fuels Aren’t Behind Surging Methane Emissions SciTech Daily
States work to track down and cap dangerous methane leaks from abandoned oil and gas wells PBS
Syndemics
CDC: Interim Guidance for Employers To Reduce the Risk of Novel Influenza A for People Working with or Exposed to Animals Avian Flu Diary
GAO report shows how US schools spent pandemic relief funds, including on better ventilation Center for Infectious Disease Researchj and Policy. “Of the schools visited and surveyed, nearly half (48.2%) said they used the federal relief funds to increase building ventilation. Another 51.7% used funds for physical distancing measures, and 67.1% said they used the funds to enhance cleaning and disinfection practices.”
BRICS
BRICS 2024 Kazan Special Coverage Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
China, India Start Removing Troops from Border Friction Points Bloomberg
Modi-Xi Meeting in Russia: Tactical Thaw or Prolonged Peace? The Diplomat
At BRICS summit, Putin welcomes Trump’s comments on ending Ukraine war Al Jazeera
* * * BRICS nations agree to boost trade, financial settlement in local currencies Deccan Herald
BRICS Summit Adopts Final Declaration With Long-Term Goals – Putin Sputnik
Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand become partner countries of BRICS Channel News Asia
* * * Anti-Western or Non-Western? The Nuanced Geopolitics of BRICS The Diplomat
Behind the scenes of BRICS summit: guide for propagandists and large-scale bot campaign – ISW Ukrainska Pravda
* * *
Lost Silk Road cities discovered in Uzbek mountains BBC
Inventing Silk Roads JSTOR Daily
China?
The Twentieth Century, the Global South, and China’s Historical Position Tricontinental
China semiconductor patent applications skyrocket amid US export restrictions — country sees a 42% increase in patent filings Tom’s Hardware
Chinese Consumers Hold Back on Buying Gold as Price Scales Record Highs Yicai
Syraqistan
Netanyahu Is Selling Gaza to Private Militias Haaretz
The Murderous Logistics of Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Northern Gaza Dropsite News
* * * Israeli strikes kill 38 people in Gaza’s Khan Younis and 3 journalists in southern Lebanon AP
Israel bombs Lebanon’s ancient city of Tyre and Israel strikes Syrian capital Damascus, military site near Homs Al Jazeera
‘This is an extermination’: Israel’s assault on north Gaza’s last functioning hospital Mondoweiss
* * * Qatar, US say Gaza ceasefire talks to resume in Doha Al Jazeera
Hamas, Egyptian officials discuss Gaza cease-fire in Cairo Anadolu Agency
* * * How Does AIPAC Shape Washington? We Tracked Every Dollar. The Intercept
University of Michigan recruits state attorney general to crack down on Gaza protesters Guardian
Dear Old Blighty
Cod liver oil: A fishy fix that had suprisingly clear health benefits BBC
New Not-So-Cold War
Zaporizhzhia and oblast could face total blackout this winter, local authorities say and Putin claims to have received “secret proposal” from Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda
Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine threaten country’s steel industry, key coal mine BNE Intellinews
Washington and Berlin are slow-walking Ukraine’s bid for a NATO invitation Politico
Advocates demand Biden de-classify Ukraine strategy Responsible Statecraft
* * * Ukraine intelligence agency says North Korean units already in Kursk region Channel News Asia
* * * ‘Junger,’ ‘Steiner,’ and ‘Terror’ Bandera Lobby Blog
Why the Pentagon is Betting Big on Long-Range Ukrainian Drones: ‘It Works’ Air and Space Forces
* * * Vladimir Putin’s battle to keep Georgia in Russia’s orbit FT
Western Policy in the Caucasus Is Backfiring The American Conservative. “There are some 26,000 registered NGOs in Georgia—that’s one NGO for every 143 citizens in a country of 3.7 million people, an extremely high number by global standards.”
* * * Russians Who Fled Abroad Return in Boost for Putin’s War Economy Bloomberg
Biden Administration
Why Some Republicans Are Praising An Agency They Hate Politico
2024
* * * Elon Musk’s Secret Conversations With Vladimir Putin WSJ. “Confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials.”
What Does Elon Musk Want? SpaceX CEO May Pose a Risk to National Security RAND
Musk’s super PAC doesn’t name daily $1 million winner after DOJ warning Axios
* * * Frustrated Democrats To Consider Letting Voters Pick The Presidential Candidate Next Time Babylon Bee
Digital Watch
Meta, Google, TikTok Must Face Schools’ Addiction Claims Bloomberg
Ireland imposes $335 mn fine on LinkedIn for illegal data practices Bloomberg
Supply Chain
The Lithium Triangle’s Rise in the EV Race Open Markets
Book Nook
Have you purchased a weirdly low-quality paperback book lately? This may be why Literary Hub
Boeing
It’s a game of chicken now, and Boeing has up to 55bn eggs Leeham News and Analysis
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Violent Exhaustion of Liberal Democracy (interview) Wendy Brown, Boston Review (Amfortas).
From the Comparative History of Collapsing Empires Vladimir Golstein, VK
The Department of Everything The Hedgehog Review
Antidote du jour (Rushenb):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
LONE SURVIVOR
(melody borrowed from Baby Driver by Simon and Garfunkel)
(The Israelis celebrate the assassination of various political and military leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, but never consider the huge flood of fresh Resistance recruits their rampage on Gaza and Lebanon has caused.)
Well, lately there are no more days when
I wonder how to persevere
Though with each morn my soul is torn
Just thinkin’ of my mother’s tears—of her tears
I am the Lone Survivor
Went out to find us all a meal
Our house explodes and they’re gone!
Fire and thunder!
Concrete chunks and twisted steel . . .
Our house explodes! Fire and thunder!
Now how am I supposed to feel?
What a sight . . .
They say it was a chance event and
It’s nothing that my Mom deserved
For what they’ve done I’ll carry a gun
I’ll kill ’em just as they deserve—first come first served!
I am the Lone Survivor
I never knew how hatred feels
Our house explodes and they’re gone!
Fire and thunder!
My family got a rotten deal
Our house explodes! Fire and thunder!
I’ll make those Jewish soldiers squeal!
(musical interlude)
The river Jordan to the ocean
We’ll liberate it all some day
No stone atop another stone—
The price Israelis have to pay—yes they will pay!
My sisters’ and brothers’ entrails—
The funeral was so surreal—
The bag was sewed—I’ve moved on!
I’m a hunter! (with murderous intentions)
Shoot down the road—fire and thunder!
Do you feel what my family feels?
Re: 3%: Great Depression…
Point made, as in the point is to get people to talk. There is no accountability, etc. for the tripe that comes out of Wall Street. Their goal, generally, is dominate the news, then clients want to see them, then in theory they get paid via trading commissions.
I think it was the early ’80s when Yardeni, then at Pro/Bache, published a forecast saying there was a 27% chance of a 30’s-like depression. All the evening news broadcasts led with the story of Wall Street economist says we could have a depression. When it didn’t come true he said that it was only a 27% chance. The point being he got all the attention.
It’s hard to predict the future, since it hasn’t happened yet. Quoting a proverbial wise man who sometimes spoke in broken thoughts that at times are indeed true….Hat tip Yogi!
Would make for a fun afternoon in the next WC open thread…To split into it’s equivalent parts the wisdom from the nonsense out of such quotations. Most professional athletes just aren’t deep thought individuals. And to get back to the Ritholz column, yeah someone somewhere will have a bearish outlook. Earlier this week, noted investor Paul Tudor Jones opined that he would not own long maturity US government debt securities. I was unable to follow much of the interview, aside from his points made on the Federal government deficit and ongoing spending levels.
Re: Paul Tudor Jones avoiding 30 year bonds returning >5%. I am reminded of something I learned in decades of commodity trading: The closer you get to zero, the smaller the downside risk.
And yes — a hat tip to Yogi. When I was about 6 years old my Dad told me that it was time for me to choose a position to play in baseball. He started with the pitcher and informed me that while I could throw real good, I could not throw good enough to be a pitcher. And besides that, I wasn’t flakey enough to be a pitcher because good pitchers are flakey. First base was out because I was not left-handed. I forget now why 2nd base, 3rd base, short-stop, left field, center field and right field were all rejected. But they were. So he says this: “That leaves catcher. Catchers have to be smart, throw pretty good, hit pretty good, but they don’t have to run fast. You are smart, you throw pretty good, hit ok, and while you run real fast, you run too long in the same place. Besides, you were born on Yogi Berra’s birthday so that seals it. Choose catcher.” Which is, of course, what I did.
“Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.”
I feel sorry for your knees just reading this.
Is this the interview you saw?
I’d say it’s pretty much always a bad idea, for the individual investor, to buy 30 year bonds, unless they’re yielding something like 20% as they were in the early 80s.
Buffett is heavily into T bills these days fwiw
Even if it were true, then don’t buy the S&P index.
I took the Goldman statement about a forecasted 3% market return more to mean that maybe the old school 60/40 or 70/30 equities/fixed income portfolio was making a comeback and wouldn’t be the worst idea in uncertain times. The stock market certainly seems a big overbought as of late when taken in the aggregate, and AI seems like more hype than reality (not unlike the dotcom boom of yesteryear, even if the internet was basically the future in the long run).
It is a fool’s errand to make long term forecasts. Even forecasting a couple quarters out is a crapshoot, but one of the few long term trends that I feel is likely is that inflation is here to stay. I think the post-COVID inflation was just the beginning. US congress can’t seem to help itself, running massive deficits even in peacetime, even with no crisis to speak of. Lots of money will have to be printed to service this debt. If there is a crisis, interest rates will go back to zero inside of 6 months and QE will resume in earnest. The Federal Reserve and US government simply will not tolerate deflation and an economic recession.
This isn’t some kind of crackpot, hyperinflationary doomerism. Just that inflation will likely stay elevated for years. I doubt the 2% target stated in the Fed’s mandate will be held for any length of time. Maybe mid to high single digit inflation will be the norm in the 2020s and 2030s. Then again, who knows?
I’m much more from the “do what they do, not what they say” camp.
Until the beginning of 2023, HSBC was the sole Custodian o the GLD (gold) ETF. JPM is now the Custodian of 740 tons, or 82% of the gold in the ETF. That means that it holds more gold bullion that all but 10 countries, India being #10.
Most central banks continue to increase their stores, as well.
I’m betting that they know the score, which is further degradation of currencies, and significant inflation.
I’ve never been a gold bug. If you’re really that worried about inflation you can always just get TIPS or I Bonds. It all comes back to cash and the government at the end of the day.
How would a return in degraded USDs from (long-term) bonds be an equivalent hedge? And if there is a need to sell, they’ll likely be worth less, if not significant less.
Why have all your eggs in one currency, when you can have all currencies in one egg?
Eh, I don’t think they “know the score” any more than oligarchs backing both the Democrats and Republicans know who will win the next round of elections.
It’s simply a hedge against the future.
“Opinion | Netanyahu Is Selling Gaza to Private Militias”
Got a new motto for the IDF-
‘The IDF does the dyin’ while the Settlers do the buyin’.
Think that they will go for it?
Israeli Anschluss gaining speed.
“We need breathing room!” -Bibi
Fixed it for ya.
Many, even most, Austrians wanted to be Germans and were seamlessly integrated as such. Anschluss is not a good comp.
That was the true lesson of ‘The sound of Music’.
Robert Wise, some director.
Rember the austrian pirates.
Lebensraum. That what the Nazis called it.
The grand Kushner Plaza now open in Gaza
The golf course is green, the price was obscene
(We hope you will pardon the bones in the garden)
Coq au Vin with white sauce—but look out for Hamas!
Can’t wait to tee off at the Trump International Golf Links Kahn Yunis while wearing my Trump branded keffiyeh.
Upon seeing a mention of Tyre, and seeing recent poetry notes, the following came to mind.
A Short Analysis of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Recessional’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Although the phrase ‘lest we forget’ is now closely associated with Remembrance Sunday and war remembrance more generally, it actually originated in a poem written almost twenty years before the outbreak of the First World War: Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Recessional’.
Summary
Kipling wrote ‘Recessional’ on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Although Kipling is often viewed as a flag-waver for imperialism, his views were more complex than such a view suggests, and this political poem goes against the celebratory mood of the Jubilee, reminding readers that the British Empire is trivial and transient in the face of the permanence of God:
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
In the first stanza, Kipling addresses God directly, calling him ‘God of our fathers, known of old’ and ‘Lord of our far-flung battle-line’: at the time Kipling was writing, the British Empire covered around a quarter of the globe, so it certainly was ‘far-flung’ in terms of its imperial possessions which it had to claim, and keep, by force, and in its dominion stretching over ‘palm and pine’.
God has an ‘awful Hand’: ‘awful’ is being used here in its older, original sense, namely ‘awe-inspiring’. Kipling asks God to ‘be with us yet’: not to desert his human creation. People are in danger of forgetting who really has ‘Dominion’ (a decidedly Biblical word) over the world: God, not man.
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
In this second stanza, Kipling says that when empires fade, and the army captains and the kings have died, one thing remains: the sacrifice Christ made on the Cross.
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
In the third stanza, Kipling turns his attention from the army to the navy: the ‘fire’ (gunfire) the navies make against other nations misses the mark, and the once-great naval force that is Britain is diminished (it was said that King Alfred the Great, when he wasn’t burning cakes, invented the English navy; this was the inspiration for the famous patriotic song ‘Rule Britannia’, where that embodiment of Britain, Britannia, is called upon to ‘rule the waves’).
Britain’s ‘pomp’ and greatness are no more: like Nineveh and Tyre, ancient civilisations of the past, it will die away to nothing. Nineveh, which stood in what is now Iraq, was once the largest city in the world, and served as the capital of the Assyrian empire; Tyre, in modern-day Lebanon, was one of the metropolises of the Phoenicians, traders and empire-builders of the ancient world.
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
In the next stanza, Kipling argues that it is important to have God ‘in awe’: to be in awe of God’s power and superior might. It is important that the British, in their desire for more power around the world, don’t start forgetting this, as ‘Gentiles’ or ‘less breeds’ who do not follow God’s Law would do.
‘Gentile’ usually refers to someone who isn’t Jewish, but the word has been used, by extension, to refer to anyone who is not of Israeli heritage; and since Christianity had its roots in the Jewish Torah and the story of Moses, Kipling appears to be using ‘Gentile’ to mean ‘someone who does not follow the Judeo-Christian faith’.
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
The final stanza of ‘Recessional’ continues the argument of the previous stanza: the ‘heathen heart’ of one who does not follow God (‘heathen’ is another word that has been used to mean simply ‘one who is not Christian’) and simply follows the law of battle (the ‘reeking tube’ of the gun and the ‘iron shard’ of shrapnel?) is doomed to fail with its ‘frantic boast’ and ‘foolish word’, and is simply dust founded on dust, death founded on more death, an empire founded on ashes – weak foundations indeed.
Kipling concludes ‘Recessional’ with a call for God to have mercy on his people – Christians, and specifically, in this context, good British Christians.
Analysis
Kipling wrote ‘Recessional’ for the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the event marking 60 years since Queen Victoria acceded to the British throne in 1837. During her long reign – she would die four years later, in early 1901 – Britain had grown into an international superpower, with imperial possessions all over the globe (especially Africa, India, and parts of the Pacific and Caribbean).
Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the dissolution of the East India Company, the British raj was founded in India, and Victoria was named Empress of India in 1876.
‘Recessional’ is not anti-imperialistic as such, but the poem does see Kipling sounding a cautionary note about the dangers of losing one’s sense of moral (Christian) superiority while the Brits are out and about fighting and shooting. Of course, to modern readers the poem still poses problems in terms of its (conditional) endorsement of the imperial mission, but it is noteworthy for refusing to celebrate unreservedly the spoils and triumphs of empire. There is an implicit awareness of the fact that material greed is leading Britain to lose sight of its spiritual responsibility.
We noted above Kipling’s use of the term ‘Gentile’, and the Old Testament flavour to this word in the context of ‘Recessional’. And indeed the famous phrase the poem spawned – perhaps the most famous of all Kipling’s quotations, even though few who utter it every year are probably aware that it came from his poem – was not entirely original to Kipling, and instead had its origins in the Book of Deuteronomy.
In Deuteronomy 6:12, we find: ‘Then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.’ So ‘lest thou forget’ became the more collective ‘lest we forget’, with Kipling exhorting his fellow man to remember God’s sacrifice and teaching while Britain is off conquering the world.
‘Recessional’: poetic metre and rhyme scheme
‘Recessional’ is written in six-line stanzas rhymed ababcc. In each stanza, the c rhyme is on the same two words, ‘yet’ and ‘forget’, so that each stanza can conclude with the refrain ‘lest we forget’. The exception is the final stanza, which ends on the ‘rhyme’ (technically, an eye-rhyme) on ‘word’ and ‘Lord’ (a fitting couplet, since ‘the Word’ was a Biblical term for God: ‘In the beginning was the Word’).
The metre of ‘Recessional’ is iambic tetrameter, which means that each line comprises four iambs. An iamb is a metrical foot comprising two syllables: an unstressed one followed by a stressed one. We’ve highlighted the stressed syllables in capitals in the final stanza below, and divided up the iambs with a / symbol:
For HEA- / then HEART / that PUTS / her TRUST
In REEK- / ing TUBE / and IR- / on SHARD,
All VAL- / iant DUST / that BUILDS / on DUST,
And GUARD- / ing, CALLS / not THEE / to GUARD,
For FRAN- / tic BOAST / and FOOL- / ish WORD—
Thy MER- / cy ON / Thy PEO- / ple, LORD!
Is Recessional even conditionally endorsing Imperialism? It seems merely to be describing it, in order to charge Britain with having forgotten God. The implication is that the temporal and the spiritual are incommensurable. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s etc….
re: University of Michigan recruits state attorney general to crack down on Gaza protesters Guardian
What quirk of fate led to American Attorneys General being an elected role, thus buyable? Thus prone to circumventing the constitution and laws?
Read the Wendy Brown piece. The “quirk” is called liberalism and it’s exaltation of individual rights (read: get filthy rich at everyone else’s expense and {family blog} the consequences because it’s my *right*) over individual duty toward collective benefit.
So, um, you’re against the Bill of Rights? right? / ;)
I’d prefer a Bill of Duties :)
From which rights would flow naturally.
For example, it’s my duty to not suppress one’s ability to speak their mind because the collective suffers from nonexposure to new/challenging ideas
My duty to not amass more property than i need because the collective suffers from the inability to access the resource.
My duty to not off my effluent in the collective shared space we all need to survive — at their expense. :)
Doesn’t matter. Both parties are trying to sell you a Bill of Goods. :)
That is backwards. That says the state, the govt prescribes your actions. (Which laws do of course.See anti-polluting laws, for example.) The Bill of Rights proscribes what the govt may not do wrt to citizens. It is a check on govt over reach and mob manias of a moment.
I know. A democracy that ‘chooses’ to proscribe individual rights … what would the liberals do??? ZOMG!
I mean, “forward” thinking is working so well.
What happened to Wendy Brown? Her book–Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism Stealth Revolution, was excellent, one of the better explorations of the pernicious doctrine, but in the article she appears afflicted with a severe case of TDS. She claims that even if Harris prevails, half of Americans would have voted for fascism. I stopped reading.
Don’t let the TDS distract you from her thesis. That’s just the lens she is using to frame it.
Also consider that quoting TDS orthodoxy allows her to published in all the correct chronicles akin to criticism of Israel being prefaced by the “horrors of Oct 7th”. Were all subjects of the system.
‘Family blog’ the system.
Rights and duties are reciprocal. It is not all me, me, me.
Yes. She is capable of both deconstructing neoliberalism and explaining why Trump is only a symptom of our long neoliberal project. And yet, she opens with the “fascist” threat and the related assertion that Trump is clearly the Greater Evil. For me, this indicates that the author does not understand the institutional structures of power in the neoliberal system which she claims to be criticizing. For the thousandth time, Trump has *no* real support among the powers that be in the US. If he wins, the only actions he will be allowed are those that reinforce our existing neocon/neolib project. If he bucks the system in any appreciable way he will be sabotaged as he has been continually since 2015. This is not a formula for leading a “fascist” coup. Liberals or “progressives” who keep spewing this line are – to use a phrase I’ve been using way too much lately – useful idiots who are appealing to the legitimate concerns of their readers while actually obfuscating the real issues. Trump does have considerable support among a disenfranchised electorate, and a number of these MAGA supporters are indeed xenophobic right-wingers. Some are even fascistic. Yet compared to our ruling economic and national security Establishment Trump is *not* the Greater Evil or even the greater danger to “democracy.” It doesn’t matter what ridiculous crap comes out of his mouth as part of our kayfabe politics.
In what way might KDH be the “lesser evil?” As to Democracy, that ship sailed. Unless of course you refer to the power of the people in the persons of the donors/oligarchs/billionaire class. What is the number? Ah yes, 80 billionaires support KDH. Suppose they might have access? Yes indeed democracy for the few who count. A grand charade for the deplorables.
I gamely persevered through the long italicized intro, but threw in the towel at “half the population will have voted for Fascism”. You could perhaps make a case that 90% of the voting population voted for Fascism, or even that 0% did (maybe a stretch?), but how does one get to 50%?
I wouldn’t vote for Trump (or if I could, and I did, I would lie about it) but as the date approaches, and I encounter more Harris and Waltz videos, I find myself increasingly wanting the clown king to win out over creepiness and jolly liberal decorum.
Never heard of her, but I am probably an illiterate deplorable. That said, her snooty attitude is one of many reasons people are choosing Trump over…..who is it, again?
Gotta admit that elections are “buyable” but isn’t that democracy? The alternative would be “appointment” by what–a corrupted elected official. Perhaps this is myopic focusing as the bottom line is whether by election or appointment, the elites control the flawed democracy that exists. The attorney Generals of the multiple states are but just another elitist tool use to for control (abuse of power abounds).
Yesterday the Beijing Review published an article by Arnaud Bertrand entitled “Deciphered: whole-process people’s democracy.” China’s concept of “democracy” is very different than our use of the word in the West.
Perhaps what has the inner party so freaked out about China is that Deng, Xi & company have gotten socialism “right,” or at least a lot more right than Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin et all did in the USSR.
I don’t think that you can blame Trotsky (who did after all die in Mexico City with an icepick in his head) for the failings of the USSR.
https://www.bjreview.com/Opinion/Voice/202410/t20241021_800381034.html
October 21, 2024
Deciphered: whole-process people’s democracy
By Arnaud Bertrand
In the West, skepticism often arises when China describes its political system as a democracy, specifically a “whole-process people’s democracy.” However, this skepticism is frequently rooted in a lack of understanding about what China means by the term, how it differs from liberal democracy, and why the Chinese Government considers it an effective system for the country.
A recent article in Qiushi, the official theoretical journal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), written by Lin Shangli, President of Renmin University of China in Beijing, sheds light on this concept. His analysis aims to explain the Chinese perspective on “whole-process people’s democracy” to a Western audience.
Reframing the role of the CPC
To understand the Chinese system, it is necessary to move beyond the Western tendency to equate the CPC with political parties like the Democrats or Republicans in the United States. This comparison often leads to misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions.
In China, the CPC is not just another political party but rather the foundation of the country’s constitutional order. It serves as the fundamental guarantor of the entire political system and the people’s interests. As outlined in the Qiushi article, “whole-process people’s democracy ensures unity between the leadership of the CPC, the running of the country by the people and law-based governance.”
This integration positions the CPC not as a competing entity within the system but as the overarching framework that ensures the system’s coherence and functionality. The CPC plays a role akin to that of an entire democratic system in liberal democracies, acting as a direct link between governance and public sentiment. The Party is charged with accurately gauging public opinion and reflecting the people’s will, a role that liberal democracies would ascribe to the entire apparatus of governance, not to a single political party.
So, instead of viewing China as a “one-party state,” a more accurate description might be closer to a “zero-party state” in the Western understanding of what a party is. The CPC embodies the state itself: It is not a contender for power but the permanent custodian of the people’s mandate…
Ironically, this conception is not too different from how democracy was understood in the West, too. Charles Lindblom had written a book called “The Intelligence of Democracy,” back in 1950s, I believe, whose central argument was that the democratic process, including, but limited to just elections, provides a conduit through which the government can gauge what it us that people want and don’t want and incentivizes it to respect them in policymaking. Through this process, the polity that practices “democracy” becomes more resilient, adaptable, and stable, by ensuring that social discontent does not build up beyond a certain limit.
Somehow, this idea of “democracy” did not take hold in the West. Instead, “democracy” is just the process to decide who “wins,” a process built on legalistic foundations. Stretching and manipulating the rules to control the outcomes is par for the course, even at the cost of destablizing and enfragilating the polity in process.
Here in Hawaii, the AG, like all state officials except Gov and LG, is appointed. Only exception is a quasi-independent outfit, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which was contemplated as elected by native Hawaiians when established. That was overturned by the US Supreme Court in Rice v Cayetano so now the elections are state-wide.
I don’t see the appointment system as providing any significant benefit to citizens here.
Oddly enough attorney comes from French (trough Normans) and means – appointed! Attorney general would be a person “appointed” to represent a principal in “all [legal]” matters.
Appointed roles are also buyable, if one is inclined to either buy the role for oneself (see US Ambassadorships) or to be bought (see machine politics as in Tammany Hall). / ;)
There is no clearer indication of the advance of fascism than incidents such as this.
The First Amendment guarantees the right to bribe politicians.
The Constitutional “quirk” you ask about is the Buckley v Valeo Supreme Court decision that decided that money equals free speech.
“money equals free speech” Interesting idea, foolish, wrongheaded, but interesting. The corollary must be that the greater the amount of money the louder and more persuasive the speech.
The Supreme Court followed up this asinine construction with “Citizens United” which legalized bribery. The Justices really need to get out more. The air in chambers is too rarefied for us common folk.
M Hudson: What Ideas From the Paleolithic Are Still With Us in the Modern World?
> He developed the idea that a motive was to arrange meetings—groups separated by distance tracking the passage of time to convene at pre-agreed locations.
> The management of that, diplomatically and administratively through a calendar process had to be a key basis for survival across time; it had an ordering function. The need for dispersed populations to come together for trade and intermarriage.
> The idea of a life course of a year, with weather, people, and animals traveling along with it was at the heart of the Paleolithic thought matrix.
“The Violent Exhaustion of Liberal Democracy” Boston Review
Thanks Amfortas. This is great stuff from Wendy Brown
TLDR: it’s about fixing the damage capitalism(ists) have inflicted on the ability of the public to rule in their own self-interest to address future existential threats. Because, capitalism? Yeah. It’s an existential dumpster fire threat and the elite are the gasoline.
And to my view, this is the only way to bring new generations on board. They see clearly how badly we’ve bungled matters. They see the past as a road map to selfish bungling. They want, and need, a new map and Wendy does a good job laying out the course.
I wonder what path the renewed world order, like BRICs, and post-dollar-hegemony, will follow. Will be a miracle if the Children of the Screen, partitioned off from so much useful teaching and true facts and such, will escape the seductions of me-first-ism.
Just an old guy facing personal decline, knowing things could have been different. Couldn’t they?
Hey I’m a people of the screen. Think you mean people of the tiny screen.
In fact we Boomers have always been people of the screen although it once was round and only came in black and white. At least now we have a Vast Wasteland that we can talk back to. The internet may yet save us from the military/industrialCongressional/financial/media/Hamptons-dwelling complex.
So, the “elite” complex?
Call it whatever you want renter.
True facts? Ooofff.
>Junger,’ ‘Steiner,’ and ‘Terror’ Bandera Lobby Blog
Link was one page off…I was hoping to learn more about Ernst Junger. Fascinating person, lived to 101, and according to some folks that can read his work in the orginal German one of the best prose writers in the language (Guido Preparata).
https://banderalobby.substack.com/p/junger-steiner-and-terror
Juenger writes very well. Storm of Steel is a page-turner. I read both it and Sassoon’s Diary of a Foxhunting Gentleman this year and enjoyed them both immensely.
https://archive.org/details/ErnstJngerTheStormOfSteel
Turley’s latest:
Panic Politics: The Press and Pundits Face Devastating Polls on the Threat to Democracy
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/24/selling-the-apocalypse-the-press-and-pundits-face-devastating-polls-on-the-threat-to-democracy/#more-224663
>The Violent Exhaustion of Liberal Democracy (interview) Wendy Brown, Boston Review (Amfortas).
Wendy must be friends with HRC, those deplorables are voting for fascism, but of course.
First, even if Harris wins, nearly half of American voters will have voted for fascism. Those who deem the fascist label hyperbole note that many hold their noses while voting for their imagined economic interests or voting against loathed liberals. But this framing ignores the willingness of millions to abide not only a violently ethnonationalist, racist, and misogynist regime, but one that would shred what little remains of liberal democratic principles and institutions. They are voting for fascism.
I’ve never been impressed by Wendy Brown. I remember listening to a podcast where she talked years ago and thinking it was just bog standard liberal thought with a more academic vocabulary behind it. That interview did nothing to change my mind. She’s not wrong, at all, about the rot and decay of state institutions in the US, but at the end she just can’t help herself from treating it like if we just voted Democrats in, it would all go away, or that overwhelmingly the GOP that is at fault.
And really, it’s too much when the Democratic party put its thumb on the scale in the 2016 and 2020 primaries to make sure Sanders wasn’t the candidate, then straight up avoided even having a competitive primary this time around to act as if they are somehow better representatives of democracy. The rot is systemic, all encompassing, and trying to just shoehorn it all back into the standard liberal/conservative frame will never really get the whole picture. There’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone.
It’s obvious that neither of you read the whole interview. She explicitly condemns the Democrats too.
Your bolded passages are her restatements of the obvious.
I commented on this above, but she clearly sees Trump as the Greater Evil – a vote for Trump is a vote for the Big ‘F’. In doing so, she also clearly demonstrates that she does *not* understand the institutional structures of power that control our neoliberal system and which actually represent the greater danger to democracy. Given Trump’s nearly complete alienation from these powers that be, the idea that he could lead some sort of “fascist” overthrow of our “democracy” is laughable. So given the comments you’ve quoted here, how can she hold this view? Why does she amplify it? It just obfuscates the real dangers while fear-mongering the Trump bogey-man. For me this undermines the many valid observations in her analysis (and I did read the whole thing).
I am no fascist!
If the “anti fascists” had anything decent to offer they would not have to lie about fascism.
Slander does not sell, to me.
There’s that word again. Seems to be popping up everywhere a Dem pol or manager speaks. You should hear Carville’s latest rant. / heh
(Now, if they tried offering a platform with concrete, material benefits to their voters they might get some traction. Nope. Can’t do that. Better to hyperventilate rage and fear. Yeah, that’s the ticket!)
adding, from the Babylon Bee.
Democrats Explain Trump Was Going To Be Hitler During His First Term, But He Forgot
https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-explain-trump-was-going-to-be-hitler-during-his-first-term-but-he-forgot
LOL. And guess I won’t be aggravating eyestrain on the Brown link.
In fact one of the hallmarks of German style fascism was a cult like worship of authority and contempt for the other. Call it the madness of crowds. Being afflicted with something not dissimilar the Dems assume everyone else is too but on the “bad” side of humanity and not good like them.
Of course Trump is no paragon, but one could argue that even he, the candidate Hillary thought she could easily beat, is a product of a group that thinks the main thing and only thing is to keep their fellow “good” people in the driver’s seat.
Yeah, I started and canceled a couple of replies that were channeling Howard Zinn. I would have been more receptive if the “liberal” growing support for censorship had been mentioned, but really, anything this day that talks about “fascism” or “terrorism” is likely to be insight free in my opinion.
“First, even if Harris wins, nearly half of American voters will have voted for fascism.” That’s why we need to take away people’s right to vote. Like Dems did when they picked Kamala Harris. That way, the people won’t be voting for fascism, because those who are charge will for them. Problem solved. So the Dems are problem solvers, don’t yah know.
One feature of this campaign is how little either of the two major parties discusses Trump’s actual record (can’t *compare* records because Kama. doesn’t have one).
One of his huge accomplishments was to kill the Obama trade agenda,and to erase some of the egregious provisions of the Bush-Clinton NAFTA (North American “Free” Trade Agreement) abomination. Since Obama’s Trans Pacific “Partnership,” (LOL) agreement, the reviled TPP, was derailed under Trump, his undoing has been at the top of Wall Street’s agenda despite Trump’s massive tax cuts in their favour, not to mention his deregulation marathon.
Some may recall that an overarching objective of the Obama trade agenda was overriding local and national laws and regulations in any country that protected consumers, health and the environment, even (or especially?) if enacted by a democratic process.
One good thing about Biden’s depleted mental capacity is that he did not take up this key element of the Democratic Party donors’ wish list.
As ever in propagandized media, it is what is not said that is as important as what is said.
NAFTA 2.0 strengthened the ISDS provisions. The large print giveth, the fine print taketh away.
I don’t know who Wendy Brown is, but this framing of fascism doesnt get more convincing with repetion.
Imagined economic interests. Got it.
Piling on late but wanted to say how happy I was to see all the comments about the Brown piece. She did say things I agreed with about neoliberals but the stark framing of “only Trump” being fascist was really hard to get past.
We cannot let them get away with “only one side”ism this time around. Both parties are pretty much equally guilty of everything and equally devoid of redeeming qualities.
I am at heart a hopey kind of guy and I’m hoping Trump gets the very best from RFK Jr and Gabbard and that their efforts and successes drives a realignment resulting in a more libertarian and maybe even anti-war GOP. /hopeychangey
Would be nice, but the “system” cannot be fiddled into a more pleasing shape. It is managerial to the core. Managers see nothing but the need for more management thus more managers. Since they are right in all ways, if we, those to be managed, do not get with the program, it will be necessary to use force … for some or any definition of force. We have to be protected from disinformation and misinformation, the definitions of which are decided by the keepers of the “narrative” so of course content must be modified, adjusted, censored. Since we must be kept safe from any harm, also defined by the managers, they must keep tabs on us at all times. Naturally there must be a pervasive surveillance system. It’s for out good.
None of this will change no matter which branch of the uniparty grabs the brass ring. What to do? Start small organizing in parallel to the “system.” In time there will be institutions that can step in when the “System” finally implodes. Not quick. Not easy.
“China, India Start Removing Troops from Border Friction Points”
Looks like both sides grew up. That piece of territory is a wasteland and it costs a mint to keep troops there for both sides. The air is so thin that troops have to be acclimatized to go up there. So thin is the air and so remote the location, there is zero chance that you could have Modi and X meeting there as it would probably kill them both. So why bother with fighting for this place? Give another twenty years and you will probably have vets from both sides go for a meetup over a few beers. But certainly it will be in a place nearer sea level.
The strategic importance of that region is that it is the headwaters of some of the most important rivers in Asia. Specifically, the glaciers and snowcaps that keep summer flows going. Without full flow in the Ganges/Brahmaputra, there is no India (or Bangladesh). China is currently building yet more dams on the Brahmaputra and didn’t ask anyone downstream for permission. And the Indians never consult the Bangladeshi on what they do with the Ganges.
Mind you, the native inhabitants up there generally don’t consider themselves either Chinese or Indian, but nobody seems bothered to ask them what they think.
There was never a border in the area, and the one British imagination created was done without China’s Qing endorsment or acceptance. And liberated India went with it as it were its sacrosanct right (M. Badrakhumar mused on the blown up claims of India in the high Tibet in one of his postings on indianpunchline.com). If China wouldn’t have invaded Tibet in early 1950s, likely India would have done it, after all Buddhism started in india, no?!
This doesn’t mean I want to legitimize China’s claims either. As for locals, there are no locals in that wasteland, maybe there is some fish in the water, but that is not sustainable.
Maybe both China and India will admit that the whole thing is stupid and better set a commission to advise for a final agreement in respects to a definite border.
It’s quite incorrect to say there are no locals in the area. It’s a very harsh environment, but you will find small villages of herders up to 5,000 metres in the region (I know, I’ve camped up there in one that was completely unmapped), on the Chinese side of the border). Much of the settlement is seasonal, but it’s very much settled by Tibetan peoples. Many though, have been driven out due to the military protection zones and the border itself has interfered with traditional herding movements.
Its been clear for quite a few years that most population projections have been overstating population growth. There is always a lag between when an inflection point occurs in any given population and when that becomes clear in the statistics. We are now seeing significant reductions in growth even in regions like north Africa and the Middle East.
As the article says, there are historical precedents for fertility rates to drop, and then increase again rapidly. But usually this only happens after a major disruption. What we are no seeing is a worldwide phenomenon and it doesn’t seem to necessarily align with economic status, cultural/political features or anything else.
I suppose we should hope that Tesla’s new robots work. We may need them. Along with a whole new economic system.
It seems to me that it is the Chinese robots that are doing all the work.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/02/13/chinese-robots-conquer-factories_6522342_19.html
I find this to be good news. I am a little concerned that pollution could cause a Children of Men scenario, but I imagine toxins will reduce as population falls. There will be downward pressures from lower life expectancy as well. How many years will Covid shave off? When will that start showing up in projections?
I think your concern is misplaced about available workers.
The amount of land that is inhabitable after we are fully immersed in global warming will make whatever population is left more than too much.
The FT is hilariously behind the curve here. Empty Planet came out in 2020 …
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet-by-darrell-bricker-and-john-ibbitson/
Way further back than that. There was an important article in Foreign Affairs twenty years ago, “The Global Baby Bust.” I’d link to it, but it’s paywalled.
Unfortunately, policymakers in the developed world either failed to understand, or refused to understand, the phenomenon of long-term sub-replacement fertility. They all just stupidly ramped up immigration rates (so much for technocrats). It’s a policy which guarantees that the problem of an aging population will be worse in the future than it would have been otherwise, to say nothing of the issues caused by mass immigration itself.
The Trudeau government announced yesterday that they were correcting a “minor miscalculation” in their immigration numbers by slashing quotas over the next few years. New numbers will see an overall population drop of ±.02% over the next few years, reducing new housing requirements by 670,000 units by 2027.
This is a long overdue policy change (and a probably unsuccessful attempt to win the upcoming federal election): Excessive immigration, intended to put downward pressure on wages and keep real estate prices high, has created existential crises in housing, education and health services provision.
This will be the first time that the population of Canada has not increased year over year.
>‘This is an extermination’: Israel’s assault on north Gaza’s last functioning hospital Mondoweiss
Forced Death March: On Tuesday, October 23, Israeli drones dropped leaflets and aired voice messages at Palestinians who remained in the surroundings of Kamal Adwan and inside its premises, ordering them to leave.
So the argument from my TDS suffering friends and family is that it would be even worse if Trump were elected. Aaron Mate in one of his tweets yesterday conceded as much. This is the same rational AOC uses to justify voting for status quo.
Conceding the premise of the argument, the question is do you throw off the chains of oppression/genocide knowing that it could be worse in the future or do you submit to the chains/oppression/genocide that you are currently suffering. This seems to be the dividing line.
Choosing “the lesser of two evils” is therefore an act of radical evil hiding behind the mask of civic duty.
I just read that quote from Edward Curtin’s latest article, I think it’s obvious which side of that dividing line he falls on, the same one as me.
https://edwardcurtin.com/soul-suicide-in-the-ballot-box-as-palestinians-are-butchered/
Biden gives the Zionists everything they ask for, Trump gives them things even they are afraid to ask for.
I haven’t filled out my ballot yet and have been struggling with the necessary conjunctive analysis the situation demands. Still, I can’t envision voting for the D’rats.
Trump was president for four years. There was nothing like this, not even remotely like this, taking place during that time.
Israel butchered more Palestinians while Obama was president, than while Trump was president.
Under Biden’s brand of world leadership, the Israelis now perpetrate an historic massacre.
If I were a US citizen, I would vote unabashedly for Donald Trump. Why? Because I can plainly observe.
Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized annexation of the Golan Heights and recognized Moroccan suzerainty over Western Sahara (another disaster) in exchange for their recognizing Israel. None of those were supported by many, if any, in the rest of the world.
And there was the slaughter of the great march of return. Trump would be a further disaster for the Palestinians. He could recognize the annexation of all of Palestine, if there is anything left after Biden’s term.
So, it is a lose, lose proposition for the Palestinians.
All very true. However, there is something more humane in Trump that is not detectable in Biden or Harris or Blinken. Trump is squimish and he showed in the past that physical violence and bloodshed repulse him. Attacking him with pictures of killed Palestinian babies has the potential to repel any son-in-law influences…
Since it’s crazy time or otherwise known as the Presidential election year…here’s some “crazy” to chew on:
If the political establishment and much of media were really anti-Trump, why are they running almost the same playbook that got him elected last time?
They’ve tried shouting “Joy” or any of a handful of diatribes and tropes… And since quite many people have a working memory they ( the establishment to be clear ) just can’t trot out the Hope and Change from 2008 once again ( but this time, with feeling and with meaning! )…
Hey dear citizen just follow our leading lights named Clooney, Oprah and vote for the individual they solemnly choose to rule over us. Can’t mark this one with sarcasm. And how is, for example, a Michael Cohen a now reputable person worth interviewing for his political commentary?
That playbook got Trump inaugurated in 2017 and Biden inaugurated in 2021. In both cycles, political consultants and lobbyists made hundreds of millions. QED.
2020 was different. It changed up a bit because an incumbent is considered more difficult to defeat.
My point of view, which admittedly has been focused on the DNC, is that the ping-pong game of elections is largely a beard for the real game: laundering staggering amounts of money into approved bank accounts.
An incumbent is hard to beat because they usually were popular at one point. Trump never was.
The question is how popular is Team Blue. How does Hillary do with less nostalgia driven support? Biden? After 8 glorious years of the Great One, the Democrats put up ancient, losers of presidential campaigns.
Usually, political campaigns try to be popular, but the GOP is a white Christian nationalist party and Team Blue supports the GOP economic and foreign policies. From demographics, the GOP should not be close. Look at Georgia. Stacey Abrams solo work (sans the DNC) produced 2 Blue Senators. North Carolina and Georgia have the demographics that turned Virginia blue. Instead Florida which was once a swing state has become super red. Ohio. Except for Brown, it’s been a disaster for Team Blue.
“The GOP is a white christian nationalist party.” Asserted not argued. Noted white christian nationalists Miriam Adelson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, Jared Kushner, Bill Ackman…they are bad enough not to require straw boogeymen.
Added note: This assessment is looking at the pandemic year election as its own special kind of crazy and quirky.
1. They are stupid and largely protected by safe seats. The courtiers tend to come from safe seats. Then their greed. GOTV dollars don’t feed James Carville.
2. Donors want to see results that they can share at the country club. Lynne Cheney seems like a win to a shallow partisan. People registering voters in July at a wal mart parking lot isn’t seen.
3. They don’t want to make promises as it will just make the midterms more difficult.
4. Cultlike devotion to Mother. HRC didn’t fail. The voters failed her.
5. Genuine loathing of the Democratic Party base. When you consider class structures, it’s absurd to conclude an Alexandra Pelosi type would be as left as her mother. For every dirty hippie they lose they will gain 2 Karens as long as the minorities do what they are told.
Other than winning, the Team Blue elites by and large won’t be sent packing.
I have a 5 dollar donation for anyone starting up the Dirty Hippie party. I’d give more but I too closely resemble a dirty hippie.
I don’t have even a $5 donation.
I’d start out with a conventional party just to pick a proper name…and include in the introduction proceedings a catchy tune as an opener, featuring Mark Wahlberg and the Funky Bunch. Oh and my suggestible name for this is The Knuckle Heads.
Good Vibrations. I’ll try to include the video at a later time!
It has been a very long time since the ruling class has suffered meaningful consequences for failure. A lot of folks up there who have failed up. Competence crisis, some call it.
“We’re not wrong, you are,” stated by the regime to the voters, is a relatively new phenomenon. First appeared with Obama, prior to whom, criticizing the voters was never or almost never done. In the years since, it has become SOP from the Ds and just recently is beginning to appear with the Rs also.
You might be interested in a podcast episode about how a long term effort to rewrite ww2 history and discipline labor in Canada led to the recent embarrassments (are they, though?) of the victims of communism memorial honoring fascists and Nazis and of course the celebration of Yaroslav Hunka. Lots of juicy history here but you only get an 40 minute excerpt without stumping up for the Patreon ($5). Search for TrueAnon Episode 414: 6 Million, Eh?
I find this especially interesting and important because there are hints in the news (that I got here) that the idea that the real perp in ww2 was the commies is gaining more followers in Europe now.
“the real perp in ww2 was the commies”.
The real perpetrator of what? I am not being deliberately obtuse, I don’t see the point you are making. It takes 2+ to “perpetrate” a war. It cannot have been the Commies alone! Or do you mean they perpetrated either a genocide or a political revolution / the cold war? Or that they were the real victors? Or made the real sacrifice? Or they were the real target, even?
I gave heard people espouse all of the above but
I cannot judge whether you are hearing Europe support something because I cannot tell what it is you think Europe supports. Could you explain further please, if you are minded to (no assignments!).
I think .Tom is implying that look at the evidence, i.e. Canada protected actual nazis, and now are spinning the idea that in fact the true initiators of WWII were the commies, not the nazis so they are not only hypocrites, but ultimately degenerats with their lying, and not different than the polity of Big Brother from 1984..
However, a Canadian academic has published a very thoroughly research trilogy on the decade prior to WWII and he squarely puts it on the Germans and the West (and Poland), despite the ever disperate efforts of Stalin to form an anti German coallition.
Thank you, Kouros. I don’t know yet if these two podcast episodes deal with the work of that particular Canadian academic. Btw, can you name him, her, them?
Yes, of course:
Michael Jabara Carley
Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930–1936
Stalin’s Failed Alliance: The Struggle for Collective Security, 1936-1939
Stalin’s Great Game: War and Neutrality, 1939-1941
The usual prop in the West, the prop I grew up with, is that the “good guys” were the allies of Britain and the “bad guys” were the Nazis/axis powers who were also the “losers”.
Since the end of that war some in the loser diaspora have on and off been trying claw back some legitimacy and achieve some political goals by various means. One such means is to spread the prop that communism, and by logical extension everything that’s not free-market capitalism, is the same thing as Stalinist totalitarianism. Another is the prop that confuses contemporary Russia with the West’s cold war enemy. Another is to spread the prop of central European (e.g. Ukrainian) nationalism as a valiant bulwark against evil Russia/Putin. Combine these ideas in certain ways and you can produce statements like the one Anthony Rota made to introduce Hunka to parliament. Hilarious banana slip. But this stuff can in fact get some real political work done if it’s done a little less obviously and stupidly.
The podcast episode looks at the people involved in the various organizations and efforts over many decades to rehabilitate Ukrainian nationalists and to belittle communists, socialists and unionists in Canada.
This is precisely what I have observed in my more than 60 years in Canada.
I think the point being made is that the Government of Canada spending millions to create a “Victims of Communism” memorial with a list of said victims that is now revealed to include hundreds of Nazis, many, but by no means all of whom were Ukrainian Nazis purpose-imported because they were Nazis, would tend to suggest that since the end of WW2, history has been incrementally rewritten to frame the good guys as the bad guys.
And Canada is by no means alone in this — see the Baltics, Poland, and oh yeah, Ukraine, and all of her supporters, European or otherwise.
I guess my reply in support of .Toms point used the N*** word too many times to be published. (it’s OK by me to sub in N***.)
“BRICS 2024 Kazan Special Coverage”
‘He then gave a dressing down to BBC’s chief pest Steve Rosenberg’
Saw his report on the news and it certainly felt like sour grapes. I guess that he feels out of place here as when he goes to places like NATO conferences, there are always friendly officials letting him in on info for exchange for favourable coverage. At the BRICS he was just another western reporter making up the numbers and when he attempted to launch a haymaker of a punch in that conference by talking about what is fair, had Putin maul his arm up to the shoulder joint in exchange.
I’m looking forward to more reports on this conference. I am not expecting to hear much about it in the American MSM, but it’s obviously an important event. Here’s The Duran giving a summary so far:
BRICS Bridge & BRICS Clear, new financial architecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkfa9iUH83k
I thought I read somewhere that Biden was concentrating his personal attention on FP since he had all the experience from the Senate. It’s just my personal opinion, but American FP has been a dumpster fire for a while now, but Biden was also able to get the EU leadership to climb into the dumpster while he re-lite it. It’s been astonishing to watch. We’re going to have to give the joining of neocons and neolibs a new name which properly expresses just how fast these crazies can wreck a nation and sink an empire
I found the Wendy Brown interview in the piece “The Violent Exhaustion of Liberal Democracy” to be deeply emblematic of the hollowness of much of the left and its “radical” politics.
Her solution/replacement for the liberal democracy is “reparative democracy,” and idea that I gleaned from this interview is simply intersectionality with an added ecological component. That’s nice, but ultimately, there’s nothing in that about winning, or overcoming, the current order, beyond making space to “listen” to those lives (human and non-human) that have been unheard until now. My rough translation is that it is another form of radical leftist politics that thinks raising awareness is the point of all political struggle instead of actually winning and changing the world.
The tell for this is Brown pointing to #StopCopCity as a real example of reparative democracy in action. What she and the interviewer ignore is the fact that the activists are losing this struggle and will lose completely when it is all said and done. And in the process, the cops/state raised awareness among the general population that you can still be murdered and your land/culture destroyed if you get in the way of the powerful interests that actually rule our lives.
People like Wendy Brown, imo, aren’t serious political philosophers, because they refuse to actually discuss what it will take to destroy empire and destroy the growth of any new empires, if and when the hegemonic vacuum arises. The historical analogy that immediately came to mind was of early Christian sects (and Jewish sects) that lived on the periphery of the Roman empire and its client states, immersed in eschatological theologies, waiting for the return (or coming) of the Messiah to bring about a perfect politics and world. Granted I’ve been doing a deep dive on that period of history, lately, so I’m likely biased here.
There seems to be this belief, unstated, that neo-leftists can effect a “vibe shift” by raising awareness about the injustice of the world and our own eschatological moment with climate change. And Brown, to her credit, notes that neoliberalism/capitalism have wholesale replaced democratic values with market values, but fails to note this has occurred through the use of widespread violence, coercion, surveillance and entrainment as well as legal assaults on the constitutional order and the norms undergirding (ie the Powell memo to Citizen’s United).
But shifting vibes/raising awarness isn’t an actual political victory or political strategy, because it is deliberately ignoring the forces that forge the many selves that defend, promote, maintain and extend the current order and its systems of mass exploitation. It’s just a form of losing that’s dressed up in moral superiority and is a vacuous, if not outright hypocritical, exercise that ultimately strengthens the hand of the powerful interests molding & destroying the world.
And I would be remiss to point out that we have this interview vs the actual, and likely winning, politics of BRICS
Agree with you on the means, but not the ends. I think she’s right in her end goal. But you are about her means of getting there. I think the means focus needs to be directly on local community power in the face of global powerlessness.
As I discuss above, a total reframe from universal rights, to local duties. Empowerment through the old saw “helping others helps myself” juxtaposed against the conventional capitalist wisdom that some invisible hand marshals our individual greed toward some ill defined collective good.
I am having such problems in the past few months, dealing with all the ‘labels’ being hurled about: capitalism, democracy, liberal, socialist, communism, dictatorship, autocratic, fascist, authoritarian, etc.
Not so much the labels, as with the knee-jerk reaction associated with each one: capitalism = good; communism = bad. Democracy = good, autocracy = bad. Or, the reverse. Depending.
And, the slapping of a label on a system or a person, without any reference to what that system actually is. As in, ‘we’re a Democracy, and they are a Dictatorship! Or, she is a Socialist, and he is a Fascist!
And, the underlying system, or person, can change, but the label, and the judgement, stays the same. It’s driving me crazy.
Only in the mornings. I try to stay sane in the afternoon and evenings by doing useful stuff. Planting trees, connecting with neighbors (who run the gamut from “Israel is great!” to “The Government is out to get us!”) and figuring out how to get us to work together in spite of our differences.
See Matt Taibbi’s 2019 book Hate Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_Inc.
Amazon Reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Inc-Todays-Despise-Another/dp/1949017257
“Lost Silk Road cities discovered in Uzbek mountains”
Militarily, those cities would be quite safe because of the altitude that they are at. So in ancient times, you might have had a King tell his soldiers that they are going to sack the city of Tugunbulak. I can imagine how that would have gone down-
‘So you want us to attack Tugunbulak.’
‘Yes.’
‘Carrying all our armour, weapons and equipment.’
‘Yes.’
‘And drag our siege engines there to get through their fortifications.’
‘Yes.’
‘To a city 6,600 feet above sea level.’
‘Ummm. (King looks up the mountain to Tugunbulak)
‘As well as trying to transport tens of tons of supplies on a daily basis to support a siege.’
Got an idea. How about Samarkand instead.’
‘And that is why you are our King.’
they would be safe, also i would think they could have been able to live off of plunder from raiding the caravans passing along the trade route below, which would have been sitting (or rather plodding) ducks.
and perhaps would sing long songs at long feasts celebrating their leaders for their plunderings.
Re: BRICS coverage
For most of my life, I was moderately acquainted with Russian history and Russian science, but my exposure to Russian culture was limited to novels and music from the last couple of centuries, with a smattering of chess grandmasters. The last few years have opened my eyes to Russian humor.
The Western Empire wants to paint Russians as orcs… close, but a miss. Trolls. Russian trolls are the very best trolls.
And Ukrainians, too. Ukrainska Pravda (op cit.) is brilliant parody site.
And one of the funniest Russians (Gogol) was a Ukrainian.
Their very title is a wonderful bit of irony–not just the truth, but the Ukrainian truth. ;P
The fall of a once honourable organisation:
” ACLU Leadership Rejects Staff Demands to Condemn U.S. Role in Israel’s Gaza War
More than 650 ACLU staffers signed a petition calling on the organization to decry the ongoing war and divest from Israel. “
https://theintercept.com/2024/10/22/aclu-israel-gaza-war-divest/
Staffers at the American Civil Liberties Union began to circulate an internal petition earlier this year urging its leadership to take a public stance against the U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
The petition — which also calls on the ACLU to disclose and divest potential investments in Israel and oppose U.S. military aid to Israel — cites previous moments in history when the ACLU condemned international events, such as its opposition to the Vietnam War and South African apartheid. As of early October, 681 staffers from across the free speech organization’s national office and local chapters had signed on to support the petition, about one-third of its overall staff.
In early October, the ACLU’s national board of directors convened to vote on the petition. The governing body rejected the staffers’ calls with a 50-4 vote and one abstention, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. This week, after continued requests from staffers, ACLU leadership also rejected requests for a town hall meeting where staffers could hear leaders’ reasons for dismissing the petition.
ACLU leadership explained its rejection to staff in a memo, sent by Board President Deborah Archer and Executive Director Anthony Romero, stating that while the organization is committed to fighting for the free speech rights of those who are protesting around the war in Gaza, “a position on the war is not needed to carry out this essential domestic work.”
“not needed to carry out this essential domestic work.” hear, hear…
One of the reasons I tore up the request for money I got from them in the mail the other day, and I was once a proud card carrying member.
Institutional corruption is everywhere, in the great USA!!
R.I.P. #399
Truly disheartening.
For those who don’t understand the reference, #399 was a popular, world-famous grizzly bear in Grand Teton National Park:
https://www.qwant.com/?q=grizzly+bear+399&t=web
She was killed Tuesday when a car hit her.
The print-on-demand book thing is interesting. Amazon has been doing this for years with CDs and, I assume, movies as well. Several years ago, I bought a fairly hard to find CD only to receive a burnt CD-R with art work that had clearly come from a laser printer. (And yes, this came from Amazon proper, not from or oh behalf of a third party.) I feel like this is a transition away from ownership and forcing people into all digital media. I hate it and figured it was a matter of time until they figured it out for print media.
The key to this situation was in that article-
‘First, some context: bookstores can get their books either directly from publishers or from Ingram, a distributor/middle-man that warehouses and ships out books from just about every publisher in existence. Ordering directly from the publisher can often provide a slightly higher wholesale discount, but it usually takes longer to get books; ordering from Ingram is often faster, if a little more expensive.’
So people like him paid more for that service as it was more convenient for them. And as soon as Ingram had a lock on publishing, that is when the crapification and cannibalization began. Not surprised in the least.
Even the big movie studios have been releasing some titles on burnable DVD-RW. Warner Home Video started doing this with more obscure TCM type movies. The process of mastering an optical disc the other way has always been more expensive than, say, squishing a blob of vinyl. The result has been an overall movie catalog of superior vid quality but much smaller breadth than existed during the long reign of VHS.
As for the crappy books on tissue paper that I increasingly find at my library, better to simply drop the middle man and go ebook I say.That one time large chunk of bound paper with gilded bindings has turned into a cheap throwaway on upgraded toilet paper (the thing Capote accused Kerouac of using).
In the 1990s I worked for a company that created and printed technical manuals and owner manuals for a major automotive manufacturer. Older manuals remained available but were printed on demand because, as the article implies, there’s no sense in printing even a minimum run from a regular printer and storing many hundreds of manuals.
We made sure that the quality of the print on demand manuals was as close as possible to the regular manuals, and I would challenge the average user to tell me the difference.
We were also doing DVDs on demand in the early 2000s and there were machines with thermal printers that produced quality that was practically identical to the mass produced version. These were expensive because they required special DVDs that could withstand the heat of the thermal printer.
For a long time I’ve entertained a though of bookstores with a print-on-demand devices in the backroom. Any book in the catalog (or ever written, preferable) available to me in 20-30 minutes.
Why order from Amazon, if you can get it cheaper and faster from the Mom&Pop Books down the street…?
Been a great trip through Southern Utah and we aren’t done yet. Saw a 3 toed dinosaur footprint yesterday and lotsa cool ancient Native American wall art, with gobs more to see.
I don’t know all that much about the Mormon religion, but this would be a difficult place for hard-core end of times evangs to hang out as its pretty obvious the world wasn’t cobbled together 6,427 years ago on a Tuesday in March, unless all the dinosaur bones were planted here to throw non-dogmatists off.
My good Mormon grandfather, former Bishop and one time President of his branch, took a position I kinda loved. He had no problem with dinosaurs, or the earth being much older than a strict literal reading of the Bible would allow, hard as such a reading is.
His take, who says we know how long God’s day is.
I can’t say all Mormons believe that, but I would guess it or something similar is rattling around in many members personal theology.
Two versions I know of that cope
1) fossils are there to test your faith
2) God creates the world understanding its logic such that if it were to have happened naturally the fossils would have to be there so he puts them in to show the depth of his understanding and mastery of his handiwork
(Borges wrote about the Anglo who proposed this–Gosse, it comes back to me at the last moment!).
“Ukraine intelligence agency says North Korean units already in Kursk region”
Some Ukrainians jumped the gun and came up with a video of a group of their soldiers capturing a North Korean soldier. The only problem was that the North Korean soldier was speaking back to them in Ukrainian. Do’h!
Hey! In a democracy with only one news channel (on 24/7) North Koreans can be a very plausible explanation for the failure of the Kursk offensive. If it wasn’t for the Asiatic hordes, Ukrainians would be on the gates of Moscow already.
Out west they say Ukrainians are to Vikings as Russians are to Asiatic hordes.
Also, it might also be another case of projection, given some info of an entire wing of SK F-16s landing in Romania to hopefully hunt for Geran drones attacking Odessa…
https://maratkhairullin.substack.com/p/south-korea-has-decided-to-openly
I am not aquainted with the author though…
It’s a game of chicken now, and Boeing has up to 55bn eggs – Leeham News and Analysis
Boeing’s biggest ace in the hole: not much competition in USA in the industry.
And not so much 55 billion eggs as 55 billion apples in a giant barrel. So how may of them are rotten and may rot a lot of those other apples?
I’d be dubious in regards to the stability of the staves on that Boeing barrel.
Rot is a good word. The entire company is rotten. Except from recent litigation against Boeing’s BoD:
“Your a rotter, Mr. Calhoun. Your a triple-decker toad-stool sandwich, topped with arsenic sauce!”
-the Grinch-
In the latest Construction Physics he talks about how hard it has been for China to create their own Boeing.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/will-the-china-cycle-come-for-airbus
So yes even if most of Boeing’s engineering expertise is a legacy of the past they are still in unique and hard to replace position.
There is no “China cycle.”
China is developing rapidly and comprehensively and flight is a direction of development. China has a range of airframes manufactured domestically and some, but not all, aircraft certified engines manufactured at home. The goal is to have a range of domestic commercial passenger craft engines undergoing certification by 2025, and there is every reason to think the goal will be met since quite a few engines are already operating on specialized aircraft.
The point is not to compete internationally, but to be able to meet all domestic craft flight needs as necessary.
The methane link is curious.
I’ve read in numerous science journals about the worry of methane being released from permafrost, subsea hydrides which are all very hard to find as a point source but cumulatively could be large.
Somehow that the issue is dumps, cows and wetlands seems off.
As to the election. I’ve had low expectations for Harris, but her answers or lack there of in interviews and town halls are truly terrible.
I saw an interview and I can’t find it of someone who thinks that Obama and Pelosi wanted a short primary because they didn’t want Harris, Biden out of spite gave harris the position.
Soon it will be over.
The issue is tropical wetlands. Isotope studies show they are pouring unexpected amounts into the atmosphere as temperatures increase. Peter Carter is a good follow for this.
Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the link to Peter Carter. While there are tropical wetland emissions, it looks as if (as expected) a huge source of methane emissions are the W. Siberian and Hudson Bay lowlands. It was my impression that a great deal of that organic matter was sequestered in permafrost and is now melting and decaying. I had assumed that a lot of that vegetative mass was from before the last Ice Age and should have a significantly reduced C14/C12 ratio, no? And therefore, if they are observing “fresh” methane in the atmosphere it is from a different source?
CAFOs are an abomination and should be eliminated for many reasons, but they have been around for more than 5 years and can’t really account for the recent spike in methane, I would think. The paddy rice production in South and Southeast Asia was a source I had not considered, interesting. Has there been a significant recent spike in the area of rice cultivation?
The source I first saw, from 2022:
> 85 per cent of the increase in atmospheric methane since 2007 is due to microbial sources. And about half of that is from the tropics.
Before 2007 (or, more reasonably, 1990) was any of it from the Arctic??
Ah, thank you, Steve. I would guess that “microbial sources” would include the present-day decomposition of previously frozen vegetative matter, but not methane from clathrates or gas wells. Makes much more sense, I appreciate the info.
Read somewhere (here?) recently that vegan and vegetarian humans emit a lot more methane than omnivorous humans, which sort of took the shine off the argument that livestock was the culprit, and we should all eschew eating meat.
Direct methane production in human farts is a rounding error in the overall calculus of the environmental damage required to provide humans with a meat-based diet. For the year 2017 it is estimated that humans, all 7 billion, are responsible for a global methane emission of approximately 344 Gg. The 1.5 billions cows on Earth, on the other hand are estimated to produce 77000 Gg, more than 220 times as much.
I’m grinding through the 205 page complaint against Boeing’s Board of Directors, senior management, and other defendants that Lambert highlighted in yesterday’s WC.
It is like Christmas day for me.
Just had to share this one part, it is too good not to share:
Calhoun = ex Boeing CEO David Calhoun. West = Boeing CFO Brian West.
Let’s just remember this the next time some CEO (Here’s lookin’ at ya, Andy Jassy!) drags his entire workforce back to the office, claiming that workers “just aren’t as productive” when working from home.
100 pages in so far. I can say that after reading this there is no solution for Boeing save breaking it up. Nationalize it, fire the board, the rot goes too deep!
I think I figured out how ex-board member Nikki Haley escaped being on the list of defendants. Most of the acts of malfeasance alleged in the complaint happened between 2021-2024.
Our girl Nikki bailed out of the board abruptly in March 2020, citing Boeing’s “bailout” pending from the CARES act as the reason. Like any good politician, it appears she had a sense for trouble and hit the eject button just in time.
I duly applaud and must admire from afar the requisite necessary fortitude to endure through the paperwork. Kudos !
For the record, I’m Jack’s complete lack of surprise…Calhoun is a hack of an executive for such a lack of commitment. What a total a*hole these people prove themselves to truly be. Another recent example, and go back to the false accounts fiasco at Wells Fargo…just throw them in jail damn it.
Relief prayed for in the complaint includes disgorgement of Calhoun’s ill gotten gains of stock sale proceeds, profits, and compensation.
If granted by the court maybe his officers directors insurance kicks in and pays the damages, but I am not sure about that. We can pray that his insurance co. lawyers are bigger a&holes than he is.
Another remedy requested is:
“Granting such equitable relief to remediate the Company’s flawed governance as this Court deems just and proper”
My suggestion is to make Boeing execs fly nothing but Boeing MAX planes for the rest of their lives, I have the suspicion that might bump quality and safety up the priority list a bit.
We’ve been separated over a year now, but there are rumors floating around that My Kevin will be Our Kevin, as in Trump’s Chief of Staff come January, if the Donald is triumphant.
Sorry, America
Nooooooooo!
Another rumor–linked here the other day–is that my Nikki says she wants to campaign some for Trump now that it looks like he may win. Life for the hangers on must be confusing. Somehow I doubt though that this is going to get her a job.
There is plenty of room in the tent for Nikki! She’s always been for Trump, before she was against him, or something like that.
Plus, she won’t have to shell out big bucks for a defense attorney due to the Boeing litigation, having golden-parachuted out of the good ship 737 MAX right before it “auger-d in” to the earth’s mantle.
I could easily imagine Trump bringing some foes on board just so he can fire them later.
I read somewhere on Twitter yesterday he was going to pick Pompeo. That’s another name that should never be picked to begin with. Not even just to fire him.
Re: BRICS
The West is still in the game as long as there are billionaires and oligarchs all over the globe pulling strings for their own interests.
“Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine threaten country’s steel industry, key coal mine’
Russia says that’s the plan. And being located on what they consider to be Russian territory, they are taking it back again. Of course when Zelensky heard that the Ukraine was about to lose a major coke plant, he flipped his wig.
You have to watch out for those three toed dinosaurs Wuk. That stance is optimal for running, as in chasing and catching lunch. Try and hang out with the four toed dinosaurs. They are a much more laid back, vegetarian bunch.
Hey now. If the hebrew theocrats in the Palestine can point to a 3500 year old document from the priests of a thunder volcano god as legal title to other people’s land and property, then the evangs can buy into the “short termerist” historical perspective.
An Allosaurus was tailing us the other day, but 364 horsepower in our dinosaur distillate powered jalopy prevailed. Saw the skeleton of one in the museum in Castle Dome, and they were quite bad arse, the Hells Angels of 77 million years ago.
“Sailors on Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine were forced to ration food and share SWEETS after supplies nearly ran dry during six-month stint at sea”
‘The submarine was forced to patrol for half a year because of a shortage of vessels and plans to resupply at sea were scrapped for unknown reasons.’
Probably find that the Royal Navy has the same problem as the US Navy. That they don’t really have the support and service ships to keep the fighting ships at sea anymore. So why wasn’t that sub ordered to a friendly port to take on food and immediately solve the problem? Probably because it would make some admiral look bad if a sub had to abort its cruise early. In the condition that the crew was in, the Navy was lucky that there was not an accident that could have caused the loss of that boat.
Due Dissidence discusses the new Pentagon directive that allows military assets to be turned against the American people:
Does New Pentagon Directive EXPAND Military Authority Over Civilians? (Yes!)
https://youtu.be/i3c0qZQX-fQ?si=hYjm7SnxOYubVHHm
Re: Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand become partner countries of BRICS
D’oh !
It is so funny/crazy what makes ‘news’ and what doesn’t.
Arguably the biggest change in the global order in decades is underway with the world sorting into a Western aligned bloc and a ‘BRICS’ led block.
And here we have Indonesia, by far the largest country (whether by population or by economic might) in the world which hadn’t formally taken a position one way or the other, saying that it wants into the BRICS – this was expected to come at some point, but still, this is huge news! – especially when considering the other countries also being added, in particular Vietnam which is another powerful country.
But nobody pays any attention. But you did hear about how Trump cooked some french fries of course. lol.
I feel compelled to remind readers of Thomas Edison’s saying: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. BRICS is in the inspiration phase. There is an ENORMOUS amount of negotiation and work in store before it can achieve any of its objectives. That does not mean the Western press not paying it much mind is at all warranted, but enthusiasts are way way out over their skis.
Oh I agree 100%, I don’t really expect the BRICS to do much of anything in any sort of near-term time frame, especially in regards to ‘dethroning the dollar’ or anything like that (and if you read the Indonesian media reports on the decision, they make the same point, BRICS is kind of useless for accomplishing any practical objectives at the moment).
But what makes it newsworthy at this point, in my opinion, is the taking sides part. Indonesia could have kept sitting on the fence, but with them, Vietnam, Malaysia and others now joining up (and with India seeming recently to mend fences with China and move away from US dependence as well), the West is starting to look small compared to the size of the BRICS group. Feels like a momentous shift in power relations is taking place, and another huge step just happened, and few are even paying attention.
BRICS will never be a new Warsaw Pact. At best it may be an enhanced trading block. The weaponization of the USD must come to an end in order avoid global trade chaos and so I think it will because too much money (potential profits) is at stake. It truly is to everyone’s benefit, regardless of ideology, to have calm markets. We have to believe that saner heads will ultimately prevail before the bubble goes up.
But it, or a successor, may eventually be far more than what the Warsaw Pact was, and it is certainly, now, more than what the Warsaw Pact is.
That is known and expected. As somebody reminded the commentariat the other day (or was Mercouris?!), Bretton Woods took 14 years, from 1944 to 1958 to be fully implemented.
Lavrov said not long ago that the tussle will take some years, maybe up to 25 years. I don’t think anyone is looking for miracles (especially given the sabotaging propensities of the west).
but the mental battle needs to be won first. The trip of 5,000 li starts with the first step.
Hi YS …
Yes long lead times, albeit I wonder about perception near and medium term with Capital flows/Investor preferences. All complicated by increasing military conflicts i.e. paper economies vs industrial/resource and the difference in two over a protracted period of engagement. Both Mfg and Social dynamics playing out in real time.
The big thing to me is the West socially is a mess where the BRICKS is far more stable.
People don’t really have a choice of who they want. The party’s determine who you get to vote for. Even if there is a primary the two major parties determine who runs in a primary. Unless you write in a vote for someone you only choice is the party’s chosen candidate. A write in candidate only rarely wins. So you only get to pick from the two party candidates.
I happened to encounter stage 5 TDS yesterday and it was unnerving.
The people I ran into are absolutely convinced that Trump is a Russian asset who will declare himself Dictator for life as soon as he takes office, open up concentration camps and have all the freedom loving Liberals arrested and jailed.
And the biggest threats to “Our Democracy” are the first and second amendments to the Constitution which is proved by Elon Musk’s petition supporting both.
These are people I have been acquainted with for some years and the total lack of critical thinking and the fear and rage they express are concerning, to say the least.
Maybe, just maybe, using a grease gun to shoot the empty space in their skulls full with lithium grease would help…
Funny, I know the very same people. They also tell me; we are all dumb as a fence posts (borrowed from Mel Gibson on Kamala) because we don’t watch the real news. Ha!
What news would that be? The very same news that makes them sound like a Pete Buttigieg wind up toy spewing DNC talking points that most people are laughing at? I’m guessing so, and I’ll pass, thank you very much.
Adding: I appears the Washington Post is not endorsing Harris. My PMC friends are cancelling their subscription en masse. They don’t know it now, but they are likely to become better informed. Probably a good thing – they sure need it.
LATimes isn’t endorsing Harris. Not endorsing anyone this time.
There is a great disturbance in the Force. / ;)
George Santos called it yesterday. Everyone laughed.
Last night I was told Trump had a whole army who would enforce the totalitarian measures he was certain to take this time were he to be elected. When I asked what army that would be given that the party currently in charge has the support of the US military, the spooks, the majority of the corporate media, etc and that’s where the real power base is, I was told I must be watching the wrong news, too.
Tom et all responding – do you notice the level of TDS increasing exponentially as election day gets closer and closer – critical thinking has been mauled by the hounds of both parties – neither party went through a primary – duh! – and it seems the more educated a person is, as in PhD or beyond, the more stubborn they are in giving any balance to a discussion if they’re for red or blue – i gave up talking about politics a couple of weeks ago after having a brief discussion with a close friend when i stopped by to pick up some horse manure from him – he is an avid reader of the NYT and i wanted to draw a comparison to the load in my pickup but refrained and when i deferred to responding to his bait, since he knew my views, he thought i was afraid to debate his ‘facts’ usually verbatim from the NYT or whatever pseudo-progressive news program he watches and he made a cry-baby sound as if to indicate i was unable to counter – just shook my head and thanked him for the horseshit, of course he didn’t know which horseshit i was referring – just going to wait until after the election, which i think Drumpf may win, and ask why none of the dystopian fantasies i’ve heard are happening – were screwed with either of the grifting a$$holes – the environment continues to take a seat at the back of the bus or is used for some new improved tech grift fix – not that i think voting really makes a difference at this point in the bought and paid for country of the oligarchs, but i did cast a vote for Jill and any candidate other than the uniparty ones on the ballot for any office – i think i’ll go out back and dig a hole then fill it in for something to do that will tire me –
Oh yes and RDS is also on the rise.
R=Repukelicans?
From Al Jazeera. ~1 hr, 20 minutes.
War crimes in Gaza I Al Jazeera Investigations
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/investigations/2024/10/7/war-crimes-in-gaza-i-al-jazeera-investigations
For those interested, the following are the certified write in candidates for President in NY state. They are supposed to be counted.
Shiva Ayyadurai
Claudia De la Cruz
Chris Garrity
Garry Hubbard
Andre Ramon McNeil Sr
Andrew O’Donnell
Chase Oliver
Future Madam Potus
Raymond Anthony Scollin
Peter Sonski
Jill Stein
Cornell West
Otherwise it is Kam and Don.
I will go out on a limb and state with a great deal of confidence that if Jill Stein were to defy all the odds and be elected POTUS there would be very little change in US foreign policy – money and arms would continue to flow to both Israel and Ukraine, and the bellicosity towards China would continue unabated. The reasoning is simple. Foreign policy is largely decided by the administrative state, not presidents. While Stein may vehemently oppose the genocide in Gaza (and now Lebanon) the men in the dark suits carrying briefcases will tell her how things will be. She will not be the Decider. So…all of this hand wringing and pearl clutching regarding the presidential election is wholly unnecessary. Fundamentally, nothing (or at least very little) will change.
It is even more basic than that. She could not attract a semi-credible top team (think of Trump first term squared or cubed), she has no experience running a large or even small bureaucracy, and I doubt she has much experience with infighting.
From Have you purchased a weirdly low-quality paperback book lately? This may be why.
Yes. Yes!
I was scammed on Ebay from an Indian seller operating out of a PA address, for a highly technical investment book that you’d think no one had any reason to even care about. It was a garbage quality inkjet re-print, and the book does not have a paperback copy.
Ebay didn’t care, immediately rejected my appeal, because I didn’t return the book to India! on my dime per their process, with only the scammer’s promise to reimburse me.
Started a chargeback process with credit card, but no luck so far, even though it’s literally obvious that it is fraud, no such paperback is even made by the publisher, and the inside cover literally says it is a PDF copy of the text.
What a joke.
Everyone makes money here, the scammer, the platform, the card company. The only loser is the buyer.
Maybe I can complain to the FTC or my state’s consumer protection board if it has one? I think I’m probably out of steps here if the chargeback fails, which I haven’t heard back on after submitting plenty of requested evidence.
After chatting with Putin the president-elect Trump calls Z and after an exchange of pleasantries says “Look, here’s the situation. NATO doesn’t want you. We don’t want you in NATO. You’re not getting in NATO. And the EU thing doesn’t look good either. Doesn’t look good at all. Sorry. Just not looking good for either EU or NATO. So we have a new idea. We want you to join BRICS.”
The Art of the Deal.
That’s a brilliant plan. The sweetener is that the BRICS countries can provide Z will all of the blow that he would ever want to snort through a rolled up $100 bill.
Lt Kije So, I voted my conscience, for Jill Stein and the greens. I’ve watched this country vote for the lesser of two evils my entire adult life (maybe JFK wasn’t such a vote but I missed him by a couple of years). We’ve voted lesser so long that now we have the Evil of two lessers to choose from. The circle is complete?
At this moment, Israel is bombing Tehran.