Jun 102022
 


James Ensor The oyster eater 1882

 

Washington Starts Blame Game Over Defeat In Ukraine (MoA)
We’re Almost Out Of Ammunition And Relying On Western Arms, Says Ukraine (G.)
The US/UK Proxy War Forestalling Peace Negotiations in Ukraine (CD)
Nuclear Deployments in Finland & Sweden Not Ruled Out, NATO Says (LI)
Greek Court Overturns Ruling on Seizure of Iranian Ship (GR)
Will The Global South Break Free From Dollarized Debt? (Escobar)
Dershowitz Says Admin Using ‘Stupidest Argument’ On Executive Privilege (JTN)
Trump: ‘January 6th Was Not Simply a Protest’ (GP) /span>
So You Say You Want a Revolution? (Turley)
COVID Vaccines Appear To Cause Abnormally Long Blood Clots (JTN)
Unfunded State Pension Liabilities Grow To $8.28 Trillion (JTN)
Welsh Schools to Feed Primary Students Insects (VT)
Judge: CIA May Have Received Illicitly Recorded Assange Conversations (ElP)

 

 

 

 

Jan 6

 

 

“Those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.”
— Hannah Arendt

 

 

Tucker Jan 6

 

 

 

 

“It is cover your ass time and Zelensky prominence in the ‘west’ makes it possible to blame him personally for the outcome of the war.”

Washington Starts Blame Game Over Defeat In Ukraine (MoA)

The New York Times, here via Yahoo, has some rather weird piece over alleged lack of intelligence on Ukrainian warplanes: U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine’s War Strategy, Officials Say: “President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has provided near-daily updates of Russia’s invasion on social media; viral video posts have shown the effectiveness of Western weapons in the hands of Ukrainian forces; and the Pentagon has regularly held briefings on developments in the war. But despite the flow of all this news to the public, U.S. intelligence agencies have less information than they would like about Ukraine’s operations and possess a far better picture of Russia’s military, its planned operations and its successes and failures, according to current and former officials.”

[..] Andrei Martyanov rants about the piece: “Well, NYT decided to start steering clear of this whole Russia “lost in Ukraine” BS it promoted together with neocon crazies, and begins this ever familiar tune of the “intel failure”. Right.” […] Larry Johnson thinks there is another another motive behind the story: “Frankly, I find it hard to believe that there are not solid analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency who know the answers to all these questions. The real problem may not be a lack of intelligence. Nope. It is the fear of telling the politicians hard truths they do not want to hear.”

I do not believe for one moment that U.S. intelligence services do not know what is going on in Ukraine and in Kiev. They know that the Ukraine has lost the war and will have to sue for peace as soon as possible. They also have told the White House that this is a case and that the whole idea of setting up the Ukraine to tickle the Russian bear was idiotic from the get go. The question now is who will take the blame for the outcome. Who can the buck be passed to? There is always the option for politicians, as Andrei assumes is the case, to blame the intelligence and the various agencies which provide it. This was done when the war on Iraq, based on false claims weapons of mass destruction, started to go bad for the U.S.

But what the NYT piece does is passing the buck from the intelligence community to president Zelensky of Ukraine: “He did not inform us about the bad position his country was in.” It is cover your ass time and Zelensky prominence in the ‘west’ makes it possible to blame him personally for the outcome of the war.

Read more …

Straight from the Lockheed Martin PR department.

We’re Almost Out Of Ammunition And Relying On Western Arms, Says Ukraine (G.)

Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia on the frontlines and is now almost solely reliant on weapons from the west to keep Russia at bay. “This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”. “Everything now depends on what [the west] gives us,” said Skibitsky. “Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. Our western partners have given us about 10% of what they have.” Ukraine is using 5,000 to 6,000 artillery rounds a day, according to Skibitsky.

“We have almost used up all of our [artillery] ammunition and are now using 155-calibre Nato standard shells,” he said of the ammunition that is fired from artillery pieces. “Europe is also delivering lower-calibre shells but as Europe runs out, the amount is getting smaller.” The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said last week that between 60 and 100 Ukrainian soldiers were dying each day and a further 500 were being injured. Ukraine has kept the total number of its military losses secret. Soldiers speaking to the Guardian from Ukraine’s frontlines this week painted a similar picture. Skibitsky emphasised the need for the west to supply Ukraine with long-range rocket systems to destroy the Russian artillery pieces from afar.

This week the Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych told the Guardian that Ukraine needed 60 multiple-rocket launchers – many more than the handful promised so far by the UK and US – to have a chance of defeating Russia. Ukraine is set to ask the west for a list of weapons and defensive equipment at the contact group meeting with Nato in Brussels on 15 June. Skibitsky thinks the conflict will remain predominantly an artillery war in the near future and the number of rocket attacks – which can be launched from Russia and have hit civilians – will remain at their current rate.

Read more …

“If you are ready to sign some guarantee agreements with him, we are not..”

The US/UK Proxy War Forestalling Peace Negotiations in Ukraine (CD)

The British government, as ever following the US lead, is sending longer range missile systems to Ukraine for the first time. The government described the M270 weapon system they are despatching as a “cutting edge” military asset which can strike targets up to 80 kilometres away “with pinpoint accuracy.” Ukrainian soldiers are due to be brought to Britain for training in how to use the missiles. Britain and the US appear to have abandoned even the limited military restraint they showed early on in the war. Their policy of pumping in the weapons and pushing for outright victory risks disaster. They must be stopped.

As even some of the mainstream media point out, on top of the four precision-guided, medium-range rocket systems sent by the US last week, this decision marks a new stage in the war in which the West is prepared to provide the Ukrainian military with the capacity to strike deep in to Russian territory, something they previously carefully avoided. This is one in a series of escalations on the part of the Western powers. It provoked immediate retaliation in words and deeds from Vladimir Putin—including the first bombardment of Kiev for five weeks—as Western leaders must have known it would. It underlines the fact that the West is still pushing for nothing less than the complete defeat of Russia while Russian troops continue their offensive.

As British Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a statement announcing the new weapons shipment, “If the international community continues its support, I believe Ukraine can win”. As part of this policy of proxy war, the West has been deliberately trying to head off moves towards serious negotiations. The leading pro–Western Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda reported recently that Boris Johnson himself appeared in Kyiv early in May almost without warning, urging Zelensky not to negotiate with Putin. “If you are ready to sign some guarantee agreements with him, we are not,” Johnson said, insisting it was instead the time to “press him.” Johnson later confirmed to French president Emmanuel Macron that he had “urged against any negotiations with Russia on terms that gave credence to the Kremlin’s false narrative for the invasion.”

Read more …

“I do not believe it is necessary, in the current context, to provide any guarantees whatsoever to Russia on our military posture in the region.”

Nuclear Deployments in Finland & Sweden Not Ruled Out, NATO Says (LI)

The NATO military alliance will not offer Russia any guarantees regarding the deployment of nuclear weapons to prospective member states Sweden and Finland, with a senior official in the bloc stressing that such decisions must be left to individual nations. Speaking to Swiss broadcaster RTS for an interview over the weekend, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment Camille Grand was asked whether Western powers should provide nuclear assurances to Moscow in light of recent membership applications from Stockholm and Helsinki, which asked to join alliance following Russia’s attack on Ukraine earlier this year.

“Every country is free in the nuclear field to deploy or not to deploy such weapons. We are not talking about setting up some principle restrictions on the possible actions of the alliance,” he said, adding “This is a discussion that centers on the sovereignty of each member state of the alliance.” Five NATO states currently host American nuclear weapons on their soil, including Turkey, Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Seven other members participate in the bloc’s SNOWCAT program – under which non-nuclear nations offer conventional air support for nuclear operations – while all 30 members of the alliance with the exception of France belong to its nuclear planning group.

Grand went on to say that the accession of the two Nordic states would not “radically change the strategic or military situation” in the region, arguing that “We do not have the intention nor the means to invade Russia, or carry out offensive actions against Russia,” and that Moscow “know this very well.”

Read more …

It might not be the smartest move to start seizing ships if you have so many ships out there yourself.

Greek Court Overturns Ruling on Seizure of Iranian Ship (GR)

A Greek court on Wednesday overturned an earlier court ruling that allowed the confiscation by the United States of part of a cargo of Iranian oil on an Iranian-flagged tanker off the Greek coast. The incident had led to an angry response by Iran, with Iranian forces last month seizing two Greek tankers in the Gulf after Tehran warned it would take “punitive action” against Athens. The Iranian embassy in Greece had earlier announced that “Following intensive follow-ups, the Greek Court of Appeals will revoke the ruling of the initial court to confiscate oil belonging to Iran and the entire oil shipment will be returned.” On April 19, the Greek Coast Guard seized the Russian tanker Pegasus, operating under the Iranian flag, off the island of Evia.


The Greek government announced that it would deliver 115,000 tons of Iranian oil on the Lana tanker to the United States, but Tehran called the move an act of piracy by Athens. Iranian Ambassador to Greece Ahmad Naderi, in continuation of intensive diplomatic and legal activities over the past few weeks to prevent US piracy off the coast of Greece, visited the port of Karistos and met with the captain of the ship to review the latest developments, according to a report in the Iranian News Agency MNA. Following the seizure of the Iranian ship in Greek waters, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Greek Charge d’affaires to convey a strong protest of Iran to the Greek officials.

Read more …

“The US economy is indeed a lame post-modern remake of the late Roman empire: “dependent on foreign tribute for its survival in today’s global rentier economy.”

Will The Global South Break Free From Dollarized Debt? (Escobar)

With The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism, Michael Hudson, one of the world’s leading independent economists, has given us arguably the ultimate handbook on where we’re at, who’s in charge, and whether we can bypass them. Let’s jump straight into the fray. Hudson begins with an analysis of the “take the money and run” ethos, complete with de-industrialization, as 90 percent of US corporate revenue is “used to share buybacks and dividend payouts to support company stock prices.” That represents the apex of “Finance Capitalism’s” political strategy: to “capture the public sector and shift monetary and banking power” to Wall Street, the City of London and other western financial centers.

[..] To a large extent, nostalgia for the rape-and-pillaging of 1990s-era Russia fuels what Hudson defines as the New Cold War, where Dollar Diplomacy must assert its control over every foreign economy. The New Cold War is not waged only against Russia and China, “but against any countries resisting privatization and financialization under US sponsorship.” Hudson reminds us how China’s policy “followed almost the same path that American protectionism did from 1865 though 1914 – state subsidy for industry, heavy public-sector capital investment…and social spending on education and health care to upgrade the quality and productivity of labor. This was not called Marxism in the United States; it was simply the logical way to look at industrialization, as part of a broad economic and social system.”

But then, finance – or casino – capitalism gained steam, and left the US economy mainly with “agribusiness farm surpluses, and monopolies in information technology (largely developed as a by-product of military research), military hardware, and pharmaceutical patents (based on public seed-money to fund research) able to extract monopoly rent while making themselves largely tax-exempt by using offshore banking centers.” That’s the current State of Empire: relying only “on its rentier class and Dollar Diplomacy,” with prosperity concentrated in the top one percent of establishment elites. The inevitable corollary is US diplomacy imposing illegal, unilateral sanctions on Russia, China and anyone else who defies its diktats.

The US economy is indeed a lame post-modern remake of the late Roman empire: “dependent on foreign tribute for its survival in today’s global rentier economy.” Enter the correlation between a dwindling free lunch and utter fear: “That is why the United States has surrounded Eurasia with 750 military bases.” Delightfully, Hudson goes back to Lactantius, in the late 3rd century, describing the Roman empire on Divine Institutes, to stress the parallels with the American version: “In order to enslave the many, the greedy began to appropriate and accumulate the necessities of life and keep them tightly closed up, so that they might keep these bounties for themselves. They did this not for humanity’s sake (which was not in them at all), but to rake up all things as products of their greed and avarice. In the name of justice they made unfair and unjust laws to sanction their thefts and avarice against the power of the multitude. In this way they availed as much by authority as by strength of arms or overt evil.”

Read more …

“Who’s ever going to talk to a president in confidence when she or he knows that their conversation can be revealed if the new president of a different party decides to waive the privilege..”

Dershowitz Says Admin Using ‘Stupidest Argument’ On Executive Privilege (JTN)

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said the Biden Administration is putting forward “the stupidest, dumbest legal argument” he has heard by claiming that the current president can waive the executive privilege of a former president. Dershowitz, who admitted to voting for President Joe Biden in 2020, slammed the White House’s legal claims during an interview with “Just the News, Not Noise” on Thursday. “The way it works is if Congress wants to enforce a subpoena, it goes to court. It has a hearing in which both sides are presented, not to a political body like Congress, but to a neutral judicial body like the court and the court decides whether or not the claim of privilege prevails,” Dershowitz responded to editor-in-chief John Solomon, who had asked for the legal scholar’s opinion on the case of former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro.


The former White House advisor was arrested last week for defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena, which he refused to follow citing executive privilege. “I voted for Biden,” Dershowitz prefaced before continuing: “The Biden administration has put forward the dumbest legal argument I have heard in my almost 60 years of practicing law, the dumbest legal argument. “They claim that the current president, Joe Biden, can waive executive privilege that was invoked by the former president. That would mean the end of executive privilege,” he warned. “Who’s ever going to talk to a president in confidence when she or he knows that their conversation can be revealed if the new president of a different party decides to waive the privilege. It is the stupidest, dumbest argument,” Dershowitz stressed.

Read more …

“The Unselects have ruled Pelosi ‘off limits, no questions.’ The hearing is another political HOAX to counter Inflation etc.”

Trump: ‘January 6th Was Not Simply a Protest’ (GP)

Donald Trump has weighed in on January 6 ahead of the made-for-tv House committee hearing spearheaded by Democrats and a few RINOS. In a post on his social media platform, TRUTH Social, Trump said that “January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.” Trump began, “The Unselect Committee didn’t spend one minute studying the reason that people went to Washington, D.C., in massive numbers, far greater than the Fake News Media is willing to report, or that the Unselects are willing to even mention, because January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again. It was about an Election that was Rigged and Stolen, and a Country that was about to go to HELL..& look at our Country now!”

An hour later, in a subsequent post, Trump added, “The Unselect Committee of political Thugs, essentially the same group who brought you the now fully debunked and discredited RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX (and many others!), refused to study and report on the massive amount of irrefutable evidence, much of it recently produced, that shows the 2020 Presidential Election was Rigged and Stolen. They want NOTHING to do with that topic because they cannot win on the facts. CANCEL & DENY, call it ‘THE BIG LIE,’ is all they can do. Corrupt Politicians!” Trump pointed out that he had suggested and offered up 20,000 National Guard troops prior to January 6, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined.

“The Unselect Committee has now learned that I, as President, suggested & offered up to 20,000 National Guard, or troops, be deployed in D.C. because it was felt that the crowd was going to be very large,” Trump continued. “Crazy Nancy Pelosi turned down the offer, she didn’t like the way it looked. Likewise, the Mayor of D.C. Had they taken up the offer, there would have been no January 6th. The Unselects have ruled Pelosi ‘off limits, no questions.’ The hearing is another political HOAX to counter Inflation etc.”

Read more …

“He expressly told his followers “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

So You Say You Want a Revolution? (Turley)

“So you say you want a revolution.” When they sang those lines, the Beatles could well have been talking about Democratic leaders today. Revolution seems much in the minds and the rhetoric of politicians who are continuing to threaten swift responses to the Court if it rules against their wishes. The latest armchair revolutionary is President Joe Biden himself who went on Jimmy Kimmel to do the first sit down interview in months. To his credit, Biden was promising only a “mini-Revolution.” Others have gone full revolutionary. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., joined the growing ranks of members of Congress in issuing a warning to the Supreme Court: reaffirm Roe v. Wade or else. The “else” varies from promises to pack the Court to personal accountability for justices. For Shaheen, it is a promise of “revolution.”

Clearly, these leaders are using over-heated rhetoric and do not support violence. They no more want true revolution than Sen. Chuck Schumer was calling for the killing of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch when he declared on the steps of Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Calling for revolutionary change in politics is as common as calling on people to “fight” political opponents or legislative actions. For example, with rioting continuing in Brooklyn Center, Minn. and around the country, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, went to Minnesota and told the protesters that they “gotta stay on the street” and “get more confrontational.”

However, these same politicians have insisted that such references are literal when made by their opponents. Notably, Democrats are holding hearings this week on how Republicans bear responsibility for the Jan. 6th riot due to their calls to “fight” against certification of the 2020 election. On that day, there is no question that Trump whipped the crowd into a frenzy. I was critical of the speech while he was giving it. However, Trump never actually called for violence or a riot. Rather, he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to express opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to support the challenges being made by some members of Congress. He expressly told his followers “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Read more …

2-3-foot-long clots…

COVID Vaccines Appear To Cause Abnormally Long Blood Clots (JTN)

Unusually long blood clots are being found in people who received COVID-19 vaccines, according to Dr. Ryan Cole of Cole Diagnostics in Boise, Idaho. Cole’s laboratory receives tissue samples from morticians across the country. He reports that they are finding long blood clots — including several that are inches-long and even a couple that are a foot long — in corpses that contained the COVID vaccine. Liberty Counsel, a religious freedom legal advocacy nonprofit currently representing military members seeking vaccine mandate exemptions, recently interviewed Cole. His lab “is able to determine the difference between a spike protein caused by the virus and a spike protein caused by the COVID shots, which are demonstrably different and much more pronounced and serious,” according to the organization.

Cole told Greg Hunter on USAWatchdog earlier this month that a Stanford University study found that, unlike a COVID infection, which leaves the body in a week or two, the vaccine causes the spike protein to remain in the body longer. “[T]hose who had a natural infection cleared the virus within that first week or two — their body had the ability to clear it,” Cole said. “But when you put the synthetic sequence in, the body is not clearing it,” he explained. “It’s persistently making spike protein. And that sequence is persisting, and then it’s damaging the organs chronically over time, it’s damaging the immune cells chronically over time, it’s causing clots … chronically over time.”

With mRNA vaccines, the spike protein can stay “up to 8 weeks postvaccination in some cases,” according to the study. Cole’s lab is “seeing mushy organs, we’re seeing incredibly inflamed organs,” he said. “We know the spike protein cause all the … bad outcomes that the virus did in 2020. And a lot of comorbid individuals, we know that spike protein is causing inflammation in the lung, the brain, the liver, the kidneys, the heart — it’s causing the same damage that the virus was causing.” However, “in the body, the shots are persisting and making more spike protein than if you had a natural infection,” he added. Cole also cited studies by South African doctor Resia Pretorius, who found that the COVID “spike protein alone causes the proteins in our blood to clump,” he said.

“That spike protein is thrombogenic — it causes clots, and it causes a lot of clots.” Morticians usually “put a dissolving fluid in to break up clots so they can get their embalming fluid in,” Cole said in a March interview with Steve Kirsch. “And they were getting back pressure on the system, saying, ‘What in the world is going on?’ They ended up “pulling out, you know, 6-inch clots, 12-inch clots, 2-3-foot-long clots,” he said. “Because you know from the hip down into the leg, you have a long vein called the saphenous vein. And so they were pulling long clots out of your longer veins. And … they hadn’t seen anything like this previously.”

Read more …

This has me wondering how other countries’ pension systems are doing.

Unfunded State Pension Liabilities Grow To $8.28 Trillion (JTN)

Unfunded state pension liabilities have climbed to $8.28 trillion, or nearly $25,000 for every person in the United States, according to a new report from the American Legislative Exchange Council. The American Legislative Exchange Council released the latest edition of its report on pensions in all 50 states Thursday. The report, “Unaccountable and Unaffordable 2021,” shows just a handful of states with outsize pension liabilities account for a large share of overall pension debt in the U.S. The report looked at 290 state-administered government pension plans and their assets and liabilities from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2020. An example of state-administered government pension plans in Illinois would cover state employees, teachers, university workers, judges and lawmakers.

The states with the most unfunded liabilities were California ($1.53 trillion), Illinois ($533.72 billion), Texas ($529.70 billion), New York ($508.70 billion) and Ohio ($429.53 billion). These five states alone account for more than $3.5 trillion in unfunded liabilities, or about 43% of all unfunded liabilities in the U.S. The bottom 10 states make up $4.9 trillion, or 59.36% of all unfunded liabilities, according to the ALEC report. On a per capita basis, the bottom five state were Alaska ($42,829), Illinois ($41,656.79), Connecticut ($40,427.58), Hawaii ($39,939.43), New Jersey ($39,849.02) and California ($38,713.16).

“As state pension plans invest their funds in increasingly risky assets, the gap between expected rates of return and actual rates of return widens, with results falling far short of expectations,” the authors of the report wrote. “When investment returns fail to meet expectations, taxpayers and plan members must make up the difference through increased contributions.” [..] No state in the U.S. has fully funded its pension plans. The state with the highest funding ratio in the nation is Wisconsin at 56% and New Jersey was the lowest at 18%.

Read more …

Anyone ever wonder why our ancestors didn’t grow up eating insects? Much easier than hunting gazelle…

Welsh Schools to Feed Primary Students Insects (VT)

This week, students at four primary schools in Wales will be offered insects such as crickets, grasshoppers, silkworms, locusts and mealworms to eat in an effort by researchers to determine their appetite for “alternative proteins.” Researchers are hoping to gain insight into how to best educate children on the environmental and nutritional benefits of edible insects and in turn, hope to influence their parents’ behavior concerning the dinner table. The project will employ surveys, workshops, interviews and focus groups to gauge students’ understanding and experiences concerning alternative proteins. One of the schools participating in the research is Roch Community Primary School in Pembrokeshire.


Carl Evans, the school’s Headteacher, said the research will provide students with insight into the connection between their local community and food production. “There is an important connection between our local community, food production and wider global issues surrounding sustainable development,” said said, adding that, “These issues are important to children, but also difficult to make sense of an can often be confusing for them.” One researcher involved in the study, Christopher Bear, of Cardiff University wants children to consider edible insects as a choice for nourishment today rather than in the future. “We want children to think about alternative proteins as real things for now, rather than just as foods for the future, so trying some of these foods is central to the research,” he said.

Read more …

It would make the entire process illegal.

Judge: CIA May Have Received Illicitly Recorded Assange Conversations (ElP)

The conversations between Julian Assange and his lawyers illicitly recorded by the Spanish security company UC Global at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder took refuge for years, could have been delivered to agents of the US secret services, according to Santiago Pedraz, the judge at Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, in charge of the espionage case. Delivery to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or to US authorities of details about the defense strategy of the cyberactivist, whom the US wants to have extradited from the UK, is reflected in a court order issued by Pedraz to which EL PAÍS has had access. In this document, which deals with procedural issues, the judge explains to the British authorities why he needs to take witness testimony from the British lawyers and Assange’s doctors who were spied on at the embassy.

These individuals include Gareth Peirce, 82, the famous British lawyer who was played by actress Emma Thompson in the 1993 movie In the Name of the Father. Proving that US intelligence services learned about Assange’s defense strategy by spying on his lawyers could annul the extradition by questioning the illegal methods used by the US to get Assange tried there, according to legal sources. If Spain is allowed to take testimony, as victims of US espionage, from lawyers and doctors who are now defending him in the extradition case, the British justice system would be left in an embarrassing situation, according to the same sources. It could be argued that the process was flawed because the right of defense was violated by the country requesting the extradition.

The judge sent a European Investigation Order (EIO) to the British justice more than two years ago, when he requested permission to question Assange in a videoconference from London as a witness in the case against Undercover Global. But British authorities have been reluctant to cooperate, and have asked for additional information on top of documents that were sent months ago without receiving a response. The EIO is a common judicial tool to speed up cooperation between judges and circumvent laborious rogatory letters based on instruments of international law. In this case, however, the British justice has been blocking the investigation. The British lawyers spied on at the embassy by order of UC Global owner David Morales, and whom Pedraz is asking to interrogate, are the same ones who are now defending Assange in the US extradition request that a British judge has just approved. Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the toughest members of Boris Johnson’s government, has two months to make the final decision.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were small & thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires
In the shiny pouches of raindrops,
Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, & ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled
We could stream through the eye of a needle

– Seamus Heaney

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle June 10 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 71 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #109370

    James Ensor The oyster eater 1882   • Washington Starts Blame Game Over Defeat In Ukraine (MoA) • We’re Almost Out Of Ammunition And Relying On W
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 10 2022]

    #109371
    Germ
    Participant

    VAIDS has arrived in the UK – and they’re completely clueless!
    Remember – it’s summer! Hahaha.

    “We’re all sick, or if we’re not sick we are recovering from being sick, or we are about to get sick.
    Beneath what’s become the hidden pandemic lie tales of pain and anguish

    People are getting Covid twice, or recovering from Covid, then getting some other sickness pretty much straight away, or they are not recovering; their sickness is lingering into days of double digits (one person I know has been sick for 54 days!).”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/10/everyone-is-sick-illness-in-2022-has-medieval-vibes

    Now – go get ‘yer booster!
    🤡☠️🤡

    #109372

    ..illness in 2022 has medieval vibes..

    Next up: Dante

    #109373
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Next up: Dante

    Do you think he could keep up with the crazies?

    #109375
    Red
    Participant

    And the consequences of this additional cost are the inflation – as energy cost increases drive up the cost of every product and service which uses energy – and the stagnation – as ever more of us are obliged to switch spending away from discretionary purchases in order to manage the rising cost of essentials – which is set to plunge the western economies into a depression worse than the 1930s.

    Greens unlikely to survive the coming winter

    #109376
    Red
    Participant

    Are we heading for a global economic slump, or can current problems be explained away in terms of ‘non-recurring events’, such as the war in Ukraine?

    Do the authorities have the tools and the understanding required to navigate the current economic storm? And what is the outlook for inflation?

    These are valid questions, and I’m well aware that, whilst many visitors to this site are interested in economic principles, theory and detail, others prefer succinct statements of situations and prospects.

    That’s understandable – these are deeply worrying times.

    The aim with what follows is to (a) set out a brief summary of the economic and financial outlook, as seen through the prism of the SEEDS economic model, followed by (b) a succinct commentary on how these conclusions are reached.

    #231. Short and sharp

    #109377
    The Black
    Participant

    I woke up from a dream last night where Russia had captured Volodimir Zelensky, put him on trial, convicted him, and then offered to trade him for Julian Assange.

    #109378
    Dr. D
    Participant

    If you usually skip me, this might be a good one to read anyway.

    Thinking, okay, here we are 6 months to a year later, still nothing is being unloaded off the ships. Really? And this is still an accident, the type of accident that never happened before in history?

    No. So what if…

    We know the U.S. is bankrupt, they are so broke they’re stealing oil ships. Again. They’re “giving” $40B to “Ukraine” but that’s really just what you do with the money you already have: launder it for the midterms. So pretend with me here: WHO is bankrupt? It would seem to be the PRIVATE system, or let’s just say the private-side of the united fascist system. Because it would seem the U.S. still has some latitude in getting $40B and moving it.

    So IF the U.S. private payment system is bankrupt, how are they holding it together? Well, with $2,000 Billion cash every night in Repos for one. Does that confirm some stress? They are check-kiting Treasuries between “banks”, or, since they are really all-one united authoritarian structure, between “accounts”.

    So IF you are broke, and the broke has started, cracked, in the private system – the large-size private system – THEN what would you do? How do you get the stress off? Well, you could shut down the economy while you repair. That reduces commercial demands. It also stops the external payments to, say, China and Russia. Okay, what next?

    What IS bankruptcy? What do you do there? We think of “bankruptcy” as when you file, the day you give up and throw in the towel, but that never happens for nation-states. They always have to get up again tomorrow. So if you’re ABOUT to go bankrupt, or are check-kiting and account-cycling to keep the illusion going, what do you do?

    Well one thing you could do is that you can’t pay everyone. So you definitely pay all your friends (Pharma and War) and NOT pay your enemies (China and Russia). Has the U.S. done this?

    YES.

    On the one side, we “Sanctioned” Russia, on everything. Money was still draining out. So we had all Europe “Sanction” Russia along with us, so money wouldn’t keep disappearing from there. We have conjoined banking systems, so we have conjoined leaky buckets. At the same time, what happened with China? We stopped the money drain by shutting down demand. And now? There IS all kinds of “demand” but no delivery.

    OR, you might say that maybe we are UNABLE to pay China. Or to pay in the way they want and ask of us. Like in unencumbered US Treasuries that aren’t hypothecated counterfeits? Or, as Russia has been more public about, even in Yuan or gold? Would THAT lead to a year-long standoff of unloading goods in U.S. ports?

    YES.

    So maybe this: the “U.S.” – and we think sloppy here, WHO in the U.S.? – the U.S. Commercial Banks like Citi and Bank of America, clear the ships to leave Shanghai by showing the account escrow. But when the ships arrive, BoA suddenly can’t find that $1B x 500 ships anchored off Long Beach and says there were “payment problems.” The shipowner says, “Fine. We’re not steaming back, but obviously you can’t act like Europe and just think you’re going to have goods delivered without paying.” (In Yuan, oil, wheat?) BoA says, “No problem old pal! I gots the money right here in the couch cushions!” Then slow-walks every. Single. Unloading. In order to harbor every nickel they can. Because they’re broke. They have to make decisions as to WHO to pay? You want Oil? Or Chatty Cathy dolls? Or in our case, oil, chips, car parts, diesel additive…that is, we already triaged the useless stuff, everything that’s not being shipped right now breaks something else.

    And every BODY has been triaged as well. D.C.? Still all ten richest zip codes. Home Depot? Doing fine. “Pa’s Leftover Hardware ‘n Stuff” in Gleason Missouri? Shut down for Covid, then shut down for financing, then shut down for inventory. While all their golfing pals borrow from Powell at 1% and do bidding wars, driving (used) cars up to $100,000. Hunter’s hooker PPP’d $20k. Pa’s Crab Shack gets a $20k BILL.

    See what I mean?

    Okay, if the U.S. is broke – and they definitely are – what else can they do? Well, like any bankruptcy, the accounts are being drained with immovable costs, that’s bad. But also are there any holes that are very dangerous? Yes, the London gold is not allowed to be removed (what was that, Austria?), but we still have to move gold to keep the ILLUSION there is any market whatsoever. To the idiots who still believe they MIGHT get paid. No market = no way to hijack and lie about the price, remember. So they are in constant drain of small amounts of gold there. Crazy? Wiki “London Gold Pool”, 1968.

    Well, they’ve already tightened the screws beyond all caution there, shutting it down, kicking out anyone who takes delivery, but gold is still leaving, because, it has to: that’s the nature of scams and ponzi schemes, where a frosting of money must be mailed to investors each day. Where is the gold going TO? Is there anywhere else we can stop it? You know, with bombing, murders, assassinations, coup d’etats…?

    Russia has been draining gold and it’s hard not to have them discredit you if they don’t get it. London has to APPEAR to deliver gold, but they don’t have any, so somehow we need Russia to not RECEIVE their gold. Or their US Treasuries. Or their gilts. See the picture now?

    Sanctioning Russia – and we noted when they were shut off, voluntarily, they both accepted gold and pegged gold to the Rouble. London then stopped Russia from RECEIVING gold from any one of any vassal state on earth, but not allowing anyone ELSE their gold. To forestall a gold/commodity/trade standard. Again. Because gold payment would be REAL. And we are the Empire of Lies.

    Does Europe committing open, bloody, public suicide make more sense now? It’s not that they’re obeying the United States. It’s not that they don’t know or don’t want to pay.

    IT’S THAT THERE IS LITERALLY NO MONEY. They can’t pay Russia what they don’t have. The attempt will collapse the entire West, every power structure, every seat, every government. All the banks, the oligarchs. All the blackmail, the extortion. All the old murders somebody still knows about. All the private plane flights to Caribbean islands. All of it.

    Is that worth a war over?

    But they also can’t NOT do it. They all DID have to create Rouble accounts, because they MUST. And have. There are some 200 accounts in violation of the EU, which means Brussels no longer exists. The EU Bureau-dictators already cracked and are not in charge. Unless they’re going to shutter BMW for buying Russian gas, somehow? Like they used to be able to only a few years ago with Volkswagen?

    So this is simple: They went bankrupt. ALREADY. On the “Private” side. Powell is furiously bailing out the broadside hole with $2T/night. That is, $2T every 12 hours. Since Sept 2019. What are they DOING with it? They are sheltering bankruptcy by deciding WHO gets paid…and who doesn’t. They have slowed the business down many-fold to try to maintain control of their check-kiting and ever-expanding frauds.

    AND HAVE STOPPED ALL BUSINESS PURCHASES under some dumb premise while still creating enough illusion to their other suppliers that they’re not broke. When they decidedly are. Irreversibly. Or admit to their own people, who will stop obeying and hang them. Immediately.

    All under Joe Biden, because they pulled the levers thinking Cheeto would be sitting there in 2021.

    That’s why all the world’s ships are sitting in our harbors, not unloading. Does that all make sense now?

    And whadda they gonna do? Tell you? “Stopping the bank run” is why they did this in the first place. Back when collapse was showing up in Wall Street. Sept 2019. Funny old date, that. Somehow, like the $5trillion missing from the Pentagon budget on 9-10, we somehow all forget in 2020, 2021, that Wall Street was broadsided, sinking, in Sept 2019. I didn’t forget. But I also have to wonder/can’t figure out, when was it ever going to matter?

    Still not yet, I guess. Another day of another week of another month, the truth doesn’t matter. Reality is suspended another day. Forever? Or does Nature bat last?

    #109379
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Book review by Helmer: Klimat, Russia in the Age of Climate Change by Thane Gustafson

    … This is climate change as a war weapon – not the science of global warning, but the idea that because of it, Russia in general, Putin in particular, are doomed to collapse. “Climate change is not the cause of these problems. It is a catalyst. Through the internal and external costs it will increasingly impose on Russia, it will precipitate the end of Russia’s hydrocarbon model, while denying it the revenues and resources it will need to bring about change.”

    THE US WAR IN EUROPE ISN’T HOT ENOUGH – DROPPING THE CLIMATE BOMB ON RUSSIA

    THE US WAR IN EUROPE ISN’T HOT ENOUGH – DROPPING THE CLIMATE BOMB ON RUSSIA

    F.S.

    #109380
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine’s War Strategy,”

    We have satellites, we are in complete info-sharing with Ukraine. For 8 years. We are directing their every move…but we ALSO have no idea what’s going on on the ground. Never heard of this Ukraine War thingie before! Schrodinger’s Reality a la carte. JHC people actually buy this trollop. Well, they believe Socialism works and 100 men who brought ZERO weapons are equal to the attack on Pearl Harbor, so clearly Einstein was right: Human stupidity really is infinite.

    “Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia”

    What? But they told me they were winning. Just like the Info director told me Russians had time to rape 6-month-olds. So wait: everything Ukraine, NYT, Guardian, NPR, BBC, CBC, Joe, Justin, and BoJo said was all a big fat lie???

    “Europe is also delivering lower-calibre shells but as Europe runs out, the amount is getting smaller.”

    That’s because Europe is broke.

    “I do not believe it is necessary, in the current context, to provide any guarantees whatsoever to Russia on our military posture in the region.”

    Wouldn’t matter if you did. You are Not-agreement-capable and no one would believe you.

    This is similar to Russia and peace talks right now. The US/UN is holding them. Russia is not. Russia just sends an observer to the clown show. So the US is negotiating WITH ITSELF, that is, its own capital city Kiev, off in a corner in a straitjacket, talking to itself, while Russia goes out in the field and does work.

    RussiaRussia
    https://mediacloud.theweek.com/image/private/s–g7o4TmT7–/f_auto,t_single-media-image-desktop@1/v1608450028/stg071317_color.jpg
    (BTW this popular cartoon has been essentially purged off Google and the Internet.)

    Doesn’t that just tell you everything? Why would Russia even attend a peace talk with someone incapable of keeping a treaty? Ever? Oh, out of sheer Russian politeness and to watch the entertainment while drinking vodka to share amusing train-wreck anecdotes when they return to Moscow. The usual. Same as every other year, if you’re Russian. Those craaaa-zie Westerners. Always up to something. And “something” is usually dreaming that they can murder slavs and conquer Russia.

    claiming that the current president can waive the executive privilege of a former president.”

    I say yes!!!! DO this thing! Then when the GOP return someday, they can release everything YOU have ever done. It works both ways, fools.

    But it was really about arresting the opposition party, since we are Ukraine now and ruled by Kiev. Making all opposition parties illegal is “Democracy”. GOP frontrunner in Michigan was just arrested so he can’t run in the Congressional election. I’m sure that’ll make everybody up there super happy and not suspicious at all. Especially as we always arrested HRC for 100,000 accounts of revealing emails, and Joe for receiving $1M from Moscow before claiming on camera he was illegally extorting Kiev for personal profit. –That money he was holding up over the Ukr investigator was given by CONGRESS. Joe had no right to interfere with it. Or Mad Max saying they must go to Judges and Representatives’ restaurants, to their houses armed and protesting. Or when Comey said he won’t bring charges before the election…which was illegal, as he is not the prosecutor, he is supposed to refer evidence. …Just for four examples. Totally fair, you can see the FBI is not election-interfering at all.

    And the American people will totally, totally believe them.

    Here’s the problem: what are civil wars? It’s when two different GOVERNMENTS, two different factions in the SAME government, walk into Parliament and both say “ARREST THAT MAN!” Then the FACTIONS of police, military, each line up and arrest the OTHER guy’s man, and protect their own. THAT is what the FBI just did in Michigan. Arrested everyone in the opposition party. Pretty dangerous. But they’ve done everything else they could think of to start the civil war and the Right isn’t biting. We’re on what? 11 of the last 12 shootings were leftists, starting way back with Bernie Bros shooting all Congress on the baseball field?

    If they can start a civil war, they win. They might or probably will get away with the crime. And since they’re a death cult, get to watch us all shoot each other. So the other side has to somehow gain control without a civil war. That can mean interminable stalling, however, and near-constant stress and frustration. However, one other thing: IF the war ever breaks out, they will win. Why? Because they have slowly developed, then maintained, the constant moral high ground. Of constant law and forbearance. That’s not a “win” exactly, you still lose the city, but we can be certain how the story ends at the beginning, for what little that’s worth.

    “January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.”

    If you ever thought Trump was working for the bad guys, the other wing of the bird leading us to the same nest, here would be your proof. Okay man, I’ll watch.

    “Clearly, these leaders are using over-heated rhetoric and do not support violence. They no more want true revolution than Sen. Chuck Schumer was calling for the killing of Justices Brett Kavanaugh”

    C’mon. Really? They know their followers WILL try to have an actual, burning-twelve-cities revolution where we weld the Feds into the office in Portland and light them on fire, then go to Brett’s house and murder him and his family. Yesterday. Again. It’s not “Rhetoric”. It’s “Plausible Deniability” while expressly calling for and demanding such attacks. How can I know? That I’m not just being partisan? Because as soon as it happens they would reverse their rhetoric completely and permanently so as not to be misunderstood or blamed. They haven’t. They have increased it dramatically. Therefore, they know and completely approve.

    “What is it going to take to get Americans rioting in the streets?” –Nancy Pelosi, 2021

    So yeah: another day, another Leftist murder attempt. With a gun. But I thought they were against those? Guns kill people?

    For a kicker, WHY did he do this? Well from one perspective, he was going to kill Kavanaugh to defend mothers killing 25 million babies. Mostly black. We kill only to protect more killing. It’s religion. …From one perspective.

    “Unfunded State Pension Liabilities Grow to $8.28 Trillion (JTN)”

    The U.S. is completely broke and has collapsed. They are merely hiding this collapse for a little while.

    “ Welsh Schools to Feed Primary Students Insects (VT)”

    You are what you eat. Our alien overlords apparently would prefer us to act like the emotionless insect drones that they are. Or something. But if I’m wrong, why does the theory fit so well?

    #109382
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Condensed Dr. D:

    “Since Sept 2019”

    It all started then with Overnight Repo Operations coincidental with coronavirus “popping” up in China or Seattle, take your pick, and soon followed by another round of $2 trillion+ Quantitative Easing by December 2019.

    But yeah:

    “Since Sept 2019”

    #109383

    Taking credit for what’s gonna happen, anyways, and spinning it like it’s a good thing. (We’re fixing the climate!)
    So how much gold do Americans have at the bottom of lakes and coastal waters?
    Oh- and Zelenskyy wants those weapons because they’re as good as gold on the black market. Whatever else is wrong with him, he has extreme myopia, complicated by the greed that accompanies a dire need for an exit.

    “All under Joe Biden, because they pulled the levers thinking Cheeto would be sitting there in 2021.”
    Greer (?) cast a horoscope for the next president (I think) and said it looked really bad. Maybe the Trumpsters played the Bidenites, and gave the election to the foggy one. Multi-d chess, after all?

    The best laid plans of psychopaths gang aft agley.

    #109384
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    After a first quick read of DrD (always appreciated), I guess this is what is Hemingway meant by, “How did I go bankrupt? Slowly at first, then all of the sudden”. You can only ay whack-a-mole so long. More moles moving more quickly. Reread later…

    Re the shipping “logjam”, Kunstler has long talked about the role of ‘letters of credit’ in global trade. We’re seeing that now (?).

    NPR just said, “Inflation has continued to rise, fastest in 40 years… confounding economists and Wall Street… wrong… food, energy and housing rising the most… the Fed signaling an aggressive rise in interest rates…”

    Phew! Sure glad it’s Putin’s fault, not money printing, in all it’s forms…/sarc

    Glad I’ve been reading all the ‘negative’ take on things at TAE, while also listening to Judy Woodruff’s positive take, so that I’m better prepared for what I’d term, “reality”. My wife still thinks Ukraine is beating Russia…hmmm… maybe they are… doesn’t seem like it, though.

    I’m listening to the Jan 6th coverage and wondering, “What do they hope to accomplish?” The search for scapegoats is over, I guess now it’s public confirmation time. Pathetic waste of time and energy, but, it’s Congress, what else would we expect?

    #109385
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    You and i have been singing the same tune since it which shall not be named started. Thankfully like all lies, the energy to keep them going soon overwhelms the lie and that appears to be happening quickly these days. Here’s to everyone surviving Thunderdome! 😉

    #109386

    From the other side of the fence- an rt video of a paraglider and a vulture. Wow.

    #109387
    Oroboros
    Participant

    …Ukraine is using 5,000 to 6,000 artillery rounds a day, according to Skibitsky….

    Russia is reliably estimated to be using 400,000 to 500,000 artillery rounds PER DAY

    The murderous clown puppet Zelensky and his Empire of Lies PIMPS are sacrificing an entire generation of Ukraine men for the Narrative.

    I think Russia is done talking and they will simply grind the whole of the Ukraine military to dust
    .

    #109388
    zerosum
    Participant

    It is cover your ass time
    ————
    • We’re Almost Out Of Ammunition And Relying On Western Arms, Says Ukraine (G.)
    —————
    See my yesterdays late post,
    Hidden warfare
    Chips and neon gas & Taiwan
    ————-
    • The US/UK Proxy War Forestalling Peace Negotiations in Ukraine (CD)
    ————-
    Your enablers, leaders, experts stole your pension funds
    https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/unfunded-state-pension-liabilities-grow-828-trillion
    Ticking retirement timebomb? Unfunded state pension liabilities grow to $8.28 trillion
    The state with the highest funding ratio in the nation is Wisconsin at 56% and New Jersey was the lowest at 18%.
    ————-
    Does that all make sense now?
    YES
    ———-
    Jan 6th is for diversion of the truth of what your leaders are doing.
    Covering their Ass

    #109389
    chooch
    Participant

    Dr. D said,

    “But I also have to wonder/can’t figure out, when was it ever going to matter?”

    I don’t know, though I appreciate you trying to make sense of it. One of those mysteries where the math doesn’t seem to work so I don’t try. Just seems we have a lot of debt tied to non productive activities which adds cost and not value.

    A worthless computer entry versus a worthless piece of paper stuffed in the mattress.

    #109390
    zerosum
    Participant

    Capitalism

    Do unto others what they are doing to you.

    I got it. You need it. You want it.
    Therefore, Jump.

    Democratism

    #109391
    chooch
    Participant

    This is fun. Russian MSM relying on US MSM.

    #109392
    zerosum
    Participant

    Some sick people are starting to figure out “why”

    #109393
    zerosum
    Participant

    Get ready for more
    It was worst before and I lived though all of it. (the YoY CPI to +8.6% )
    US Consumer Prices Reaccelerate In May, Highest Since 1981

    #109394
    Mr. House
    Participant

    I found this relevant in regards to the conversation from yesterday:

    “Oswald Spengler wrote the spectacular opus The Decline of the West shortly before WWI and the book was published in Germany in 1918, provoking universal reflections on man and civilization. The following passage is found on pages 104-105 in volume 2 of the 1961 Knopf edition:

    When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard “having children” as a question of pro’s and con’s, the great turning-point has come. For Nature knows nothing of pro and con. Everywhere, wherever life is actual, reigns an inward organic logic, an “it,” a drive, that is utterly independent of waking-being, with its causal linkages, and indeed not even observed by it. The abundant proliferation of primitive peoples is a natural phenomenon, which is not even thought about, still less judged as to its utility or the reverse. When reasons have to be put forward at all in a question of life, life itself has become questionable. At that point begins prudent limitation of the number of births. In the Classical world the practice was deplored by Polybius as the ruin of Greece, and yet even at his date it had long been established in great cities; in subsequent Roman times it became appallingly general. At first explained by the economic misery of the times, very soon it ceased to explain itself at all. And at that point, too, in Buddhist India as in Babylon, in Rome as in our own cities, a man’s choice of the woman who is to be, not mother of his children as amongst peasants and primitives, but his own “companion for life,” becomes a problem of mentalities. The Ibsen marriage appears, the “higher spiritual affinity” in which both parties are “free”–free, that is, as intelligences, free from the plantlike urge of the blood to continue itself, and it becomes possible for a Shaw to say “that unless Woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone but herself, she cannot emancipate herself.” The primary woman, the peasant woman, is mother. The whole vocation towards which she has yearned from childhood is included in that one word. But now emerges the Ibsen woman, the comrade, the heroine of a whole megalopolitan literature from Northern drama to Parisian novel. Instead of children, she has soul-conflicts; marriage is a craft-art for the achievement of “mutual understanding”. It is all the same whether the case against children is the American lady’s who would not miss a season for anything, or the Parisienne’s who fears that her lover would leave her, or an Ibsen heroine’s who “belongs to herself”–they all belong to themselves and they are all unfruitful. The same fact, in conjunction with the same arguments, is to be found in the Alexandrian, in the Roman, and, as a matter of course, in every other civilized society–and conspicuously in that in which Buddha grew up. And in Hellenism and in the nineteenth century, as in the times of Lao-Tzu and the Charvaka doctrine, there is an ethic for childless intelligences, and a literature about the inner conflicts of Nora and Nana. The “quiverful,” which was still an honourable enough spectacle in the days of Werther, becomes something rather provincial. The father of many children is for the great city a subject for caricature; Ibsen did not fail to note it, and presented it in his Love’s Comedy.

    At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile. At the last, only the primitive blood remains, alive, but robbed of its strongest and most promising elements. This residue is the Fellah type. “

    #109395
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    Those in power know that a hyperinflation would likely see them being replaced. History shows us this is true. No, rather they will try to self detonate the system, have an enemy to blame it on (Covid, Russia, etc.) and retain control… or dare I say gain even more control. This is what the entire WEF plan is all about. Right now they’re still using the mask of democracy, but as we’ve seen in the last two years this is merely a mask. Leaders all over the world have been bought and pressured or murdered (Magafuli) when not complying. The corruption is now increasingly brazen and blatant. The energy put into masking it grows weaker each day while the excesses and theft grow more egregious. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This is the fourth turning.

    Build Back Better? With What Resources?

    #109396
    John Day
    Participant

    Testing if I can post a comment. The AI started rejecting me yesterday.

    #109397
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Here is a person who doesn’t know when they should shut their mouth. Wasn’t she the person who said no more financial crisis in her lifetime, and then 2019 happened?

    https://news.yahoo.com/nothing-suggest-us-recession-yellen-213705337.html

    #109398
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ mr house

    Of course mothers will be dependent upon the help of others…such is the nature of motherhood…and all of life is an interdependent web. But empower them.

    Example:
    Food stamp program (SNAP) vs. food box program
    SNAP – the recipient chooses what to spend the food money on — this empowers
    Food box – the recipient gets foods chosen by others — this disempowers
    Both are “help.”
    (I use both. I actually spent SNAP on a tiny lemon tree last month. I was so excited.)

    Example:
    “Welfare” program vs. TANF vs. EITC
    Welfare – low-income family received money to use as they saw fit, with few requirements beyond the low income, allowing parents to decide how much time to focus on parenting — this empowers
    TANF – very low-income family receives tiny amount of money for a time-limited, often lifetime limited short period of time, IF the parent works or is looking for work and accepts any job offered. Since the income from any job offered may not be sufficient to pay for childcare, the work requirement is supported by vouchers to pay for full-time childcare for any number of children. The emphasis is to prod the parent to work outside of the home no matter the situation of the family. This disempowers.
    EITC (earned income tax credit) — like welfare, it is cash, the recipient chooses how to utilize. . Overall, this empowers.

    Welfare disappeared in the 1990s.
    I’ve never used TANF, although at times I’d have been eligible. The funds available were so low, and were for such short duration it wasn’t worth the hoops. And…I wasn’t going to hand over the parenting of my children to anyone else for a significant length of time so that I could take a random low-paying job. It seemed senseless.
    The EITC gives more to those who earn more from paid work…which was quixotic when I was under extreme stress and learning to cope with PTSD…but it has been a godsend for enabling me to take my kids on summer road trips to visit family and friends, national parks, etc., in AZ and neighboring states, have money for birthdays and clothes, and so forth.

    ~~~~~

    I use these examples because they are relevant and known to me. I don’t like that all of these programs come from the federal government, and would strongly prefer local approaches. I believe it is great folly to turn over the care of our vulnerable members of society to the federal government….

    ~~~~~~

    Regarding the young women protesting for abortion rights…

    When I was ten Walter Mondale was running for president. I learned the word “abortion” and I was horrified. I remember shouting on the playground: “Mondale’s a murderer!” I was naive. I was a product of my half-completed upbringing.

    Most people, most of the time, have not thoroughly thought out their positions on issues. (Of course, TAE attracts oddballs who do think excessively and deeply on all aspects of life.) Abortion is one of those topics where I feel an emotional pull from both sides of the issue and have considered the issue deeply.

    It isn’t helpful — or fair — to hate on young women protesting for abortion rights out of an assumption that they would also push for vax passports. Maybe they would, maybe not. It isn’t helpful because when we use such stereotypes to dismiss large chunks of humanity we are no different from what we hate – we begin to “other,” to see in terms of “us vs. them,” etc. We can fall into the trap a counter mass formation.

    I’d rather speak with these women, acknowledge that bodily autonomy is huge, and something that I, too, hold dear. And then talk about how there are other areas in life where bodily autonomy is an issue, and help bring to the surface the realization that vax passports deny body autonomy. Yes, they’ll likely disagree — so what? It’s about planting a seed, a germ of cognitive dissonance.

    #109399
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    This. All of this.

    #109400
    Mr. House
    Participant

    I do speak with them, the argument you’ll get back is “i believe in science and progress” and when you ask what that means they can’t answer. Try dating these women, its an eye opening exp. You can plant all the seeds you want but the ground has to be fertile. It isn’t currently and won’t be until perhaps what Jefferson is attributed to saying “the tree of liberty must be nourished with the blood of tyrants and patriots from time to time”.

    #109401
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @TheBlack regarding a Zelensky for Assange prisoner swap

    I pray that your experience was not a dream but a prescience.

    #109402
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    To flee l’ennui – that’s the name of the game
    We do it – the Universe does it
    You can elaborate – there’s no need to complicate
    The Everlasting Dissatisfaction keeps things in motion
    That’s all there is to it – it’s all we ever need to know.

    (to be forgotten is to be forgiven)

    #109403
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    That the plutocrats, kritocrats, kakistocrats, “democrats”, faucicrats, gate-o-crats and other schwab-o-crats are insufferable SOBs is by now a more than widely agreed upon opinion (in these circles, I mean); eventually we will have to move on from there and do something, or nothing.

    #109404
    John Day
    Participant

    @Mr. House: Thanks for the Spengler.
    Profound; well written, but also an incomplete view of historical phenomena, because WHY?
    Why does this pattern recur across the millennia? Perhaps some necessity?
    People have fewer children and care for them more attentively when it becomes clear that the children can be presumed to live to adulthood in almost every case.

    #109405
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Chooch

    You do understand that Russian Media Monitor is an entirely “made In USA” theatrical production, complete with US directors, writers, actor and everything? They make no secret of the fact. They’re a made-for-TV “Realty Show” type gig complete with online IMDb listing. Their stated aim is to counter the effects of Russian Propaganda. Fair enough. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander . . . but they are simply NOT a actual news source of information except that which can be inferred from what they select as topics and how they portray positions.

    #109406
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The hardest part about countering Russian Propaganda comes when those pesky Russians’ propaganda consists of the Russkies simply telling the truth (for a change) and blandly stating the facts.

    I’m sure the Russians would lie thru their teeth if it were seen by them to be their only option (like it is now for the USA its oligarchic satanist “Collective Western Empire”). That’s just a super bad spot to be in, but it’s hard to sympathize much with the U.S. or its wealthy collective of lying psychopathic co-murderers
    because the entire shit pit of them is being so so bad and trying desperately hard to be ever so much worse.

    I suppose that forgiveness and rehabilitation should (will) eventually be in store for them . . . e v e n t u a l l y . . . but for now, fuck ’em.

    #109407
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Great Ukrainian Blame Game© has begun!!!

    The Empire of Lies now say that their intelligence service “have no idea what the Ukrainians are doing”.

    No idea.

    hahahahahaha!

    #109408
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @JohnDay

    Because all of humanity is one giant cycle. We’re born, We mature and we die. Perhaps people in the dying phase of a culture/society intuitively know having children isn’t going to be a good bet? Like animals who flee before a tornado. Its above my paygrade that is for sure. I would love to have children but these days i feel like i’m someone from another time period. An alien living amongst a culture i do not know. I’ve only met a few women my age or younger who i’ve watched them and said to myself “she would make a great mother”. Most people are just products of their time.

    #109409
    John Day
    Participant

    @Ilargi and V.Arnold: something about that Oyster Eater strikes me as deeply lascivious.
    Art… who can understand it?


    @Germ
    : I’m really worried about global VAIDS. This will progress slowly… How Long?

    @Figmund Sreud: I thought global-warming was going to be a net benefit to Russia… WES?


    @Red
    : It looks like screwing up the jet-turbine-global-economy with a big fat goose in the intake is the plan to combat global-warming and save oil and mineral resources for later, for the owners, not for the herd. Maybe I simplified it too much…

    @The Black: Interesting dream. I think they want Zelensky on TV until they want him dead.
    I think they want Assange to be visibly forever-tortured as a warning to journalists.
    I’d love to be wrong.


    @Phoenixvoice
    : I Read You and Hear You, Sister.

    Dr.D said: “If you usually skip me, this might be a good one to read anyway.” I think….
    “Like sands through the hourglass, These are The Days Of Our Lives…”
    Then Dr. D said: “So IF the U.S. private payment system is bankrupt, how are they holding it together? Well, with $2,000 Billion cash every night in Repos for one. Does that confirm some stress? They are check-kiting Treasuries between “banks”, or, since they are really all-one united authoritarian structure, between “accounts”.” …
    “Well one thing you could do is that you can’t pay everyone. So you definitely pay all your friends (Pharma and War) and NOT pay your enemies (China and Russia). Has the U.S. done this? YES” …
    “At the same time, what happened with China? We stopped the money drain by shutting down demand. And now? There IS all kinds of “demand” but no delivery.
    OR, you might say that maybe we are UNABLE to pay China. Or to pay in the way they want and ask of us. Like in unencumbered US Treasuries that aren’t hypothecated counterfeits? Or, as Russia has been more public about, even in Yuan or gold? Would THAT lead to a year-long standoff of unloading goods in U.S. ports? YES.”
    “So maybe this: the “U.S.” – and we think sloppy here, WHO in the U.S.? – the U.S. Commercial Banks like Citi and Bank of America, clear the ships to leave Shanghai by showing the account escrow. But when the ships arrive, BoA suddenly can’t find that $1B x 500 ships anchored off Long Beach and says there were “payment problems.” The shipowner says, “Fine. We’re not steaming back, but obviously you can’t act like Europe and just think you’re going to have goods delivered without paying.” (In Yuan, oil, wheat?) BoA says, “No problem old pal! I gots the money right here in the couch cushions!” Then slow-walks every. Single. Unloading. In order to harbor every nickel they can. Because they’re broke. They have to make decisions as to WHO to pay?” …
    “Okay, if the U.S. is broke – and they definitely are – what else can they do? Well, like any bankruptcy, the accounts are being drained with immovable costs, that’s bad. But also are there any holes that are very dangerous? Yes, the London gold is not allowed to be removed (what was that, Austria?), but we still have to move gold to keep the ILLUSION there is any market whatsoever…
    ..Where is the gold going TO? Is there anywhere else we can stop it? You know, with bombing, murders, assassinations, coup d’etats…? …
    ..Russia has been draining gold and it’s hard not to have them discredit you if they don’t get it. London has to APPEAR to deliver gold, but they don’t have any, so somehow we need Russia to not RECEIVE their gold. Or their US Treasuries. Or their gilts. See the picture now? …
    ..Sanctioning Russia – and we noted when they were shut off, voluntarily, they both accepted gold and pegged gold to the Rouble. London then stopped Russia from RECEIVING gold from any one of any vassal state on earth, but not allowing anyone ELSE their gold. To forestall a gold/commodity/trade standard. Again.” …
    ..”Does Europe committing open, bloody, public suicide make more sense now? It’s not that they’re obeying the United States. It’s not that they don’t know or don’t want to pay.
    IT’S THAT THERE IS LITERALLY NO MONEY. They can’t pay Russia what they don’t have. The attempt will collapse the entire West, every power structure, every seat, every government. All the banks, the oligarchs…”
    ..”So this is simple: They went bankrupt. ALREADY. On the “Private” side. Powell is furiously bailing out the broadside hole with $2T/night. That is, $2T every 12 hours. Since Sept 2019. What are they DOING with it? They are sheltering bankruptcy by deciding WHO gets paid…and who doesn’t. They have slowed the business down many-fold to try to maintain control of their check-kiting and ever-expanding frauds.
    AND HAVE STOPPED ALL BUSINESS PURCHASES under some dumb premise while still creating enough illusion to their other suppliers that they’re not broke. When they decidedly are. Irreversibly. “…
    ..”That’s why all the world’s ships are sitting in our harbors, not unloading. Does that all make sense now?
    And whadda they gonna do? Tell you? “Stopping the bank run” is why they did this in the first place. Back when collapse was showing up in Wall Street. Sept 2019. Funny old date, that. Somehow, like the $5trillion missing from the Pentagon budget on 9-10, we somehow all forget in 2020, 2021, that Wall Street was broadsided, sinking, in Sept 2019. I didn’t forget. But I also have to wonder/can’t figure out, when was it ever going to matter?
    Still not yet, I guess. Another day of another week of another month, the truth doesn’t matter. Reality is suspended another day. Forever?”

    @Armenio Pereira: See? Dr. D advanced a hypothesis there, and supported it with facts , relationships and causal links. It’s not completely proven, but he presented and supported a valid hypothesis. He did not merely present a fanciful thought, or present a casual impression as a proven and accepted “fact”.\
    He has style, but it is superimposed upon substantial facts, well organized, and arranged to reflect a suspected underlying causal relationship, which would be helpful to know, as it would simplify decisions going forward, making their outcomes Much More Predictable.
    It’s a hypothesis though…

    #109410
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Poor Zelensky (stupid psychopathic perverted drug crazed murderer that he transparently is notwithstanding, ya still gotta sympathize with the hopeless “position” that he’s in, at least.) His physical life ain’t worth a wooden nickel when Ukraine finally (soonish, I think) loses the war.

    One side (Russia) wants him dead as fully earned punishment, and the other side (US/NATO) NEEDS him dead before he become the stool pigeon of century (to save his own hide) by spilling his guts on EXACTLY AND BY NAME precisely who did what, with which, and to whom . . . . . as well as what they were paid for services rendered. A song bird such as the world has never heard.

    #109411
    John Day
    Participant

    “Imperial Summer Vacation” blog post has some overlap with TAE stories in main section and comments.
    No offense is intended. The grouping of stories and excerpt selections composes the hypothesis I am presenting. (Garden picture in special t-shirt I had made for Yokum) https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/imperial-summer-vacation?s=w

    Eric Zuesse has this analysis: THE AMERICAN EMPIRE IS BEING DEFEATED; ASIA WILL LEAD THE FUTURE.
    I agree with the first part, but the second part remains to be seen. Maybe “Asia” is not such an entity. Maybe the future really will be distributed and “multipolar”.
    Zuesse points out the assassination attempt against Turkey’s President Erdogan in 2016, carried out by US-aligned Turkish military officers. Russia saved him at the last minute. The NATO-member veto on new members being approved prevents further NATO expansion while Erdogan lives and cooperates with Russia. It largely incapacitates NATO, since Turkey is in a critical position, controlling black Sea and Mediterranean access, and pipeline transit routes to Europe.
    Zuesse does not bring up that Turkey stands to have a much elevated position in a new Eurasian world-economic-order, firstly since it will be able to repudiate it’s vast $US denominated debts, but also because Turkey is likely to be less frequently insulted, and given better consideration than the US does. In a new regime, Erdogan clearly sees growth potential for Turkish power and influence.
    In the near term, a hobbled NATO will not act as global enforcer. In the longer term, the $US slipping in global reserve-currency utility will cut funding for the global American military project. This summer, with the shortages of food and oil, and the $US being more expensive for debtor countries, Western finance seemingly plans to extract the wealth producing assets from more countries, and enforce austerity on their starving citizens, replaying the Asian Economic Crisis, though this is an ancient financial grab. Banks make loans for interest, but they really want to take the collateral/property.
    Zuesse foresees that this property-grab will be resisted this time around. He also points out that a lot of Russian oil is still flowing to Europe, and pipeline flows have been increasing since April to countries that get it that way, including Germany. This is not technically “cheating”, since pipeline flows were exempted, but I agree that different forms of rationalization and “cheating” can be used by European politicians who are on the American-bribe payroll, but still have to live with people at home.
    As American power within NATO becomes more visibly weakened, then NATO speaking for Europe may be openly contested. My own view is that orders will be given by the imperial command, and accepted, and not effectively followed, maybe by bureaucratic delay or other forms of slowdown or technical inability.
    The lack of enforcement of the declining western financial order must become apparent at the same time as an Eastern/multipolar option becomes available.
    That will make the choice “easy” for many debtor countries, and it will get easier as the number of participants in the alternative system increases. If one’s neighbor has repudiated $US debt and nationalized oil and mining, and has not been destroyed, doesn’t that make it look appealing?
    As soon as $US debts are being defaulted broadly as policy, global financial interests will also seek any other way to maintain or reclaim some value. They are hardly “loyal”, but to their own profits.
    The clarity of this path does not determine how quickly it will fall into place, but this summer’s dollar shock needs to be managed and people need food. The IMF, World Bank and western finance in general may not see clearly how weak their hand is (hubris). If they try to extract the maximum pound-of-flesh, countries will have to defend themselves and their citizens.

    The American empire is being defeated; Asia will lead the future.

    ​ ​Turkey ​(in cooperation with Russia)​ attempted to mediate safe passage in the Black Sea for Ukraine’s grain harvest, but Ukraine objected to the Black Sea proposal in a statement on Tuesday before the talks in Turkey.
    ​ ​A significant portion of the world’s food supply is on the line, but Ukraine Nixes a Potential Deal.
    ​ ​“We cannot rule out Russia’s plans to use such a corridor to attack Odessa and southern Ukraine. That is why effective security guarantees are needed to restore shipping,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/ukraine-safe-passage-grain-talks-fail-expect-still-higher-food-prices-globally

    This is the most recent news story I can find on Sri Lanka, which has borrowed $3 billion from India this year, is talking with the IMF, but really cannot exist on loans that keep getting bigger. They are buying Russian oil at the 30% discount when they can. The big question is that of what Sri Lanka can offer the world in return for commodities like oil, minerals, manufactured goods and food. Any new financial order can decide to help Sri Lanka and get good publicity.
    https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Sri-Lanka-crisis/Cash-strapped-Sri-Lanka-looks-to-Russia-to-quench-thirst-for-oil

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