Jul 172022
 
 July 17, 2022  Posted by at 8:58 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Guernica 1937

 

Germany Is Facing The Biggest Crisis The Country Has Ever Had (Cody)
Berlin’s Quit Decades Of Courting Both Moscow And Washington (Davydov)
The War Of Economic Corridors Is In Full Swing (Escobar)
Republicans Wince As Their Ukrainian-born Colleague Thrashes Zelensky (Pol.)
In Search of Enemies (Femi Akomolafe)
Italy May Soon Be Unable To Arm Ukraine – Foreign Minister (RT)
To Hell or Not to Hell? (Batiushka)
‘Experts’ Broke The World. But They’re Rapidly Losing Power… (Black)
Gazprom Requests Documents On Nord Stream Turbine Return (RT)
Saudi Arabia Outlines What It Will Do For Oil Output (RT)
Biden Visits Saudi Arabia, Returns with an Empty Tin Cup (CTH)
China Issues Phosphate Quotas To Rein In Fertiliser Exports (R.)
Dr. Birx Praises Herself While Revealing Ignorance, Treachery, and Deceit (BI)
Judge Questions FBI’s Aggressive Arrest Of Peter Navarro (ZH)
Ankara Not Likely To Accept F-16 Strings (K.)

 

 

 

 

Emmanuel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1548256134020022273

 

 

 

 

 

 

And it will export that crisis.

Germany Is Facing The Biggest Crisis The Country Has Ever Had (Cody)

Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis due to a potential Russian gas cut that will erase the prosperity Germans have grown accustomed to, warned Rainer Dulger, head of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations. “We are facing the biggest crisis the country has ever had. We have to be honest and say: First of all, we will lose the prosperity that we have had for years,” Dulger told the Süddeutsche Zeitung regarding the consequences of a gas shortage to everyone. While many are urging more government intervention to help prop up the German economy, Dulger argues that in general, the fewer the interventions, the better. He says that when it comes to the economy, private businesses always do better than the government.

However, he does believe certain measures need to be implemented to provide support for people in increasingly stressed economic situations. “More net earnings from the gross amount must now arrive into every citizen’s account,” he claimed, emphasizing the importance of not reducing the net income of the citizens and ensuring the fair redistribution of profits generated during the crisis. Dulger is not the only one warning of a crisis in Germany. Economy Minister Robert Habeck warns of a “catastrophic winter” ahead over Russian gas cut fears. According to him, Germany will face a “crucial test that we haven’t faced for a long time.” Other experts are predicting mass bankruptcies, inflation, and energy rationing that will send “shockwaves” through the German economy.

The Bavarian Business Association (VBW) warned that as many as 5.6 million jobs across Germany could be lost in the case of a gas supply stoppage from Russia. According to the association’s calculations, a German boycott of Russian gas could also reduce the country’s economic output by 12.7 percent, with immediate abandonment of the raw material hitting the glass, iron, and steel industries particularly hard; losses in these sectors would be almost 50 percent. Dulger sees the significant cause of the current situation as the lack of ability to be self-sufficient. For too long, Germany had disregarded something that former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt warned about in the 1970s. When deliveries of gas to Russia began at the time, Schmidt said: “We can do it, but we must not depend on Russian gas for more than 30 percent.”

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Post-WWII took a lot of diplomacy. That is now gone.

Berlin’s Quit Decades Of Courting Both Moscow And Washington (Davydov)

Germany’s new leadership has gone “all in” on its alliance with the US, overturning a strategy that had underpinned its success What was known as the “memory culture” was an essential element of the foreign policy strategy of post-war Germany. Wise leaders were able to gradually restore the importance of the country on the international stage and achieve strategic goals. A prime example was Chancellor Willy Brandt’s ‘Ostpolitik,’ based on ideas of repentance and overcoming post-war enmity. The historical reconciliation between Bonn and the USSR became the basis for the future unification of Germany – solving the main task of the country’s political elites after the end of World War II.

However, less gifted politicians find historical memory a handicap and a hardship. For neighbours, the ambitions of German leadership in Europe bring back painful memories. Indeed, historical documents such as the Treaty of German Unification, limit the military capabilities of the state – which is a direct obstacle to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s dream for the creation of “the strongest army in Europe.” Today, the image of a peace-loving nation that has re-educated itself after the tragedy of two world wars does not fit well with active arms deliveries to Ukraine. “This war must end,” Scholz recently warned, while in Kiev. Meanwhile, his government’s website is regularly updated with information on weapons already delivered and planned to be delivered to the Ukrainians. This is what you might call a paradox.

Let’s look at some of the rhetoric coming out of Berlin. On June 21, on the eve of Russia’s Day of Remembrance and Sorrow, Economy Minister Robert Habeck called the reduction of Russian gas supplies “an attack on Germany.”Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has claimed that “Russia deliberately uses hunger as a weapon.” By the way, behind the unfounded lies are real historical data – more than four million Soviet citizens were starved to death during the Nazi occupation. At the G7 summit last month, Scholz called on participants to prepare a new “Marshall Plan”for Ukraine, twisting the meaning of the programme that helped Western Europe recover from the horrors of fascism. It feels like a policy of remembrance is being replaced by a policy of deliberate amnesia.

[..] Scholz’s approach is the opposite of what Willy Brandt and his followers worked on. Berlin has finally narrowed the once dynamic and multifaceted eastern policy solely in support of Kiev. In international relations, however, simplification rarely reduces contradictions. This sort of primitivization does not add credibility to the German leadership, but it does raise doubts about its competence. The granting of EU candidate status to Ukraine, actively supported by Berlin, could also turn out to be an embarrassment. And it is not just about the five other official members of the waiting list and several potential contenders, who have been waiting or are still waiting years for this decision, all the while trying to fulfil the EU’s strict requirements. In Germany’s foreign policy approach, showmanship and symbolism are gradually replacing order and consistency.

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“..all five Caspian Sea littoral states agreed that no NATO warships or bases will be allowed on site…”

The War Of Economic Corridors Is In Full Swing (Escobar)

The War of Economic Corridors is now proceeding full speed ahead, with the game-changing first cargo flow of goods from Russia to India via the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) already in effect. Very few, both in the east and west, are aware of how this actually has long been in the making: the Russia-Iran-India agreement for implementing a shorter and cheaper Eurasian trade route via the Caspian Sea (compared to the Suez Canal), was first signed in 2000, in the pre-9/11 era. The INSTC in full operational mode signals a powerful hallmark of Eurasian integration – alongside the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and last but not least, what I described as “Pipelineistan” two decades ago.

Let’s have a first look on how these vectors are interacting. The genesis of the current acceleration lies in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, for the 6th Caspian Summit. This event not only brought the evolving Russia-Iran strategic partnership to a deeper level, but crucially, all five Caspian Sea littoral states agreed that no NATO warships or bases will be allowed on site. That essentially configures the Caspian as a virtual Russian lake, and in a minor sense, Iranian – without compromising the interests of the three “stans,” Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. For all practical purposes, Moscow has tightened its grip on Central Asia a notch.

As the Caspian Sea is connected to the Black Sea by canals off the Volga built by the former USSR, Moscow can always count on a reserve navy of small vessels – invariably equipped with powerful missiles – that may be transferred to the Black Sea in no time if necessary. Stronger trade and financial links with Iran now proceed in tandem with binding the three “stans” to the Russian matrix. Gas-rich republic Turkmenistan for its part has been historically idiosyncratic – apart from committing most of its exports to China. Under an arguably more pragmatic young new leader, President Serdar Berdimuhamedow, Ashgabat may eventually opt to become a member of the SCO and/or the EAEU. Caspian littoral state Azerbaijan on the other hand presents a complex case: an oil and gas producer eyed by the European Union (EU) to become an alternative energy supplier to Russia – although this is not happening anytime soon.

Iran’s foreign policy under President Ebrahim Raisi is clearly on a Eurasian and Global South trajectory. Tehran will be formally incorporated into the SCO as a full member in the upcoming summit in Samarkand in September, while its formal application to join the BRICS has been filed. Purnima Anand, head of the BRICS International Forum, has stated that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are also very much keen on joining BRICS. Should that happen, by 2024 we could be on our way to a powerful West Asia, North Africa hub firmly installed inside one of the key institutions of the multipolar world. As Putin heads to Tehran next week for trilateral Russia, Iran, Turkey talks, ostensibly about Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is bound to bring up the subject of BRICS.

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Ukraine corruption is on the list of things we can’t talk about.

Republicans Wince As Their Ukrainian-born Colleague Thrashes Zelensky (Pol.)

House Republicans gave Ukraine-born Rep. Victoria Spartz a coveted platform to speak out against Russia’s war. They’re coming to regret that. Spartz (R-Ind.), who has traveled to Ukraine a half-dozen times since the war began and spoken passionately about the conflict, shocked lawmakers in both parties recently with her intense criticisms of the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his confidants. She drew a rare rebuke last weekend from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, which accused her of “trying to earn extra political capital on baseless speculation.” Inside the House GOP Conference, there’s a widespread fear that her posture is damaging U.S.-Ukraine relations at the worst possible time — and that she’s being played by forces that aim to weaken the Western alliance.

GOP national-security hawks also worry that the MAGA wing of their party, where there’s already resistance to supporting Ukraine, will point to Spartz’s comments as justification.They’re concerned that Spartz’s public break from Zelenskyy — and her corruption accusations about his closest aides — could portend future cracks in U.S. support for Ukraine, especially as the midterm elections approach. “Her naiveness is hurting our own people,” said a GOP lawmaker who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, granted anonymity to speak candidly about a colleague. “It is not helpful to what we’re trying to do and I’m not sure her facts are accurate … We have vetted these guys.” The Republican warned that Spartz’s comments could “hurt” the war effort.

Asked for comment on Spartz’s remarks, one senior House Republican who was granted anonymity for the same reason offered a blunt reply: “What the fuck.” A third House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly about Spartz said she has a reputation for elbowing her way into briefings and meetings for committees she doesn’t belong to, like the Foreign Affairs panel, where multiple members have tried to address her comments behind closed doors. The Biden administration is even getting involved — another sign of growing worries that Spartz’s comments may damage cohesion among the Western coalition in defense of Kyiv. A Foreign Affairs Committee aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. intelligence community is planning to brief Spartz about her claims in a classified setting Friday morning.

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“It’s the wrong game for a great nation. And the players we’ve got are losers.”

In Search of Enemies (Femi Akomolafe)

We are in July and while the Russians are not letting up on the grinding of the Ukrainian forces, the West has already lost interest in its latest misadventure. Many Western countries have already announced that they have no more weapons to spare, and the EU’s powerhouse, Germany, has been reduced to dusting off ancient mothballed tanks to send off to battle against an already defeated Russians! That’s when German officials are not too busy trying to placate an irascible and ungrateful Ukrainian officials with an obscene and gratuitous sense of entitlement. Or maybe the Ukrainians should feel perfectly entitled since they were foolish enough to sell off their country for whatever pieces of silver they got!

The question here is: Why are Westerners so dumb that they cannot ask where their leaders who can’t find the money to repair their shattered economies, suddenly find the money to provide weapons to Nazis in Ukraine? Another question: After the war is settled – in Russia’s favor (my bet), do Westerners expect the Russians to forgive them for providing support to Nazis 2.0? For a people without enough resources to cater for themselves, and one that proclaims its rationality all the time, it is beyond belief that Westerners keep on searching for enemies! Besotted with their self-generated image of superiority, Westerners appear to live in a bubble, unaware of what goes on outside their self-created cocoon.

The Russians made it plain what they felt about the West’s insane push to their borders. From President V Putin to FM Lavrov to the inimitable Spokeswoman for the Russian FM, Maria Zakharova, the Russians told whoever would listen that there were bound to be severe repercussions if their core security concerns were ignored. Ignored them, the West did. Last year, the Russians emphasized the urgency of their concerns by dispatching drafts of Treaties to both Washington and Brussels. The West rather haughtily brushed them aside. The Russians openly warned about taking “technical and military” means if the West persists in its folly. The West arrogantly ignored the warnings.

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Arming Ukraine is not biggest problem here: “If the government falls on Wednesday, we won’t have the power to sign any new energy contracts and this is serious because we are headed into winter..”

Italy May Soon Be Unable To Arm Ukraine – Foreign Minister (RT)

Political turmoil in Italy could soon see Rome unable to continue supporting Ukraine with weapons deliveries, the country’s foreign minister has warned. According to Luigi Di Maio, this would be the case should the incumbent government not survive a no-confidence vote next week. In a phone interview with US media outlet Politico on Friday, Di Maio said that those in Italy who want the collapse of Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government are playing into the hands of the Kremlin. “The Russians are right now celebrating having made another Western government fall,” the minister argued. Di Maio went on to express doubt as to whether Italy will be able to keep supplying arms to Ukraine under these circumstances, adding that “it is one of the many serious problems.”

The official explained that, should the government collapse, it would still remain in power for some time in a caretaker capacity. However, in this case, its powers would be reduced, meaning, among other things, that the government wouldn’t be able to continue weapons deliveries to Ukraine. “If the government falls on Wednesday, we won’t have the power to sign any new energy contracts and this is serious because we are headed into winter,” the minister added. According to Di Maio, Italy could also end up without a 2023 budget as the document is normally passed by parliament between July and December. Should there be elections in September or October, however, it could take months before a new coalition government is formed, meaning that the budget would be postponed, the minister explained.

He added that it took 100 days to form a government the last time. On Thursday, the Five Star Movement, which is part of Prime Minister Draghi’s coalition government, boycotted a no-confidence vote, with the premier offering to resign in response. However, Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella refused to accept his resignation, with Draghi’s government facing another no-confidence vote on Wednesday. Di Maio, who had been one of the Five Star Movement’s leaders but left the party last month over a row concerning arms deliveries to Ukraine, laid into his former allies, accusing them of “helping Putin’s propaganda and autocracy over democracy.”

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“..the world that started on 12 October 1492 died on 24 February 2022..”

To Hell or Not to Hell? (Batiushka)

In recent months, here and there in various Western European countries, I have seen two or three flags being flown together, the EU One Ring ‘to rule them all’, sometimes the local national flag, and beneath it the Ukrainian one. This represents Western supremacism, the Nazi ideology which proclaims the long-desired Westernisation of the Ukraine. It says that any who do not accept ‘Western values’ are to be destroyed or, as they say now, ’cancelled’ – with Western fake news, Western arms and Western death. Who are today’s aristocratic warlords, today’s Franks, Lombards, Goths, Vandals and Vikings? They are Stoltenberg, Biden, Johnson, von der Leyen, Blinken, Nuland, Kagan, Scholz, Macron and all the other knowing and unknowing neocons who fly these flags together.

The barbarians were there sacking civilisation in August 476 and in August 1914, they were there sacking civilisation in late 1492 and in early 2022. However, the world that started on 12 October 1492 died on 24 February 2022 and a new era has begun. On 14 July 2022 the Serbian President Vucic said: ‘Now the whole Western world is at war with Russia through Ukrainian intermediaries and today’s armed conflict can almost be called a world war’. ‘I know what awaits us. As soon as Vladimir Putin has finished his work in Seversk, Bakhmut and Soledar and then reaches the second line in Slaviansk-Kramatorsk-Avdeevka, he will make an offer. And if they (the West) don’t accept – and they don’t intend to – we shall take the road to hell’.

So what happens if the Western world chooses not to go to hell? What happens after the barbarians, after the final demise of the myths of ‘The West and the Rest’ and ‘The West is Best’? At the moment, the alternative is an alphabet soup of BRI, BRICS, EAEU, SCO etc. BRICS itself is becoming old-fashioned, as it may well soon be joined by Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and maybe Argentina and then, who knows? Does that make BRICSITESAA? An alternative name like ‘The Anti-West’ is purely reactive, negative and refers to the 530 years before 24 February 2022. It is especially inappropriate since the EU is clearly collapsing and it is obvious that, at the very least, countries like Serbia, Hungary (whom the EU elite wishes to expel from the EU) and Germany, if it is to survive, will be joining the to-be-renamed BRICS.

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“..there are a lot of solutions and technologies on the horizon that could make this all go away relatively quickly… just as soon as they get out of the way.”

‘Experts’ Broke The World. But They’re Rapidly Losing Power… (Black)

It’s rare to find someone, anyone, who has yet to witness, hear about, or directly experience the devastating consequences of the supposed leadership that ‘experts’ have unleashed on us over the past few years. They have engineered and mishandled crisis after crisis after crisis… The world over, from California to Sri Lanka, people everywhere are suffering from their incompetence. Western Europe is on the verge of a major energy crisis; the 4th-largest economy in the world (Germany) is dimming its street lights lights and thinking about firing up its coal power plants (previously considered UNTHINKABLE!) because they’re running out of energy. Even in Texas, which could be considered the world’s 10th-largest economy by GDP, the independent energy grid is so fragile that power companies are remotely turning down people’s home thermostats to save on energy supply.


We have also just seen a leaked hour+ video showing the ‘authorities’ in Uvalde, Texas– fully armed law enforcement professionals– ignoring the literal screams of dying children only a few dozen feet away. Instead they texted on their phones and sanitized their hands. You know, because of Covid. I guess that was the priority. All of this is an utter indictment of how pitifully our experts and authorities have betrayed us. In short, the people in charge broke the world. But the good news is that their reign of ineptitude is rapidly coming to an end.. That much is obvious. And even better, there are a lot of solutions and technologies on the horizon that could make this all go away relatively quickly… just as soon as they get out of the way.

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It’s still not moving.

Gazprom Requests Documents On Nord Stream Turbine Return (RT)

Russian state energy major Gazprom has officially asked German industrial giant Siemens to provide documents allowing the return of a crucial gas turbine, which had been stuck at the firm’s Canada factory due to sanctions. “On July 15, Gazprom officially requested Siemens to provide documents that, in spite of the current sanctions regimes of Canada and the European Union, would allow the export of a gas turbine engine for the Portovaya compressor station, a critically important facility for the [Nord Stream] gas pipeline, to Russia, and the fulfillment by the Siemens group of companies of its obligations regarding the repair and maintenance of gas turbine engines,” the statement by Gazprom read, as cited by Interfax news agency.

Gazprom warned that failure to return the turbine would jeopardise the functioning of the Nord Stream pipeline, linking Russia to Germany, and the supply of natural gas to European consumers. The Nord Stream pipeline, one of the main routes for Russian gas exports to Europe, is currently out of action due to a scheduled 10-day maintenance period. However, prior to the shutdown it had been operating at just 40% of capacity for several weeks, due to a turbine from the pipeline’s Portovaya compressor station being stuck at the Siemens facility in Montreal, where it had undergone repairs.

Canada initially refused to return the device, due to sanctions arising from the Ukraine conflict. However, after negotiations with Berlin, Ottawa earlier this week decided to allow the turbine to be shipped back. It will first travel to Germany, and from there to Russia, allowing Canada to avoid violating its own sanctions by using an indirect delivery route. The documents requested by Gazprom are necessary to facilitate the final trip of the turbine from Germany to Russia.

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Very little.

Saudi Arabia Outlines What It Will Do For Oil Output (RT)

Saudi Arabia is ready to increase oil production to its maximum of 13 million barrels per day but does not have the capacity to pump out more, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said during his address at the US-Arab summit in Jeddah on Saturday. “The kingdom has announced an increase in its production capacity level to 13 million barrels per day, after which the kingdom will not have any additional capacity to increase production,” he was quoted as saying by UAE’s newspaper The National. The crown prince also said that the global community should join forces to support the global economy, but noted that unrealistic policies regarding energy sources would only worsen the situation.

“Adopting unrealistic policies to reduce emissions by excluding main sources of energy will lead in coming years to unprecedented inflation and an increase in energy prices and rising unemployment, and a worsening of serious social and security problems,” he stated. Mohammed bin Salman’s words come a day after his talks with Joe Biden, who was in Saudi Arabia on his first visit as US president, and urged the kingdom to increase oil production in order to reduce global reliance on supplies from Russia. Commenting on his trip to the kingdom, Biden said Saudi Arabia’s “energy resources are vital for mitigating the impact on global supplies of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

Saudi Arabia, one of the globe’s largest oil exporters and the leading producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), currently pumps out more than 12 million barrels of oil per day. The kingdom previously said it plans to reach production capacity of 13 million barrels per day by 2027. The Crown Prince did not reveal whether the timeframe for the boost in capacity has changed

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“Is it any surprise that Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador want’s nothing to do with the other two knuckleheaded leaders of North America..?”

Biden Visits Saudi Arabia, Returns with an Empty Tin Cup (CTH)

Joe Biden is heading back from an embarrassing trip to Saudi Arabia and the middle east. Putting aside the fact that physically and mentally Biden looked weak, foolish, and generally incoherent, in an odd way he was appropriately representative of the current of U.S. influence on the global stage. Before getting to detail, first it is important to emphasize a point that doesn’t get attention domestically. Democrats are exceptionally weak on all aspects of foreign policy, specifically because their modern ideology is based on hypocrisy of a stunning magnitude. Domestically, the U.S. media protect democrats by spinning everything into the best light possible. However, on the world stage the non-western leaders like Putin, Xi and MbS use that hypocrisy like geopolitical ammunition.

Examples… Domestically the U.S. media do not bring up the Joe Biden Afghanistan mess, the rise -and current legitimacy- of the terrorist Taliban; or the brutal mess Barack and Hillary created in Libya; or the unauthorized intervention into Syria that created ISIS; or the complete fubar that was an illegitimate invasion of Iraq; or Hillary’s insufferable “reset” in Russia; or their inability to deal with China’s proxy province of North Korea, because they pretend it’s not; or the current circus célebrè in Ukraine. Each region, and there are many more, a typical example of how modern democrats are fundamentally weak on foreign policy. It is not just Joe Biden either; just about every leftist head of state within the alliance of “western democracies” are also pathetically impotent when it comes to influence on a global stage.

The U.K’s Boris Johnson, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and France’s Emmanuel Macron are collectively as pathetic as Biden when it comes to leadership and influence. Once they step out of their ‘liberal democracy‘ bubble, and head into a nation that doesn’t have state run media like CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, Politico and/or The New York Times, those leaders look like the pathetic fools they are. Biden and the rest of the leftist heads of state decry “autocracy,” and wax philosophically about “western democratic values”, while standing atop two years of their authoritarian pandemic rules, regulations, mandates and unilateral fiats. Consider their chase for their beloved climate change energy policy and contrast it against their political pearl-clutching over the energy inflation they created.

Is it any surprise that Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador want’s nothing to do with the other two knuckleheaded leaders of North America who are selling windmills while regulating traditional oil, coal and natural gas out of existence? At a certain point, a good neighbor has to look at the duct-taped landscaping and say this is ridiculous. I digress.

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“..a 45% drop from China’s shipments of 5.5 million tonnes in the same period a year ago.”

China Issues Phosphate Quotas To Rein In Fertiliser Exports (R.)

China is rolling out a quota system to limit exports of phosphates, a key fertiliser ingredient, in the second half of this year, analysts said, citing information from the country’s major phosphate producers. The quotas, set well below year-ago export levels, would expand China’s intervention in the market to keep a lid on domestic prices and protect food security while global fertiliser prices are hovering near record highs. Last October, China also moved to curb exports by introducing a new requirement for inspection certificates to ship fertiliser and related materials, contributing to tight global supply. Fertiliser prices have been buoyed by sanctions on major producers Belarus and Russia, while surging grain prices are boosting demand for phosphate and other crop nutrients from farmers around the world.


China is the world’s biggest phosphates exporter, shipping 10 million tonnes last year, or about 30% of total world trade. Its top buyers were India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to Chinese customs data. China appears to have issued export quotas for just over 3 million tonnes of phosphates to producers for the second half of this year, said Gavin Ju, China fertiliser analyst at CRU Group, citing information from about a dozen producers who have been informed by local governments since late June. That would mark a 45% drop from China’s shipments of 5.5 million tonnes in the same period a year ago. [..] Other major producers of phosphates, such as widely used diammonium phosphate (DAP), include Morocco, the United States, Russia and Saudia Arabia. The surge in prices over the last year has raised concerns for Beijing, which needs to guarantee food security for its 1.4 billion people even as all farm input costs surge.

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” So it was all a sleight-of-hand: she was staying home; it’s just that she has several homes! This is how the power elite comply, one supposes..”

Dr. Birx Praises Herself While Revealing Ignorance, Treachery, and Deceit (BI)

The December 2020 resignation of Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under Trump, revealed predictable hypocrisy. Like so many other government officials around the world, she was caught violating her own stay-at-home order. Therefore she finally left her post following nine months of causing unfathomable amounts of damage to life, liberty, property, and the very idea of hope for the future. Even if Anthony Fauci had been the front man for the media, it was Birx who was the main influence in the White House behind the nationwide lockdowns that did not stop or control the pathogen but have caused immense suffering and continue to roil and wreck the world. So it was significant that she would not and could not comply with her own dictates, even as her fellow citizens were being hunted down for the same infractions against “public health.”

In the days before Thanksgiving 2020, she had warned Americans to “assume you’re infected” and to restrict gatherings to “your immediate household.” Then she packed her bags and headed to Fenwick Island in Delaware where she met with four generations for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, as if she were free to make normal choices and live a normal life while everyone else had to shelter in place. The Associated Press was first out with the report on December 20, 2020. “Birx acknowledged in a statement that she went to her Delaware property. She declined to be interviewed. She insisted the purpose of the roughly 50-hour visit was to deal with the winterization of the property before a potential sale — something she says she previously hadn’t had time to do because of her busy schedule.

“I did not go to Delaware for the purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving,” Birx said in her statement, adding that her family shared a meal together while in Delaware. Birx said that everyone on her Delaware trip belongs to her “immediate household,” even as she acknowledged they live in two different homes. She initially called the Potomac home a “3 generation household (formerly 4 generations).” White House officials later said it continues to be a four-generation household, a distinction that would include Birx as part of the home.” So it was all a sleight-of-hand: she was staying home; it’s just that she has several homes! This is how the power elite comply, one supposes. The BBC then quoted her defense, which echo the pain experienced by hundreds of millions:

“My daughter hasn’t left that house in 10 months, my parents have been isolated for 10 months. They’ve become deeply depressed as I’m sure many elderly have as they’ve not been able to see their sons, their granddaughters. My parents have not been able to see their surviving son for over a year. These are all very difficult things.” Indeed. However, she was the major voice for the better part of 2020 for requiring exactly that. No one should blame her for wanting to get together with family; that she worked so hard for so long to prevent others from doing so is what is at issue.

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“..Navarro rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors in the case, proposing to drop one of the two charges and not seek more than the minimum 30-day jail time.”

Judge Questions FBI’s Aggressive Arrest Of Peter Navarro (ZH)

A federal judge has questioned why the FBI made a public spectacle out of arresting former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro at Reagan National Airport last month, rather than simply summoning him for a court appearance. Navarro was handcuffed, denied food and water, and denied a request to phone his lawyer, as he was on his way to a speaking engagement in Nashville, Tennessee. He faces two misdemeanor contempt of Congress charges for doing exactly what Obama AG Eric Holder did (with zero consequences) – ignore a Congressional subpoena, according to Politico. Of course, Holder was held in contempt for concealing documents related to the “fast & furious” scandal, which was tied to the death of an estimated 150 Mexican civilians – while Navarro is refusing to answer House Democrats’ questions surrounding the 2020 election and the January 6th riot.

“It is curious…at a minimum why the government treated Mr. Navarro’s arrest in the way it did,” US District Court Judge Amit Mehta said during a Friday hearing on Navarro’s case. “It is a federal crime, but it is not a violent crime.” Mehta, a former federal defender, said it was puzzling that prosecutors didn’t just tell Navarro he was going to be charged and allow him to walk into an FBI office, as some white-collar defendants are permitted to do. “It is a surprise to me that self-surrender was not offered,” the judge said. However, he proposed no particular response and did not demand any explanation from prosecutors”. -Politico. The FBI has accused Navarro of making “numerous false statements” about his arrest, and said that his first request to use the phone that day was for a lawyer – rather, a TV producer about a scheduled interview.

One of his lawyers, John Rowley, suggested that the FBI’s treatment suggested “animus” toward Navarro, considering that two other Trump White House aides who similarly ignored subpoenas – Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino – were not charged (much less arrested at an airport). “Rowley also suggested Navarro had been placed in leg irons by the FBI when he was arrested, but his client clarified after the hearing that the shackles were used by deputy U.S. Marshals when he arrived at the courthouse for his initial appearance last month. The FBI agents “are responsible for those leg irons,” Navarro told reporters. It also emerged at the hearing Friday that Navarro rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors in the case, proposing to drop one of the two charges and not seek more than the minimum 30-day jail time.” -Politico

“This is the first time in our nation’s 250-year history that a senior adviser to a president has been criminally charged for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena,” said Rowley. “The Justice Department…has longstanding policies about not prosecuting someone criminally for this kind of situation, so I wonder, what changed?….and we intend to find out,” said defense attorney John Irving.

Read more …

“..the discussion has even opened up about a possible expulsion of Turkey from the Alliance.”

Ankara Not Likely To Accept F-16 Strings (K.)

The approval this week of a relevant amendment by the US Congress which is seen as a first step to stop the sale of new F-16 aircraft to Turkey and the upgrading of its existing ones has caused optimism in Greece that its positions are being heeded. But there are also several opposing forces at play, which are making the situation complicated. According to Dr Triantafyllos Karatrantos, an analyst at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) think tank, a clearly positive development would be that any agreement to sell or upgrade aircraft to Turkey is accompanied by a strict framework stipulating good neighborly relations and avoiding provocations, disputes or engagement with third countries.

However, he expressed reservations as to whether Ankara would agree to such a restrictive framework at the current juncture. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he said, is in pre-election mode and with the issue of nationalism high on the agenda would not accept such an agreement. He added that it is no coincidence that Ankara, in an attempt to exert pressure on the US administration, is signaling that, just as it did not hesitate to go ahead with the Russian S-400 deal, it will not hesitate to seek another solution for the purchase of fighter jets if the prospect of buying the F-16s does not come to fruition. Meanwhile, in light of Turkey’s stance on Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession process, the discussion has even opened up about a possible expulsion of Turkey from the Alliance.

This position was put forward in a letter to the Financial Times by Mark Wallace, former US ambassador to the United Nations, and Madeleine Joelson, executive director of the NGO Turkish Democracy Project. Karatrantos points out that there is practically no mechanism for expelling a member from NATO, only a voluntary withdrawal procedure.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

China population set to be cut in half…. Nigeria, DR Congo to quadruple

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle July 17 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
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  • #111670

    Pablo Picasso Guernica 1937   • Germany Is Facing The Biggest Crisis The Country Has Ever Had (Cody) • Berlin’s Quit Decades Of Courting Both Mos
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 17 2022]

    #111671
    Neal
    Participant

    Germany is facing the largest crisis it has ever had
    I’m, that headline seems a bit of an exaggeration. How about the collapse at the end of WW1 with revolution, overthrow of the empire, loss of territories and the humiliation at Versailles?
    Or the hyperinflation in 1922-23?
    Maybe the collapse of the Reich in 1945? To me that is Germanys biggest crisis ever.
    So unless the nukes start flying or the Chinese occupy Berlin I don’t think a cold miserable and broke winter counts

    #111672
    those darned kids
    Participant

    the video of emmanuel is most succinct summation of u.s. foreign policy i have ever seen.

    #111673

    Neal, he’s talking about post-WWII Germany, or even post-wall.

    #111674

    Leave Emmanuel alone!

    #111675
    Red
    Participant

    @neal Lining up to get nuked might help with that crisis!
    “Production of the B61-12 nuclear bomb begins,” Sandia National Laboratories announced from the United States. The B61-12, which replaces the previous B61 deployed by the U.S. at Aviano and Ghedi and other European bases, is a new type of weapon. It has a nuclear warhead with four power options, selectable depending on the target to be destroyed. It is not dropped vertically, but at a distance from the target on which it is directed guided by a satellite system. It can penetrate underground, exploding deep to destroy command center bunkers in a nuclear first strike.

    The B61-12s, classified as “non-strategic nuclear weapons,” are deployed in Europe — in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and probably other countries — at distances far enough to strike Russia. They thus have offensive capabilities similar to those of strategic weapons.

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-b61-12-mini-nukes-made-in-america-to-be-used-in-a-nuclear-first-strike-coming-soon-to-italy-belgium-germany-netherlands/5786765

    #111676
    Red
    Participant

    “If we are to go not towards Hell, let us go to Free and Sovereign Nations, lands for native peoples, and not for colonial powers, and let there be a World Alliance of Free and Sovereign Peoples.”

    Anyone notice anything like the above anywhere?

    #111677
    Red
    Participant

    From: https://brownstone.org/articles/deborah-birxs-guide-to-destroying-a-country-from-within/
    From the review by MICHAEL SENGER cited in the Brownstone article: Dr. Birx Praises Herself While Revealing Ignorance, Treachery, and Deceit

    As it turns out, Birx was not “100% MAGA.” She wasn’t even 10% MAGA.

    Now, I’m not saying Deborah Birx is a CCP agent. I’m just saying that if she was an agent for Xi Jinping’s stated goal of gradually stripping the world of “independent judiciaries,” “human rights,” “western freedom,” “civil society,” and “freedom of the press,” then every word of her book would read like that of Silent Invasion. If she did do it, this is how it would have happened.

    But in researching this topic for over two years, few things have made my hair stand on end more than the clues Birx gives about the man who did appoint her to her role. This man, who will be the subject of my next deep dive, is a little-known, clean-cut, Mandarin-fluent intelligence operative who arguably played a greater role than even Fauci or Birx in bringing China’s totalitarian virus response to the United States, acting as a direct liaison between Chinese scientists and the White House on key items of pseudoscience including asymptomatic spread, universal masking, and remdesivir: Matthew Pottinger.

    #111678
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Benton: That’s the question of “What is War?” We knew what they were up to when they immediately broke the treaty, then liquidated the country. But they didn’t send tanks. Is economic war a war? I say yes, seeing the Rust Belt more thoroughly annihilated than any nuclear bomb ever could. The U.S. themselves were the first casualty, yet they still deny it, lo these 50 years later. “Daddy wouldn’t do that.”

    Picking on electric cars again: Texas says: “don’t charge”. That’s it. I guess if you have to get to work, too bad.

    And this is the weather with bush and forest fires. Sorry, can’t charge, can’t leave.

    If the power goes out like it did in winter? Can’t go to work, can’t leave.

    And this is on top of there being no grid to charge them and no plans to make one. Ever. Is that because they expect all the poor people to die for some undisclosed reason?

    Makes you wonder.

    And Denninger just followed the latest: Truck towing some moderately large trailer? Under 50 miles, and that’s if there’s a charging station the minute you stop. No backup either as you can’t get a can of “’lectric”. Um can I say, “Not in America?” Not in Canada or Mexico either. This ain’t a small country.

    Yet like everything else, they just push and push and push and push these TERRIBLE, moronic, unwanted, unasked for, self-immolating, deadly ideas. While rejecting thousands of ideas we constantly suggest that would work for no cost.

    France? How’s France doing for electric cars with half the nukes missing? Germany? Good idea there? I’ve never seen anything like it. Their capacity for dumb is supernatural. Preternatural. Galactic. Alien in fact, as if we’ve found the dumbest species in the known universe and they’re advising our known leaders on their every move, which neither serve them, serve us, or indeed will be accepted at all without tremendous violence.

    Suit yourself. We beat everybody before now, and ARE tremendously violent. You’ll just be another loser we bury and forget ever existed. F around and find out.

    “The world over, from California to Sri Lanka, people everywhere are suffering from their incompetence.” Is it “incompetence” though?

    “ensuring the fair redistribution of profits generated during the crisis.”

    What profits? You have no industry. And they’re going to redistribute the wealth from production they no longer have? Yup, that’s Socialism. Misery, Poverty spread widely. And who are the redistribut-ors? They wouldn’t be planning on eating 5-star dinners and driving Mercedes would they? I mean, The People are all this together, right comerade?

    “could also reduce the country’s economic output by 12.7 percent,”

    He’s a lunatic, but then economists can’t count to three. If you lose the steel and glass industry as he admits, then what do you think can happen downstream? The machine screw industry? The car industry, the house industry, the solar industry? That’s right, the supply blockage of 12% upstream means… 100% block downstream. …Or you can import your glass from China and America with only half the supply, AND pay prices double with shipping at $10/gal. I’m sure it’ll all work out if you “redistribute” your money to the poor. Why don’t you print some money? I hear that makes wheat appear.

    Here’s the problem that I sort of circle around all the time: If you don’t give the money to the factories, (aka what they call “Capital”, “rich people”) we have nothing afterwards to GIVE the poor. Because we all have nothing, rich and poor alike. You have to MAKE stuff, with a SURPLUS called “Profit” in order to give anybody anything. And all that takes work that comes from US and nobody else. His plan is to liquidate a dead carcass until all Germans live in grass huts again. Population will therefore drop +90% as everyone is killed, exactly as the WEF and them there Guidestones suggested. Which is just a coincidence and isn’t related to anything because rich people never talk together and never make plans.

    “Germany’s new leadership has gone “all in” on its alliance with the US, overturning a strategy that had underpinned its success”

    Sad to see, and has ruined their negotiating position and all leverage, but it won’t last long. Europe is not going to live in grass huts when all they have to do is throw German Politicians in the Baltic sea and buy heating oil. Heck, we’d throw politicians in the sea in winter for no reason and don’t need an excuse.

    They must, so they will. MacKinder isn’t going to stop them, and the Empire can’t make them. But maybe Germany has to be reduced to the level of Lithuania first.

    “Republicans Wince as Their Ukrainian-born Colleague Thrashes Zelensky (Pol.)”

    You can say anything but the truth. The Truth is the only enemy. For Republicans and Democrats alike. If we start telling the truth, where does it end? Then the People escape us and are free again. They’d be doing that “Declaration” thingie we don’t like.

    She drew a rare rebuke last weekend from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry,”

    The Who? Hello, what country is that? We care about the opinions of nations with a lower GDP than Delaware? Why not cower to Nairobi instead? Oh wait: I forget, Kiev is the Capital of the United States now. All our money and free health care goes to them.

    GOP national-security hawks also worry that the MAGA wing of their party,”

    The article admits MAGA is a minority of government representatives, at the same time the Democrats are pushing to arrest every listed Republican. You know: outlaw all opposition parties like they do in Ukraine. That’s Democracy! Defending Democracy by creating a one-party system where if you have opinions, you’re arrested.

    “granted anonymity for the same reason offered a blunt reply: “What the f-ck.” A third House Republican granted anonymity to speak”

    Um, they “Granted” him free speech? Who is doing the granting and permission-giving here? McConnell? Well, one good thing here: They’ll all collapse when Ukraine does then, since they lashed their ships together.

    “Russians are not letting up on the grinding of the Ukrainian forces, the West has already lost interest”

    Because the West are drooling morons. Russia is barely touching them. They haven’t shut off the power and water and haven’t even sent the Russian Army yet. And weapons? Russian just buys the HIMARs from Ukraine, then shoots them back. You could fight this war for loose change. I could probably get a 2nd mortgage and fight this war. HIMARs shall not be infringed, and they sure aren’t in Ukraine.

    “there were bound to be severe repercussions if their core security concerns were ignored”

    Yet the bubble has not popped. It may take shelling Biden’s personal house – or worse, his crackhouse – for any message to hit home, and even then I doubt it. This is what being “Violently mentally ill” means: you can’t look to rationality for anything. You simply adjudicate and lock them up, restrain them for the greater good because regardless of what you say or do, reality will never come back to them if indeed they ever had any. I don’t know why this is so hard.

    “But this crazy person keeps acting crazy!” Yes. And then…? Pretty sure we have a procedure for that.

    “Italy May Soon Be Unable To Arm Ukraine – Foreign Minister (RT)”

    Case in point. If the U.S. and Germany combined can’t arm Ukraine, but Italy can? What would you say of a guy who would go to war with no men, no guns, and no gas? Crazy, right? Okay, how about one man, one .38, and one 5-gal can? Still crazy, right?

    So how is this any different? They’ve clearly said you need 100 tanks, all the support, 70 aircraft that aren’t jammed, and 200 howitzers. Are we now pretending that wasn’t said?

    What do we say of people who say things, then immediately say it never happened? “Crazy people”, perhaps? Mentally ill and deranged? A danger to themselves and others? Yes, there’s a process for that regardless of who you are.

    “there are many more, a typical example of how modern democrats are fundamentally weak on foreign policy.”

    Yes, but all of these the Republicans also promote and agree on.

    “..a 45% drop from China’s shipments of 5.5 million tonnes in the same period a year ago.”
    • China Issues Phosphate Quotas To Rein In Fertiliser Exports (R.)”

    Phosphate is a much bigger problem than nitrogen and will be for the rest of our lives. There is also essentially no solution but turning life from a line into a circle. That P must be shipped back from NYC to Iowa again. Or better, the PEOPLE in NYC must relocate to Iowa to be closer to the circle of land. There’s no housing shortage, no food shortage, just a location, a bubble problem.

    “nationwide lockdowns that did not stop or control the pathogen”

    Every 1% rise in unemployment leads to 40,000 early deaths. They raised unemployment by +10%. Narcissistic psychopaths’ defense: “No I didn’t.”

    #111679
    Red
    Participant

    The global “experts” way to prosperity. Sri Lankan style!

    https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/10/17/vision-2025-sri-lankas-path-to-prosperity

    With a domestic market of only 20 million consumers with a modest per capita income, Sri Lanka needs to look beyond its borders and increase its global competitiveness to sustain high and long-term growth.

    To that end, Sri Lanka’s new Vision 2025 sets out a course of reforms to make the country more competitive and lift all Sri Lankans’ standards of living. These reforms range from the pressing need for labor law reform to restructuring social safety net programs and boosting technology acquisition and digitisation.

    #111680
    Red
    Participant

    THE powers of the World Economic Forum have come under scrutiny on Wednesday, July 13, after eager internet users spotted the WEF had deleted an article from Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

    The article deleted on the WEF website is called – Sri Lanka PM: This is how I will make my country rich again by 2025 – and was searched for by people following the collapse of the country’s economy, which resulted in HUGE riots and the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing to the Maldives.

    In the article, published on August 29, 2018, Wickremesinghe said that the country’s “economic policy, Vision 2025, is firmly embedded in several principles, including a social market economy that delivers economic dividends to all.”

    The WEF questioned after deleted Sri Lanka PM article is recovered by Wayback Machine

    #111681
    Red
    Participant

    Dr.D:
    “He’s a lunatic, but then economists can’t count to three. If you lose the steel and glass industry as he admits, then what do you think can happen downstream? The machine screw industry? The car industry, the house industry, the solar industry? That’s right, the supply blockage of 12% upstream means… 100% block downstream. …Or you can import your glass from China and America with only half the supply, AND pay prices double with shipping at $10/gal. I’m sure it’ll all work out if you “redistribute” your money to the poor. Why don’t you print some money? I hear that makes wheat appear.”

    Priceless, for everything else there’s Mastercard, which may also make wheat appear.

    #111682
    Noirette
    Participant

    An echo to Ilargi’s “A high chance of meatballs.”

    Summary of uselessness of W arms expedited to Ukraine.

    (I have no military background or arms knowledge, from my reading only..)

    – Arms sent not efficient, not in good working order, surplus / outdated / etc. the sender is happy with sending them off

    – Lacking the necessary spare parts / back-up matériel / essential functional stuff..

    – Not adapted to Ukraine (ex. different railway gauge..)

    – Convoys, depots, easily tracked, identified by the Russians, are destroyed by them before arriving at destination

    – Arms are stolen, appropriated by Ukranian (or other) thugs, middlemen, or army factions and sold at competitive prices to interested parties such as terrorist groups, etc.

    Imho, the abundance is creating a brisk market with low-ish prices. (I can’t judge the prices but have seen them called low, good, favorable, etc.)

    Once in the hands of the Ukrainian forces, UAF, (spare parts etc. already mentioned) they are impossible, difficult, or clumsy to use because,

    – (this is the most pathetic I read about) .. The instruction manuals are written in German / French / English, and the Ukrainians simply can’t make them out

    The UAF often is not familiar with them, has not been trained in their use (so what was with all that NATO training, heh?) or for whatever reason does not see them as a great contribution

    The complaints, reports of failures, are too numerous and important, and the hype about game changers etc. is desperately shrill.

    The offer of weapons was not designed (imho) to “win a war” but simply to encourage the Ukr. high command (In Ukr., it is political, thus Zelensky and his coterie) to keep up the fighting, so as to, well ‘fight to the last Ukrainian’, a hackneyed saying by now.

    Keep it up, buddy, we have your back, gonna send guns and cash…

    Which brings me to the financial aid, the USA particularly seems to see money (and money management, like weird price-caps) as a universal solution, throw money at it, the problem goes away. That might work in a rich Florida neighborhood in a quarrel between furious neighbors, but is illusory in real-world geo-politics in the long run (some temporary quiet can be obtained, but that implies sharing or transfer of ressources)…

    #111683
    zerosum
    Participant

    Build Back Better … for who …. as if it has never been tried before …

    build a new relationship of mankind based on mutual love, respect, peace, fraternity, and solidarity…
    ———–
    Deniers are everywhere, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, even in Germany
    Survivalist, preppers, are anticipating breakdown of society in the Western alliance.
    ———-
    The BRICS are cooperating in securing their energy need for the future without war and booths on the ground.
    ———
    Read more …

    In Search of Enemies


    In Search of Enemies
    12114 Views July 16, 2022 59 Comments
    By Femi Akomolafe for the Saker Blog

    – The speed and the alacrity with which the “free world” jumped, at the say-so of their leaders, to condemn every Russian is simply beyond belief.

    – What exactly is wrong with the “free world”?

    – Why the unbridled penchant for unremitting confrontation and bloodletting?

    – The behavior of the “free world” disturbs greatly. Whichever way one throws it around, it is difficult to call it a Natural Behavior!

    – Sanctimonious hypocrisy of the highest order!

    – Why are Westerners so dumb that they cannot ask where their leaders who can’t find the money to repair their shattered economies, suddenly find the money to provide weapons to Nazis in Ukraine?
    ———–
    Russian state energy major Gazprom has officially asked German industrial giant Siemens to provide documents allowing the return of a crucial gas turbine, which had been stuck at the firm’s Canada factory due to sanctions.

    The Nord Stream pipeline, one of the main routes for Russian gas exports to Europe, is currently out of action due to a scheduled 10-day maintenance period. However, prior to the shutdown it had been operating at just 40% of capacity for several weeks, due to a turbine from the pipeline’s Portovaya compressor station being stuck at the Siemens facility in Montreal, where it had undergone repairs.
    ——-
    On a personal note. Energy
    To get away from mosquitoes and the heat, on my gladcamping trip, I found out that the battery in my car would need boosting, because I used the “air conditioner” too much, Being stranded in the campground was not a desired outcome.
    ———
    Noirette
    Made my day
    Hehehehe
    The instruction manuals are written in German / French / English, and the Ukrainians simply can’t make them out
    ps. Beat the heat wave … soak in a long bath

    #111684
    John Day
    Participant

    @Red: That Sri-Lanka 2025 path to prosperity is blather, some copy written by a 20-something in under 2 hours…
    sigh…

    @Dr.D: “Capital” more properly refers to the “means of production”, which you observe to not be money, in the case of wheat,and is also not money in the case of Toyota pick-up trucks, but factories, mines, stocked warehouses, and an advanced industrial economy. When money is constrained, like in “cross of gold” days, then maybe gold is that bottleneck in the “capitalist” production chain, but it’s not like that now.
    Fordist capitalism went away with Ronnie Ray-Gun, and it was a pretty good set-up, while it lasted, but the $US as global reserve currency did the job of finally making US industry uncompetitive. Putting all the taxes onto employers, with perverse incentives for the system to raise them, like health-insurance in a for-profit system, just worsens that.
    There are clearly problems with bureaucratic, federally funded medical care, but there has to be some step-down path from where we currently are. One is collapse, with people dying of appendicitis and babies-that-won’t-come-out. The other, that I can see, is government funded health-care from state or national, or even county level. I have been part of all of these. Who gets something, who gets less, who gets nothing, and who dies are all problematic, always. I had an unfunded patient with pancreatitis on IV fluids who could barely eat Jello for 5 weeks in 1993, in the only little hospital in Caldwell County. No other hospital in Texas would accept him. Nice guy. I apologized to him at least twice every day. The teaching hospital in Galveston finally accepted him. Maybe he got surgery. I hope he lived, he was in his 30s.
    In times of sweeping change, when time is short, and supplies of everything become unreliable, a command-economy becomes imperative, but who gives the commands? Shinzo Abe is dead, so who might give commands in Japan? Clearly, there is nobody of that stature amongst WEF “globalized leaders”. Russia and China are covered unless somebody kills Putin when he leaves Russia, like for a G-20 shindig.
    Just as America is not “agreement capable” it is not command-economy capable, for the same reasons of elite division. Elites don’t follow “commands”, until after they capitulate. All the elites are still doubling-down, not capitulating, as far as I can see. Sri-Lanka’s elites are probably not living there, or it is a minor-holding for them.
    Stalin, Franco, FDR, Hitler, et.al. gave commands which were followed, for better and for much worse. It’s better if a commander does not use meth when things start to slide towards ultimate defeat. Meth makes it hard to negotiate a reasonable peace. Cocaine too. Zelenski is not agreement-capable for all the reasons, and he knows what happens to Ukrainians who negotiate with Russia. That lesson got taught in March.
    CAPITULATION OF WESTERN ELITES comes from what?
    Beats me. Putin/Lavrov/Xi? Collapse of $US hegemony? EMP takes all of their grids and internet down and leaves them down permanently? Maybe there is some milder path to western-elite capitulation. Maybe they will buy-into the new BRICS+++ system and declare themselves victorious full-participants.
    The massive $US debt default by Argentina and everybody who follows Argentina could do it; just turn all that nice money into 5 billion-mark notes.
    My read on that is that somebody(s) must show a path outta the black-hole for Sri Lanka first, to inspire faith and hope. Sri-Lanka exports tea and needs to import deisel. That’s tough. Clearly, Sri-Lanka needs to grow their own food, civil-war or no civil-war. Sri-Lanka does not have an easy step-down from chemical fertilizer, but I don’t accept 80% of people dying of starvation and the local violence it engenders. Public Private Partnerships extract resources from a country. Sri-Lanka is fully extracted for lifetimes into the future, already.
    Can Narendra Modi of India (Hindu-Nationalist) take ove Sri Lanka and kill the 30% Tamil Muslims?
    That never works, whenever Sri Lanka tries it.
    Sri Lanka needs at least a couple of years of fertilizer and oil for free, and a bnch of food right now, and an agreement and command capable executive for survival, for starters, and just forget the debts, because they are unserviceable in any scenario.
    Who bells this cat? I’d like to take notes…

    #111685
    zerosum
    Participant


    – 80% of people dying of starvation and the local violence it engenders
    – take over Sri Lanka and kill the 30% Tamil Muslims?

    a path outta the black-hole for Sri Lanka

    Do like people always do …… avoid death/war….. seek peace ……leave …… Immigration

    #111686
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Wow, two whole questions

    The question here is:

    Why are Westerners so dumb that they cannot ask where their leaders who can’t find the money to repair their shattered economies, suddenly find the money to provide weapons to Nazis in Ukraine?

    Another question:

    After the war is settled – in Russia’s favor (my bet), do Westerners expect the Russians to forgive them for providing support to Nazis 2.0?

    The Answer

    Mass Formation Psychosis

    And while Brett Weinstein and Mattias Desmet in their current podcast agreed that adding the word ‘psychosis’ to the term mass formation was counter productive to the discussion, I don’t.

    The Collective West needs to have their collective noses noses rubbed in the word ‘psychosis’ at every turn of the screw.

    Germany is psychotic now, just like the not to be mentioned “Olde Days of Uber Alles”.

    Germany is like a ‘self harming teenage’ that has cut itself all over it’s body politik with razor blades.

    Clearly psychotic, but never mention it to them, it would upset their delicate Teutonic sensibilities!

    The Green Seppuku

    Hey, it’s an admirable sentiment to want to not be dependent on fossil fuels.

    But the transition period has to be much longer and far more thought out than what is happening now as a slow-mo train wreck.

    The German Greens are crazier than a shithouse rat.

    They have razor bladed the German economy. That economy looks on track to bleed out in the cold snowy Eurotard winter.

    At least the blood will freeze, it will be much easier to cleanup that way.

    Hey, nobody’s psychotic around here, you got that? Mum’s the word

    .

    #111687
    Oroboros
    Participant

    • Gazprom Requests Documents On Nord Stream Turbine Return

    The turbine issue could have been solved in a 5 minute phone between Germany and Canada.

    But it’s become a clusterfuck, which oddly serves the agendas of multiple players.

    However like the old expression, a Zebra is a horse designed by a committee, Turdeau the ‘Just’ from the Land of Maple Syrup has dope slapped Germany with their truculent attitude and given the Russkies a guilt free gift from heaven to withhold gas and to further torment the Teutonic hordes.

    A couple of German politicians found their balls and made noises about opening Nord Stream 2 if the country masquerading as a Hockey Puck didn’t give the turbine back but they were very quickly re-emasculated and put back in there place, how sad ;>(

    Speaking of giving back Turbans

    .

    #111688
    Noirette
    Participant

    The latest from Jaques Baud, interview, print, eng. trans, short and worth it.

    The West’s Debacle in Ukraine: A Conversation with Jacques Baud

    Geopolitics and Empire interviews Gonzalo Lira, vid / audio. Lira speaks out about the US-collective-vassal-W losing in Ukr., which for sure is the case, that point is worth emphasising. I am not a fan of this guy, but he brings up some Ok points.

    Over one hour long.

    Gonzalo Lira: American Power Has Collapsed, It’s Pulling Down the Rest of the World With It

    #111689
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    “ . Even in Texas, which could be considered the world’s 10th-largest economy by GDP, the independent energy grid is so fragile that power companies are remotely turning down people’s home thermostats to save on energy supply.”

    The author must be mistaken…right now the power companies in Texas would be turning thermostats UP, not DOWN to save on energy….

    #111690
    John Day
    Participant

    Part 4 of “The Psychology of Totalitarianism” Thanks Bill. This is just a taste from the middle.
    “Ponerology” is the study of evil.
    https://www.sott.net/article/469924-The-Psychology-of-Totalitarianism-Part-4

    Anyways, those are Desmet’s views. How do they compare with Political Ponerology [PP]? Pretty well, on the whole. On the last point, Lobaczewski warns: “oversimplification of the causal picture as regards the genesis of evil — often to a single, easily understood cause or perpetrator — itself becomes a cause in this genesis” (PP, p. 132). More generally pathocracy is a “complex causal system” (PP, p. 79) that emerges largely unconsciously, as a result primarily of psychobiological factors. Here are some quotes that get across the point:
    … in leaving behind our old natural method of comprehension and learning to track the internal causality of the phenomenon, we marvel at the surprising exactness with which the latter turns out to be subjected to its own regular laws. … The entirety is … clearly subject to causative determination to a degree that the researcher could not have anticipated. (PP, p. 235)
    … the system is rigidly causative and lacking in natural and rational freedom of choice. (PP, p. 256)
    … the image of the phenomenon is so dominated by psychological causation that there is not much room left for free choice. (PP, p. 316)
    The range of causal factors Lobaczewski brings to bear is extensive (more extensive than Desmet’s). His account involves a number of what he calls “pathological factors” (specific personality disorders and disturbances, whether primarily genetic, organic, or functional, of varying severity), “ponerogenic phenomena” (like pathological narcissism, paramoralisms, reversive blockades, conversive thinking, spellbinders), and “ponerogenic processes” (like hystericization and ponerization of groups) that proceed roughly in stereotypical sequences, utilizing ideologies. All of these form a complex mosaic structure that makes up the macrosocial phenomenon of pathocracy, much like the fractal of Desmet’s description.

    For Desmet, “The whole of society has a part in [totalitarianism’s] rise in one way or another; every person bears a responsibility in it” (PT, p. 139). Similarly, for Lobaczewski,
    In ponerogenic processes, moral deficiencies, intellectual failings, and pathological factors intersect in a spatio-temporal causative network giving rise to individual and national suffering. (PP, p. 224, cf. p. 78)
    He often repeats that one kind of evil (“normal” human weaknesses and failings) “opens the door” to another (psychopathic). In this regard, the people most responsible for the early stages of ponerogenesis are not evil per se. They are just weak. And that weakness provides the opening for unimaginable evil.

    Desmet thinks that ideology is what selects for position in totalitarianism. Here, Lobaczewski would disagree, arguing that ideology becomes increasingly irrelevant and essentially window dressing as pathocracy takes on its dissimulative form. In an ordinary society, a social structure forms as a result of many factors (see PP, pp. 38-48). The resulting structure is in no way planned, but a kind of self-organizing superorganism the develops out of all the individual and group interactions, cooperation and competition of the people that constitute it.

    Pathocracy is a demented Bizarro-world version of this process (OK, he doesn’t use those terms precisely). Ideology may provide the initial impetus and outer clothing, but the ultimate selection process, like the causality, is psychobiological in nature. In terms of ponerogenic groups like the Bolsheviks, “Rigorous selective measures of a clearly psychological kind are applied to new members” (PP, p. 165), resulting in a “pathological social structure.” (The same dynamic applies to the periodic purges of Party and society.) Just as humans tend to self-select into suitable roles based on their unique cognitive repertoires, a similar process plays itself out in ponerogenic groups and, ultimately, in a pathocracy.

    #111691

    Well. That Lira interview was uplifting.
    I still suspect that if all hell broke loose and it was the West’s fault, the locals in an expat’s new homeland may not be all that friendly.

    #111692
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    I believe that “psychosis” should generally be appended to “mass formation” because otherwise it is not clear from the words “mass” and “formation” alone what is being discussed. “Mass formation” by itself sounds like a conglomeration of clouds.

    #111693
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Population graph above.
    What happens in Nigeria and DR Congo won’t stay in Nigeria and DR Congo.

    #111694
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    There you go again Dr. D casting broad aspersions on the American CEO class, the MMIC military medical Industrial complex and 49 out of 50 States’ legislature for emblazoning into law the murderous inhumanity of At Will employment statutes. You’re so unfair. Those titans of industry will correctly insist that loss of life’s prospects which arise with unemployment don’t alone translate into worsening mortality, but increase in concert the latter’s one-for-oneassociation with poverty.

    Dr. D said: “Every 1% rise in unemployment leads to 40,000 early deaths. They raised unemployment by +10%.”

    Yet there it is, that which accounts for the rising Excess Deaths above and beyond “C19-excess deaths C19”.

    #111695
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Whilst what you say about previous crises is correct, there is something different about the current crisis: there can be no recovery. .

    Almost all of the easily-extracted high-quality coal is long gone.

    Almost all the easily-extracted high-quality oil is long gone. The system is dependent on extracting gluggy kerogen from ‘tar sands’, and other low EROEI extraction systems.

    Humungous debt bubbles have been constructed on the assumption of infinite-growth-on-a-finite-planet -an absurd notion from the outset, but achievable in the short term via looting of the planet and destruction of the environmental future.

    So now all the chickens are coming home to roost (the great unravelling), and all our so-called leaders have to offer is more of the same bullshit that got us into this global predicament in the first place..

    Population overshoot meets Peak Oil, Abrupt Climate Change, the unravelling of Ponzi finance and collapse of biodiversity,

    #111696
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Germany Is Facing The Biggest Crisis The Country Has Ever Had (Cody)

    #111697
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis due to a potential Russian gas cut that will erase the prosperity Germans have grown accustomed to, warned Rainer Dulger, head of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations.

    The whole world is facing the same crisis. The oligarchs behind WEF have obviously gained control of all significant governments and banks, which means that the crisis is in full swing for us, the plebs. The one-world government and one-world bank already exists in all but name, the power and control is already centralised and the interesting thing is that the oligarchs are keeping their roles secret.

    We know some of those involved, such as Gates and Soros, because they cannot keep their mouths shut, but this level of control takes more than just them, the rest remain anonymous. They obviously will stop at nothing as we have already seen a number of assassinations and governments have done nothing to investigate and reveal the people paying for those hits. I assume that a number of the political changes are also due to people trying to get out of the game alive. You can assume that all the security services are compromised, so they will soon be shooting people in the streets when the hunger riots start.

    The banks will also continue to force countries to waste money in return for finance. You can see that in Taiwan where the government is on its knees pleading for US protection from China. Taiwan wages are well below China wages due to the government economic policies and the Taiwan government spending tons of cash on US weapons and US green initiatives. The wages are low despite Taiwan leading the way in the Chinese world’s semiconductor industry. We have electric buses, electric scooter systems etc all paid for by the government because otherwise they would not survive in a free market. All stuff that the country cannot afford.

    Watching the Netherlands farmers, it is sadly obvious that the people have already lost this battle and are soon going to be entering a century of slavery. You would expect the whole Dutch nation to be on general strike and marching in the streets demanding policy change, but instead they show us that the TV has control over their brains, they trust the TV, it is their parent, it is their guru, it will also be their death.

    Violence is the only way the people can restore their power, but the oligarchs behind this operation are hiding, so the solution is the mass slaughter of oligarchs before the mass slaughter of plebs. This will not happen while the TV leads the people into the slaughter house.

    #111698
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Germany’s new leadership has gone “all in” on its alliance with the US, overturning a strategy that had underpinned its success What was known as the “memory culture” was an essential element of the foreign policy strategy of post-war Germany.

    Germany has been captured by the WEF oligarchs. The politicians of Germany have been bribed, blackmailed and threatened to comply with the WEF agenda. This is a coup. The German security services have failed the Germans, letting their country be captured by external forces. The whole reason for having security services is to prevent this sort of thing happening, but the German government has failed its people, the traitors in the security services have given into the WEF oligarchs and allowed the German politicians to be captured.

    Maybe this is why the Russian government appears to be working for Russia, maybe Putin’s experience in the Russian security services enabled him to prevent them being compromised by the WEF oligarchs.

    #111699
    aspnaz
    Participant

    A Foreign Affairs Committee aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. intelligence community is planning to brief Spartz about her claims in a classified setting Friday morning.

    You can just imagine how this will go: I just wonder how they will threaten her, maybe threaten to destroy the lives and careers of her children? The security services may just threaten her with an accident, or her children with an accident.

    #111700
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #111701
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Yet like everything else, they just push and push and push and push these TERRIBLE, moronic, unwanted, unasked for, self-immolating, deadly ideas.

    #111702
    zerosum
    Participant

    Time for the survivors to put up the white flag and to surrender

    1. Immigration, 9 million, and counting, refugees in EU from Ukraine and everywhere else.
    2. Piles of destroyed cities in Ukraine, middle east, N. Africa
    3. Factories, jobs, and income have been destroyed.
    4. Shortages of food, income, etc.
    5. Lack of adequate housing
    6. Lack of energy
    7. Lack of health care
    8. Lack of competent leaders that will operate the social/economic systems for sustainability

    #111703
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Violence is the only way the people can restore their power, but the oligarchs behind this operation are hiding, so the solution is the mass slaughter of oligarchs before the mass slaughter of plebs. This will not happen while the TV leads the people into the slaughter house.

    #111704
    John Day
    Participant

    @aspnaz: The standing reference is that each new president’s initial security briefing presents films of the Kennedy assasination from a couple of different angles to help him understand his new role.

    #111705
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The December 2020 resignation of Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under Trump, revealed predictable hypocrisy.

    If she had stabbed WEF in the back in the same way she stabbed the people in the back, she would have been assassinated by now.

    #111706
    John Day
    Participant

    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/but-not-simpler I’ll try to reduce duplicate posts…

    How much of the false-presentation of reality, with which we are increasingly deluged, has been well-planned and arranged, and how much has been thrown like spaghetti against a wall, and used until it quit sticking? You might also have been struggling with how to approach models of human behavior in times of rapid change, brought on by economic degradation, as the provisions for life become unpredictable, then life-threateningly short. A society entering crisis needs to adjust, but the specific needs of the owner class, the working class and the skilled classes may be so disparate as to make that impossible until some class capitulates. It migh have to be the owners who capitulate in order for an actual, healthy reformation of social economy, the “social contract” to start getting worked-out..

    This article says that “Ideologies are no longer the way we know them, and that means the world is being reconfigured”. There are always flaws and corruptions of ideologies, also. Ideologies are simplifications that people can “agree” upon to work in harmony, but with a range of interpretations and embodiments.
    ​ ​Capitalism at war means monopolies arising, while communists at war means massive genocides arising.
    ​ ​Corroded ideology is not necessarily a bad thing, but it shows a breakdown in thinking in society
    ​ ​Ideologies arise as a way of trying to organize models of government, and several of them have even been criminalized around the world due to the massacres they have carried out. But at the same time, this does not mean that they will cease to exist.
    ​ ​When a society thinks 50% one thing and another half thinks 50% another thing, this means that there is a polarity of thoughts that can only lead to chaos and barbarism, because the people, hungry or in difficulty, are not able to come to a consensus, and then authoritarianism and popular uprisings arise.

    Ideologies are no longer the way we know them and this means that the world is being reconfigured

    ​Surplus Energy Economics looks at The Affordability Crisis (Heavily edited)
    ..We need to be absolutely clear, though, that money has no intrinsic worth, but commands value only as a ‘claim’ on the material products and services made available by the energy economy…
    ..Central banks can ‘print’ money (digitally), but they can’t similarly print low-cost energy. The banking system can lend money into existence, but we can’t lend resources into existence…
    ..Whether we think in energy or in financial terms, what’s happening now is that the economic resources of households, and of the economy itself, have ceased to expand, and have started to contract, whilst the costs of essentials are rising.
    This is what is meant by an affordability crisis.
    An affordability crisis does what it says on the tin, and has two main effects.
    First, consumers who have to spend more on necessities have to cut back on purchases of discretionary (non-essential) goods and services.
    Second, households suffering from affordability compression struggle to “keep up the payments”.​..
    ..Perhaps the biggest single risk of the lot would be a wave of ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’ reaction by the public.​..
    ..​None of this is going away. An outbreak of peace and conciliation between Russia and its opponents, welcome though this would be, wouldn’t alter the fundamentals, which are that the ECoEs of energy supply are rising, reducing the affordability, not just of energy itself, but of all energy-intensive resources and products.
    Fourthly, there’s no “tech fix” for structural affordability compression.​..
    ..It’s worth remembering, in this context, that energy sources must precede applications…
    ..Technologies are optimised to the energy sources available, not the other way around.
    The big question now isn’t whether an affordability crisis is going to happen – because it already is – but when this reality is going to gain recognition as a feature of the system…​ (Dick Cheney always knew this. Who else?)​
    ..Discretionary consumption has entered an irreversible decline, and that the economy, just like millions of households, is struggling to ‘keep up the payments’ required by an increasingly financialized system.
    #235. The affordability crisis

    ​The Rape Of Europe Is Next​ Jorge Vilches (Already underway from my vantage point. It’s more than “grooming”.)
    ​ ​It is becoming ever clearer for European public opinion that without Russian energy, Russian food, and Russian produce at large quite simply Europe cannot survive. So as Frank Sinatra foresaw, the end is now near and Anglo-Saxon+EU joint plans for Russian piracy – plan A — are just about over. Never in their history have Europeans depended so much strictly from Russian produce that very simply cannot stop coming in. All the way to very distant Japan and South Korea, with these Russian sanctions their much-required ´Just-In-Time´ strategy is rapidly becoming ´Just-In-S**t. So now Europeans and Western-compliant Asians would freeze and starve with massive migrations democratically spread out everywhere. That´s why plan B “let´s rape Europe instead” will necessarily kick in soon.​..
    ​..The Anglo-Saxons basically just want to change the tide and win at something-anything, so if Russia cannot be defeated they´ll rape continental Europe first and try to make buddies with whomever later, even Latam or Africa… with investments profits on top. And Australia, as an active part of the AUKUS core may also perform a key role regarding “unfriendly” Asians. And beware: if you care to believe the Anglo-Saxons, between Fort Knox and the Bank of England they both pretty much vault everybody else´s gold, Europe´s included. So be carefully aware of the plenty of food for thought before you. Gold is real money as Lawrence of Arabia learned the hard way…

    ´Rape Europe´ is next, stupid

    #111708
    John Day
    Participant

    ​A few excerpts from the recent (Swiss Strategic Security veteran) Jacques Baud interview. Thanks Noirette. (When will Europe realize she is being raped?)
    ​ ​In the English-speaking world, the U.S. and European Union strategy is increasingly being questioned by military and intelligence officials. This trend is reinforced by U.S. domestic politics. Republicans and Democrats have a very similar view of Russia. The difference, however, lies in the effectiveness of the investments in support of Ukraine. Both share the goal of “regime change” in Russia; but Republicans have noted that the billions spent tend to backfire against the Western economy. In other words, they seem unable to achieve their intended goal while our economies and influence weaken…
    ..In Europe, and in the French-language media in French-speaking Switzerland, France and Belgium, the rhetoric faithfully follows what the Ukrainian propaganda says. We are shown a fictitious reality that announces victory against Russia. The result is that we are not able to help Ukraine overcome its real problems…
    ..There is a general anti-Russian mood there. People are more Catholic than the Pope. That was also the case with the oil embargo. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, advised the EU against an oil embargo. But the EU wanted to do it anyway, leading to skyrocketing oil prices. So, it is obvious that there is a certain dynamic in the EU related to the generation of the current political leadership. European leaders are very young, have no real experience, but are ideologically fixed… (“Young Globalist Leaders”)
    ..In Europe, our understanding of the problem lags behind that of the USA. We are not able to discuss the situation calmly. In the French-language media, it is impossible to take an alternative view of the problems without being called “Putin’s agent.” This is not only an intellectual issue, but first and foremost a problem for Ukraine. By confirming the view proposed by Ukrainian propaganda, our media have pushed Ukraine towards a strategy that costs a huge number of lives and leads to the destruction of the country…
    ..In the United States, a distinction must be made between the government and the mainstream media on the one hand, and the military and intelligence professionals on the other. Among the latter, there is a growing sense that Ukraine will suffer more from Western strategy than from a war with Russia. This sounds like a paradox , but more and more intelligence people seem to recognize that.​ ​ In French-speaking Switzerland—in my experience—people do not understand that. They follow the rhetoric of the American government. This is an intellectually limited, extremely primitive, extremely dogmatic and ultimately extremely brutal view towards the Ukrainians. It is, again, a view that is more Catholic than the Pope, because even the US military seems to understand that this approach will lead to failure..​.​
    ..Let us consider the situation in Mariupol. Our media seem to deplore that the fighters of the Azov Movement surrendered. They feel sorry for them. They would have preferred that they all died. This is extremely inhumane. But now it appears their fighting had no longer any impact on the situation. If you read the Swiss French media, they should have fought to the death, to the last man. These media would have done a “wonderful job” during the defense of Berlin in April 1945! …..NATO is not a peace organization. NATO is fundamentally a nuclear-power organization, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. That is the purpose of NATO—to put allies under the nuclear umbrella. NATO was founded in 1949, when there were only two nuclear powers—the U.S. and the USSR…
    ​..​The very concept of war was not adapted to the realities. NATO is a regional security and defense organization. It was designed in 1949 for a war in Europe with nuclear weapons, tanks, artillery, etc. In Afghanistan, however, there were no nuclear weapons, tanks, or fighter-bombers. That was a very different kind of war. But NATO did not identify the problem…
    ..To make it simple, let’s say that a war in Europe is a technical challenge. A war in Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a societal challenge. NATO has not understood this essential difference. I mentioned the war in Afghanistan because NATO was engaged there as an organization. In Iraq, it is better to talk about “NATO countries.” But the fact remains that they did not understand that they were waging totally different types of war. Western armies are not prepared for it and have a dogmatic understanding of war…
    .. The idea of a common European house, as formulated by Gorbachev and favored by the Russians, is inconceivable to the United States. For this reason, Russia has always had a certain respect for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). After the end of the Cold War, this model could have been expanded to build security through cooperation rather than confrontation…
    .. A 2017 US Army study found that the USSR did not attack Europe because it never intended to. So, our security does not depend on NATO, but on our ability to have good relations with our neighbors. In fact, I believe that NATO membership would put our security at risk. That applies equally to Finland and Sweden.​..
    ..Since the early 1990s, the Russians had a conception of security in Europe that was inspired by the OSCE: security through cooperation, not confrontation. That’s why the Russians were interested in joining NATO at that time. But the very concept of NATO, with a dominant power tied to the very nature of the organization itself, cannot integrate the Russian perspective. If you look at the current challenges in the world, the Russian vision can be seen as much more realistic than the Western vision…

    The West’s Debacle in Ukraine: A Conversation with Jacques Baud

    #111710
    John Day
    Participant

    Globalists are racing time against this threat!
    ​ ​Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt plan to join BRICS, and their potential membership bids could be discussed and answered at next year’s summit in South Africa, Purnima Anand, the president of the organization, told Russian media on Thursday.​..
    ..“I hope that these countries will join the BRICS quite shortly, as all the representatives of core members are interested in expansion. So it will come very soon,” Anand added.
    The news of the three nations’ plans to join BRICS comes after Iran and Argentina officially applied for membership in late June, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh touting the bloc as a “very creative mechanism with broad aspects.”
    https://www.rt.com/news/558960-saudi-turkey-egypt-brics/

    ​”Quitting bad science”​ : I can relate…
    Health experts are quitting the NIH and CDC in droves because they’re embarrassed by ‘bad science’ – including vaccinating children under 5 to ‘make their advice palatable to the White House.’
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11015235/Health-experts-quitting-NIH-CDC-droves-embarrassed-bad-science.html

    (finally dinged for) Breaking-the-law:
    A federal district court in Ohio has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on thousands of U.S. Air Force service members who remain unvaccinated after having opposed the shot on religious grounds but have had their religious exemption applications denied.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/court-blocks-biden-admin-punishing-unvaccinated-air-force-members

    And it’s not just sugar. There is wholesome food for thought here:
    Research suggests sugar can trigger reward and craving states in your brain similar to addictive drugs, and lead to brain-related health issues such as depression, learning disorders, memory problems and overeating.

    Sugar Acts Like a Drug — And That’s a Problem for Your Brain

    ​The Ethical Skeptic: The ‘Worthless Human’ Lie of the Diet Cartel
    (5-courses of intellectual nourishment for the thoughtful.)

    The ‘Worthless Human’ Lie of the Diet Cartel

    #111711
    John Day
    Participant

    Just noticed this:

    Biden Says Saudis Lying After FM “Didn’t Hear” Him Confront MbS On Khashoggi’s Killing

    “With respect to the murder of Khashoggi, I raised it at the top of the meeting, making it clear what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now,” Biden told reporters

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