Oct 072022
 


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1940

 

Kremlin Accuses Zelensky Of Trying To Start A World War (RT)
Top Russian Senator Urges Ukraine To Start Peace Talks ‘Today’ (RT)
Vladimir Putin’s Battle Cry Against the Deep State (Silva-Valladares)
Russian Ambassador Assesses Relations With US (RT)
The NS1 and NS2 Sabotage Impact Potential (Jorge Vilches)
Europe Faces Deindustrialization And Social Unrest – Belgian PM (RT)
Moscow Wonders If Washington Knows About Kiev’s Terrorism Plans (RT)
EU Must Decide Where It Stands On Ukraine – Kremlin (RT)
Beyond Confidence (CoS)
Is Giorgia Meloni Bringing Fascism Back To Italy? (Cardini)
Twitter Refuses Elon Musk’s Renewed $44B Bid (Crider)
This Could Be How Turkey Attacks Greece in 2023 (Rubin)
Enough Evidence To Indict Hunter Biden – WaPo (RT)
Waiting Lines At French Gas Stations Due To Fuel Shortage (AA)
Want To Save The Oceans? Stop Recycling Plastic (Chivers)

 

 

 

 

Happy bulking season

 

 

 

 

Ye

 

 

 

 

Kamala

 

 

 

 

Not just a world war, a nuclear one.

Kremlin Accuses Zelensky Of Trying To Start A World War (RT)

The Kremlin has accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky of trying to spark a third world war, after he demanded that NATO carry out preventive strikes on Russia to deter the use of nuclear weapons. Speaking to the Australian Lowy Institute on Thursday, Zelensky stated that NATO must ensure Moscow does not use nukes against Kiev’s forces. To do this, he called on the US-led military bloc and the international community to carry out preventive strikes against Russia so that it “knows what to expect” if it decides to use them. “What should NATO do? Eliminate the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said during the online conference. “I once again appeal to the international community, as it was before February 24: preemptive strikes so that they [Russia] know what will happen to them if they use it, and not the other way around.”

Moscow has slammed Zelensky’s suggestion, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stating that the Ukrainian leader’s comments are nothing short of an attempt to spark a world war, which would lead to “unforeseeable disastrous consequences.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry has also accused Zelensky of trying to provoke a nuclear war, with spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stating that “every person on the planet” should recognize that the“unbalanced” puppet leader of Ukraine, who has been pumped full of weapons, has turned into “a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet.”


The Kremlin has called on the international community to pay special attention to Zelensky’s statements, especially the US and the UK, who Peskov says are “de facto in control of Kiev’s actions” and therefore bear responsibility for the Ukrainian president’s words. Russia has repeatedly stated that it is not considering a nuclear strike on Ukraine but has warned that it will use any means necessary in order to protect its borders, people and sovereignty. Meanwhile, both Washington and London have also admitted that it is unlikely that Moscow will deploy tactical nukes in the Ukraine conflict and have seen no indications of Moscow preparing such an attack. Nevertheless, Western leaders have warned Russia against ever crossing that line, vowing “catastrophic consequences.”

Ze

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“We are saying it again – we are in favor of negotiations, of dialogue, of a peaceful political solution to this crisis. Let’s start talking. Let’s get behind the negotiating table..”

“Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.” – Sun Tzu

Top Russian Senator Urges Ukraine To Start Peace Talks ‘Today’ (RT)

The head of Russia’s Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, has called on the Ukrainian parliament to immediately engage in peace talks with a view to settling the conflict between the two countries. The proposal was made during the G20 parliamentary speakers’ summit in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on Thursday. The Ukrainian delegation, headed by Verkhovna Rada chair Elena Kondratyuk, has also been invited to the event, despite the country not being part of the group of the world’s top economies. “Let us, the parliament of Russia and the parliament of Ukraine, sit behind the negotiating table today, at the G20 parliamentary platform. Let’s try to understand each other and find solutions,” Matvienko said.

The senator noted that Moscow and Kiev had almost reached a peace deal during talks in Istanbul in late March, but “Ukraine was obviously under external management at that time and gave up on those agreements.” Russia has made numerous offers to Kiev to engage in peace talks since the outbreak of the conflict in late February, she pointed out. “We are saying it again – we are in favor of negotiations, of dialogue, of a peaceful political solution to this crisis. Let’s start talking. Let’s get behind the negotiating table,” Matvienko suggested. The head of the upper house of the Russian parliament later clarified to journalists that Moscow was “ready to cease hostilities on the conditions that are being put forward by Russia.” This meant that the status of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which officially became part of the Russian state on Wednesday, won’t be up for discussion during the negotiations with Ukraine, she said.

Matvienko said she wasn’t surprised by the lack of response to her proposal to start dialogue from the Ukrainian parliamentary delegation. “It’s understandable because Ukraine isn’t free in its decisions. It can’t make any decisions on its own, without the involvement of its masters,” she said, likely referring to Kiev’s backers in the US, UK, and the EU. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree that forbade any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky claimed that Ukraine would only talk to Russia if it had a different president. The Kremlin responded to the move by saying it was ready to wait for the Ukrainian president to change his stance or for Ukraine to find a new president with a different stance.

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“..what Putin has done is setting international rivalry in deep historical and cultural terms.”

Vladimir Putin’s Battle Cry Against the Deep State (Silva-Valladares)

The recent ceremony of accession of four Ukrainian regions to Russia brought a speech from President Putin that outlined the reasons behind Russia’s current struggles, the character and identify of its foes and, more importantly, laid the groundwork for Russia’s next level of confrontation with the West beyond the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine. In his speech, Putin clearly defined the present fight as a worldwide battle in which Russia plays a leading role against the Deep State that ultimately runs the West and which uses all available tools – including military, economic, cultural, and social – in its attempt to preserve unipolar world domination.

Putin’s words were directed to three distinctive audiences: the collective West, the Global South and Russia. He went back to Middle Ages history to remind the origins and impact of Western resource exploitation and colonialism in the Americas, Asia and Africa through imperialistic wars, racism, and slavery. He touched upon the military exploits of the 20th century led primarily by the US and its allies and its impact in Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War, Korea in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960-70s and its latest failed adventures in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. He also highlighted the dire days of Russia during the 1990s and the Western powers’ attempts to turn it into a dismembered and passive cheap natural resources outlet.

Putin’s message to Russians had nationalistic and religious tones, touching on the defence of traditional family values as a call to arms against the threat caused by dwindling population growth. He also named US monetary printing as one of the key tools used by the Western establishment to achieve its self-preservation and supremacy goals, reminding that paper doesn’t feed nor warms human beings. It would be tempting to see this speech narrowly as just another manifestation of Russia’s position in the big geopolitical battles, but what Putin has done is setting international rivalry in deep historical and cultural terms which have an undoubted appeal across the globe.


Putin turns 70 today

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“..the US is currently not ready for a complete severance of diplomatic ties with Russia, and plans to send a new ambassador to Moscow..”

Russian Ambassador Assesses Relations With US (RT)

Russia and the US have not yet reached an all-time low in their relations, as “dribs and drabs” of contacts still remain between the sides, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington said on Wednesday. “I think we haven’t yet reached the peak of tensions that existed 60 years ago,” Anatoly Antonov told Channel One. The envoy was referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which unfolded between the US and the Soviet Union in October and November 1962. The standoff is considered to be the closest the world has come to all-out nuclear war. Tensions flared after Moscow deployed ballistic missiles to Cuba in response to Washington putting similar weapons in Italy and Turkey. However, the sides were able to resolve the dispute through negotiations.

Russia’s stance that a nuclear conflict can’t be unleashed and can’t be won remains unchanged, the ambassador stressed. “In Washington, they’ve already forgotten the basics of strategic stability, which boils down to a very simple formula: whoever shoots first, dies second,” he said. “On the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I’d like to believe that there are those in the US who have learned this main lesson. In any case, our countries are obliged to prevent the world from sliding into a catastrophe,” Antonov insisted.Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed “some senior officials in NATO states” for suggesting that deploying nuclear weapons against Russia was justified. He warned that Moscow was ready to “use all means” to defend itself if attacked. However, those words were interpreted by some in the West as a threat by the Kremlin to use atomic weapons against Ukraine.

While most bilateral contacts have been frozen by the US side, Moscow and Washington still cooperate on deconfliction in Syria, space, and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the ambassador pointed out. According to Antonov, the US is currently not ready for a complete severance of diplomatic ties with Russia, and plans to send a new ambassador to Moscow is proof of that. Lynne Tracy, who now heads the American mission in Armenia, has been nominated as a replacement for US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who left Moscow in early September due to family reasons. However, this does not mean Washington will give up on its plans to weaken Russia, by supporting Kiev and other means, the ambassador said.

Antonov went on to argue that the conflict in Ukraine has become a “trigger” that revealed “deep-rooted problems” in the world, and that Russia “isn’t satisfied with the rules of the game that the Americans are trying to impose,” which only benefit the US.

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Long and comprehensive from Jorge.

“..in a matter of a few weeks Europeans will engage in an HUGE internal brand NEW civilian war amongst themselves scrambling for ´whatever´(food, fuel, heat, etc.)..”

The NS1 and NS2 Sabotage Impact Potential (Jorge Vilches)

It’s valid to assume that the provoked NATO-Anglo-WEF-Ukraine war objectives were (1) to trigger regime change in Russia aided by military defeat while also (2) cutting Europe off Russia´s cheap and excellent resources thus also (3) choking Russia´s exports and funding. Sanctions, asset seizures and the NS1 & NS2 sabotage are smoking guns. Future consequent plundering of parts of Europe and Russia can also be assumed to be goal #4. The European leadership at large has, so far, aligned well with this plan.

[..] LNG cannot and will not save the day either. Nobody was ready for this, LNG today is scarce worldwide, no terminals available at either end, no tankers… etc., etc So Europeans are very calm even after both NS1 & NS2 have been blown up. As if they´d all do just fine, you just wait… Michael Hudson agrees when saying… ” Despite being an act of violence, sabotaging the pipelines has restored calm to US/NATO diplomatic relations.”But even if I were only 50% correct — the problem in producing onto surface the supposedly “stored” underground nat-gas is not known in Europe with 0 (zero) awareness about it. Europeans have all been convinced by politicians that they have their backs 90% covered and that with just a small savings of 15% approx. things will be okay this winter (NOT)

Europeans do know bloody well a rough winter is coming for them, but no one has warned them — such as I am doing — that it will be MUCH ROUGHER than what anybody is telling them because not even half of the supposed 90% “reserves” that would sorta get them through this winter okay will be anywhere near available. So it´d be everyone for himself/herself and country vs. country and NATO vs. NATO… on steroids and in a matter of a few weeks Europeans will engage in an HUGE internal brand NEW civilian war amongst themselves scrambling for ´whatever´(food, fuel, heat, etc.) that nobody has yet even thought about… let alone developed continengcy plans.

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This muppet is just as responsible as all the rest.

Europe Faces Deindustrialization And Social Unrest – Belgian PM (RT)

Europe could soon face a significant reduction in industrial activity and social unrest unless something is done to lower energy prices before winter sets in, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has warned. In an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday, he said that unless there was an intervention in the gas markets, “we are risking massive deindustrialization of the European continent and the long-term consequences that might actually be very deep.” De Croo insisted on a multi-layered approach to the gas crisis, which he says should include a hard price cap on Russian natural gas, negotiations with suppliers such as Norway and Algeria, and a “dynamic” limit on the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which he suggests could be set slightly above prices in the US or Asia to ensure continued flows to Europe.

The Belgian leader also warned that governments must be “prudent” not only to counter soaring inflation, which stems from high energy prices, but also tackle the risk of social unrest that comes with it. “Our populations are getting invoices which are completely insane. At some point, it will snap. I understand that people are angry . . . people don’t have the means to pay it,” De Croo told the FT. His comments come after thousands of demonstrators rallied in Brussels in late September to demand higher wages and lower energy prices after it was revealed that some 64% of the country’s citizens were afraid of not being able to pay their energy bills which had reached a staggering average of €700 ($690) a month.

The Belgian PM had previously warned that “the next five to ten winters will be difficult” in Europe due to record gas prices, but stated that Belgium would endure the crisis “if we support each other in these difficult times.” sGas prices in Europe surged earlier this year after Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February. After the EU and other Western countries imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow and began a campaign of cutting themselves off from Russian energy supplies, gas prices hit record levels, leading to a rise in overall inflation on the continent.

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Darya Dugina.

Moscow Wonders If Washington Knows About Kiev’s Terrorism Plans (RT)

Moscow hopes the US government did not leak its suspicions that Kiev masterminded a high-profile assassination in Russia with a view to disclaiming responsibility for future terrorist attacks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. He was commenting on a report in the New York Times, which contained details of an assessment by the US intelligence community regarding a bomb attack near Moscow in August, in which journalist and political activist Darya Dugina was killed. “The involvement of the Ukrainian state in this terrorist act, the murder of a young woman, was argued and demonstrated by our special services in a reasonably swift manner,” Peskov told journalists. The Kremlin spokesman noted the NYT article may be a positive development, provided that its reporting accurately reflects the stance of the US intelligence community.

“We really want to hope that this is not some attempt by the American colleagues, who may possess certain information, to disclaim responsibility for future terrorist acts that the Ukrainian state may be preparing,” he added. According to the NYT, American spies believe that “parts of the Ukrainian government authorized” the assassination of Dugina. Its sources claimed that the US had nothing to do with the crime and had no advance knowledge of it. Washington reportedly admonished Kiev for the killing, despite Ukraine’s insistence that it had nothing to do with it either. The story described Washington’s concerns about possible Russian retaliation for targeting Dugina and a number of Ukrainian officials who cooperated with Moscow in governing lands captured from Kiev.

A senior Ukrainian military official confirmed to the NYT that Kiev had carried out “attacks on accused Ukrainian collaborators,” some of which were fatal. “Some American officials believe it is crucial to curb what they see as dangerous adventurism [on Kiev’s part], particularly political assassinations,” the newspaper added. Dugina was the daughter of Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, a controversial public figure known for his advocacy of Russian exceptionalism. Some observers claimed that his ideas had influenced Russian foreign policy, including Moscow’s decision to send troops into Ukraine in late February. Darya shared her father’s political convictions. Russia’s security service, the FSB, identified two Ukrainian nationals, a man and a woman, as members of a hit squad responsible for Dugina’s assassination. Both had left the country before they could be arrested.

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“..resolved diplomatically or in a violent manner..”

EU Must Decide Where It Stands On Ukraine – Kremlin (RT)

The European Union must decide whether it wants the Ukraine conflict to be resolved diplomatically or in a violent manner, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday
Asked to comment on Austria’s reported proposal to host de-escalation talks, Zakharova said Moscow could only contemplate such initiatives after the EU figures out what it stands for regarding Ukraine. “First of all, the EU should make up its mind about itself,” Zakharova said, urging the EU to decide whether it is pursuing a unified foreign policy or if decisions are handled by individual member states. Russia, she said, has repeatedly heard “contradicting statements” coming from the EU. Zakharova noted that many supposed initiatives had been put forward by member states and were later retracted or never followed-up on because they were not approved by Brussels.

“Secondly, the EU also needs to make up its mind whether they support the talks [on Ukraine], or the battlefield solution, as [EU foreign policy chief Josep] Borrell had put it,” she said. Zakharova’s comment comes after Borrell signaled on Wednesday that the EU was ready to seek a “diplomatic solution” to the conflict in Ukraine, but vowing that the bloc would continue to provide Kiev with military and financial support while ramping up pressure on Russia through sanctions. However, in April Borrell issued a much different statement, claiming then that the conflict in Ukraine “will be won on the battlefield.” Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state.

The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.” During referendums that took place in late September, the two Donbass republics, along with Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, overwhelmingly voted to join Russia. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law unification treaties with former Ukrainian territories, officially making them part of Russia. Prior to this, the Russian leader vowed to use “all means” necessary to defend the country’s territorial integrity in the face of external threats.

Clare Daly

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“As Steve Keen puts it: “Capital without energy is a statue; labour without energy is a corpse!”

Beyond Confidence (CoS)

There were real world reasons for the run on the pound which followed (Kami)Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-conceived mini-budget last Friday. The closest of these was the illiquidity of supposed “assets” held in the pensions industry and related concerns that the previous Monday’s Gilt (the equivalent of US Treasury Bonds) sale went badly, with investors demanding a much higher than expected interest rate for lending to the UK government. The Bank of England’s return to quantitative easing appears to have taken the immediate steam out of the crisis, and Kwarteng’s U-turn on cutting the highest tax rate has helped calm political nerves, allowing the pound to return to its level immediately before the mini-budget. The underlying problems, however, remain unaddressed.

The problem lay not so much with tax cuts – which have previously, in some circumstances, boosted growth – but with the UK government’s inability to finance them… and, indeed, the hundreds of billions already spent on energy bailouts and lockdown support. The Truss claim that tax cuts will be self-funding because of the additional growth they will generate is though, economic illiteracy. Over the last decade, the UK economy has been borrowing £5 for every £1 of economic growth – and this gap is projected to get far worse over the coming decade because of the emerging crises in the underlying “real” economy. Indeed, even during the heyday of North Sea oil and gas revenues, governments struggled to engineer growth rates anywhere close to what would be required to meet the Truss proposals.

With Russian gas no longer deliverable – even if the EU and Russia wanted to reach a deal – because of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, European gas shortages are inevitable. The only question to be answered is how bad the shortages will be. And while Britain is not a direct importer of much gas from Russia, our energy supply companies still buy and sell gas on the European market. So that, if, say, German companies are prepared to pay more, they can bid the price up far higher than the UK government anticipates. In which case its borrowing to fund the energy price cap could easily spiral up into the hundreds of billions and, given market reluctance to buy Gilts, send interest rates well into double figures.

Even this though, only scratches the surface of the crisis, because politicians and economists fail to understand the true role of energy in the economy. Indeed, most economic models do not even regard energy as a separate category, seeing it instead as just another, relatively cheap, input barely worth mentioning. The reality – as you and I would quickly discover if we went without food – calories – for any length of time, is that energy is the starting point for everything within the economy. No food equals no workers. No fuel and no electricity equals no capital. As Steve Keen puts it: “Capital without energy is a statue; labour without energy is a corpse!”

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Via Ugo Bardi’s site.

“..she does what she does because she cannot and will not do anything else..”

Is Giorgia Meloni Bringing Fascism Back To Italy? (Cardini)

They will say, as usual, that I have a weakness for Giorgia Meloni, but she does what she does because she cannot and will not do anything else. It’s her time: she is in the business of politics, she knows that her bus is passing, and it is unlikely for her to have such an opportunity again. It was a beautiful victory: not only, and not so much, for the response of the ballot box, however negatively conditioned by the very high number of non-voters that no politician worthy of the name can ignore or underestimate, but for having played all his opponents with a masterful move. She was the ugly duckling of the Italian parliament, perpetually threatened with the sword of Damocles of the renewed accusations of fascism that could strike her at any moment. But she managed to score a masterful blow, built little by little and day by day.

She, the leader of the Sovranisti, is also the leader of the Atlantists and Westernists. She knows well that this constitutes, conceptually, a paradox bordering on the tragic (or the ridiculous): under the flags of Italian sovereignty, she will have to lead his country on the path of subordination to NATO and the USA who hold us in their hands and who literally occupy our territory, our country. A verse of the anthem that gives the name to the party reads “Go outside of Italy, go away, foreigners”. Easy to recite it in the face of the rafts of the poor migrants of the Mediterranean sea. Impossible to sing it where it should be sung, in front of the gates of Ghedi, Dal Molin, and Camp Darby (translator’s note: American bases in Italy.), armed with the nuclear missiles banned by the Italian constitution and imposed by our guardian-master.

The same ones who also impose on us the burden of sanctions imposed on Russia but in reality intended to bring Europe to its knees with its consent that must be even enthusiastic. Giorgia Meloni managed to achieve all this: if she passes – and we will see – also the test of the winter of sanctions, during which we will see the iron rule according to which the prime minister in office is seen to blame not himself/herself but his predecessors, she really deserves to continue to lead the Italians despite the gloomy prophecies of Cassandra Calenda. (translator’s note: Carlo Calenda is an Italian politician.)

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What good is this for shareholders?

Twitter Refuses Elon Musk’s Renewed $44B Bid (Crider)

Twitter is refusing to accept Elon Musk’s renewed bid of $44 billion for the social media company, according to a report from The Associated Press citing Elon Musk’s attorneys. This news comes after reports of Elon Musk’s asking the Delaware court to halt the upcoming trial. He renewed his offer to purchase the social media network this week and shared a few details about his goals. “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Elon Musk tweeted on Tuesday. He added that Twitter probably accelerates the new app by three to five years. AP noted that earlier this week, Twitter said it intended to close the deal at the agreed-upon price but both sides were still booked for the October 17th trial in Delaware. Elon Musk’s attorneys said the trial should be adjourned to give the Tesla CEO more time to secure financing.


In a court filing, Elon Musk’s attorneys said, “Twitter will not take yes for an answer.” “Astonishingly, they have insisted on proceeding with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders’ interests.” The attorneys noted that by Twitter not setting aside its litigation, the upcoming trial would “impede the deal moving forward.” “Instead of allowing the parties to turn their focus to securing the debt financing necessary to consummate the transaction and preparing for a transition of the business, the parties will instead remain distracted by completing discovery and an unnecessary trial,” the attorneys said. According to Elon Musk’s attorneys, the financial backers, “have indicated that they are prepared to honor their commitments” and are working to close the deal by October 28.

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And then we have this too…

This Could Be How Turkey Attacks Greece in 2023 (Rubin)

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no fool. He understands the deep trouble in which he finds himself. His interest rate gamble failed; Turkey is nearly bankrupt. Inflation approaches 100 percent and Turkey’s currency is in freefall. Turks are unhappy. Meanwhile, elections loom. For years, such elections did not matter. Turkey’s opposition leaders are lazy, uncharismatic, or in prison. Erdogan controlled the media and mechanisms enough that he could push things his way without too many questions, at least from inside Turkey. That changed in 2019. The opposition Republican People’s Party narrowly won municipal elections in Istanbul and Ankara. The results shocked Erdogan who ordered a do-over in Istanbul.

Three months later, opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu increased his margin of victory to almost 10%, a result too great for even Erdogan’s machine to paper over. Pushed down and abused, Turks had had enough. As Turkey approaches both its symbolically important centenary next year and heads to parliamentary and presidential elections, Erdogan is worried. He knows under normal circumstances, he cannot win. Erdogan is no democrat. He cynically once liked democracy to a streetcar: he would ride it as far as he could and then step off. There are limits to his power, however. He needs an excuse either to postpone elections or to distract Turks with nationalism. A conflict with Greece checks both boxes. Erdogan is not stupid, though. After Vladimir Putin bogged down in Ukraine, he must question Turkey’s readiness.

After all, after the 2016 “Reichstag Fire” coup, Erdogan purged the military. Turkish special forces might fight Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh or attack Kurds and Yezidis in Syria and Iraq with drones and F-16 fighters but combat against a near-peer NATO member is a different issue entirely. Greece’s military might be only one-quarter the size of Turkey’s, but moral is higher, and the Greeks not spread as thin. So how might Turkey precipitate the crisis? Erdogan will likely take a page from China’s playbook. The People’s Liberation Army has seized many rocks, reefs, and “features” in the South China Sea. It has not only transformed them into military bases, but has also used their possession to fortify Beijing’s illicit claims to extend its exclusive economic zone over 90% of the South China Sea’s waters.

China has acted both slowly and deliberated with a so-called salami-slicing strategy, digesting pieces but never biting off so much in one go that it provoked neighbors or the United States to the point of war. Erdogan and his defense minister, Hulusi Akar, increasingly dispute Greek sovereignty over islands in the Aegean Sea, in effect seeking to rewrite and reinterpret the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and subsequent conventions and agreements. It is in the Aegean that Erdogan will likely make his move, arguing that they are Turkish and do not belong to Greece.

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“Agents “determined months ago” that they had a viable criminal case against the younger Biden, but the decision is up to the US attorney for Delaware David C. Weiss..”

Enough Evidence To Indict Hunter Biden – WaPo (RT)

Federal agents who have been investigating US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter have enough evidence to charge him with crimes related to taxes and a gun purchase, but the decision is up to a career prosecutor in Delaware, the Washington Post reported on Thursday citing sources. While the IRS has been looking into whether Hunter Biden did not declare income related to his overseas business ventures – from Ukraine to China – the FBI has been investigating a 2018 incident in which he answered “no” to the question about being a drug user or addict. In his 2021 memoir ‘Beautiful Things,’ the president’s son revealed that he had in fact been using crack cocaine and other drugs at the time.

Agents “determined months ago” that they had a viable criminal case against the younger Biden, but the decision is up to the US attorney for Delaware David C. Weiss to decide whether to pursue charges, the Post reported citing “people familiar with the case.” Weiss is a career prosecutor, but was appointed by President Donald Trump in late 2017. Trump had pointed to Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine and the sex-and-drugs revelations from his laptop during the 2020 presidential campaign, charges which Biden and the Democrats denounced as “smears” and even “Russian disinformation.” Stories about the laptop were suppressed on social networks in the name of “fortifying” the presidential election, but the laptop’s contents was later confirmed to be entirely authentic.

Hunter’s false statements on the gun-purchase form would normally present a problem for his father, who is pursuing aggressive gun control legislation. According to the Post, prosecutions for the offense are “relatively rare,” with 60% of the referrals resulting in charges in 2018. However, it is “not uncommon for Justice Department investigations to take years to finish,” the paper said. The Post’s anonymous sources insisted Attorney General Merrick Garland had vowed there would be “no political or otherwise improper interference” in the Hunter Biden case. Republicans have accused Garland of politicizing the DOJ over prosecutions for the January 6 Capitol riot and the September raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Hunter’s attorney Chris Clark told the paper that leaking about the case itself is a federal felony and that he “had no contact whatsoever with any federal investigative agent.”

Hunter

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I swear I can see into the future…

Waiting Lines At French Gas Stations Due To Fuel Shortage (AA)

More than one in 10 gas stations in France was affected by a fuel shortage on Wednesday, local media reported. About 12% of stations have “difficulties with at least one type of fuel” at the pump, with the situation varying by region, government spokesman Olivier Veran told reporters after Wednesday’s Council of Ministers meeting. In the Hauts-de-France region, about 30% of stations are affected. French market leader TotalEnergies explained the supply shortages with “falling prices” at its stations. A discount of 20 cents per liter was added to the government discount of 30 cents per liter at all its TotalEnergies stations. This discount at the pumps led to a large rush, according to the company.


Added to this is a strike at six of the eight French refineries. The strike for higher wages, which began on Sept. 27, entered its second week. This again significantly aggravates the situation at the gas stations. Veran nevertheless rejected the term “fuel shortage.” He said it was only “tensions” in the supply of some gas stations, and urged motorists to avoid “panic.” In order to “restore a normal situation as soon as possible, so-called strategic stocks were released in the north today to replenish the gas stations,” the prefect of the Hauts-de-France region announced in a press release on Wednesday evening.

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So there.

Want To Save The Oceans? Stop Recycling Plastic (Chivers)

Recycling plastic is a bad idea and, until we can be sure of where it’s going, we should stop doing it. We should put plastic in the landfill, instead. This sounds like a really spicy hot take, but it’s not. I think it is pretty much accepted among people who study these things. The oceans are full of plastic, and that’s bad – but none of the plastic in the oceans comes from a British landfill. It almost all comes from developing-world countries, and by recycling we make the problem worse. About 0.05 per cent of plastic waste in the UK is “mismanaged” – that is, dropped as litter or dumped into the environment, or left in open landfill. By contrast, in India, that figure is over 20 per cent – 400 times higher. China is comparable, at about 19 per cent.

In the Philippines, that figure is about 6.5 per cent, still more than 100 times the UK level but not quite as dramatic. But the Philippines is a collection of small islands, so plastic litter easily reaches small rivers there and ends up in the sea. Malaysia, similarly, has less of a problem with mismanaged waste, but large percentages of what is mismanaged ends up in the sea. So the average bit of plastic in one of those countries is pretty likely to end up in the sea. Until 2018 a large fraction of the Western world’s “recycled” plastic was shipped to China, until China decided to stop taking it. Then rich countries started sending it to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. But more than 80 per cent of plastic waste in those countries is mismanaged. It seems unlikely, to say the least, that so much of their own waste ends up in the rivers, but they nonetheless carefully recycle the waste sent to them by the West.

Now, several of those countries have severely limited the amount of plastic they import. So other countries – often countries with limited ability to recycle their own plastics – have stepped in. The Guardian reported in 2019 that much of the US’s waste now goes to Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia and Senegal. One paper this year estimated that of the 37,000 tons of plastic food packaging exported annually by the Netherlands, 6,000 tons end up in the sea. Not all recycling is like this. Some plastic is recycled in the countries that dispose of it – there are advanced plastic recycling facilities in the UK. But much of it ends up going overseas.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 


“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

Stella

 

 

Assange
https://twitter.com/i/status/1578160859355877378

 

 

 

 


A baby green heron bridging the gap between birds and dinosaurs. Photo: JJJFrank

 

 

 


A macro photo of an ant’s face up close. Photo: Andrea Hallgass

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle October 7 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 47 total)
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  • #117901

    Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1940   • Kremlin Accuses Zelensky Of Trying To Start A World War (RT) • Top Russian Senator Urges Ukraine To Start Pe
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 7 2022]

    #117903
    zerosum
    Participant

    I couldn’t sleep

    A button pushing maniac from the peanut gallery
    Ukraine’s Zelensky calls on NATO to launch “preemptive strikes” against Russia to “eliminate the possibility” of a Russian nuclear strike.
    ———–
    USA war vs Russia
    Multi polar vs unipolar (do as I say or else)

    a worldwide battle in which Russia plays a leading role against the Deep State that ultimately runs the West and which uses all available tools – including military, economic, cultural, and social – in its attempt to preserve unipolar world domination.
    ————-
    It’s better to Winter Hibernation
    Turkey then Haiti is coming

    “..in a matter of a few weeks Europeans civilians will engage in an HUGE internal brand NEW civilian war amongst, ( the have and the have not),
    scrambling for ´whatever´(food, fuel, heat, etc.)..”
    ———-
    Selective hearing and short term amnesia

    The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
    ———-
    Short supply.
    It’s common sense. – Clare Daly

    Opposing the horror of war is not “anti-European,” “anti-Ukrainian” or “pro-Russian.”
    ———
    It’s coming a pardon from the BIG GUY
    Biden offers pardons for pot possession, signals deeper reform for U.S. cannabis laws

    MSNBC squirms as they’re forced to admit LIVE on-air Hunter Biden is about to go to JAIL for MULTIPLE felonies, according to new BOMBSHELL reports
    ————

    #117904
    Dora
    Participant

    No conflict of interest here.

    “Bill Gates admits he was “Personally Involved” in the Inflation Reduction Act Climate Change Funding.

    This Act will funnel US$737 billion into Bill Gates funded projects including wind, solar, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage.”

    https://gettr.com/post/p1tf0va319c

    #117905
    Polemos
    Participant

    It seems like we’re coming closer to the time when Tomorrowland / Wakanda materializes out of the air and offers people a hand at creating zero-point modules for clean, limitless energy provided by splitting and recombining water; time-traveling individual cells and organs to restore their functioning and vitality; anti-grav struts to create vehicles and quake-resistant troposcrapers; an end to the capitalist financial speculations destroying the planet through strangling its energy and creativity; and all for the low-low price of being incorporated into a hivemind collective older than our neighborhood of stars.

    Or so it will appear. When the Man on the Mount mentioned the coming vast orchestrated suffering, the wars and rumors of wars, the distress of pregnancy and suckling newborns, the quakes and sudden vanishing of people, he also mentioned the miracles and signs but did not say they’d be fake.

    I like the progression from seeing earlier ads to now retro versions of today’s media tech. Speaking of Tomorrowland, it’s fascinating how so much tech evolution focused on “social networking” and churning people onto proprietary platforms. I remember having to learn how to use USENET and gopher and memorizing IP addresses just to get to library websites over a Prodigy dial-up connection, then having to learn html to create my own webspace for my own thoughts and ideas, then forgetting all of that because of work, life, and the ease in Internet designs. All the fascinating engineering solutions to material problems became military and intelligence sequestered while us numbskulls left on our own fell in love with cats and cartoon memes.

    All the small critters look so beautiful up close, but they spend so much time sniffing and licking and tasting their world. I can’t imagine what it’s like to listen to the world through my tiniest hairs, but all those arthropods do. What must the world “look like” when you sense it via vector smell and taste and subtle shudder of earth or leaf! How does a human look when the ant blogger “zooms out” their smell and taste and vibration to see one whole?

    #117906
    zerosum
    Participant

    Time for the USA to activate the black op assassins
    Zelensky aide attempts to walk back call for ‘preemptive strike’
    The Ukrainian president didn’t urge NATO to attack Russia with nuclear weapons,

    #117907

    Money out of nothing; money out of debt.
    Money out of money- this is what you get:
    Everything is worthless. Everything is leased.
    Everybody’s starving- to feed the money beast.

    #117908
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    On MSNBC, a medical contributor. Dr Kvita Patel, “We’re going to have a public health system that’s overwhelmed with we don’t know what. All the more reason to get a booster.”

    That makes perfect sense. Good on that, you!! 😉

    I’m constantly flabbergasted that Zelensky “makes demands” on nations around the world and people not only listen to, but write about these demands and [at times] take action. Who would actually care what Zelensky, a questionable leader of a corrupt country, demands?

    When there’s a reason to stop and consider something that is happening …. stop and consider it.

    #117910
    John Day
    Participant

    I drove down from Austin to Yoakum early yesterday, got some oak flooring installed in the time a carpenter was able to do teamwork with me, he with nailgun.
    At noon I had a video interview with Meryl Nass MD, Children’s Health Defense TV “Morning Show”
    https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/shows/good-morning-chd
    That should “air” next Thursday October 13, and be archived. There is some view of the flooring and construction of our house, since I recorded there. It seemed to go well after we just did it on Zoom. There ws not enough (rural) bandwidth for their pro-software.

    #117911
    John Day
    Participant

    Perhaps “they” don’t want Twitter to be a free-speech platform before November 8.

    #117912
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    PLASTIC PEOPLE

    In the UK recycling centres often bale up plastic [using plastic] and ship it to Sweden where it is burnt in incinerators to produce electricity. As one person commented ‘Why can’t we do that here?’. Burning plastic produces toxic fumes so the incinerator must have efficient scrubbers to remove them.

    Burning plastic removes it from the environment, produces electricity and remove the toxins they can produce. It is more energy efficient to burn plastic bags and make new ones but activists have insisted they must be recycled which is why they are shipped thousands of miles away. A TV program about this showed that some of this plastic waste can be commercially recycled but some is not and is just dumped in the open. One shot showed most of one pile were shopping bags from the UK.

    I think all domestic waste should be incinerated rather than go to landfill. Even the ash may be able to be recycled in breeze blocks or added to tarmac for road surfacing. Existing landfill sites could also be used as fuel.

    When it comes to plastic waste in the ocean there was an article on TAE some time ago which claimed that 80% originated from Chinese rivers and 10% from the Nile [If I remember correctly]. It should be easy to prevent this waste entering the oceans.

    Another area of concern is food waste. It could be fed to pigs but that is banned because there is a remote chance it could contain foot and mouth disease. It would need heat treating first, but it may be possible to do this using waste heat from the incinerators. This waste heat could also be used for district heating to further maximise energy efficiency, depending on the siting of the incinerator. The pig manure could be used in biodigesters to produce methane and the leftovers used as fertiliser.

    The technology exists to deal with waste, and an integrated approach could increase the benefits.

    #117915
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Winter is coming.

    Wet wood thin split so it drys ASAP.

    For deworming 100 kg work horse

    Initial dose 40 mg then
    Weekly dose 20 mg until well

    #117916
    Noirette
    Participant

    On Meloni. Top post, at Ugo Bardi. site. https://bit.ly/3rKv6Pj

    ———

    Fascism is an aberration, a radicalisation, not of the left / the right (using some standard definitions of these), but of the Center.

    It is characterised by the melding of Corporate (big biz ..) power with the Governing power (in pseudo-democracies, heh, whatever that means, e.g. Italy, France), crafting policies based on agreements that are, towards the ppl, repressive and authoritarian, often vicious (see for ex. Covid..)

    As well as seemingly supporting the ppl, and condescending towards them .. > the ppl deserve more child care facilities, or cheaper health care, and also, yes, cheaters and illegal foreignors and dopes and dodgy ppl should not be allowed to occupy fancy homes or …whatever…

    So is Meloni bringing back fascim?

    No. She is simultaneously presenting a Populist ‘sovereign’ stance, coupled with staunch submission to the occupier of Italy, the USA, a difficult position to uphold.

    #117917
    maryballon
    Participant

    Ed Dowd looks at the deaths and then, more importantly, lays out the consequences of the losses that happen when the workforce is disabled or dead. https://rumble.com/v1mny36-ed-dowd-covid-and-the-global-financial-collapse-a-tale-of-catastrophes-and-.html

    #117918
    John Day
    Participant

    Nice picture of firewood split and stacked, Michael Reid!
    I hope your work-horse fares well.
    What kind of de-wormer is that?

    #117919
    Red
    Participant

    For years, the U.S.- run NATO has moved military forces and bases into countries encircling Russia. This includes weapons that can very quickly be converted to nuclear use. This, as I’ve pointed out before, is tantamount to Russia doing the same in Mexico and Canada, and let’s add Cuba as well. We know what the U.S. response would be, but when President Putin and his government objected and said this is a betrayal of previous agreements, he was dismissed as if he were a child making things up.

    In 2014, when the U.S. engineered a coup in Ukraine, bringing into power neo-Nazi elements, and Russia protested this coup on its western border, Washington mocked such concerns. Every time Russia has complained about such provocative moves, the U.S. has dismissed them as inconsequential.

    For years the U.S. has supported the Ukrainian killing of the Russian-speaking peoples of eastern Ukraine, and finally, when Ukraine had amassed forces to invade the Donbas region, the Russian government had had enough and sent troops into the region to defend this area. Thus the hypocritical West played at the outrage that what they had created was finally backfiring. Russia was cast as the guilty party for invading Ukraine. And now a full-fledged U.S. war against Russia is out in the open and it will become more dangerous as it continues. Nuclear annihilation becomes a very real possibility as the Biden administration continues to push the envelope.

    https://www.greanvillepost.com/2022/10/05/only-adult-children-still-believe-u-s-propaganda/

    #117920
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks for the Meloni article, Noirette. It is musings from Italy, but not really any new substance.

    I’m going to meditate on compassion for murderers on my bike ride.
    Extreme times call for extreme actions!

    #117921
    Red
    Participant

    Italian activists sent me the signed November 2020 Advance Purchase Agreement (APA) between the EU member states and Pfizer/BioNTech. This appears to be genuine, but has not been independently verified.

    The 59 page contract and the 45 pages of attachments can be found here.

    Due to the vast amount of information in this document, I am not going to try to analyze it all today. In fact, I am hoping that my readers, other reporters, attorneys and analysts will help with this task. I do ask (not required in any way) that if you write up your results and want to link the document, that you link back to the Malone Institute landing page and the PDF documents found there.

    Critical EU-Pfizer Agreement Leaked

    #117922
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Incredible stack Michael. The tangible result of hours of focused work. It is art.

    Beautiful dog too.

    LOVE to All.

    #117923
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    P. S. Gotta love Clare Daly. She has abundant courage. Her words are always delivered with fierce intent. Powerful!

    Only here at TAE do we see Clare in action.

    In appreciation, Ilargi.

    LOVE to Clare and Julian.

    #117924
    zerosum
    Participant

    They still make war.
    The USA and their allies know all that and more than us.

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/10/bidens-fearmonges-about-a-russian-nuclear-threat-that-no-one-has-made/comments/page/2/#comments
    Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 7 2022 18:17 utc | 150
    Today Lavrov addressed Biden’s bullshit at the Fourth Meeting of the United Russia General Council Commission on International Cooperation and Support for Compatriots Abroad. What follows is the portion of Lavrov’s remarks that relate to the topic at issue, machine translated from the Russian transcript:

    https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1832930/https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1832930/
    Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the Fourth Meeting of the United Russia General Council Commission on International Cooperation and Support for Compatriots Abroad, Moscow, October 7, 2022

    During the special military operation, alarming facts were revealed, including the presence of illegal military biological programs in laboratories created by the Pentagon, as well as experiments on the creation of prohibited chemicals. The most dangerous incessant strikes on the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant continue.

    Yesterday, Zelensky called on his Western masters to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia. This “figure” presented the whole world with further evidence of threats emanating from the Kiev regime and for the neutralization of which a special military operation was launched. The attempts of Various Secretaries of Vladimir Zelensky to claim that he meant something else are ridiculous. We all remember how back in February of this year he spoke about Ukraine’s desire to possess nuclear weapons. Therefore, this thought has long and deeply settled in him.

    The other day, his Polish “brothers in mind” confirmed that they also have the same “dreams” – to acquire nuclear weapons. So far, at this stage, Warsaw wants to join nato’s practice of conducting “joint nuclear missions” that grossly violate the requirements of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

    What about NATO? In addition to lies and threats against us, the alliance, together with the EU, continues to repeat its full support for V.A. Zelensky, who “leads Ukraine’s struggle for European values, freedom and democracy.” The Ukrainian President in this situation, like his entire regime, enters the taste and begins to dictate its conditions to the North Atlantic bloc and the EU. This summer, Vladimir Zelensky said that it was NATO that should give Ukraine a place in the common security space. But appetites are growing. Following him, the head of his Office, A.B. Yermak, said that Ukraine should become an axis around which a new security system in Europe will be built. Last month, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that it was NATO that should join Ukraine, not the other way around. Such slogans and ambitions fall on fertile ground.

    Yesterday, at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, a summit of the European Political Community was convened, following which the head of EU diplomacy Jean-Pierre Borrell proudly stated that the process of forming a security structure begins without Russia’s participation. They “dance to the tune” of Kiev and encourage the insane fantasies of those who are still in power there. The United States and its allies assume enormous responsibility for the dangerous growth of international tensions, pumping weapons on Vladimir Zelensky, despite his openly proclaimed nuclear ambitions.

    At one time, French President Emmanuel Macron, as you remember, diagnosed “brain death” in the North Atlantic Alliance. Judging by the way NATO nurtures the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, this “disease” has gone too far.

    Once again, we warn the United States and other sponsors of the Kiev regime against deeper involvement in the situation as parties to the conflict.

    As has been repeatedly explained, the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation and the Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence remain unchanged. The attempts of Washington and its vassals to distort this reality and our position are aimed at intimidating the international community, forcing its sensible part to follow the failed course of reckless support for Kiev in all its adventures.

    #117925
    Red
    Participant

    Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun

    Since the creation of the US Federal Reserve over a century ago, every major financial market collapse has been deliberately triggered for political motives by the central bank. The situation is no different today, as clearly the US Fed is acting with its interest rate weapon to crash what is the greatest speculative financial bubble in human history, a bubble it created. Global crash events always begin on the periphery, such as with the 1931 Austrian Creditanstalt or the Lehman Bros. failure in September 2008. The June 15 decision by the Fed to impose the largest single rate hike in almost 30 years as financial markets are already in a meltdown, now guarantees a global depression and worse.

    The extent of the “cheap credit” bubble that the Fed, the ECB and Bank of Japan have engineered with buying up of bonds and maintaining unprecedented near-zero or even negative interest rates for now 14 years, is beyond imagination. Financial media cover it over with daily nonsense reporting , while the world economy is being readied, not for so-called “stagflation” or recession. What is coming now in the coming months, barring a dramatic policy reversal, is the worst economic depression in history to date. Thank you, globalization and Davos.

    Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun

    #117926
    WES
    Participant

    Michael Reid:

    Great pile of split wood! You have been extra busy being Paul Bunyan!

    Hopefully this will allow you to get a head of the curve so that the some of the wood you cut this year isn’t burned until the following winter.

    Not sure if you have been able to source some horse dewormer but if not let me know and I will try to get some in Brockville for you. Lots of horse lovers around here!

    On my end I have just finished building a new 8′ x 20′ floating dock with 10 plastic barrels. Now it is onto other waiting cottage projects. More projects than energy!

    #117927
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    We cannot say we were not warned, almost 50 years ago.

    “Plastic man got no brain.”

    “No one ever gets the truth from plastic man,”

    #117928
    Red
    Participant

    ‘Quiet Quitting’ Isn’t Just About Jobs; It’s About a Crumbling Economy
    October 7, 2022

    The unraveling of hyper-Globalization and hyper-Financialization will generate consequences few conventional analysts and pundits anticipate.

    TikTok videos on ‘Quiet Quitting’–doing the minimum at work, giving nothing extra to the employer– have gone viral, and The Wall Street Journal quickly picked up the thread:

    If Your Co-Workers Are ‘Quiet Quitting,’ Here’s What That Means Some Gen Z professionals are saying no to hustle culture; ‘I’m not going to go extra.’

    The movement away from putting career first and sacrificing to get ahead financially is global: From the Great Resignation to Lying Flat, Workers Are Opting Out In China, the U.S., Japan, and Germany, younger generations are rethinking the pursuit of wealth.

    Here are a few excerpts from the WSJ article:

    “It isn’t about getting off the company payroll, these employees say. In fact, the idea is to stay on it– but focus your time on the things you do outside of the office.

    Paige West, 24, said she stopped overextending herself at a former position as a transportation analyst in Washington, D.C., less than a year into the job. Work stress had gotten so intense that, she said, her hair was falling out and she couldn’t sleep. While looking for a new role, she no longer worked beyond 40 hours each week, didn’t sign up for extra training and stopped trying to socialize with colleagues.

    Mr. Khan explained the concept this way: “You’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond.”

    “You’re no longer subscribing to the hustle-culture mentality that work has to be your life,” he said.

    Mr. Khan says he and many of his peers reject the idea that productivity trumps all; they don’t see the payoff.

    “One factor Gallup uses to measure engagement is whether people feel their work has purpose. Younger employees report that they don’t feel that way, the data show.”

    Josh Bittinger, a 32-year-old market-research director at a management-consulting company, said people who stumble on the phrase “quiet quitting” may assume it encourages people to be lazy, when it actually reminds them to not work to the point of burnout.”

    There’s a lot to unpack here.

    https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

    #117929
    Red
    Participant

    The powerful scenes that are enacted by the students are immediately deconstructed by the follow-up questions posed by Périot. A student quotes Chairman Mao with deadly conviction, preaching to us that “a revolution is not a dinner party… A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” However, he falters and hesitates when he is asked about his own opinions regarding capitalism and the revolution that has been indefinitely deferred.

    This becomes a recurring theme, with many students voicing their disapproval of police brutality and societal oppression but not being able to appropriately address questions about the subjective definitions of abstract topics like politics in general as well as objective descriptions of important things like trade unions. As a result of the restrictive curriculum of the Ideological State Apparatus that is the school, we are confronted with the brutal reality. The people in power systematically and silently quashed the revolution before it ever began by not providing proper education to the next generation.The greatest achievement of Our Defeatsis that Périot does not pass his judgement. As a documentarian, his job is to chronicle the condition and that’s exactly what he does. The outcome is stiflingly tragic, a harrowing analysis of young school students whose vocabularies are being stripped off ideas like communism and workers’ rights. Périot starts a dialogue between the past and the present by confronting the future of the revolution that has been laid to rest by youthful cynicism, censorship and the bourgeois constructs of modernity.

    ‘Our Defeats’ Review: A striking Post-Mortem of the Revolutionary Dream

    #117930
    Red
    Participant

    I know “preaching to the choir” just the same:

    https://sbonifides.medium.com/dont-take-movements-at-face-value-reading-cory-morningstar-s-research-into-environmental-18d17112b8be

    A few years back, I was working on a writing and interview project for a national nonprofit in which I spent time with professionals who focused on climate change and sustainability. I wasn’t hanging out with Julia “Butterfly” Hill or the descendants of Edward Abbey. These were people who were firmly part of the professional class and operating inside the system to varying degrees. Not everyone’s a radical and I found many of my interview subjects to be fascinating individuals who had accomplished worthwhile things.

    However, one issue threw me for a minor loop. During a discussion with a guy who was involved in the financial end of foundation work on climate change and ecosystems, he termed the natural processes occurring in ecosystems as “ecosystem services” that need to be quantified monetarily. “That’s weird”, I thought, so I probed and he enthusiastically explained how financializing the functioning of ecosystems would help the foundation he worked for create “deals” to structure the ways in which they would agree to use their resources to help preserve or restore ecosystems in various parts of the world.

    #117931
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Half-a-century of unsupported money-printing and debt creation finally comes to an end some time over the next year or two:

    #117932
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    MIchael Reid:

    I can tell that you and the canine have a deep understanding. It’s tough to be an animal in a human world. Dog is lucky to have a human like you, I’m sure.

    As for the pile: man, you roll your spliffs BIG. 😉

    #117933
    teri
    Participant

    So now we’re going to rehab Meloni. Shape-shift her into a different creature cleaving more to our desires than to her own. Sigh. We are so hopelessly hopeful and shit.

    I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger, and not much on organized religion, but there is one Bible verse that I try to keep at the front of my mind any time a politician opens his (or her) mouth:

    “Ye saw I was a stranger and ye took me in.” – Matthew 25:35.

    [It’s a double entendre. You may need to think about it for a minute.]

    #117934

    When Biden spoke today, he fumbled for his back pocket to draw out a handkerchief and dab at his nose with what I would call a flourish. The cloth was bright white and wasn’t in his kerchief pocket.
    Was this a signal?

    #117935
    Redneck
    Participant

    It seems to me that Russia has put too much time and money into It’s nuclear weapons , banking on using their superior capability to bluff against losing a ground war like Ukraine. MAD is still thing so it might have been better to have spent that time and money on the conventional weapons that they now desperately need. Videos of Russian troops being dumped at the front with nothing but a hand gun must be really bad for moral. If those vids are not faked that is but it seems that some at least are real.

    #117936
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Another day on TAE, another day of pseudo-soothsayers addicted to fantastical efforts of interpreting global insanity, thus appeasing the EG0’s insatiable demands to appear pridefully superior 😐

    Meanwhile, in Amerika the blitzkrieg of Collective EG0ic Madness (aka Mass Formation Psychosis) is formulated into sound-bytes for mass entertainment (fka bread & circuses):

    Armed robberies on the street, in broad daylight, are so numerous they no longer are reported on crime blotters, as they become part & parcel of the CULTure…

    And internationally, a horrific mass murder shatters the idyllic naivete of the Thai illusion:

    Love & kisses to all!

    #117937
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Oh, there was a discussion of Time recently, which of course is one of the known 4 physical dimensions of space (length, width, depth and time) ~ Which without discussion of the spiritual energy implicit, renders the discussion of the Infinite’s reality (which according to the string theory of laymen, operates with 10 dimensions) an impossibly ridiculous endeavor…

    There is so much unknown for those trapped within the EG0ic illusion of 4 dimensional “reality”, that “clean” energy sources surely abound within humanity’s grasp, but mankind is alas eons away from realization due to it’s utter inability/refusal to “evolve”.

    #117938
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    John Day:

    Eqvalan (ivermectin) Oral Paste for Horses

    Each syringe contains 120 mg providing dose for 600 kg horse.

    Syringe has lockable stops every 25 kg providing 5 mg ivermectin

    #117939
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Hi VP.

    Would you kindly sketch out a roadmap of the steps involved in the evolve process you highlight above?

    Hat tip Darya Sinusoid: According to Eckhart Tolle (in his book “A New Earth”, humanity’s current state of consciousness has reached a threshold. This is because our destructive ability (caused by our ego) is intensifying at an unsustainable rate due to advances in technology. If we’re unable to evolve out of the mindless ego-driven state of consciousness that causes this destruction, we’ll end up killing our species and destroying the planet.

    Tolle explains that when we connect with our inner self and live in a state of mindfulness, we will live in a state of non-attachment, nonjudgment, and nonresistance, which will allow us to break free from the ego’s control.

    When we no longer form attachments to material, thought, and emotional elements, we’ll no longer generate greed, consumerism, and pollution caused by the endless cycle of wanting.

    When we no longer judge things as “right and wrong” or “good and bad,” we’ll no longer have unrealistic expectations that cause disappointment, anger, resentment, and other forms of suffering.

    Consequently, we’ll cease resisting what simply is and cannot be changed. Tolle notes that nothing in the world is inherently good or bad, it’s only our judgments of them that make them so. We’ll no longer feel the stress, greed, envy, and negativity supplied by the ego because we no longer crave external validation. We will only feel peace.

    If the bulk of humanity dedicates itself to achieving this state of mindfulness, Tolle asserts that the violence and destruction caused by the collective human ego will cease.”

    Good stuff.

    It’s all in your mind. EGO included. Mindfulness is timeless.

    Oh Nevermind….

    #117940
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Would you kindly sketch out a roadmap of the steps involved in the evolve process you highlight above?

    I arrived at spiritual awakening after a period of EG0 deflation at depth, following a period of inescapable, self-inflicted pain…

    I imagine that’s the same path for most of humanity, albeit there are exceptions, perhaps during this self-imposed destruction that “civilization” has brought upon itself there will be many that abandon EG0 as their reality & embrace the Infinite reality within.

    But, I’m afraid that due to the ubiquitousness of mass CULTure indoctrination(s), most will have to die before arriving at The Destination (If that is even allowed?)…

    At this point it is clear that an extinction level event(s) are unfolding, the unmitigated suffering caused daily by Collective EG0ic Madness challenges my serenity due to the incomprehensible depths of selfish animosity unfurling daily on a seeming exponential basis 😐

    Tolle is just one of many spiritually enlightened teachers I’ve studied, well after my own spiritual “awakening”, who at times is a bit too verbose (I suppose one must wax poetic to fill a book?), but is surely a candidate for the Elijah of our age…

    God knows that his children are afflicted with hordes of Ahab and Jezebels in the Now, with “good men” crucified the minute they publicly defy the Mass Formation Psychosis etiquette of pop CULTure.

    I’m afraid the Infinite’s solutions are FAR too simple for “advanced” smart-phone addicted zombies, who were insanely brain-washed into a didactical illusion that God was dead 😐

    #117941
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Hello, Michael Reid. All along i liked your comments. Now I’ve seen you with your dog, I know I had the right inclination about you. 🙂

    Nice stack of wood. Lots of hard work. Good job.

    #117942
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Susmarie: “Tolle explains that when we connect with our inner self and live in a state of mindfulness, we will live in a state of non-attachment, nonjudgment, and nonresistance, which will allow us to break free from the ego’s control.”

    I’ve been wondering about this for quite awhile. What is this state of ‘non-attachment’? We don’t attach to … what? All emotional feelings? Only the feelings we’ve deemed ‘negative’?

    I’ve had a number of people who are trained in Qigong and other belief systems tell me to ‘detach’ from emotions. “Just detach from the emotions and everything will be fine. It’s all good.” is what I hear from them.

    My question is, when I ‘detach’ from negative emotions, should I also ‘detach’ from what we define as positive emotions (ie, love) as well? And how do I determine which is which? And how do I determine up from down if I’m also detaching from something I’ve [I guess] determined is detrimental and holding onto [I guess] something I deem positive? Who am I to determine that?

    I keep hearing “detach” and you’ll be fine, but no one defines what I’m detaching from. And how does detaching from one thing impact the other things in my life and my perspective and feelings on those things?

    There is not up without down. There is not light without dark. There is not love without hate (or similar word). Both of these things must exist. Full stop.

    #117943
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Btw, Tolle is correct., if we could set aside ego, greed, the lust for power, etc., things would be better in this world. But the bottom line is, we are spiritual beings in a physical body. We are what we are, ego and all, and we are not going to ‘evolve’ into esoteric beings inhabiting physical bodies that somehow transcend the limitations of our physical bodies and egos (in keeping with AFKTT’s comments that acknowledge the frustration with this) to become “god like” creatures.

    Idk. I’m just tossing out random thoughts about the “detach from the negative and all will be right in the world” philosophy. I find it lacking.

    #117944
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘Burning plastic removes it from the environment,’

    There’s an interesting thought.

    Burning PVC (polyvinyl chloride) releases the chlorine into the atmosphere as hydrochloric acid or complex chlorinated olefinic substances, depending on the temperature of combustion. Chlorine in the atmosphere is linked to destruction of ozone, the stuff that makes this planet habitable.

    Burning polystyrene releases styrene and a potent mix of carcinogens, plus plenty of smoke and soot. Great. Let’s recreate the filthy cities of the industrial age, in which white moths were never found in cities.

    Burning nylon releases nitriles and other nasties. Slightly better than burning damp woolen carpets.

    I suppose ‘removes from the environment’ means not visible in my back yard or at the beach I visit, or some other form of NIMBY.

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