Debt Rattle August 23 2022

 

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  • #114020

    Samuel Peploe Paris-plage 1907   • Fly Like An Eagle, Darya Dugina (Escobar) • The Coming Of The Ukrainian ISIS (Escobar) • Darya Dugina Killer I
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 23 2022]

    #114022
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Samuel Peploe Paris-plage 1907

    Wonderful painting; captures the Paris Beach mobbed with beach goers most excellently…

    #114023
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Darya Dugina
    Tragic and as wrong as two left shoes; god’s be good; we’re monsters at times like these…
    There’s no forgiving for these gross crimes of choice…

    #114024
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Surely, the fascistic perpetrators and sponsors of global terrorism – the US, UK, and the various minion states of Canada, Australia, NZ etc.- have bitten off more than they can chew this time.

    And on top of the FUBAR military predicament the idiots in power in western nations have created for themselves, there is meltdown of their phony financial system (again, but for the final time).

    Nice weather for gardening. And the days are getting longer and warmer here.

    Pity most of the Northern Hemisphere.

    I wonder whether we might actually have an ‘On the Beach’ ending to it all, or whether it will be ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire’.

    On the Beach -nuclear radiation slowly spreads from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere, and the authorities issue suicide pills to the populace of Melbourne.

    TDTECF -Humans manage to push the Earth so far off balance the climate systems are completely messed up, and populace slowly fries.

    #114025
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Which would have made them “fair game” according to the usual Ukrainian standards.

    They are now martyrs and this gives Putin the support of the Russian people to respond in any way – however extreme – that he wishes. This is an opportunity for Putin and Xi to redefine this battle.

    #114026
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Isn’t it weird how so many people in the west respect Putin and despise their own “leadership”. It almost appears as though a good number of the people of the west would fight on the Russian side if they invaded, helping the Russians to destroy the oligarchs that are trying to cull us.

    I wonder if this has ever happened before in history?

    #114027
    aspnaz
    Participant

    For the Western Alliance, financially and economically his timing is particularly awkward, coinciding with the end of a 40-year period of declining interest rates, rising consumer price inflation, and a deepening recession driven by contracting bank credit.

    I love these writers, they pretend that the people for whom this is awkward are not the same people who made this awkward. They pretend there is some sort of disconnect between actions and their consequences. They pretend that inflation caused by excess spending is an act of god and how nobody could have ever guessed this would happen.

    #114028
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    The hideous murder of Darya Dugina and attempted murder of Aleksandr Dugin can only be the work of Alphabet Inc. : CIA, MI6, NSA, DIA, CNN, FBI, DOA and others obscure and arcane (employed to spy on the spies). DOA you ask? Tes DOA, the current occupant of the WH, District of Criminals, the seat where the government places its ass(es).

    Liz Cheney fancies herself as Abraham Lincoln it seems. The relationship of turd and tulip is more like it; both have an odour and one cannot be mistaken for the other. Whatever was the trollop thinking?

    #114029
    Red
    Participant

    In 2003, BBC programme makers began work on a series called “If… ,” which aimed to explore the future crises which required political leaders to act immediately, using drama to make the point. The three series, which were broadcast between March 2004 and May 2006, tackled issues like the impact of obesity on public health, the growing disparity between rich and poor, and intergenerational conflict between the boomers and millennials. The final programme even examined issues around peak oil. But it is the first of these docudramas – If… The Lights Go Out – which gives the lie to the claim that nobody could have seen Britain’s current energy woes coming.

    Nobody could have seen it coming

    #114030
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Scholz inherited ludicrous Marxist policies from Merkel. For example to close down both nuclear energy and coal was always a recipe for disaster with no medium term viable alternatives.

    How do you think Merkel was reelected forever? She turned her party into the oligarch teat sucker party and sold out Germany. I remember when she was pushing the line that she was friends with Putin and would be looking to build their relationship. Obviously she got a better offer from the green oligarchs. She then resigned after doing max damage to Germany …. look at them now, Oaf Scholz didn’t do this! It is amazing what German naivette – I have lived and worked there for three years – will accept in terms of complete bullshit. They are genuinely wanting to do good, but so naive that they can be conned into anything.

    #114031
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak.

    Ha ha, the crimes this man has committed in front of the people of the USA, yet he is able to wander free without his brains being used to decorate a wall? Nobody is willing to avenge their dead loved ones? It is a sad state of affairs.

    #114032
    Red
    Participant

    @aspnaz “Nobody is willing to avenge their dead loved ones? It is a sad state of affairs.”

    Yet!

    #114033
    Red
    Participant

    Concerning NZ and Jacinda, I recall as far back as the 90’s that NZ was the preferred place for the uber-wealthy to build their “bug out” bunkers. Makes me wonder if the Adhern admin has been attempting to remove most of the resident population to clear the way for the coming migration of the monied class?
    Any thoughts?

    #114034
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #114035
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Drillers and drinking: I know the type, but I wonder what makes it so. They are formidable men.

    Loved the thoughtful comment which I read as Heebee-Jeebee (JB:HB). Exactly the point, and maybe at first they didn’t know it, being a lot in religion to be mad at. However, after the French Revolution and so on, I’m sure the engineers noticed that man is created with a religion-shaped hole, part of the thing inside that connects Us to God and Spirit. So at this point, it’s simply well-worn that 1) you outlaw god, put pressure on religion. 2) this leaves a generation created with this longing 3) fill the longing with “the State”, whatever advertising claptrap you come up with and want to get done that cycle…murder usually, to cut population, make money, and reset the debt collapse. As cheap imitations, they’ve been trying not to return to God, and make themselves gods of the marketplace instead, who are also immortal, but so far the cycle ends as the entire society burns and collapses, not recovering until they the people re-connect to God, Spirit, that morality, and down the streets, that means actual religion, which church suppers and stuff. Like Russia.

    The principle and structure is exactly why the atheists are the mirror imitations of the worst of every Christianity, every religion ever made. Unlearing, intolerant, illogical in a wide range in comparing themselves or competing religions as you say, oppressive, bigoted, annoying, and murderous as well, now proven all over again this year. And why? And why so blind to it? Why so blind when they’re mostly fixated on that “other” religion, over there, that barely exists, would they not see the same bad behavior in themselves? Not entirely sure yet, just note +200 years of it being true. “Religion” be it theism or atheism, cuts off their connection to spirit, I think, and God. So it’s mental-based, not body-based (Yoga and some others escape here) nor spirit-based (actual New Age, Spiritualist, Tarot or Shinto, etc escape here). It’s mentalism. Ego, and Ego is the separation of Self vs All.

    But I need them to stop killing everything, so I’d really like to find a way to communicate and break through, which is impossible when they reject #God, #Logos, and therefore #Reality in any form, be it objective statistics, arguments, or poor workers and human children crushed at their feet. Gloating in their masks, joyful at the closings, destructions, life savings lost, dreams crushed, people dead, dying, desperate. 40,000 per each 1% rise.

    I saw a lot of the same Covidian behavior, although perhaps not as much as you, and I won’t forget either. We begged them — not even to change behavior, merely for an honest hearing — to break out of personal ego, the universal smug (or fear) and recognize we before them, their family, neighbors, coworkers, countrymen, that we existed. Generally with zero, which is much more inflammatory and egregious than anyone needed or expected. And now perhaps they and their whole family lines, will die. I don’t know what to say about that. The time has passed. Perhaps some medicine can mitigate it still, but they won’t look.

    “come clean and recognize their mistakes and get back to fulfilling their Hippocratic Oath and duty to treat.”

    They can’t. As above, they are not listening and will never listen until made to, with lawsuits and punishments. Why do you make us do that? Nobody wants to do that. We want you to realize on your own, but can’t have your running around murdering everyone with ignorance and arrogance.

    “Fly Like an Eagle, Darya Dugina (Escobar)”

    It is a war. Strange it’s a murder there and just war a few miles away, they are blowing up a thousand Dugin’s daughters but that’s how we define these things. “They” are trying and need to escalate into WWIII as the financial is clearly collapsing, specifically in Europe (US$ dies last), however, how can Russia not respond? Do you take out Chelsea Clinton? Liz Cheney? What would be the response? I can’t guess and can only watch.

    I mean, the only logical item at each of these is, “Ukraine made this more costly, therefore, we travel further into Ukraine and absorb more of it.”

    “Russia actually (and this is not propaganda) challenged the West as a civilization.”

    This is true. Will there be rule of law and Western, Christian values, however young and fleeting, or will we fall into the dark night of the #Opposite? Where rules, logic, custom mean nothing, only raw #Power?

    What they don’t realize, or realize fully, is these are the “Rights of Man”. But that doesn’t mean anything to them. Where do the “Rights of Man” come from? Our Creator, the Creation. So they are happy to stop it, thinking that’s very funny. Here’s the problem: like Gravity, men are BORN with these “Rights” which are really just innate, natural impulses. Therefore as long as men exist, these impulses we call “Rights” exist. Which is why they are passive and you can’t have a “Right to Healthcare” or something that rests upon others. So these men are fighting #Reality itself.

    And in this distant time, they are even aware of that, which is why so much attention and maybe trillions on “Transhumanism” so that humans will STOP being humans, and this annoying wanting “Justice” and “Rights” all the d—n time, getting in the way and instead will be the obedient reality they wish. Note, “Religion” is a mental illness they will erase with drugs. Obviously. They plan genetic engineering of many types, some of which – perhaps all of which – will make you by definition no longer “Human”. “Human 2.0”, they say. But I’ve seen their operating systems before and they’ve never created a functional model so far. Collapsing, virus-filled, rat’s nest, barely-working disastrous hellscape so far. And this is in Revelations. Those who took the mark are severely injured, uncomfortable, agonized, wish for death but cannot die. Yeah, I can see using some nanotech that would do that. Perhaps we already have.

    Anyway, Russia is for “Western Civilization” (I think that would be a good idea –Gandhi) and these human values we used to have. They can’t stand it. Hate it with every fiber of their being, every bullet they can find, every dollar that they have. Trillions and Trillions so far. Every Facebook, Twitter, BlackRock, sacrificed. YOU are the carbon they wish to reduce. Sequester. Erase. Every human on earth is their sworn enemy.

    We have those classically Liberal values here too, and in Canada, the Netherlands, but Russia is an unoccupied country.

    “Mackinder is regarded by many experts as the founder of geopolitics.”

    Yes and yes. He was the essential driver and “Geography” of “Politics.” That is, how the land and territory commanded and determined things. This is all over, of course, like the Pyrenees that divide Spain and France, but of course the “World Island” of uniting Asia with Eurasia – because they are the same and not divided, duh – is only his best known. The other was Britain as Orwell’s “Oceana” rules the seas, which makes the new U.S. “Oceana”. Or until people realize you can sink an aircraft carrier group easier than ordering a pizza.

    “Geo” in “GeoPolitics.” Similar tide to “Demographics is Destiny.”

    I disagree with MacLeod in all the emphasis and the details. My take varies in every regard, but I’m sure you’ve heard it.

    “Putin is unlikely to make the mistake of being seen to do this deliberately. But in all probability, he need not take any significant action at all to see Western currency prices for energy and food rise again as winter approaches.”

    This is why I was steamed over Germany keeping the pipes shut. No gas is going in storage. That is a certain death that once created perhaps could not be avoided by any means on earth. Maybe shipping half of Europe to host families in the Urals? No, probably not. But something that large, coordinated, and historic. They will not, so Germany and Europe will die. And have riots. And are doing it all intentionally against our even violent objections, see Holland.

    Look, if you’re out camping and get eaten by a bear, we understand that. This is undressing, slathering yourself in honey, and climbing into the cave.

    “Under the new Basel 3 regulations which were recently introduced”

    Returning to the FOFOA and Luongo, Europe can, or might under normal circumstances survive if the gold price could 10x. That is because unlike the Fed, the ECB isn’t a central bank but can go bankrupt, and their only asset is pledged Euro gold. So if they need collateralization, as they desperately do, they can re-value gold to $20,000 and save themselves, although that would have other consequences. People have cheered for this Tier I gold asset accounting, and wondering why. And also why it never happens. But that’s the Basel 3, which is Europe. Davos. They have arranged to dump the dollar using gold, which will probably happen, but this is their arrangement for it. NY feels differently about it, and has other arrangements, although they too may see gold as an inevitable route.

    Right now, as you can see, Europe cannot raise the gold price and save themselves. Double true if J-Pow raises rates, which causes demand for dollars, but also reduces the need for demand for gold. (Stability, negative interest rates, etc)

    One of the “Consequences” here is that Russia and China have more gold than the stolen, 300:1 hypothecated fake gold in ECB and Switzerland. So if they revalue, they may save themselves but save Russia more, making Europe a has-been, tiny, vassal state. So they are in no hurry to pull the trigger and why they needed Russia in their control first.

    Note the U.S. has limitless gold (in the ground) but seems to be more founded and prepared for silver. Suppose gold 10x to $20,000 – with recent printing, probably twice that now at $40k/oz. But the gold-silver ratio is an eye-watering 80:1 and NY/Chicago determined to keep it at these “Ludicrous Speed” levels. So cut the ratio merely to 20:1 which is still high, (supply suggests 1:1) and silver is the equivalent of $80,000. (4x the gold rise, which was 10x the starting price). ‘40x $20 is $800/oz silver, which is very modest and doable. Silver is they only remaining commodity in the solar system at pre-1980 prices. With Mexico, the U.S. is one of the largest silver locations on the planet. Constitutional money is silver, not gold. “Rothschild”/Davos/ECB bankers have gold in their basements, not silver. So which would you choose if you were NY? …Yet it never happens, because that would be the end. Of everything.

    Put it this way: when trust is broken, nobody goes back to a “Trust me” money. They go to real things. Perhaps that can be stalled yet more with a Digital Central Bank Currency, but not for long, 3 ½ years? The point of a CBDC is to kill everyone, all the “Deplorables” which means YOU if you are a human being, you filthy cockroach, exhaling your filthy carbon and eating food. So it will immediately black market, resist, and collapse, but “Immediately” is a process and takes time. Whatever the date is, they are going to trustless money that no one controls, be that Wheat, Bitcoin, or Silver.

    “..Germany used to be the economic and financial engine of Europe but is now on the way to becoming a basket case..”

    We’re still watching Germany, and rightly so, however, the Italian government has collapsed. Elections are right now, 3 weeks. When 5-Star “Italeave” gets in, there is no Euro. Germany can be the Euro, the EU, all by itself, but with no Bosch, Siemens, VW, what do you think they are? The engine of Europe? Or a smoldering crater of fail? The market and us haven’t adjusted to their being irrelevant as Zaire, totally non-existing and not worth referring to. And noting Target-2? Not only will Germany not get paid, (duh) but if Italeave then they REALLY will never get paid. The rates as they exist I interpret as believing Germany will control all Europe via the successful, dictatorial Soviet EU. I think they’re wrong, and because the EU has structural, foundational flaws NY will use to utterly destroy them, just as Armstrong warned in 1999. They didn’t listen because they hated democracy just. That. Much.

    “The winter of 1941 – 1942 was bitterly cold and as many as 100,000 people a month died of starvation”

    You can only pray for Europe this winter. But why pray? They will arrest you, you regressive, bible-clutching deplorable untermensch. Get with Great Leader and the Glorious Future. Praying for your fellow man will ruin your social credit score.

    “The Siege of Leningrad killed more civilians than the bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”

    That’s why no one cares. They are Slavs and not human. To the Anglos anyway, who won the war single handed with Mickey Mouse and plucky Private Ryan.

    “Dr. Fauci to Step Down by End of the Year (JTN)”

    Well, he’s not in jail yet, so I’m not resting. Nor Bush, nor either Cheney, nor either Biden, nor Birx, Pfizer execs, Dimon, Mozillo, Obama, Clinton, Brennon, Pompeo, Pelosi, McConnell, or gosh, target-rich environment here. How about everyone on Epstein’s flight list? Where’d that go? Same place as the camera footage and cell-tower pings of the DC Bomber?

    Real problem is he’s too old to serve a meaningful sentence. Can we keep him alive for 30 years in solitary?

    “The health service faced higher costs than we initially estimated,”

    NHS is collapsing, as said yesterday, and I get tired of saying socialized anything starts with rainbows and looks like something for nothing, only to always reach this end; but until we learn, here I am. TINA. Thanks to “Government”, there is no alternative system anywhere in the nation to move over to. Only government erases all competition, and only government goes right to the end and doesn’t allow any transition, because to do so would mean reducing their ego a tiiiiiiny bit. Admitting it’s not QUITE as glorious, free, and perfect as it seems. They can’t do that because it also now costs 5-10x what it did when it started and people will say “Where’s my money, Brian?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZomwVcGt0LE (NSFW?)

    Where’s my healthcare, Boris? Where is it? Not kidding around here. Google “Brickbat”. And “Canada” too. (Noting again the U.S. has arguably the worst care in the world. Under Covid clearly worse than the Congo.)

    “Judge Rejects DOJ Plea to Keep Entire Trump Raid Affidavit Sealed (JTN)”

    This is nuts on the face of it because the whole POINT of a warrant is to be a public record of what happened and why. Everything, every napkin, every paperclip, is now “National Security”, Top Secret. Uh-huh. “Where’s my money, Joe? Where is it?” We the People is OUR money and we are to have oversight of every nickel. That’s why we elected the House of Representatives with budget powers. Now where is it? Don’t make me come up there.

    The Defense is supposed to have EVERY advantage, being the long-forgot access to all State’s evidence, is indeed a road map of the State prosecution. That’s by design.That’s how it’s SUPPOSED to work, to clue them in. But a prosecution with a 99% conviction rate, higher than Hitler and Stalin combined, doesn’t remember that.

    “There’s no reason for hunger the in the third largest food producer in the world.”

    Nor anywhere else as Holland has demonstrated that hard work and modern infrastructure can feed more people per acre than anyone believed. Maybe 100x what Malthus thought. Again. Wrong every time. Experts wrong. Science wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Always wrong. Don’t they get tired of being wrong? And killing everyone?

    #114036
    chooch
    Participant

    My eyes are dry, My faith is old, My heart is hard, My prayers are cold, And I know how I ought to be, Alive to you and dead to me. (Keith Green)

    Is it possible to walk with God?

    https://www.kingswaychurch.org/sermon/leaving-faith-behind/

    #114037
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    We’ve all heard (though few have understood) the old expression, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

    Most folks are rather repelled by the idea turning one’s coat and switching sides like that old saying seems to advise. And repelled they should be ! Such a treasonous reversal of loyalty is just rotten and reprehensible, both on it face and all the way down to the core.

    Well, relax because that’s not what the old saying actually means to the savvy.

    What it wryly implies to the true die-hard is that if you can’t beat them, and that try as you might you can’t even die trying, then the only possible remaining way to go on fighting is from the inside.

    Some wise old wise guy once said that if you make peaceful revolution impossible you make violent revolution inevitable. Well, he stopped talking to soon because there’s more to it. He should have said, “If you make peaceful revolution impossible, and THEN you make violent revolution impossible, too, then you make SUBVERSION inevitable.

    #114038
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Germany has gone from Eurotardistan’s Sparkplug

    to

    Eurotardistan’s Buttplug©

    You know, the kind that vibrant and has a big Zircon in it.

    German’s will have more time for such things in their new Green De-industrialized Nirvana.

    The other suggestion I told my German friends they could do to keep warm this winter is to burn German bureaucrats like cord wood.

    There’s plenty of them, and if you run out, there’s even more Eurotardistan bureaucrats that are fat dumb and lazy. They won’t be hard to catch that way and besides, Germany has a real skill set in burning people.

    .

    #114039
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Diplomacy ain’t my strong suit, or favorite topic, but it does have its merits.

    Diplomacy is a formalized set of agreed procedural steps with which BOTH adversaries can STALL FOR TIME.

    By talking their nit-picking way through deliberately slow and painfully detailed proceedings . . . . instead of immediately engaging in the violently kinetic response that the situation APPEARS to call for, they can invoke catatonia instead of spill blood.

    Diplomacy stops a lot of violence by that factor alone, and increases the likelihood that during some part of the seemingly endless yak yak yak SOMEBODY comes up with a negotiated peaceful settlement and either prevents or stops a lot of death and destruction.

    I’m specifically thinking about the INSANELY off-limits and out-of-bounds assassination operation that NATO/Ukraine just committed in Moscow.

    A short and effective way that Russia could stop NATO from running black ops assassination in its Capital city would be a couple of Hyper Sonic missiles down NATO HQ’s chimney. Ya can’t say Russia didn’t warn them. NATO was VERY entertainingly warned. Russia hilariously reminded Brussels & Friends about that specific possibility a few short months back. “We know where you live”,sez Russia, by publishing (without further comment) the GPS co-ordinates of the command and control centers of key NATO players. Not exactly subtle.

    But another way . . . and probably more beneficially effective . . . would be to use diplomacy and economics AND stark reality to compel Lithuania to extradite the alleged assassin back to Russia for trial on premeditated murder charges . . . during which trial all sorts of interesting truths will be revealed to a fascinated world audience. In a lot of ways such a compelled compliance to International Law would, all in itself, edge Lithuania out of its Death Compact with the Western Empire and back into the land of the living.

    In any case, Lithuania can’t be too happy with its NATO masters for putting them in such an untenable position.

    Brother! is the USA ever stupid!

    #114040
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Correction. I meant Estonia , I guess, not Lithuania. Back to geography class for me (or treat that Alzheimer’s)

    #114041
    chooch
    Participant

    The key facts of the tragedy have already been established. A Land Cruiser Prado SUV, owned by Dugin and with Darya at the wheel, exploded in a highway near the village of Bolchie Vyazemy, a little over 20km away from Moscow.

    They were both coming from a family festival, where Dugin had delivered a talk. At the last minute, Darya took the SUV and Dugin followed her in another car. According to eyewitnesses, there was an explosion under the SUV, which was immediately engulfed in flames and hit a roadside building. Darya’s body was burned beyond recognition.
    The Russian Investigative Committee soon established that the IED – approximately 400g of TNT, unencapsulated – was planted under the bottom of the SUV, on the driver’s side.

    Darya

    #114042
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    i-fugacious nature, i-centric culture: can you spot the paradox?
    The human condition is, seemingly, an inescapable paradox; to fight it or to wallow in it: does it make any difference? The Everlasting Dissatisfaction says “may:be(but that’s beyond the scope of our existence.)

    #114043
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    @Red

    The monied class will always require servants.

    As long as there are people eager to feast on the crumbles falling from the table of the rich, the oligarchy won’t have nothing to fear but the greed of fellow plutocrats.

    #114044
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    This is a rant.

    It is driving me nuts seeing all of the people throwing around the name “Karl Marx” and “Marxism” all the while having nary a clue of how this terminology muddies the waters. Never realizing how using this name and term in this way serves the globalist agenda deliciously.

    Five years ago, a college student posed a question to Nancy Pelosi. (https://nyulocal.com/nancy-pelosi-to-leftist-nyu-student-were-capitalists-deal-with-it-abf1e8e04e46)
    Here is a synopsis:
    NYU Sophomore Trevor Hill provoked a telling insight into the Democratic Party’s future from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) CNN Town Hall hosted by Jake Tapper last night. …Hill presented Pelosi with a Harvard University poll showing millennials’ distaste for capitalism. Hill, who supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and voted for Jill Stein in November, then asked the former Speaker of the House whether she saw an opportunity for the Democratic Party to move left. …

    “I have to say, we’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is,” Pelosi responded with a chuckle.

    BREAKING NEWS.
    The globalists that we all love-to-hate are self-avowed CAPITALISTS. They are not communists (big or little c.) They are not socialists (big or little s.) They are not Marxists (big or little m.)

    Karl Marx was a philosopher who thought about economics – NOT GOVERNANCE. If “Marxism” is a thing, it is an economic philosophy, not a political philosophy. Socialism & communism can be seen as both political and economic philosophies, as they have been specifically applied in both worlds – and there are political parties utilizing the words “socialist” and “communist.”

    Despite the word “socialism” in the full Nazi party name, it was not a “socialist” regime – just consider, for a few moments, how many other political parties across the globe that incorporate the word “socialism” in their titles that have never been “totalitarian.” When Hannah Arendt wrote about totalitarianism she examined Nazi Germany and Communist USSR. She probably didn’t have enough data on Chinese Communism yet to analyze it – but it also would qualify as totalitarian. She didn’t really touch on Mussolini, but I’ve always understood it to be totalitarian as well. Arendt wrote her book prior to the Cambodian totalitarian mess. There are probably a few other smaller instances that are not occurring to me right now.

    Major totalitarian states and what happened:
    Nazi Germany (Mussolini Italy) – made war on neighbors, rest of the world violently put them down.
    USSR – didn’t make war on neighbors (although didn’t fully release territory that it gained control over in WWII), did get involved in Cold War proxy wars. Fell apart from internal strife. Survived about 75 years.
    Communist China – didn’t make war on neighbors, (did get involved in some local proxy wars,) used state-control strategies to lure western businesses and super-charge its economic development. Has not fallen apart (so far) due to internal conflicts. Loosened many of initial totalitarian policies and strategies, but seemingly has the capability to ramp them back up at a moment’s notice. Is currently saber-rattling, although it is veritably being pressured by the West. Has been around nearly 75 years.
    Cambodia – mostly just made war on its own people, especially the educated. Was conquered from without (including by expats), but was also faltering internally.

    Marx was a 19th century philosopher who focused on economics, specifically, the problems of capitalism. The current globalists are self-proclaimed capitalists. Why the insistence of calling them Marxists, when they barely know who Karl Marx is or what he wrote? (Especially the globalists educated in the USA – the European ones may have actually studied a little bit of Marx’s writings.) Lumping Karl Marx and “Marxism” in with the globalists serves the interest of the globalists – because Marx critiqued the capitalism that has given the globalists their power. As long as the masses fear and hate the writings of Karl Marx they won’t read what he wrote and they have no access to capitalism’s most cogent critic. (I suspect that the fear and hate of the masses towards Karl Marx is actually a projection from the globalists onto the masses.)

    The globalists are capitalist on the economic front and totalitarian on the political front. (Just like the Nazis.)

    And, yes, yes, yes, I understand that I am plumbing the depths of a philosophical fissure here: what I’m really exploring is “what is the definition of capitalism?” Too often, I find that capitalism is overly broadly defined as “free markets.” However, how can “free markets” be a singular, defining aspect of capitalism when so many, many economic systems employ markets, free or in some way controlled by government? Mercantilism had free or partly controlled markets. Slavery had free or partly controlled markets. Feudalism had free or partly controlled markets. Even tribal economies that met up now and again and bartered among themselves had free or partly controlled markets! Just so with capitalism. We lift the rallying cry of “free markets!” – yet, whenever we have truly free markets, then folks shake their heads at what gets vomited up: slave markets in the Libyan failed state, “caveat emptor” with no recourse, Dickensian poverty paired with astronomical wealth. (Remember, Dickensian poverty within the capitalist system was what prompted Marx to turn his philosophical training towards capitalism in the first place.) If we recognize that “free markets” (of some degree or another) are important, but are not a defining feature of capitalism, setting it apart from other economic systems, then what are capitalism’s defining features? What makes capitalism different from mercantilism, from feudalism, from slavery, etc.? Until we can agree on what capitalism IS, and what it IS NOT, it will be very difficult to chart any economic course at all.

    I’m not championing Marx, and suggesting that we bow down to his writings and follow them slavishly. Marx never fully developed what an improved “socialist” economic system would look like. Mostly he just examined capitalism’s problems. I think that most of us, today, can recognize that “really existing capitalism” (not the utopic, idealized capitalism of our dreams) has some big problems. Really existing capitalism has spat us up the powerful globalists, the WEFfers. Really existing capitalism created a hyped pandemic and a toxic cure. Really existing capitalism off-shored US production to China. (That was foolish.) Really existing capitalism creates near-slavery conditions in third world countries, busy making things for first world countries. Really existing capitalism is exploiting the world’s resources and dumping wastes throughout the globe on a scale that reminds me of when my 3 kids, 18 months apart in age, as preschoolers found the box full of packing peanuts that I foolishly left on the floor of the living room for a few minutes longer than I should have. (The living room looked like a snowstorm had hit it.)

    If we are going to improve on our current messed up economic system, then we need to understand our current messed up economic system. That means defining it and being critical of it. That means that we shoot ourselves in the foot when we ignore the 19th century’s largest critic of capitalism. Obviously, there have been some changes in capitalism over the past couple hundred years. Some of Marx’s criticisms may have become obsolete or no longer fully applicable. We have communication technology now that probably dwarfs anything Marx ever thought of – and this technology can be used to promote and/or demote the globalist agenda. There are likely new criticisms of capitalism that we can come up with because we have so much more time and experience with capitalism – and with how governments (whether republican democratic structures, totalitarianism, or any others) intersect with the economic system – much more experience than Marx ever had.

    Call a spade a spade. If it is totalitarian, name it as totalitarian. Political systems are not “Marxist” – that is absurd, Marx is about economics. Yes, I understand that Lenin was trying to use government to establish socialism (the economic system) a la Karl Marx. Lenin utterly, spectacularly failed at his attempt. Stalin took Lenin’s failure, called it a “communist success story” and proceeded with totalitarian governance that saw the economy as subordinate to his totalitarian schemes.

    I’m not interested in establishing socialist economic system a la Karl Marx. I would like to have a “really existing economic system” that respects the earth’s systems, trying to integrate with them. I would like to have a “really existing economic system” that puts individuals and localities in the driver’s seat of the economy, so that choices “for the greater good” are arrived at by sovereign individuals who act in concert by their own free will. (And not with choices made by a small coterie “for the greater good” who are actually serving only their own good and the good of the large economic players who put them in that position.) To move towards a better system we need to understand the problems with our current system. Marx is one piece of that puzzle, and a good jumping off point that helps us understand the historical foundations of our current problematic economic system. Feeling cognitive dissonance, hate, and fear whenever we hear or see the name/word “marx” does not move us towards the goal of reaching a really existing economic system that serves humanity better than the current economic mess we’re mired in.

    End rant.

    #114045
    WES
    Participant

    O.K. I know I am not the brightest bulb in the Euroland neighborhood but faced with such high energy costs this coming winter, might it make more sense to simply shut off the water supply into your home, drain the water pipes, shut off the heat, and then shut off the electricity, using the money saved to pay for your trip south to a warmer place?

    #114046
    SeaBirds
    Participant

    RIP Darya
    May you ‘walk with God’

    #114047
    WES
    Participant

    P.S. Don’t forget to drain all your sink and bath tub “P” traps and your toilet bowls too!

    #114048
    John Day
    Participant

    Russia releases video of suspected Moscow car bomber

    Russia releases video of suspected Moscow car bomber

    #114049
    WES
    Participant

    Phoenixvoice:

    A very excellent rant!

    #114050
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Well my, my, my … I just received a [very long] text from Nancy Pelosi begging for a donation of $14 in this “make-or-break moment” … which is the perfect opportunity to “replace every last extremist Republican” during the upcoming elections. Dear Nancy, me thinks the Democratic party needs to update their database. 😉

    I was a #walkaway following the 2016 Democratic Primary debacle. Literally registered Republican for the first time in my life after that BS (prefer to be Independent, which I registered as for awhile, but NY has closed primaries and if you don’t have a primary affiliation you get shut out, and I hated that).

    I’m embarrassed to admit I voted for Obama in his first round. Caught on within a few months that was a dumb move and voted 3rd party during his second run. And then it was 2020. I voted straight Republican ticket (vote red no matter who … wait, that doesn’t rhyme).

    I’m considering starting a new political party focused on “voting for whichever politician doesn’t look like they were embalmed a decade ago …”

    Hi Oxy. 🙂 Life has sucked pretty awful lately and I don’t have the energy or desire to participate in online debates. However, I do agree with you – Dr D is a major contribution to this message board. I look forward to his posts. They get me thinking. I’m sorry V.Arnold sees it differently. And it’s curious V.A. does since John Day (also a welcome addition) isn’t criticized for doing the same thing? But who am I to question anything.

    Mainly I just don’t get it anymore Whatever it is.

    Oh, and PS [Oxy] … yes, there is more to life than the physical reality. Along the lines of “all that is” no matter what someone names it. Animals know this and abide by it … humans, kinda dumb, struggle with it.

    #114051
    John Day
    Participant

    @PhoenixVoice: Karl Marx wrote about “capitalism”, which was industrial capitalism. Like most 19th century economic writers/analysts, he saw it healing itself into a socialized form, which it was doing, and which was not “other” than capitalism.
    “Fordist capitalism” continued along these same lines, making more profits by meeting the human needs of workers better.

    “Neoliberal financial capitalism” is an economy consuming parasitic model, a cancerous model. It’s not “capitalism” in the historic sense.
    Nobody means what they say.
    Refer to Dr. D about “opening mouth”.

    #114052
    John Day
    Participant

    Welcome back to comments, Upstate NYer!
    (Actually, I was once tarred with that same brush…)

    #114053
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Hi John Day. What solvent easily removes tar without exposing a person to unhealthy toxins? Hmmmm …. 😉

    #114054
    John Day
    Participant

    Pictured harvesting black-eyed peas (African beans, in fact) after 2 weeks of rain in Yoakum
    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/struggling-to-exist

    Battles for existence, for survival, typically become vicious. We may have seen video clips of animals fighting in such struggles. In human affairs, we mostly know abstractions of this.
    We don’t really know it, unless we have been in a war or something similar. Wartime decisions, which may kill hundreds of thousands of people, like the Siege of Leningrad killing 800,000 civilians, are also made abstractly. They discount the vast human suffering and death as necessary for abstract reasons, and the suffering and death are imposed through military bureaucracy channels.
    The bureaucratic channels of finance, which control our life support systems, “economy”, are even more effective at distancing the decisions from the human and environmental outcomes, which directly result.
    People in general can accept the disconnect, and experience the results and the workings as mysterious. This is coupled with the misinterpretations of history, which we are forced to memorize and regurgitate as children, never to look back. When we look back as adults, we often find that the wars were fought for economic reasons, and the people were made to participate through the propaganda-reasons, which we later memorize.

    The global, $US-based, post-WW-2 western financial system is in death-agony, so to speak. At the end of WW-2 the US had an unbombed industrial base and 2/3 of the global gold, so the $US was agreed to be the new gold-standard. Any country holding $US could exchange them for gold. Major European powers had to go off the gold standard after WW-1, which cost more than they could afford to pay back, especially Germany, which got saddled with the debts. The US had made US exports so cheap by devaluing against gold (FDR) that gold came to the US for manufactured goods, as the Great Depression starved and froze cheap American labor.
    That’s not what I was taught, or you, either.
    We did learn about Nixon being forced to default on the gold standard after wars in Asia drained America’s gold, and we learned that he and Kissinger made the “petrodollar” deal with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, with Iran’s Shah also cooperating, which propped the dollar up quite well. “Just sell your oil for only $US and buy Treasury debt and we will protect your family regime”.
    American military economy boomed, funded by the rest of the world buying oil in $US. After the USSR collapsed, the target of the American military beg=came any country wanting to sell oil for other than $US, like Iraq, like Libya. That sustained the regime. IMF and World Bank practices to lend at userous rates to corrupt dictatorships with natural resources kept those people too poor to use their own resources, like oil.

    Like all such regimes, this one is coming to an end, despite a long run. It hollowed out the US economy in the process, and is doing so to the German and EU economies now, acutely. This is reportedly to shore up the US economy, but it’s just cannibalistic financial-colonialism swallowing itself. It seeks to do more of the same, consume real economy, and get rid of people with claims on that economy, like retirees, but these are just temporizing measures. That can has been kicked down the road for decades.

    The rest of the world supports this with real economic output, but wants to stop being bled and also extorted, blockaded and bombed.
    Russia has recovered from the collapse of the corrupt financial system of the USSR despite neoliberal attempts at corpse-picking. Russians understand neoliberal financial parasitism quite well.
    If global financial capitalism could actually parasitize Russia and Russian resources, it could grow again for awhile. The war in Ukraine was supposed to crash the Russian economy and bring Russians to depose Putin and “open their economy” again. It was a hail-Mary-pass.
    Russians widely understand that this is now an existential battle between Russia and all of western financial capitalism. Almost no westerners seem to understand this. It is a pretty threatening concept, that we depend upon a corrupt and erosive economic system, not one that is healthy and productive, that such systems collapse (just in Russia and China, right?), and that our system is crumbling into collapse now.
    Oil “production” being in terminal decline after half of it being pumped and burned is also an important factor, but it just hastens the inevitable. We should not forget it. The world economy will be different. “Recovery” will be a new experiment going forward.
    The rest of the world may well be bitter and want restitution from our bankrupt system. I can only hope that “we” can join whatever the rest of the world patches together.

    #114055
    John Day
    Participant

    You have seen the various links and stories, already.

    #114056
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Duh-mericans won’t know Marx if he kneed them in the nuts.

    All political dialog is dead because words have no meaning that is commonly agreed upon.

    A dozen different definitions of ‘Marxism”, all easily twisted and tortured into Gordian knots of meaninglessness.

    Mines right, your is Wrong!

    People calling Ukraine a democracy where all political parties except the one in power are outlawed.

    WTF

    Words have no common meaning, the modern degeneration and devolution of language worldwide.

    The modern Tower of Babel.

    Bill Clinton and the Meaning of “Is”

    “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

    This bullshit started a while back, the linguistic boil is just now beginning to burst and ooze it’s toxin.

    Lawyers are liars

    It starts with them because where else does law start, in a bakery?

    soph·ist·ry
    [ˈsäfəstrē]
    NOUN

    • the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving

    • a fallacious argument.

    • a method of argument that is seemingly plausible though actually invalid and misleading

    Judges are just lawyers who climbed the greasy pole to the top of the dung heap.

    You can talk about ‘capitalism, marxism, libertarianism, etc until you’re blue in the face.

    It means nothing because the meaning of words has become so corrupt and worthless as to have no meaning to one, total meaning to the next.

    Diplomacy depends on both parties defining the meaning of terms before any deals are done.

    The collective west has NO diplomacy left.

    Just Sophists, PR flacks masquerading as diplomats.

    Judges are cowards and whores, the absolute worst of lawyers, who are already the absolute worst of humanity

    Justice Never begins with them, it is suffocated with the pillow of ‘law’.

    .

    #114057
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    For me, the greatest problem is the generally poor state of genuine education throughout the western world and the utter determination of most people not to become informed.

    I hear utterly ludicrous statements such as: “Jacinda Adern is a communist” so frequently that I despair. I heard it from the guest speaker at an anti-the-system meeting.

    I went to considerable effort to speak with the person concerned and point out that communist originates from commune, as in everyone living together at the same level and no one rising above the rest. I pointed out that Adern is a fascist -as per Mussolini’s definition of the melding of state, corporate and military interests. NZ is a fascist police state, with fake institutions set up to provide the populace with the perception the owners and operators care about them.

    The next time I heard that very same speaker at an anti-the-system meeting I heard him describe Jacinda Adern as a communist, and a worldwide communist agenda!

    FFS!

    He had learned his script and wasn’t going to deviate from it. A bit like the council officers at the local council, who have learned their scripts and are not going to deviate from them, even if those scripts result in absolute catastrophe for the community the council supposedly serves and destroys the lives of the very council employees who promote them!

    FFS!

    On this matter of corporations, as far as I know the first use of the term occurred in London in the twelfth century. The original purpose of a corporation was carry on the activities of a body in the event of the death of a person. Person dies, corporation carries on and replaces that person with another.

    I have no conclusive proof, but understand that Jews were barred from many activities (and literally barred from living in some countries (that’s what the Spanish Inquisition was all about, even though Spain did not exist in its present form until centuries later).

    Now its seems that Jews from Holland managed to establish an enclave in London in the 16th century and by the time of Shakespeare has become somewhat notorious -Merchant of Venice, pound of flesh and all that.

    It is said that they deliberately introduced infected rats into London in order to depopulate it, and that they deliberately started the Fire of London in order to drive out those who resisted their occupation of what was to become The City of London, an untouchable corporation centred on ‘the city’, the square mile around Threadneedle Street and the Bank of England (which was established fraudulently in the mid 1690s).

    Many of us know the story of how Franklin was invited to London (1767 from memory) and was asked why the colonies were doing so well. “That is easy. We issue our own currency, Colonial Scrip.”

    Whammo!

    An edict forbidding the use of Colonial Scrip and a demand for all taxes to be paid in gold and silver (both in short supply in the original colonies)…. depression, poverty, misery. Revolt, War. Independence. An attempt to regain control via an invasion launched from Canada (stolen from the French empire builders).

    Another round of attempt to regain control via the Civil War.

    And then the big trouble started because smart-alec American lawyers managed to get legislation passed giving corporations the same rights as humans to own land and resources. 1880s. About the time the fascists set to murdering socialists and unionists who opposed sweatshop exploitation of workers. Not personally murdering, of course, but contracting the murder to an agency -Pilkington- because that how corporatism works. Provide employment opportunities and money-laundering opportunities to other members of ‘The Big Club’ that you and I are not in.

    Most of us know how the traitor Woodrow Wilson was selected by the American banking cartel as the hit man to destroy the independence of American banking and establish the [fake] Federal Reserve, which is neither Federal nor does it have any reserves! The Creature from Jekyll Island and all that.

    FFS!

    It didn’t take the phony representatives in the so-celled House of Representatives to pass legislation giving corporations more rights than human beings.

    So here we are now, living in fake democracies which are run by corporations, for the benefit of corporations and those who operate corporations or invest in corporations.

    In case you missed it, Bill Still’s wonderful ‘The Money Masters’. Very long but well worth the effort.

    As for NZ being set up as a bolt hole for international scumbags, yes, there is plenty of evidence for that hypothesis.

    #114058
    Farmer McGregor
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice: An excellent rant, indeed! Many thanks. Inspires me to read Marx for myself, having never done so.
    You might appreciate some of the writings of the brilliant Wendell Berry. For example, an excerpt from The Idea Of A Local Economy

    “…the idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. In a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood. This practice must be, in part, charitable, but it must also be economic, and the economic part must be equitable; there is a significant charity in just prices.

    Of course, everything needed locally cannot be produced locally. But a viable neighborhood is a community; and a viable community is made up of neighbors who cherish and protect what they have in common. This is the principle of subsistence. A viable community, like a viable farm, protects its own production capacities. It does not import products that it can produce for itself. And it does not export local products until local needs have been met. The economic products of a viable community are understood either as belonging to the community’s subsistence or as surplus, and only the surplus is considered to be marketable abroad. A community, if it is to be viable, cannot think of producing solely for export, and it cannot permit importers to use cheaper labor and goods from other places to destroy the local capacity to produce goods that are needed locally. In charity, moreover, it must refuse to import goods that are produced at the cost of human or ecological degradation elsewhere. This principle applies not just to localities, but to regions and nations as well.

    The principles of neighborhood and subsistence will be disparaged by the globalists as “protectionism” — and that is exactly what it is. It is a protectionism that is just and sound, because it protects local producers and is the best assurance of adequate supplies to local consumers…

    #114059
    Farmer McGregor
    Participant

    @upstateNYer I want to second @John Day in welcoming you back. I too have appreciated your perspective.
    BTW, any fat, like lard or peanut oil, will slowly melt away tar without harming the victim!

    #114060
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Today’s numbers:

    Brent oil up almost 4% to just over $100 a barrel

    US 10YT 3.05%

    Share markets mostly down

    Major news from Russia:

    Losses of Ukrainian military lives and armoured vehicles are as per the usual daily tally. Several more villages have been liberated by Russian forces, and further long range attacks have been made by Ukraine on civilian areas, one probably targeting an individual who was known to be travelling to a particular location..

    Legislation is in progress to recognise Ukraine as a terrorist state. Likely to be passed in the next two days.

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