John Day
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Ilargi, Amigo…
I’ve consistently appreciated your insights and analysis since spring 2008, when a friend advised me to take a look.
Why do people who disagree with you still read, and write to you? Are they a little uncertain of the beliefs of their church? Inwardly questioning?If you can’t please everyone, then you’ve got to please yourself.”
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/losing-war-games.html
Hey, LOOK, Mexico has a Good President! (“Me canso ganso”)
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s first 100 days in office have combined a compulsive shedding of presidential trappings with a dizzying array of policy initiatives, and a series of missteps haven’t even dented his soaring approval ratings.
Lopez Obrador has answered more questions from the press, flown in more economy-class flights, posed for more selfies with admiring citizens and visited more genuinely risky areas with little or no security than several combined decades of his predecessors. He’s also surprised many by maintaining a cordial relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, helping contain Central American migrant caravans while resisting U.S. efforts to oust the leftist government of Venezuela.
https://apnews.com/e94737e30a5a49589fa9b5159070fdbfVenezuela is getting electricity back to places little by little.
President Nicolas Maduro gave a televised address on Tuesday evening, offering more details about the alleged attack against the country’s electrical infrastructure. According to Maduro, both the computerized system in the Guri Dam, on Thursday afternoon, and the central electrical “brain” in Caracas, on Saturday morning, suffered cyber attacks, while recovery was delayed by physical attacks against transmission lines and electrical substations...
Self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido has blamed the electricity crisis on government mismanagement and corruption, dismissing the government’s cyber attack thesis on the grounds that the system is analog, and attributing the national outage to a lack of qualified personnel needed to reactivate the grid. However, these claims have been called into questionby people with knowledge of the system.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14377China says it is ready to help Venezuela to restore its power grid. The South American country suffered a five-day blackout, with Caracas accusing Washington of cyber “sabotage.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Beijing had noted reports that the power grid had gone down due to a hacking attack.
“China is deeply concerned about this,” Lu said, adding that Beijing “hopes that the Venezuelan side can discover the reason for this issue as soon as possible and resume normal power supply and social order.
https://www.rt.com/business/453697-china-venezuela-electricity-help/She has advanced Media Gladiator Skills already. Where will she go in the power structure? Where will the power structure go?
On the issue of Wells Fargo’s relationship with the private prison industry and the Trump administration’s child detention policy, Ocasio-Cortez asked sharply: “Mr. Sloan, why was the bank involved in the caging of children?” https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/12/watch-ocasio-cortez-grills-wells-fargo-ceo-over-profiting-caging-children-andhttp://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/poised.html
The Golan is part of Syria, but Israel has based most of Israeli agriculture on that water for the past 50 years, and now there is found to be oil and gas…Syria has notified Israel through United Nations diplomatic channels that it is prepared to go to war if Israel does not leave the Golan Heights.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad reportedly sent the message through the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), Christine Lund, this past week, according to a World Israel News report and later picked up other major Israeli sources, including The Jerusalem Post. “Syria will attack Israel if it does not leave the Golan Heights,” Mikdad told the UN representative.
Mikdad further warned Lund that Syria will respond with force should Israel continue its attacks on Syria, which have occurred more than a dozen times over the past year, but which seem to have recently paused following Russia’s announced delivery of the advanced S-300 anti-air missile defense system to Damascus late last year.
“We will not hesitate to confront Israel,” Syria’s Mekdad said. “We are also not scared away by its [Israel’s] supporters who are helping to perpetuate the occupation of the Golan,” he added.
Damascus’ firm warning appears a response to a controversial bill recently under renewed consideration by US Congress, co-sponsored by Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, and Democratic Rep. Mike Gallagher, which aims to give formal US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights region.
Meanwhile, multiple Israeli political leaders have responded to Syria’s historic claim to the Israeli-occupied Golan and willingness to go to war over it. While speaking on a visit to the Golan Heights, Blue and White party politicians Gabi Ashkenazi, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya’alon vowed, “It is ours and it will stay ours” — certainly a dominant sentiment that cuts across Israeli party lines.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-10/syria-tells-israel-it-will-attack-unless-israeli-forces-leave-golan-heights”Two to Tango” is a quorum…
Well informed sources say that “it all depends on the direction the Israeli elections will take. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimates his chances are high enough to win a second term, then he will not venture any time soon into a new confrontation with Syria and its allies. The date of the next battle will be postponed. But, if he believes he will lose the election, then the possibility of his initiating a battle becomes very high. A serious battle between Israel on one hand and Syria and Iran on the other would be sufficient enough to postpone the elections. Netanyahu doesn’t have many choices: either he wins the election and postpones the corruption court case against him, or he goes to jail”.Syria preparing its missiles for the next battle with Israel
Israel hammers Gaza for 3rd night in ‘vigorous response’ ordered by Netanyahu
https://www.rt.com/news/453444-israel-strikes-gaza-attacks/Electrical systems in Venezuela have been targeted by another cyberattack, President Nicholas Maduro has said. Caracas has accused the US of “sabotage”, while US officials blame local corruption and mismanagement for the blackout.
After a failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant left much of the country without power on Thursday night, Venezuelan authorities managed to restore power to “many parts” of the country. However, the country’s grid took another hammering on Saturday, with many of the restored systems knocked out once again, the country’s embattled president said.
According to Maduro, the systems had been nearly 70 percent restored when “we received another attack, of a cybernetic nature, at midday… that disturbed the reconnection process and knocked out everything that had been achieved until noon.”
https://www.rt.com/news/453434-venezuela-maduro-cyberattack-power-grid/http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/blame-dead-victims.html
Deeply Embarrassing to the Deep State, Putin’s doing, again…
Vovan and Lexus, Russian telephone pranksters known for their trolling of politicians from around the world, have struck again, targeting US special representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams to find out more about the US-backed effort to unseat that country’s legitimate government. Sputnik got ahold of the full audio from the talks.
Posing as Swiss President Ueli Maurer, who also serves as the country’s finance minister, the pranksters contacted Abrams on two occasions – in mid-February and early March, speaking to him for over 23 minutes about Swiss policy on the ongoing effort to freeze the Venezuelan government’s assets as part of broader plans to replace President Nicolas Maduro with US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido.
https://sputniknews.com/latam/201903061073002069-abrams-full-interview-audio/Stopping Venezuela’s heart… This is like bombing cities. Even the rich Venezuelan’s get hurt. This will reduce their support for the US.
A massive power outage at the Guri Dam in Venezuela caused 18 of the country’s 23 states to go dark on Thursday, bringing life to a halt. Caracas has alleged it’s the work of Washington, where key politicos seemed to know about the attack almost as it happened. An activist told Sputnik it’s the “first act in a new play” of regime change...
Venezuelan Vice President Dulcy Rodriguez pointed the finger firmly at Washington, which since January 23 has backed the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, a parliamentarian named Juan Guaido, as the legitimate leader of the country, seeking Maduro’s ouster. She noted that only three minutes after the blackout began, US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted about it, gloating that the “Maduro regime is a complete disaster.”
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201903091073076691-US-Attack-Venezuelan-Power-Grid-First-Act-New-Play/I’ve been watching the story of the 40 tons of stolen Syrian gold being accepted by US Special Forces, to give ISIS safe-passage out of their tomb. The Syrian press has now broached the subject of US theft of Syrian gold, which it obviously is. Gold is worth stealing from enemies of the dollar.
The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, “Gold deal between United States and Daesh” (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, “US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located.”
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/08/syria-accuses-us-stole-40-tons-of-its-gold.html“Narrative Control Slips” http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/narrative-control-slips.html
‘Anti-Semitism’ Is a Cover for Censorship, Finian Cunningham (Wow! Brilliantly simple, Thanks Eleni)
Whether against the Yellow Vests, or US congressmen or UK politicians, the accusation is meant to stop thought
https://russia-insider.com/en/anti-semitism-cover-censorship/ri26399Democratic party patricians work to assure Trump re-election in 2020 by rigidly enforcing status quo within “their” party. Moon of Alabama.
The unwillingness of the Democrats to have real political discussion is also visible in their attempt to subdue the new young House members who have come up with real new proposals and ideas. The use of the Zionist lobby AIPAC and false claims of ‘anti-semitism’ against them is especially outrageous:
When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.
Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a longtime activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.
On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists “push for allegiance to a foreign country,” they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.
‘Anti-semitism’, in the false sense of AIPAC and the Democratic leadership bound to it, is anything that is not 100% in support of the racist state of Israel and the Zionism ideology.
The resolution is aimed at House member Ilhan Omar who suggested that such automatic dual loyalty is a problem. It also proves that she is right:
Ilhan Omar @IlhanMN – 20:01 utc – 3 Mar 2019
I am told everyday that I am anti-American if I am not pro-Israel. I find that to be problematic and I am not alone. I just happen to be willing to speak up on it and open myself to attacks.
Ilhan Omar will not be the only one to be targeted like that. The Lobby is aiming at two more:
In Florida, Mr. Fiske said it was time for “pro-Jewish voices to speak up” about Ms. Omar and two other Democratic freshmen who have been critical of Israel: Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
And he offered a prediction: “They are three people who, in my opinion, will not be around in several years.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/democrats-take-two-more-step-to-clear-the-way-for-trumps-reelection.html#moreNarrative slipping, slipping, slipping…
Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would end the nearly two-decade-long Afghanistan War.
The 2019 American Forces Going Home After Noble Service Act would have the United States declare victory in Afghanistan and set a 45-day deadline for a plan to withdraw all U.S. forces within a year, according to a statement accompanying the bill’s text.
It would also set a “framework for political reconciliation to be implemented by Afghans.”
Additionally, the legislation would require the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to be repealed at the end of the withdrawal.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/432681-paul-udall-introduce-bill-to-end-afghanistan-warHelen of DesTroy is an unattributed writer for RT, whose stuff you see every day, and which stories you can catch up on weekly, collected on her blog. Here is a long essay, for people who already pay plenty of attention, about narrative control by the deep state. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Effect
http://helenofdestroy.com/index.php/74-the-sorcerer-s-apprentice-effect
Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
Lazy propaganda is largely to blame for the lapse in narrative superiority. The same tawdry psy-ops are recycled again and again, as we see now in Venezuela, where Iran-Contra felon and smirking genocide enthusiast Elliott Abrams has been wheeled out of cold storage to work his death-squad magic on a population we’ve already tried and failed to hypnotize with the promises of neoliberalism. Just as the one-two punch of fake Iranian revolutions made the fatal error of running the same script twice in most “protesters’” lifetimes, the attempt to overthrow Maduro comes less than two decades after the US-backed effort to overthrow Chavez – also led by Abrams – and it’s not fooling anyone. It doesn’t help that the total nobody they picked to lead the charge was a stranger to 80% of all Venezuelans, or that John Bolton couldn’t even keep from blurting out the truth – that this entire pantomime of humanitarian intervention is being conducted to pillage Venezuela’s sweet, sweet oil, which has the gall to sit beneath one of the last socialist holdouts in the western hemisphere.Venezuela comes after Libya. It’s not doing like Libya did… http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/human-factors.html
Juan Guaidó, the random guy who claims to be ‘interim president’ of Venezuela, just arrived back in Caracas. He was not arrested. It seems that President Maduro’s strategy is to simply ignore Guaidó and to wait until the guy campaign runs out of steam…
Maduro can sit this out. Guaidó’s claims to the presidency are clearly illegal. He has failed to gain support at every step of his way. The army stands strongly behind the government. No human waves appeared to carry the ‘humanitarian aid’ across the border. The opposition does not know what to do next.
All neighboring countries spoke out against a military intervention. Russia and China will prevent negative steps at the UN. While the U.S. wages an economic siege against the country, others are willing to help. Sanctions alone hardly ever bring a government down.
Maduro can simply let Guaidó clown around in Caracas or wherever he wants to go. The guy seems unable to deliver results. The longer his campaign takes the less support will he have. In a few month the whole thing may well fizzle out.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/venezuela-random-guyaid%C3%B3-returns-to-be-ignored.html#moreWhy the Venezuelan army didn’t defect.
The Venezuelan military remembers things like Salvador Allende being fairly elected and then overthrown, or the Contras mass murdering civilians. They know that this type of behavior doesn’t end when the US wins. They know Pinochet threw labor leaders, socialists, and anyone who opposed his trash neoliberalism from helicopters after taking power. They know the Contras and other death squads were bayoneting toddlers to prove a point to scared farmers, often while not even actually engaging whatever force they were ostensibly fighting even a single time.
https://geopoliticsalert.com/venezuelan-military-coupRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed in a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday that Moscow is ready for talks with Washington on Venezuela, but only in strict compliance with the principles of the United Nations Charter, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The conversation, held at the US request, focused on the Venezuela crisis, the ministry said.
“In connection with Washington’s proposal to hold bilateral consultations on Venezuela, it was pointed out that we were ready for them but only in strict accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter, since only the people of Venezuela have the right to determine their future,” the foreign ministry said.http://tass.com/politics/1047204@ Zerosum
“Key changes are needed in: land ownership and rights of rentiers and rights of serfs”
Yep, but first, somebody has to survive on the production, huh?
Further minimalism…
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/pedal-there.html
Riding a bicycle is really energy efficient. It does require the existence of roads to be that efficient, which is a huge assumption. They currently exist.
In the days before I had a car I carried some really long lumber strapped to my bike a couple of times, and pretty far, 5-10 miles. Not fun in traffic…
When we bike toured as a family in Europe and New Zealand, we carried our own stuff on our bikes from hostel to hostel. That is really efficient, but hard, and there have to be hostels. We rarely met folks camping that way, first a German family, then an Austrian man and a family from Tasmania.
The folks who bike camped were very impressive, indeed, carrying much heavier loads than we were. It placed them upon a pedastal of nearly super-human endeavor in our estimation.
That’s good context. It’s a really advanced level. I bike camped some in Germany in summer of 1981, and gave up on it pretty quickly after everything got wet. That’s the problem with tent camping, it’s a fair weather activity.
That’s not quite the end of that thought, though…This guy made a bike camping trailer for $150 and what looks like a couple of years of work, with this being the second project. It is a really refined and well engineered design, an exercise in using the least which works well, and everything working together. It is waterproof, well insulated, aerodynamic, very light and includes the essential functionality for surviving bad weather and sleeping restfully, anywhere. He largely used plastic political campaign signs and duct tape for the outer shell, and aluminized bubble insulation inside, on a 1″ X 2″ wood frame, supporting more of that plastic and a foam mattress. Note that is is low enough to sit in the end with feet comfortably on the ground, chair height.
https://offgridquest.com/tinyhouse/150-bike-camper-diyAre you already “prepping”? How about just growing some vegetables?
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/03/proactively-changing.html
The Future (if any) is Rural.
Whether because we can no longer afford the damage caused by burning fossil hydrocarbons or because they are a nonrenewable resource, the era of oil, coal, and natural gas will come to an end in the foreseeable future. Mass urbanization has been made possible by the prodigious exploitation of fossil fuels. Cities have always been wholly reliant on the capacity of rural areas to produce basic goods, most importantly food. But due to the concentrated energy in oil, with its ability to power heavy equipment and transport goods over long distances, cities have been able to reach the scale they do today by drawing support from a land base often several hundred times their own area.[ii] …
In anthropological terms, as we have less energy available, our society will become less complex, characterized by fewer monetary transactions and an increase in subsistence and informal economies. Progressively less energy from fossil fuels will require greater labor inputs and less reliance on mechanization over time. As energy use in countries like the U.S. declines over the coming decades, rural areas will repopulate, and lifestyles may resemble those in countries that never had access to vast energy supplies (Figure 3). [vi] …
Food, its scarcity, the desire and opportunity to grow it, and the need to do it in ways that are appropriate to place and circumstance, will drive demographic shifts this century. People with life experiences and training suited for the urban environment are going to need a rapid education on what it takes to live off the land, and so-called conventional farmers and ranchers will have a steep learning curve to adopt more frugal and sustainable methods. But farmers and ranchers are not the only ones who need help adjusting to 21st century pressures. A society that actively supports them is also crucial to their success...
Navigating energy descent will likely require that we take the best of liberal world views—like openness to ideas, enthusiasm for change, and tolerance of differences—and at the same time be deeply conservative—valuing interpersonal relationships, demanding respect and civility when those are under threat, and rediscovering a land ethic that resets social norms to help us restore and protect the places we love.The Future is Rural: The Unexpected Consequence of Energy Descent
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/looking-for-friend.html
Whoa! This is recent history of SOUTH KOREA.
Nobody knows how many innocent Koreans were accused as “Reds” and killed, imprisoned and tortured by the conservative governments. But several millions could have been the victim. Under the government of Rhee Syngnman, more than 200,000 innocent Koreans were killed in the areas of Jeju, Yosu and Soonchon. The government accused these poor victims for being “communists”, “Reds”, “PPal- gaing-ie” Among the victims were children and old people who had nothing to do with ideology.
General Chun Doo-hwan had his share of killing the people. In 18th of May, 1980, the citizens of Gwang-ju organized a street demonstration to protest the Chun’s dictatorship. Chun mobilized highly trained air-born battalion and killed at least 1,000 citizens with tanks and helicopters. A great number of citizens were wounded. Moreover, Chun set up, during his presidency (1980-1987), a massive killing field in the Sancheong Education School; about 100,000 young people were massacred for not supporting Chun’s government policies and some other dubious reasons.
The true reason behind these massacres was to silence the voice of opposition against the corruption and the violation of human rights committed by the conservatives. These people were falsely condemned as “Reds” or “being friendly with North Korea” (Chin-book). In other words, the existence of North-South tension provided a good reason to oppress the people.The Conservatives, “Nam-Nam Friction” and Nuclear Crisis in South Korea
Can’t get something for nothing. Kim Jong Un saw what happened to Gaddafi.
President Trump had apparently hoped that the pomp and circumstance of another historic summit would soften Kim Jong Un up. But despite all the talk about North Korea being “ready to denuclearize” and both leaders hyping up the possibility that a deal would be struck, alas, no deal was forthcoming, and Trump is now headed back to Washington empty handed.
Talks between the two world leaders broke down Thursday afternoon as President Trump abruptly walked away from the table and canceled a planned lunch and signing ceremony (it’s still not clear what the two leaders had hoped to sign, though scheduling the ceremony before a deal had been struck did seem risky). With the talks in disarray, Trump moved up a news conference where he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took questions from the press.
Trump told reporters that the talks collapsed after the North refused to yield from its demand that the US completely remove all of the U.S.-led international sanctions – including the sanctions approved by the UN security council – in exchange for the shuttering of the North’s Yongbyon nuclear facility. Trump and Pompeo refused to make a deal without the North committing to giving up its secretive nuclear facilities outside Yongbyon, as well as its missile and warheads.
According to Trump, the talks ended amicably enough, with a commitment to keep the talks alive, and Kim also promised that he would not resume nuclear and missile tests – the basis for the detente between the two countries – and Trump said he would take Kim at his word.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-28/sometimes-you-have-walk-hanoi-summit-collapses-trump-rebuffs-demands-sanctionsMoon of Alabama:
The U.S. demanded the destruction of Yongbyon and of other complexes before any change in the sanction regime. North Korea insisted on following the sequencingthat was agreed upon during the first summit. The joint statement by the two leaders signed in June 2018 defined four clearly sequenced steps:
President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:
The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula
The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Eight month later new relations in form of the opening of embassies or a lifting of sanctions were not established. No peace treaty was signed. North Korea destroyed nuclear testing tunnels and a missile test stand. Some POW/MIA remains have been repatriated. But the U.S. side has taken no steps that could be seen as fulfilling its commitments.
Since the first summit Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. media have done their best to ignore the sequencing. North Korea on the other side has insisted on it again and again. It made absolutely clear that it would not budge on the issue. In his New Year speech the chairman emphasized:
If the US responds to our proactive, prior efforts with trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions, bilateral relations will develop wonderfully at a fast pace through the process of taking more definite and epochal measures.
We have no intention to be obsessed with and keep up the unsavoury past relationship between the two countries, but are ready to fix it as early as possible and work to forge a new relationship in line with the aspirations of the two peoples and the requirements of the developing times.
I am ready to meet the US president again anytime, and will make efforts to obtain without fail results which can be welcomed by the international community.
But if the United States does not keep the promise it made in the eyes of the world, and out of miscalculation of our people’s patience, it attempts to unilaterally enforce something upon us and persists in imposing sanctions and pressure against our Republic, we may be compelled to find a new way for defending the sovereignty of the country and the supreme interests of the state and for achieving peace and stability of the Korean peninsula.
The “corresponding measures” the U.S. promised will have to come first before North Korea gives up more of its nuclear infrastructure.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/02/trump-sticks-to-sanctions-us-north-korea-summit-fails.html#morePillage Venezuela http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/pillage-venezuela.html
Is Marco a Sadist? He even tweeted the picture of Gaddafi being murdered.
It appears Rubio, disappointed that weekend events didn’t escalate further beyond isolated border crossing clashes, must be venting his frustrations by reminiscing about the “good ole days” of Libya and Syria regime change wars.
As As’ad AbuKhalil, a professor of Middle East history at California State University-Stanislaus points out, “The esteemed senator from Florida is calling for the anal rape and murder of Maduro.”
Perhaps a minor question that remains is: will Twitter make Rubio delete a tweet threatening the extra judicial killing of a head of state?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-24/marco-rubio-tweets-thinly-veiled-death-threat-maduroThe Washington Post has stealth-edited all mention of Richard Branson’s Venezuela aid concert in Cucuta, Colombia, after the paper originally claimed that the event “drew a crowd of more than 200,000 people Friday.” …
According to the Google map scale the field’s northern edge is some 125 meters wide. The crowd was standing at the northern end of the field at a depth of about 50 meters. The density of the static crowd was low to medium with on average 2 to 3 people per square meter.
125m * 50m = 6,250 m2 * 2.5 people/m2 = 15,625 people
One may generously add a count of one or two thousand for the people mingling around in the back of the public area. In total there may have been up to 18,000, but certainly no more than 20,000 people at the concert. -Moon of Alabama
In short, Fake News.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-24/wapo-secretly-deletes-bransons-venezuela-concert-article-after-fake-attendanceMoon of Alabama and RT have video of the pro-Guaido thugs lighting some “aid” trucks on fire. None of it got into Venezuela.
https://www.rt.com/news/452326-venezuela-us-aid-truck-protesters/Eleni T, an Athenian of ancient family, has translated to English, the essay by a French Colonel, commander of artillery of NATO coalition forces in Syria, which was referenced in the Moon of Alabama article I posted 2/20/19. In it, the olonel assesses the coalition strategy and tactics, and how they played out with the political forces at work with the American President and his campaign promises.
This essay has ceased to be available online, but I copy what she has sent me, with thanks to Eleni and to Colonel François-Régis Legrier
Battle of Hajin: tactical victory, strategic defeat?
Colonel François-Régis Legrier
Head of the 68th Artillery Regiment of Africa. commanding officer Wagram Task Force Levant from October 2018 to February 2019.
Author of: If you want peace, prepare the war for Via Romana Publishing.
Putin is more macho, bigger hands, IMHO.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/war-for-survival.htmlAt least the Empire is winning the Trade-War…
Chinese state-run newspaper the Global Times warned – or perhaps threatened – late Tuesday that failed trade negotiations would have dire consequences for global stocks.
The threat of a market catastrophe has pigeonholed the US into striking a deal with Beijing, the report suggests although many are confident that the situation is flipped…
Why China’s implicit threat? Perhaps because, as Shard’s Bill Blain noted earlier today, at least in the context of its economy, China is already losing the trade war, and therefore has little to lose by escalating the war of words. This is what Blain said overnight:
The recent data highlights the Chinese economy may be slowing faster than XI can maintain his grip – he’s weaker than ever before. (Raising one scenario threat of a long-drawn out period of uncertainty if he is marginalised/deposed and a power struggle follows. That could be very destabilising and disruptive for the Occidental economies desperate to sell the China!)
We reckon XI knows he’s out of time and has to settle – handing Trump a critical victory. Long-term the US-China tech-war is difficult to call. Trump is determined to garner payback for China IP theft, and its difficult to imagine the rest of Asia adopting Chinese tech systems if they lose the current trade war to the US. However, you can’t just undo years of China tech development. My techy contacts tell me Huawai’s boasts about the US’ inability to close them is partial bluff and bluster – it’s not as advanced or robust as it claims, plus the US is going to insist on wrecking it – which could prove another long-term friction point.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-20/new-us-tariffs-china-will-be-catastrophic-global-stocks-reportWar of the Worlds… A lot has happened on this field of battle since this prescient October 2018 article was penned.
Today America is locked in a struggle for high-tech supremacy with China. The battlefields range from lasers, hypersonic weaponry, and advanced unmanned systems for the military, to artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computers and even driverless cars in the civilian sector. One is transparently clear: whoever wins this struggle will become the dominant superpower in the 21st century; and one of the most decisive contests will be over 5G wireless.
Fifth-generation or 5G technology is much more than the future of global telecommunications, offering more bandwidth than anyone ever imagined (think of downloading entire movies in a few seconds) and enough to make the Internet of Things a daily reality. The rollout of 5G also demands billions of dollars to install the fiber-optic networks needed for these high-capacity systems, and billions more to operate them. Which companies and which countries design and invest in this new infrastructure, will have a hefty say in not only how 5-G transmits information, but also how others are to access the system.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/10/17/the-war-for-the-worlds-5g-future/#7c1b2cb91fe55G is a poisoned chalice. These frequencies are weaponized by the US military to beam at crowds, making them flee in pain.
Samsung and telecom company Verizon made a joint announcement on Monday that was supposed to be unequivocally exciting news: the blazing-fast fifth generation wireless cellular network — known as 5G — is slated to be more accessible in the United States in the first half of next year (2019).
Yet public health experts, professors, and watchdog groups are increasingly concerned about the untested aspects that this next-gen cell network requires — including more cell towers and a constant chorus of higher-energy photons streaming through human bodies and dwellings.
https://www.salon.com/2018/12/03/why-public-health-experts-are-worried-about-5g-the-next-generation-of-cell-network/
https://healthfreedomidaho.org/5g-military-weaponAnd furthermore…
Nick Sandmnn (Not Arch-Villain Sandman from Batman) is perhaps best covered today on RT, from reporter Helen of DesTroy (who is not credited on the articles she does for RT, but…)
https://www.rt.com/usa/451880-washington-post-covington-lawsuit/
By implying that Sandmann “engaged in acts of racism by ‘swarming’ Phillips, ‘blocking’ his exit away from the students, and otherwise engaging in racist misconduct,” the Post “fanned the flames of the social media mob into a mainstream media frenzy,” compounding the threats and bullying directed at the teen, while its failure to fact-check – the unedited video was freely available at the time of publication – confirms its “utter and knowing disregard for the truth.”I’ve had extended opportunities, while driving to Yoakum and back, and gardening there, to consider our predicament as stewards of life on Earth.
The machine that supports our lives grinds forward to burn all of the coal and oil as quickly as possible, killing us in the process.
It’s a conundrum, but it’s not insoluble.
The solution has been practiced, for thousands of years, in many different parts of our world, and it arose independently.
The core of the solution is subsistence farming the same farms for generation after generation, improving and adapting the methods and techniques and soil, and passing down the wisdom.
If people somehow survive the next 50 years, it will be groups somewhere out there doing this.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/get-there-from-here.htmlRob Uri writes an excellent article detailing how the system, itself assures this problem we have. No solution can arise from it, or be allowed by it.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the nation’s forests were clear-cut from coast to coast in the mid-late nineteenth century. Photographs from the era show denuded landscapes— no trees, no animals, and streams still poisoned from the runoff in the present, for as far as the eye can see. The scars from nineteenth and twentieth century strip mining in Pennsylvania draw direct geographical and historical lines to the mountaintop removal that is taking place in West Virginia today…
These natural resources produced the bounty of American capitalism every bit as much as the manufacturing prowess of the Second Industrial Revolution. In turn, this combination of low-cost resources, manufacturing prowess and natural borders (the oceans) produced the military might that defines America in the present. The logic of weapons and weaponry pervades American capitalism. Death and destruction, domination and control, are what America does…
The relevance for a Green New Deal is that confronting extractive and polluting industries is to confront both ‘private’ interests and the American state. Representatives of the state perceive these industries to be extensions of state power. Again, the U.S. Army explains the relationship here. Placing restrictions on multinational corporations and Wall Street is to reduce state power, goes the logic. And the belief is that the relationship is symbiotic— what benefits one, benefits the other.
There is a long history here. General Smedley Butler described his role leading U.S. military incursions abroad as a ‘gangster for capitalism.’ Economic Hitman John Perkins brought this corporate-state relation into the twenty-first century as coup-engineer for corporate interests…
Democrats claim that the dividing line for environmental resolution is between belief in climate change and unbelief. But the actual result is (1) they believe and (2) they perpetuate the problem.Ilhn Omer gets support from her detractors from Caitlin Johnstone.
May both live long and prosper!US warmongering is the most aggressively protected part of the establishment narrative matrix, because US warmongering is the glue that holds the unipolar empire together. Without it, our rulers cannot rule, so you’ll see imperial lackeys fiercely attacking anyone who draws attention to America’s bloodbaths around the world, even if they are good servants of the empire in other areas.
The difficulty for our rulers, though, is that warmongering is a very difficult thing to paint a pretty picture of, especially with our newfound ability to quickly share ideas and information around the globe. I mean, look at Elliott Abrams. Seriously, just watch him talk. That demonic grimace is the prettiest face they could find to put on their Venezuela agenda. I find that very encouraging.
The reason they work so hard to manufacture our consent for warmongering agendas is because they need that consent. They wouldn’t propagandize us so aggressively if they didn’t need us all trusting them and believing their stories, so the best way to fight establishment warmongering is to circulate disbelief in their stories. Whenever you see someone like Ilhan Omar drawing attention to the gaping plot holes in agendas like regime change interventionism in Venezuela, go ahead and help draw attention to it.“Stamping Out Insects”
Happy Valentine’s Day to Ilhan Omar!
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/stamping-out-insects.htmlI’m in the “Amen-corner” again this morning. Here is something instructive I excerpted bout capitalist propaganda in America, a difficult job, which we should better appreciate…
While the de jure role of state sponsored propaganda is to convince a population to adopt a certain line of thinking on the issues of the day, the de fato function of state sponsored propaganda is rather different. In a society in which even a sizeable minority of the public are capable of critical thinking, few will immediately believe everything they are told, even if they can’t quite put their figure on a specific point of contention.
Because of that, in educated societies as the Soviet Union’s was, state propaganda serves a purpose of alerting people as to what they are forbidden to disagree with in public. In other words, if the official state line as delivered through state sanctioned newspapers, radio and television is that the economy is booming, people are being paid well and on time and that the new housing stock is superior to any other in the world – the authors of such propaganda do not expect those who are under-paid, living in mediocre housing and unable to elevate themselves into a higher living standard, to believe the self-evident nonsense that forms the core of the propaganda…
But while the USSR’s old adversary, the United States is having its own problems with a less and less free market that is overly taxed, overly regulated, back in love with tariffs and all at the mercy of an inflation happy yet unaccountable Federal Reserve, there is alas a giant free speech problem, one that is all the worse in America’s European allied states who don’t even bother to pretend to have something akin to America’s constitutional first amendment…
But while Soviet propaganda worked on a linear business model, today’s American and European propaganda machine works on a triangular model. At the top of the triangle is big business. At the bottom two points of the triangle are government and media – both of which want the help of big businesses in order to enrich themselves…
Thus, the American and European media constantly send messages that it is impermissible to have an opinion contrary to the standard line on the following issues: invading other people’s nations in the name of “human rights”, climate change being the fault of anyone with a car, the wonders of narcotics and pornography, why strict education is somehow evil and why fiat currencies are just swell.
Thus, just as Soviet propaganda had slogans that insulted the intelligence of the ordinary person like “brotherhood of nations” in order to keep people from questioning why certain investments were going to far off hinterlands while Russia’s heartlands were being economically destroyed, so too do western propagandists use terms like “fact checking” to imply that anyone who disagrees with a corporate (and hence government) sanctioned “fact” is a deceitful liar that should be shunned, shamed and insulted as such. While terms like “fact checking” are mostly used by social elites who author the propaganda, ordinary people tend to use the phrase “politically incorrect” to signal to their fellow man what cannot be said under fear of social and economic punishment.
https://eurasiafuture.com/2019/02/10/understanding-stage-propaganda-from-the-ussr-to-the-usa/Here is a snippet from today’s offering, Making America Gape Again, inspired by a bumper sticker for Trump that I saw riding my bike home from work yesterday afternoon.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/making-america-gape-again.htmlCaitlin Johnstone,
Well, now we all know what happens when a public official criticizes AIPAC. And of course, that was the whole idea.
Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has published an apology for making self-evident observations about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an immensely influential lobbying firm which, like all lobbying firms, works to influence government policy toward a specific agenda, in this case the interests of the Israeli government. She issued the apology after hours upon hours of shrill, hysterical shrieking accusations of antisemitism from the entire establishment political-media class…
This wasn’t a random outburst, it was a political means toward political ends. This fact-free smear will be used to try and kill Omar’s re-election bid, and the damage that has been done to her reputation will serve as a head on a spike to deter any other would-be AIPAC critics on Capitol Hill in the future...
For the last two years the mainstream liberal establishment has been endlessly bleating about the need to elevate women of color to positions of leadership; then the first Black Muslim and first Somali American ever to get elected to Congress begins taking the leadership for which she was elected, and it turns out they actually meant they just wanted women with dark skin who will advance the status quo of the white imperialist patriarchy.Why The Entire Political-Media Class Just Tried To End Ilhan Omar’s Career
IN 2005, STEVEN Rosen, then a senior official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, sat down for dinner with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, then of the New Yorker. “You see this napkin?” Rosen asked Goldberg. “In twenty-four hours, [AIPAC] could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/12/there-is-a-taboo-against-criticizing-aipac-and-ilhan-omar-just-destroyed-it/Today’s offering, Petrobuck Waterloo, opens with more global currency trade extraction insights http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/petrobuck-waterloo.html
Michael Hudson, who has the clearest views of international flows of finance and goods, of any economist I have read, looks at the American (“Super Imperialist”) relationship with Venezuela.
There is no way that’s Chavez and Maduro could have pursued a pro-Venezuelan policy aimed at achieving economic independence without inciting fury, subversion and sanctions from the United States. American foreign policy remains as focused on oil as it was when it invaded Iraq under Dick Cheney’s regime. U.S. policy is to treat Venezuela as an extension of the U.S. economy, running a trade surplus in oil to spend in the United States or transfer its savings to U.S. banks.
By imposing sanctions that prevent Venezuela from gaining access to its U.S. bank deposits and the assets of its state-owned Citco, the United States is making it impossible for Venezuela to pay its foreign debt. This is forcing it into default, which U.S. diplomats hope to use as an excuse to foreclose on Venezuela’s oil resources and seize its foreign assets much as Paul Singer’s hedge fund sought to do with Argentina’s foreign assets.
Just as U.S. policy under Kissinger was to make Chile’s “economy scream,” so the U.S. is following the same path against Venezuela. It is using that country as a “demonstration effect” to warn other countries not to act in their self-interest in any way that prevents their economic surplus from being siphoned off by U.S. investors.@Ilargi, Yep, John Ward is a Limey, living in France now, so paying a lot of attention to both populist waves. He used to have a line in one of the big UK papers, before the management changed or something.
It’s starting to look like a cat-fight between the older, meaner, Pelosi, and the younger, quicker, more energetic Ocasio-Cortez.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-07/pelosi-mocks-ocasio-cortez-green-new-dealJohn Ward, The Slog, summarizes Brexit negotiations: The EU is facing an existential crisis. The UK isn’t. That’s the reality.
This clarification explains the reason why the EU cannot negotiate in good faith, but has to take the hardest possible line, a position of betting everything upon reversing the Brexit vote, by creating fear and despair in the UK. If Brexit happens, it will hasten the inevitable demise of the common currency. That is death, so Eurocrats must bluff hard and gamble everything against that death. They have no room to negotiate, nor can they come to any other consensus. No-deal Brexit hastens Eurodeath faster, but it’s all-or-nothing at this point.
At the End of the DayToday’s post: Criminal Union, begins as above.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/criminal-union.htmlI couldn’t watch much of the speech last night, just up to the point of glorifying all the poor farm-boys who died on the beaches at Normandy. It was clear that the unifying theme was going to be the goodness of Americans at war, and that 75 years was the necessary reach back into the past, necessary to pull that off.
This was a speech of conciliation between the Republicans and Democrats. This was the common ground, upon which they could agree, and they did.
The agreement is that the empire goes on bleeding the rest of the world, and that drug prices will come down.
Reduce the costs of health care and price of prescription drugs.
Immigration that is safe lawful and secure
And pursue a foreign policy that puts Americans first.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-05/watch-live-president-trump-delivers-state-union-addressThe biggest problem which I see all of us facing is the same problem which was identified in The Limits To Growth, in 1972.
In 1972, Nixon had gotten off the gold standard, and US oil production had already peaked (as predicted in the 1950s). That book presented the best possible systemic analysis of the trajectories of all the aspects of global economy and population going forward. Systems Analysis was the new science, which programmed multiple variables, which all affected each other in certain ways, into the biggest mainframe computer of the day at MIT. The first model, tested against the history of the 20th century was Word-1. The second model, somewhat refined, was World-2, and that created the projections that showed the peak of industrial economy around 2014-2015. The limits to growth were resource depletion, environmental degradation, and the increasing inefficiencies of larger and larger layered complex economic systems.
This analysis seemed intuitively obvious through the rest of the 1970s, and Jimmy Carter’s efforts to get Americans to conserve fuel typified the rational acceptance of it.
After Carter, we got Reagan/Bush decrying the analysis as false, and claiming that there was no limit to the growth of American prosperity.
That went over well, much better, but I think Dick Cheney and other henchmen of the elites still understood the validity of the analysis. They merely abandoned the majority of society in their plans going forward with “Continuity of Government” preparations. They have prepared a separate world for the elites in their well supplied bunkers, but it seems sterile, like a zoo. Zoo life is already a huge part of what makes us sick critters. The elite approach so far has been to goose the fuel-burning economy as much as possible, promise a rosy future, and to secretly prepare their own nests, by robbing the cookie jar. We can’t know the full extent of it, and their is increasing discord in the ranks of our rulers. It’s going to be hard to implement, and might stray as far from projections as the invasion of Iraq did.
We are not included in any of that, anyway, and we can reasonably expect our world to have much less fuel, much less electricity, much less information and supply chain problems with groceries and utilities.
Painting this as being necessitated by war is the traditional approach to accomplish vast societal change. The problem with that approach this time is that war sucks out every bit of available resource rapidly. The side that can burn more fuel faster usually wins. There is nothing left to pay the victors this time. The risks of major-power war are just too high, and the benefits are hard to imagine at all.
Global warming is a noble threat, but it is exactly not the kind of threat that humans are biologically wired to mobilize for. It creeps over generations.
Human societies have collapsed before, when the combination of maximal use and bad weather destroyed their systems of food and fuel provision. It’s part of our cycle.
We have never had this much benefit of fossil fuel wizardry ever. We can’t imagine living without it. Each of us has the equivalent of 50 to 60 “energy slaves”, fossil fuel equivalent slaves. That is invisible to us. All of the products and materials we use have lots of fossil fuel energy embedded. How do we get shovels?
The question is whether we human members of industrialized society can reset our ways in a couple of generations to use vastly less coal, oil and iron ore, maybe 80% less, maybe 90% less.
We will need a completely different approach, if we can do it at all. We will need to become loving stewards of life on earth. In the short term, whoever burns more fuel wins. How can we possible make a transition to stewardship, when anybody burning more fuel can kill us and take whatever we have made?
It is a koan. We will have to solve the koan to survive, and not just a few of us. It is a test we have to pass as a species.
That seems very unlikely, but I would rather die in the attempt than die in a bunker with big screen TV.
Unless we get WW-3, this will be long and hard. I want to die without regrets. How about you?I’m a vegetarian and I more or less approve of this message.
Grass fed livestock is not the problem. The problem is the vast corn-fed economy based upon fossil fuels and fossil water, soon to be much less available.
Let me put in a plug for Kerrygold Irish Butter and Dubliner (Cheddar type) Cheese, from grass fed cows, which have the omega-3 fats we require, and do not get in the American diet.Here’s the view from the cheap seats. Hey, we see some of the same plays!
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/cheap-seat-view.html
Trump wants China in nuclear negotiations in this new multipolar world. I say Israel should negotiate, too.
The US president announced that Washington will initiate the process of withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on 2 February and suspend all obligations under the accord. Moscow slammed the US actions, noting that it has failed to present evidence that prove Russian violations of the accord.
US President Donald Trump said that he hopes to negotiate a new accord to replace the INF Treaty, which would be “much better” and include more parties. He noted that the new accord should be adhered to by all signatories to it, not just the US.
“I hope that we are able to get everybody in a very big and beautiful room and get new treaty that would be much better,” Trump said.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201902011072044203-trump-inf-treaty-deal-russia/“All nice and all until the anonymous writer says young people since they grew up on the internet are less brainwashed. I’d claim the opposite.”
Exactly my reaction.Professor Michael Hudson (Financial Architect of the Petrobuck Empire)
Trump’s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember U.S. Dollar Hegemony
The end of America’s unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties…
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/revolutionary-war.htmlHere’s more on what is shaping up to be the final spastic war of the Petrobuck Empire in it’s own little Mediterranean, the Caribbean.
Finally gonna cut the cancer outta’ Cuba, too! 🙁
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/01/litmus-tests.htmlThanks guys, This is as good a democratic format as exists…
Please note that the form of political organization chosen by the Yellow Vests is an “Assembly of Assemblies”, with small groups self organizing and sending a representative with their positions, and that process of carrying the message up the structure being respected at each organizational level, rather than the top-down hierarchy of command that we are accustomed to living under
We, Yellow Vests, are inviting anyone with his/her own abilities and capacities to join us. We call to pursue the actions with Act 12 against police violence in front of the police stations and the Acts 13, 14 etc… We call for the continuation of the occupation of the roundabouts and the blockage of the economy, to engage in a massive unlimited general strike starting on February 5th 2019. We call for the creation of popular committees in the workplaces, in study places et everywhere else in order that this strike could be conducted from the grassroots by the strikers themselves and not by the unions. Let’s take the matter in our own hands ! Don’t stay alone, join us !
Let’s organise ourselves democratically, independently and autonomously ! This assembly of assemblies is a very important milestone which allows us to discuss about our demands and our means of action. Let’s federate to transform the society! https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/message-from-french-yellow-vests/Thanks Ilargi,
I’m still reading, though I often don’t have much to add to comments. I have been focusing a lot on the Petrodollar Empire’s move to crush the Venezuelan government and take all that oil, and make sure it only gets sold in dollars, and thwart China and Russia. This really may the the crisis point for Petrobuck Empire. The sooner the empire fails, and countries trade in gold, or their own currencies, or Bitcoin, or whatever, the better. I live in the US, so it will suck, but Amerika is just a captured state.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/01/desperate-empire.htmlDr D.
Good-on-ya, Mate!
I planted onions today, and rode my bike to work at the clinic, cringing at the stress I felt on the way, empathic, all that.
It’s a life.
It was a sunny day.
🙂Deerly Beloved,
I was able to join a yearly meditation retreat with my Sangha and teacher, Anam Thubten https://www.dharmata.org/teachers/ again this past weekend.
This one was silent, and in the same place that we have had prior silent retreats, a Hindu temple Radha Madhav Dham https://radhamadhavdham.org/ . This temple was made around 1990, and looks like it was built on a small national guard facility, by a guru later convicted of 20 cases of child molestation, and still on the run. They changed to the current name after that.
It’s on a nice 200 acres with good hiking trails for walking meditation, a hill, a creek and lots of deer.
I did about 3 hours of walking meditation per day for three days, and an hour the fourth day. I did personal walking meditation for one or two of the sitting meditation sessions per day. All my sitting stuff and knees and back were uncomfortable a lot, starting early and staying late.
I spent a lot of time around groups of does, at least two, and often three groups per hour walk. A large, strong buck crossed the trail about 20 feet in front of me, mostly interested in a doe in the bushes on the other side.
I whistle to deer to be nice. I start whistling a tune when I notice them, and keep whistling until I am well past them. I’m saying that I mean them no harm. The deer show a lot of curiosity about me. Sometimes they start and run, or a couple out of a group of twelve might move to the back of the group. Sometimes small groups of three to four will move back twenty or thirty feet behind some bushes and watch me quietly. They like to have their bodies facing away, and heads craned to look at me, probably to flee quickly if needed.
Sometimes deer emotionally connect with me. I can feel it. You might have felt it, or felt something like it from other non-human beings. Lots of people feel love from pets, or irritation from pet cats. I feel two things from deer. Most often I feel sort of a tingly excitement, with little sparklies dusted all over the top of it. Often I feel that when a deer seems to notice me, looking up to make eye contact. It doesn’t last long.
Sunday afternoon I got totally immersed in a big warm, funky wave of deer love, which I’ve felt a few times before, but this wave was really engulfing. There was a group of about a dozen does of various ages about 150 yards ahead of me when I started whistling, and a large doe was watching me as long as I was looking at them. I started whistling, maybe “This Land Is Your Land” or the Dr Who theme, or my usual theme song from “Bridge On The River Kwai” (“Winners, fill up with Malt-O-Meal…”). This wave was really a total immersion experience, a flood of full, funky, earthy, warm deer love with all the exciting little sparklies dusted on and through it, too, and it lasted a good ten or twelve seconds. It felt like a welcome-home love.
A female deer reached out over 100 yards to completely engulf me with emotional and visceral love groove experience. That’s really a remarkable feat, and I’m remarking on it. I had a chance to reflect and meditate on it, because I was at a silent meditation retreat for four days. This doe may well have recognized me, the whistling human, from my previous two retreats there. I’m about the same. I open up my personal space bubble a lot at meditation retreats, sometimes pretty big. I can’t measure it, but it feels like it gets big out in the open spaces, and completely gets around in the meditation room.
I’m pretty sure I can’t do what that deer did. In February 1991, when my friend, Guy took me to hear the Dalai Lama, under a tent top in Santa Fe, and he looked in my eyes and smiled as he walked in, I felt an explosion of light and energy from within myself. WOW! I had no reality framework in which to integrate that experience. I was flabbergasted. I have never experienced it before or since, but it was clearly from His Holiness looking into my eyes and smiling from about 15 feet away. I tried really hard to understand his talk about the non-existence of the self. I couldn’t. I really could not grok it at all.
Many people consider His Holiness to be a Living Buddha. Where are the goal lines on that? Beats me.
Deer do this thing in a deer way from over 100 yards, or at least one does, to me, once. It was a different thing from the Dalai Lama, but it was almost as total of an experience, and from a much longer distance.
You don’t have to believe this. I’m not asking that. You might or might not ever experience anything like this. It did get me thinking that the first and probably hardest thing humans do with meditation is getting past the “monkey mind” chatter and story-telling and craving and hating and stuff. My understanding is that deer don’t have those impediments to deal with at all. Unfettered. Completely unfettered by ego and concepts. As far as I know…
I can’t escape the conclusion that it must be vastly easier for deer to be their spiritual nature than it is for humans, like falling off a log easier.
Human Buddhas are rare and wondrous. I think we may really be missing the big picture here.
We humans talk to each other about how we are the whole party. It’s our world to ruin and save. It’s all up to us.
We need to become enlightened and save all the other animals. This is how we think things are.
We may actually be the lame latecomers to this enlightenment party.Deer Abbie
Yesterday my bcc news send to 188 usual recipients was still blocked, as it had been since before Halloween, and since early summer 2016, both election cycles. The filter is off today. The blog I started during my 2016 bcc ban is still up http://www.johndayblog.com .
Today, my bcc ban seems to have been lifted through the miracle of complex information filtering algorithms. Thanks Google (I guess).
We are seeing the expansion of the shadow-banning battlefield in the information war. We are all participants. This is ramping up. I’ll be growing vegetables, taking medical care of poor people, and bike commuting, as long as I can.
The real change will follow this foreshadowing, ya’know?I think Mueller got the memo about saving his own deeply corrupted bacon.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-08/mueller-has-begun-writing-final-report-trump-russia-amid-doj-shakeupOn a potentially more optimistic note:
Life (probably) adapts to quantum conditions. Are we (entangled) on that spectrum?
Coles and company sequestered several hundred photosynthetic green sulfur bacteria between two mirrors, progressively shrinking the gap between the mirrors down to a few hundred nanometers—less than the width of a human hair. By bouncing white light between the mirrors, the researchers hoped to cause the photosynthetic molecules within the bacteria to couple—or interact—with the cavity, essentially meaning the bacteria would continuously absorb, emit and reabsorb the bouncing photons. The experiment was successful; up to six bacteria did appear to couple in this manner… In essence, it appears certain photons were simultaneously hitting and missing photosynthetic molecules within the bacteria—a hallmark of entanglement. “Our models show that this phenomenon being recorded is a signature of entanglement between light and certain degrees of freedom inside the bacteria” …“It certainly is key to demonstrating that we are some way toward the idea of a ‘Schrödinger’s bacterium,’ if you will,” he says. And it hints at another potential instance of naturally emerging quantum biology: Green sulfur bacteria reside in the deep ocean where the scarcity of life-giving light might even spur quantum-mechanical evolutionary adaptations to boost photosynthesis...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/schroedingers-bacterium-could-be-a-quantum-biology-milestone/Thanks Ilargi,
I tried that in 2016, splitting my #200 addresses up into 3 groups. That also did not work.
Once the mark-of-Cain is seared onto one’s forehead…
I do appreciate your thoughtfulness.
At some point these channels of communication will be closed to us.
The inner work of meditation, and the growing of vegetables may remain a bit longer.
Semi-optimistic-John
