VietnamVet
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Back in the Bush I Administration, the Western Elite became the sole hegemon. They couldn’t help themselves. Instead of peace, they reverted to the being the crooks they are. Democracy subverted. Resources exploited. Unions destroyed. Regimes changed. They stole everything they could.
After decades of hybrid and actual war, Shia Muslims, thanks to being blessed with bountiful oil fields, have built thousands of precision guided conventional ballistic, drone and cruise missiles that can destroy the Middle East’s oil production facilities and crash the world’s economy, if Iran is attacked. There are two choices; peace or escalating the current WWIII. Already Donald Trump has backed down twice, but the USA continues to occupy Iraq and Syria illegally.
Australia is burning up. So is the West Coast of North America, Siberia, the Amazon and Central Africa.
The West is facing a fundamental dilemma across the board especially in Australia, France, UK and the USA. Corporations assured that government leaders were bought servants until Donald Trump who is an incompetent low level oligarch. Mankind’s survival is dependent on bringing corporations back under the rule of law. Government must once again be responsible for saving people’s lives not killing them. Peace, Clean Air and Water, Education, Health Care and Shelter are a right.
Change is coming.
Earth just jumped down the rabbit hole. Australia is incinerating. World War III started with the ballistic missile attack of Ain al-Assad base. Troops appeared shell-shocked. There is no safe place anywhere. At some point Donald Trump will not back down again.
Corporate Democrats proceeded with the Impeachment of Donald Trump. For them he is Russia’s “Manchurian Candidate”. The Empire (even in a crash dive) can’t let a Democratic Socialist be President. The co-pilot is trying to wrestle control away from the foaming mad pilot but will never turn over control to that communist in economy class.
The Iraqi government has been threatened with a cut off of access to Fed money from the sale of oil if they force Americans out. This is even more stupid than the assassination of the Iranian and Iraqi militia leaders. The Shiite militias are part of the Iraqi government. A colonial war of occupation just commenced. After 30 years of war all Iraqis want is the foreigners gone. The US doesn’t have a half a million-man army or equipment to pacify Iraq again; let alone, invade and occupy Iran. The thousands of ballistic missiles will be used before buildup is completed to cross over the Iranian border. The next thing destroyed will be Middle East oil fields. Making the whole thing pointless. The petroleum facilities will never be rebuilt in the short term. The global economy will be destroyed. The earth suffering from climate change does not need more CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Summer Wildfires and toxic air quality will engulf the West Coast of North America.
Either the Gulf States make peace with Iran or they will inevitably be destroyed as the Iranian War keeps escalating. The House of Saud tortured fellow princelings and issued an IPO to raise more cash for the Kingdom. It will be worthless if the Crown Prince can’t pump oil.
Can humans save themselves?
The Crusades didn’t end well. Likewise, the modern Western Empire will collapse. Neo-Nazis, Sunni Jihadists and Mercenaries can’t win America’s wars. Proxy forces and contractors will turn on you, be discarded or just quit. The American Civil War, WWI & II were all won by industrial might and the use of all of the nation’s manpower. In this Twenty-Year War the USA has neither. It is inevitable. The US will lose the war in the Middle East either by bankruptcy and withdrawing like Vietnam or it will escalate into a nuclear holocaust.
Humans are born with blinders to avoid the PTSD of seeing reality.
The OPCW Blackout, Impeachment, Ukraine, and the lawless New Aristocracy, are all indecipherable unless one acknowledges that a plutocratic counter revolt established a new Western Empire ruled by supranational corporations and oligarchs that superseded the corrupt incompetent national governments. Founded on neoliberalism, with one goal only, increase corporate profits no matter the cost to humans or the environment. By the turn of the century, all of the western political parties were bought out and the forever wars were on. Then Donald Trump was elected throwing a monkey wrench into the whole process. He and Bernie Sanders are unsuitable Emperors. Venerable Joe Biden, who spearheaded the restart of the Cold War with Russia, is the only suitable placeholder in contention except perhaps for a gay Mayor. Clearly a new way to select the Global Ruler is needed.
It is amazing that the world survived to 2020. How about 2030?
A great picture of the year I was born. I took Greyhound across country in 1982. There were seats for all but the buses were full. The thousand-yard stare never changes. My generation ditched the ties and vests. The Volker/Reagan counter revolt was already having an effect. Talked to several other middle-aged men who were traveling to find new jobs. The fedora and jacket were symbols of the working middle class till until the Tech Entrepreneurs ditched them for baseball caps and Southwest Airlines replaced Greyhound. Now, only the 10% can afford status displays. Democrats, except for Tulsi Gabbard, are blissfully unaware they are stoking a class conflict on the way to another civil war.
Donald Trump’s Impeachment would be illuminating if the media and politicians made it about the truth but they can’t. We are forced to be Establishment Watchers checking to see who has been photoshopped out. Tulsi Gabbard is one. In reality, the conflict is between nationalists and globalist oligarchs. Impeachment is a play of shadow puppets on a white screen.
Government has been totally privatized. Much to his disbelief Donald Trump is starting to realize he controls nothing except what his fellow plutocrats want. But he gets his buzz from his rallies. Nancy Pelosi held fire on her intervention till the next decade. Sooner or later, the Establishment will become so divorced from reality that it doesn’t need the charade of democratic elections anymore and will let the performance play out until all the little people breathe wildfire smoke in homeless encampments on the highland; just staying alive.
On 27 Jun 2019 the last 737NG was delivered to Skymark Airlines of Japan. Boeing replaced safety with public relations. CNET says not to buy the latest Huawei flagship smart phone without google apps support. Both are intertwined. The Boeing 737 halt will likely slow down the GDP with most of its sales to Asia stopped if their regulators hold firm and it will start a recession. The rise of Boris Johnson indicates that global trade will continue to take hits. We shall see if the West can survive only as a service economy. Impossible if it is not an Empire anymore. This has to be the reason why globalist Democrats are so intent on getting rid of Donald Trump. They pine for the Clinton/Bush/Obama era back before the Right to Protect wars in 2014 ended it all and gave rise to a multi-polar world .
The Afghan War has stated its nineteenth year. American troops are still in Syria and Iraq, and returning to Saudi Arabia. I didn’t realize until the Obama/Biden Kiev coup which restarted the Cold War that both parties are war mongers. Too many oligarchs and technocrats are dependent on military graft. The world is one mistake from global economic collapse and even a nuclear response from the looming war with non-compliant Iran. Even so, the ultimate cause of the forever wars is financialization. Wall Street and the US government rely on global trade being in dollars for income and to impose sanctions. Also, Africa’s “Big Men” and the like across the world cannot be allowed to develop safe national banking systems and move their money away from the West’s banking centers. Chaos insures offshoring of under developed world’s capital.
To keep the money flowing democrat politicians gave rebirth to the Red Scare. Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (D-PA) said; “They don’t want to talk about a president holding up $391 million of congressionally appropriated aid to a country that is under attack, assault, and invasion by Russia. You will notice that what happens here is, it weakened their national security, it weakens our national security, because who benefited from that attempt to withhold aid, and, in fact, the withholding of aid? Putin and Putin’s Russia.” This is a Big Lie.
Suffused with delusions, divorced from reality, robbing the lower classes to maintain their life-style, modern propaganda keeps a lid on the unrest in the current system; until it doesn’t anymore.
My Dad grew up in Yakima, WA. He was a teenager there when the picture was taken. I visited my Grandparents many times. Once as a kid I took the train there all by myself. It was a prosperous time after WWII. Apples were sold across the world. Yet, Mexican migrants who harvested the crops were completely hidden. There were no tent cities. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s when I saw the first vagrants living next to the tracks in the Seattle. The USA is not nearly as prosperous as it once was and deplorable Americans can no longer can afford healthcare, shelter or education and are dying early. The poverty is completely invisible to technocrat Democrats. The wealth was transferred to the rich by lawless exploitation and war. Politicians who enabled the graft got their cut.
When the Soviet Union fell, the fear that unified the Western Elite disappear and overwhelming greed reemerged. Democracy and the rule of law were replace by scapegoating and propaganda as rapine human and resource exploitation exploded. They no longer have a unifying language. Instead nationalist and globalist plutocrats are fighting each other over the control of pillage. Truth is gone.
The reality is that if human beings are to survive we have to learn to live in peace, lower our energy use and end toxic pollution. Whoever and whatever is against these goals are intent on an early death for us and our offspring. For some ungodly reason the movers and shakers mentioned in this post are completely unaware that they are inhabitants of the same real world as the rest of the human race.
Dorothea Lange’s picture is strange. My few trips through North Carolina I was struck by all the trees. Not one in the picture. It implies he did the hoeing all by himself but that can’t be. It is just like the chart of Industry and Consumer above. Industrial production has been in a decline since the beginning of 2018. That corresponds with the decline in rail freight. Manufacturing is gone. All that left in the USA is resource extraction and debt extortion. As Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez said, people go into debt to stay alive. When they can’t get any more loans, they die. After the harvest, all that is left is barren empty fields.
I agree with Tulsi Gabbard. Both political parties treat the 90% like garbage. To keep the money flowing upwards, they hide the truth and manipulate the population into two echoing silos, not talking to each other.
With the offshoring of industry and capital, all that is left in the USA is servicing their betters who exploit the people and the environment. Americans are dying young of opioid addiction, distracted driving and obesity. With no purpose in life, they turn to addictions that makes them feel good. The wealthy are the suppliers who are never jailed for their crimes.
The Trump Bombshell is inexplicable unless there is really any Empire and an associated supra-national global corporate trading club that controls the media and has bought all of the politicians except for fringe nationalists and populists. The Trump Triumph diminished multi-national corporate control of Republicans to only Mitt Romney. The Bush Clinton dynasties died. The purposeful “siloing” of identity politics allowed the nationalists to succeed in the USA even though President Trump is isolated, alone, in the White House fighting the Empire’s bureaucracy. The thing is Joe Biden is utterly corrupt. He restarted the Cold War so his family could get a cut of the profits. Even if the façade of democracy is shattered in 2020s with the rebirth of a new Austerian Empire in the West compose of lots of little statelets like Scotland, it will be short lived. The black swan is honking. Without détente, a nuclear war with Russia or China is inevitable. Global debt is astronomical; $246.5 trillion. If not war, there will be unrest and an economic collapse.
Only a populist government will legislate a debt jubilee to start all over again without the decline, lost wars and destruction that has always occurred to Empires in the past.
I traveled through Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan in the late 1960s. It was all rebuilt. Japan was running high speed rail. The first cut in marginal tax rate in the USA from 90% was John Kennedy’s but the rate cut from 70% was in the Reagan Era when the first time in my life I saw the homeless living under bridges next to the railroad tracks in Seattle.
https://www.savantcapital.com/uploadedImages/Savant_CMS_Website/Blogs/Sample_Blog/US-Income-Tax-Marginal-Rates.pngThe most effective rate is around 70% to avoid tax avoidance and offshoring. Anything less intentionally flushes government down the drain and accelerates privatization. Mission accomplished. The income inequality of the USA is between Chile and Turkey.
https://image.businessinsider.com/55a4f2536bb3f7ba5d760d9b?width=900&format=jpeg&auto=webpThe impeachment hearings are astonishing in that the Empire’s technocrats have no fear of going in front of Congress in public and denying the rampant corruption and blaming Russia for the war that started in 2014 when the West assisted the overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine.
Donald Trump is a symptom of the decline. The Praetorian Guard wants a new Emperor.
The core issue in Ukraine is the basic lie of “Russian Aggression”. The West supported the overthrow an elected government in Kiev in order to access their resources and destabilize Russia. The Nineteenth Century’s “Great Game” modernized for the nuclear age. Seizing Ukraine’s natural gas plus America’s military aid are utterly corrupt. Since 2014 Ukrainians are dying so corporations can make more money. Not any different from Boeing, PG&E, Juul Labs or Perdue Pharma. The paid media and political participants will strenuously avoid mentioning the corruption but instead scapegoat Russia. Even more dangerous than the first Cold War with the Soviet Union, a new war with the Russian Federation was ignited by the Obama/Biden Administration in Ukraine. Even worse, Donald Trump appears intent on adding China to the endless Eurasian Wars.
Donald Trump backtracks on restricting flavored vaping cartridges. The reason given is the loss of jobs and votes that this will cause. The truth is that making money overrides safety or kids getting hooked on drugs. “Honey Cut” additive that mimics unregulated THC vaping cartridge oil kills users. Boeing has yet to agree to mandate flight training that costs money so pilots can instinctively handle the 737 Max’s new flight characteristics. Armored US National Guard units were flown in keep Syria’s oil while leaving the Kurds at the mercy of jihadists. Anything that makes money for oligarchs is acceptable no matter the consequences. This is the deregulated unsafe corporate state in action. Unrest circles the global on the first anniversary of the Yellow Vest uprising. The one sure thing is that vampire capitalism will fall.
Will there be any survivors?
Since the 1970’s oil shocks; there has not been enough cheap energy to increase economic growth. Each time the true price increased it hits a declining maximum cost that crashes the global economy. Exporting manufacturing to regions with low labor costs and financialization allowed Washington DC, Wall Street and City of London to play the Empire Game. Destroy democracies and replace nation states with a corporate supra-institutions. The first generation sons and daughters of the borderlands became its bureaucrats. Working Americans deplorable, dying of despair.
But the Great Game is a fool’s errand. Nothing is what it seems. Democrats are corporate enablers not the people’s party. Donald Trump is an ugly American Oligarch with all of his toxic cultural delusions. Only he would steal Syria’s oil and not foresee the ultimate defeat of North and South Carolina National Guard armored units sent to protect the oil fields in the middle of an empty desert, hundreds of miles from the coast, surrounded by enemies and supplied only by air. “They are Expendable”.
Last September, a drone attack cut Saudi’s oil production by 50% and the USA was 10 minutes away from a World War with Iran. Both disappeared down a memory hole. One big mistake and the whole edifice crashes. Or to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway; “How does it end? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
The Washington Post wrote that Billionaires are a target of Progressives and should start transferring their wealth to off shore accounts (Note to Jeff Bezos). This is beyond the irony of the charges brought against Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. Both were never members of a coup d’état to remove the sitting President but targets. They document the injustice being by brought against them by the intelligence community and the continued jailing of Wikileaks’ founder by the British.
The Elite have so bought into the merit and righteousness of their wealth that they don’t see that nation states and the rule of law that they are so strenuously are trying to destroy are what allowed them to accumulate their wealth in the first place.
The Tragedy of the West is that the political duopoly has decayed into necrosis. Two fatal delusions are at each other throats due to the need of the rich to accumulate even more wealth. One “Let’s make a deal or you will be kneecapped” is demented when the Patrone is all alone in the White House except for the daughter and son-in-law and his Consigliere is in Otisville Federal Correctional Institution. The other party’s “Russian Aggression” is existentially toxic when it was Joe Biden himself who spearheaded the start of the Donbass Civil War on Russia’s border in order to enrich his donors and family. The conflict continues to this day at the risk of nuclear annihilation.
Boeing and the Biden Family encapsulate a failing Empire engulfed in corruption caused by the Oligarchs’ seizure of control of the West’s national governments and the resulting loss of democracy and the rule of law. “The opioid crisis, which the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) estimates cost $696 billion in 2018—or 3.4 percent of GDP—and more than $2.5 trillion for the four-year period from 2015 to 2018.” Yet, Purdue Pharma’s profiteers, the Sackler Family, keep their fortunes and freedom while 42,000 Americans died of overdoses.
“Praise God for the Deep State”.
This shows how deep the delusion is in the swamp. The Intelligence Community serves the Empire. Its eunuchs climb upwards through the corporate-state revolving door. However, Donald Trump is a bonafide oligarch who innately steals oil which will only accelerate the Five-Eye’s end. With Russian and Iranian aid, the Syrian Arab Army will retake their foreign occupied eastern territory. All the East Coast carriers are in Norfolk getting repaired. Thousands of American troops are back in Saudi Arabia, the reason for 9/11 in the first place. The only weapons left for the USA are nuclear. Hezbollah and Iran have achieved nonnuclear mutually assured destruction with Israel and Saudi Arabia. The September attack on Saudi oil production that cut it by 50% can be repeated at any time. The only way out is peace. But that would break the swamp’s rice bowls.
The human tragedy of living on one earth is that anyone who supports détente is labeled a traitor by the psychopath warmongers who risk annihilation to get richer.
The protests in Chile are specifically against neoliberalism (corporate rule). Protests are spreading across the world due rising inequality and chaos that enriches the wealthy. The media tries to hide it or blames Donald Trump, but the causes are basic. PG&E is burning a blacked-out California. The Boeing 737 Max is unsafe to fly. Both are the results of austerity, regulatory capture and corporate asset stripping. Congress further deregulated aircraft safety a year before the Indonesian crash. More and more people are going to die unless government control over corporations is restored and executive suite crooks are jailed for their crimes.
Maria Butina also snagged the disgraced CEO of Overstock who said the FBI made him do it. It is good that she gets to go home again. The Middle Class in the USA once were prudes. But this century, Bill Gates was Larry Summers and Jeff Epstein’s insider chum. The only well-paying jobs are servicing the 0.1%. I had a job for 37 years that I was well aware existed because industry needed government approval. Before I retired; however, it became clear that with consolidation and Barrack Obama’s “Get out of Jail Card”, corporations could ignore the law and if caught only pay fines. In the USA, there is no home to go to anymore. Either you have gig jobs or are a crook like your boss. This creates galloping cognitive dissidence. Like, ignoring that there really are conspiracies. Or, that the Elite are astonishingly incompetent addicted boors,
Look at Hillary Clinton, Corporate Democrats and Syria. It is simply impossible to see reality when your livelihood and status rests on corruption. The two peaks in inflation adjusted crude oil prices were December 1979 and June 2008. After the first peak cost cutting and the plutocrat counter revolt stopped wage growth and de-industrialization led to the current political polarization. The current recession starting in 2008 has bred constant wars, rising inequality and digital quantitative easing for the rich.
We are adapted by evolution to live on African savannas powered by solar energy. Language, culture and education allowed humans to live anywhere on the earth except Antarctica. Fossil fuels built suburbia. We can go back to Africa but there are too many people living there already to do it peacefully. The first steam engine was built in1698. As long as there are libraries, humans can adapt but live using much less energy – the 1700s – except more efficiently. This requires planning, healthcare and education for all and small families; (preserving civilization as much as possible) but above all peace. This is counter to the schemes of the elite to get even richer by stealing any remaining wealth from everyone else.
The UK and USA are no longer democracies. They are circuses. Mainly to transfer money to the connected from those who aren’t. If things are bewildering, it is because the truth is kryptonite to neo-liberal-cons. We are being sorted for the cattle cars. The first truth never mentioned is “Empire”. The second is that it failed. Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities can be destroyed at will if the Saudis don’t make peace with the Houthis and Iraqi Shiite militias. A cutoff of Saudi oil will kill the global economy.
Everything is really out of the hands of Washington DC and London, despite all the huffing and puffing. Nations are secondary to multi-national corporations. (A bankrupt corporation in Northern California, PG&E, shut off the electricity to almost a million people with absolutely no concern for the severe consequences). The Trump Impeachment and Brexit are solely about who retains sovereignty, globalists or nationalists. It sure is not the people. Maybe valid elections and jailing oligarchs will restore consent of the governed but the most likely alternative, Civil War 2.0, in the nuclear age, will exterminate everyone instead.
Today is the calm before the storm of war strikes home. If there are any survivors, the winners will write the history. Clearly Donald Trump believes that corporate media, the intelligence community, the Democratic National Committee and its hired contractors particularly the British worked together to deny him his Presidency. They failed spectacularly. Together they showed completely the incompetence of the global Elite; greed, hubris, arrogance and self-righteousness. The Empire’s mental eunuchs particularly Democrat politicians simply cannot see reality. To do so would seal their fate. In the past when Empires collapsed, a civil or regional war would destroy the capitol. This time the prelude is particularly prolonged because Russia and China have nuclear weapons.
The trigger for the final spasms may well be the Levant. The current Iraqi government is on the ropes. Riots with reported snipers killing participants are ongoing. Iraqi Shiite militias are on the border with Saudi Arabia and being bombed by Israel and could have assisted the Houthis attack on Amoco oil facilities. The USA is also occupying Eastern Syria with decrepit detention camps filled with thousands of ISIS families. Turkey may invade. Corporate Media is silent on this.
Ukraine and Joe Biden in 2014 are important. This needs to be investigated. It is where Democracy was shafted and the final war of the Empire started.
“Twisted Pair” is the perfect title. I think both countries are headed towards a Civil War 2.0. Brexit and Impeachment both don’t make sense; in no way are they middle class revolts like the Bolsheviks Revolution or the Reign of Terror. Instead they are the Elite clawing at each other. Much like the cavalier southern plantation owners verses northern industrialists in 1860. Oligarchs have tasked their incompetent toadies to bring it on. Impeachment will be the death knell for the Democratic “People’s” Party. Brexit likewise for the Labour Party. Neither has shown the slightest concern about the people’s future; just short term gain. Much like Saudi Arabia, with declining resources, incompetent leadership, and military that only loses wars; the UK and the USA are incapable of facing climate change. Both nations will splinter into pieces. My guess is that the last grasps for breaths and whimpers will be from the silos where the remaining humans retreated. Evolutionary Losers who failed to learn how to cooperate with each other.
Greta upset me too. I am relieved that I am not alone. My Mom spoke only Swedish until she started first grade. I was amazed how well Greta spoke and she made sense until her angry outburst. English after WWII became the language of commerce then of the Empire as shown by it being taught as a second language in grade schools. She is a sign that the chickens have come home to roost. Boris Johnson is an oaf. Donald Trump a wiseguy. Both are a result of austerity and rising inequality. The Houthis attack on Saudi oil production destroyed the Empire. The Carter Doctrine is dead. There are two options left. Let Eurasia have its gulf oil or blow everything up.
All that remains for North America is to use the remaining resources, labor and wealth on new green deal, strong borders, health, shelter, education and food. Paid for by ending overseas wars and easing inequality. The denial of the ruling class is astonishing. The media strenuously says this is the best of all possible worlds and avoids discussion of the ultimate outcome of climate change and the end of the empire – a new dark age. I think it comes down to Elite pouting. “If I can’t have it. Nobody can.” There may not be survivors.
The 737 Max, Purdue Pharma and Houthis revenge attack show that the Emperor has no clothes. Indeed, in fact, with the UK self-destructing, there is no Empire. Israel and Saudi Arabia must learn to live with their neighbors or they will vanish in the convulsions of the end of civilization that they initiated. Likewise, to survive climate change, the USA must convert the wealth that it spends on warfare to protecting mankind and the environment; if not, it will cease to exist.
US satellite photos taken today show approximately nineteen hits at Abqaiq. The strikes on empty storage tanks were with military precision all from one direction.
https://beta.washingtonpost.com/business/iran-dismisses-us-allegation-it-was-behind-saudi-oil-attacks/2019/09/15/50c92a1c-d79b-11e9-a1a5-162b8a9c9ca2_story.html
Brent Oil futures have jumped the highest since 1991.This is the biggest fiasco since Pearl Harbor. The USA and Saudi Arabia failed totally to protect a vital national resource. They didn’t even detect the attack. Worse, a military response against Iran guarantees the shut off of oil from the gulf. I doubt it was a nation state since the attack will dump the world economy into a depression. This is beyond the Houthis. That leaves a Shiite non-state proxy forces. If they did it once, they can do it again. An attack against Hezbollah or the Shiite militias in Iraq will be ineffective and will start a regional war. This has to give any rational Israeli pause. The only way out is peace. This could end of the American Empire.
Both are right, a corporate run Supra-State (the American Empire), was created in the West through trade treaties that literally rules the world but is glossed over by the media. Eighteen years ago, today, NATO’s war on Islam commenced that assure a steady flow of wealth to military corporations. In 2014 the Empire restarted the Cold War that forced Russia, China and Iran to ally. That was a bridge too far. At the same time, Western middle class wealth was transferred to emerging countries and the top 1%. Financiers got a get out of jail card to exploit little people. This reignited populism; Brexit, Donald Trump and Yellow Vests. There are only two options. Revolts that destroys everything and start over again, as in the past. But revolutions are extremely dangerous in the nuclear age. Or, once again, make nation states superior to corporations and jail the criminals. The United Kingdom is splintering into the fiefdoms of England, Scotland, City of London, Wales and Ireland. This will offer no protection to the little people from corporate exploitation. The resulting internal ethnic and class conflicts will destroy the British Isles.
Dick Nixon was forced to resign due to an intelligence/media coup after pulling American troops out of Vietnam. Donald Trump has withstood his prepartum coup attempt so far by a triumph of will. But his great failing is seeing the world only from his perspective plus old age. He creates his own reality with a sharpie. But, no one has told him that the Taliban is cutting all roads out of Afghanistan and Kabul is intolerable. He has to win 2020 to avoid an indictment in New York State for crimes that jailed Michael Cohen and whatever else Democrats can dig up. He must avoid a black swan event while conning the rest of the world. But I swear I see huge black wings flapping and Boris Johnson whooping.
Sept. 3, 2019. An interesting day. The British Parliament seized control. Perhaps chaos has been put off there a little longer. Northern Bahamas Islands were leveled by Hurricane Dorian. Only cars, shredded palm trees and water are left. Dimitri Orlov has the symptoms right but not the cure. Mankind can only survive by cooperating and downsizing. Unaddressed; climate change, inequality and/or nuclear weapons will eliminate humanity. A middle-class revolt is unsurvivable in the nuclear age. The only way out for the United States is to restore the Constitution and the rule of law for everyone. Jail the corrupt wealthy criminals including Boeing executives who killed 346 people. Rebuild international alliances. End the voluntary army, close the revolving door and clean up the intelligence community. Provide free education and health care. Learn to live with less energy.
Der Spiegel’s article is a good compilation of the 737 Max, Boeing, and FAA’s failures. But, at times it reads like a Google translation. No doubt in order to cut costs which also caused the 737 Max crashes in the first place. But it also highlights the total uncertainty caused by the end of Globalization, labor unrest and Brexit nationalism. With the Trade Wars escalating and Hong Kong rioting, there is no way that China will recertify the 737 Max unless the American President capitulates. Publication of the article in Germany indicates that Europe is slipping away from the Atlantic Alliance. The “five-eyes” media moguls omit all stories that describe the deadly consequences of neoliberal capitalism. The loss of two Malaysian Airlines 777s has never been fully explained. Airbus has killed as many people as Boeing with problems with their fly by wire flight control systems but the establishment has managed to blame the pilots for the deaths. These crashes and the assisted suicide of Jeffery Epstein document the collapse of government into incompetence. This is a multipolar world. Nationalist and Globalist Oligarchs are in conflict. Last century this clash led to World War I. Together with Climate Change, mankind’s future is at stake. But, denial avoids considering the consequences. Barack and Michelle Obama spent $15 million for a new house on Martha’s Vineyard that will be flooded by sea level rise in their or their daughters lifetimes.
The Farmer’s Wife and the rest of us are analog. We need fertile land, air, water and work to survive. We also need government to provide security, safety, shelter and the right to life. Nuclear arms and climate change are existential threats to our survival; also, so are greed and cognitive dissonance. Global trade is dependent on fossil fuel. Digital currency and artificial intelligence are dependent on electrical energy which didn’t exist until in the late 19th century. Common sense indicates for civilization to continue we must stop fouling our world, be extremely energy efficient, and live in the analog environment as much as possible.
I am with Cassandra. The successful counter revolt in the 1980s was due to Plutocrats losing money due to wage inflation and the oil shock. The elite’s killing unions and outsourced jobs was so successful inequality skyrocketed. With Negative Interest Rates no one with capital will make money. They have to pay to keep their wealth safe. Instead, like the end of the Roman Empire, oligarchs will bury gold in the back of the estate plus buy computer digits that needs electricity to cash. The Western Middle Class is heads over heel in debt. Heads will roll. The human race is the loser.
FDR’s second bill of rights disappeared. They are dependent on a functional government. It isn’t. Washington DC is corrupt and incompetent except it makes the rich richer. This is the result of no borders, no democracy and corporate rule – the free flow of capital, people, goods and services.
Humans evolved in tribes. We are hardwired to deal with around 150 people. Civilization requires a bureaucracy. This is always a hierarchy unless there is democracy and the rule of law. When society’s wealth becomes concentrated at the top, empires collapse. It will again unless truth, democracy and the rights of citizenship are restored. The problem today, as the Atlantic Alliance splinters apart, is that climate change and nuclear war are extinction events that require human cooperation to survive.
Corporate media cannot hide the venal lawlessness of the ruling oligarchs. The splintering apart of governments for profit will continue unabated. Tribal warfare will spread across the globe. The only barrier to the chaos is if the people restore democracy, equality, fraternity, and the rule of law.
The reason the 737 Max wasn’t grounded after the first crash was the FAA risk estimate and airworthiness notification were crap due to privatization and corruption. The second crash grounded the plane. Modern flight control systems need three or more sensors according to the regulations. Two is inadequate. The only way the plane can fly safely is if the pilot diagnoses the problem and flies it out of a computer induced dive and/or the inherent aerodynamic pitch up in a matter of seconds. That will take simulator training and weeding out of weak incompetent pilots. This goes against political correctness and will cost lots of money.
This encapsulates the Empire as it crashes. Corporate greed supersedes health and safety. Truth is the ultimate victim in a desperate attempt to prolong the regime of chaos.
Western multinational corporations have a cozy relationship the military and intelligence communities. They work hand in glove to make the Atlantic Alliance the global financial center. Wall Street and City of London function to transfer money to the wealthy by offshoring, hording flight capital from the forever wars, promoting environmental exploitation, and cost cutting. Corporate media propaganda is central to keeping the ruling Davos Cabal in charge. Government and Democracy was downgraded to a secondary position to corporate greed. With elections still being held, laid off indebted Deplorables gave a big finger to their superiors and voted for Brexit and Donald Trump. The Elite are doing their best to regain control but they are so incompetent that Donald Trump remains in office and Boris Johnson just became PM. Also, to increase shareholder value, western corporations like the American and the UK governments have been hollowed out. Boeing, Purdue Pharma and Volkswagen cheated to keep selling more product. Nobody is told the truth. The only public support for the claim of Russian collusion in the 2016 election is the discredited British Intelligence’s Steele Dossier. The only hope for a peaceful future without predatory chaos is the restoration of Democracy and the jailing of corrupt criminals.
