VietnamVet
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Times are changing. Newspapers can’t make money by themselves. They serve their owners other interests; like staying on top of the hierarchy. You can’t believe the Internet. What seems reasonable?
There are conspiracies. “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime”.Born and raised in the West, in my 75 years, never before, have I heard of housing developments totally burned to the ground like the last two years in California. Something changed. The Washington Post published expert opinion that it was poor zoning and not cleaning out the brush, removing wood, screening vents and the lack of fire proof roofing and sprinklers. Yet, the Post fails to mention that if your neighbors don’t do the same this is pointless especially as the environment becomes hotter and drier. The internet reports that the fires are caused by government space laser weapons. Instead, I think the actual cause is the failure of government and ruling neoliberal ideology. Today, it is everyone for themselves. Community is extinct. Every dollar horded by oligarchs is lost to society. We are unprotected.
The non-elite dying younger because of classic economics caused the election of Donald Trump and Brexit. It also elevated Vladimir Putin to President of the Russian Federation. How marvelous things are today with everyone having a smart phone is the Great Lie. When the sickness is obvious to all, neoliberalism will be overthrown. The only question is can order come out of the economic chaos with climate change and thousands of operational nuclear weapons also in play. Either of which can make the earth uninhabitable for humans.
The need to accumulate money and power is so pathological single minded that it is no wonder that it is supported by ideology that can only be described as evil. As a species, humans were the first to realize that we are passengers on a sphere on the edge of nowhere powered by the sun. Mankind’s survival is dependent on dealing with this and not fouling our nest.
Yes. Trump bashing makes money. Just as legalized sports betting is spreading across the USA, anything that enriches the wealthy and impoverishes everyone else is a priority for the ruling class. Donald Trump provides diversions from this reality. Finally, media moguls are globalists. They rule the supranational economic institutions that organize world trade. Trump threatens this with his tariffs. They have to go after him. If anything, that he is still President, shows the residual strength of democracy in its twilight hours.
Western oligarchy can be divided into two mob gangs fighting over world turf; Nationalists verses Globalists. Donald Trump, former casino boss, on one side. Lindsey Graham, flakey single 63 year old bought politician on the other. This century’s amorality has turned into bloody immorality. The Saudi consulate murder is being pushed by the Turkey Qatar alliance to stress their rival Saudi Arabia. The media moguls are publishing it to protect their operatives. Globalist Oligarchs are outraged that fellow Davos Oil Sheiks were shaken down by MbS to fill Saudi state coffers. It could happen to them. The 100 billion dollar Saudi military contracts have not been signed. Saudis are in negotiations to buy Russian armament. The Deep State wants MbS gone. Only Donald Trump and Jared Kushner support him.
There will never be a purposeful boycott of Saudi Oil. This can only be done by a competent government willing to ration to overcome spot shortages. Both American political parties are only in it for the money, not what is best for Americans.
50.8% of the USA are women. The Democrats did not have the votes to stop Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. They control only six coastal states; Oregon, California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware. After dumping working Americans, they used identity politics to stay in power and scam corporate money. It failed. They are totally incompetent. At the very last moment, the Democrats raised the possibility that the Supreme Court nominee is a functional alcoholic and juvenile Bill Cosby. It did not work. They failed women and managed also somehow to scare all males with dodgy adolescences shitless. They documented that the privileged today escape all consequences of their actions. Worse, with Federal Bond short term rate at 2.13% and long term at 3.4% and with a strong dollar; all the malinvestment since 2000 will be coming home to roost. An incipient civil war in the West, a world war with Russia Iran and China; or the mother of all economic crashes; what a choice!
This is such a big target it is impossible not to try to take a shot. AIDS didn’t really become a concern in 1985 when Rock Hudson died. At first it was a homosexual disease. Only when Brett Kavanaugh was at Yale would he have even thought about it and avoiding unprotected sex. He has a serious alcohol problem; blackout drinking. Alcohol stunts mental development. It removes inhibitions. All indications are that his behavior was about power and male status. At best, he is a dry drunk like George W Bush who looks hell of a lot healthier than he does. At worse, he is a functioning alcoholic who at 53 is about to see his life unravel and hit bottom even if he gets on the Supreme Court. If he is a member of AA, I sure haven’t heard it.
The Media Moguls want to have Donald Trump gone. That and sex helps their ratings which increases their wealth.
There is no longer democracy when the truth of the dangerous mini world war in Syria is spoken by the Congresswoman from Hawaii but is ignored by corporate media moguls.
Steve Bannon is correct. There is a Coup underway against Donald Trump. It is the “adults in the room” who are the conspirators. They are hired hands of western oligarchs. The establishment facilitates the transfer of wealth from the 50% to the 1% (the most striking graph above). They come down hard on anyone, left or right, that threatens this gravy train.
Both sides are predicting a chlorine gas attack in Idlib Province. The West is unlikely to back down. Syria is taking back their homeland. Forcing regime change on Russia with Jihadists remains America’s strategic policy despite demonstrated blowback and incompetence. Indeed, it looks like we shall see if a shooting war between nuclear powers ends up destroying the world or not.
If you read the alternative blogs, it is clear that Donald Trump is subject of a coup attempt by media moguls and corporate globalists. Likewise, neo-con/globalist political appointees still fill the executive branch. Donald Trump has the temperament of an angry spoiled sixth grader. He hasn’t reach Shakespearean heights of the greatest President ever due to his tragic lack of humanity. Today, Friday, in Tehran, Russia, Turkey and Iran are meeting prior attempting to retake Idlib Province. NATO and Russia have ships stationed off Syria. The renamed Al-Qaeda Jihadists have every reason use chemical weapons to draw in the West to save them. With an incipient civil war in the White House and nuclear powers about to go to war; this September is the most dangerous in the past 73 years.
In a con, things are not what they seem. This is what the top 10% are playing on all the rest of us. They offshored labor because it made them money and the power elite really dislike lowlifes. Symptoms are ignored. Americans are dying earlier despite spending $10,000 a year per person on healthcare. Guess where that money is going? Or, how can China be building infrastructure in Africa or 16,000 miles of high speed rail while the West crumbles? They utilize money sent there for the goods that they make. Compare this to the trillion dollar student loan debt in the USA that has created only wealthy 10% college towns, and gated communities.
The power elite had a woman presidential candidate who would follow their wishes – enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else. They employed 40 years’ worth of dirty tricks and black propaganda. It didn’t work. The global overclass lost. It can’t work with laborers’ lives getting worse. Also, it is getting hard to ignore the West burning, rising seas or the worst hurricane to hit American Territory since Galveston in 1900. Scapegoating Russia also will not work. A shooting war between nuclear powers will destroy the world. One day The Automatic Earth will be gone. That won’t work. Ultimately, there will be a bloody middle class revolution unless there is a restoration of government by and for the people.
Today is not the best of all possible worlds. We are the audience in an apocalyptic sequel of the 1930s being played on a Hollywood Sound Stage but for real.
The description that bests sums up the monopolistic hording of the 21st century global aristocracy is that they do not see “the value of enlightened self-interest”. Not today, but tomorrow, they will rue the destruction of the Western Middle Class.
I have no doubt there is a coup attempt by the Globalist Overclass to push out Donald Trump. Two of his fixers have been convicted. But, Putsch Participants have lied to Congress. Since his Presidency is on the line, why hasn’t he appointed a Special Counsel to investigate John Brennan, James Comey, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok and Christopher Steele? Perhaps it is because Fox News and White House staffers avoid mentioning his Presidential powers. The President thinks Jeff Sessions has to do it. I do not see a peaceful transfer of power like 1974 when President Nixon resigned. Donald Trump loves campaign appearances. There have been no troop withdrawals. The Saudis are paying for the Occupation of Eastern Syria. The military hasn’t turned against him which would be the only way to get enough Republicans to reach the 2/3 impeachment vote in the Senate.
“the USA is going to collapse like the USSR did,”
The one thing I cannot forgive is that Barrack Obama, John Brennan and the connected mob restarted the Cold War with Russia. Their 1,960 strategic nuclear weapons are real and President Vladimir Putin said “Why would we want a world without Russia?” This is a multi-polar world again. The USSR fell because of the Party’s lies. For the last decades corporate media has lied. Propaganda does not change reality. The accumulation of wealth by oligarchs must end or civil unrest will accelerate. NATO must withdraw from Eastern Syria to avoid a hot world war. The Atlantic Alliance is collapsing. Donald Trump and Brexit are the harbingers. Can the USA reconstitute itself back within North America to serve its people, or will the ignition the thousands of ICBMs destroy the earth?
Eric Zuesse’s analysis is spot on. It’s been over half a century since I was introduced to Keynesian Economics. Since then, Plutocrats’ money and propaganda has jumped the West back to the Gilded Age but without Noblesse oblige. This era’s classic economic theory has no relevance to fiat digital money created by private and central banks. Since the bad debt was never written down after 2008 crash, the economic system is fragile. Even so, the new-autocracy horded assets, increased inequality and forced austerity on the little people. Sooner or later, it all will fall apart. However, weaponizing sanctions and tariffs against Russia, China, Iran and Turkey to bring them to heel may trigger it now. All it takes is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan taking Turkey into the Eurasian Alliance and telling the European Banks to go stuff it. The Holy War that started in 2001 will enlarge, the banking system will crash, and Walmarts empty out. That is if WWIII doesn’t blow up the earth first.
This is great. It makes sense. Thanks.
Gold Yuan Crypto will succeed if it has the power of Iran, Russia and China behind it. This explains the restart of the Cold War. In the aftermath of 2008, quantitative easing and virtual money with the rise of austerity and inequality destroyed faith in Wall Street, Frankfort and City of London. The only alternative to the collapse of the US Dollar is for Americans to reclaim sovereignty from transnational trade agreements and multinational corporations. Restore the US Constitution. Restart government funding of infrastructure, healthcare, education and housing by redistributing wealth and writing down bad debt.
Am appropriate description for the second decade of the 21st century is “Return to the Gilded Age” or the “Triumph of the Oligarchs”. The one thing that is common for globalists and nationalists plutocrats is that they are not going to spend a penny on anything that might inform the little people what is actually is going on – their fight for control of the West. Despite the propaganda on how marvelous things are, everyone in the bottom 90% knows their children’s lives will not be as good as their own. Economic stress and forever wars are forcing humans to migrate and revert to their tribal beliefs and myths. The Age of Enlightenment (modernity) is dead. The money that supported science, engineering, education and public health it is now going to offshore accounts of a few already rich families.
The ferocity of the media, deep state and globalist’s responses will know no bounds if Donald Trump imposes tariffs on 500 billion dollars of Chinese exports. This will kill the profits from off-shoring. The problem is the US population is so far in debt it cannot stand any increase in prices. Just-in-time logistics intertwines global sources with no reserves. It takes decades to rebuild infrastructure. All together; with the Fed’s increase in interest rates, a perfect economic storm is brewing. At best, it will result in an end of the game depression; or, at worst, a world war in the nuclear age.
Tariffs are beyond me. So is exiting the EU. There are experts who do know the details. The Wealthy and Multi-national Institutions have them on retainer. So naturally the Elite have a leg up in trade negotiations. Democratic government is intended to counter balance the Oligarchy. However, when government deregulates over the last 40 years and doesn’t hire the experts to protect the people; inequality grows by leap and bounds. The Trump and May governments have reached the ultimate level of incompetency; lost in myths; unaware of reality.
I remember the Nixon and Carter gas lines and Oregon Gov. Tom McCall’s odd even license plate rationing in response that were caused by OPEC’s holding back supply to raise prices and then the Iranian revolution. There is a rational argument that these gasoline crises are why the USA is still at war in the Syria and Iraq after 15 years. Tomorrow, the trigger that shuts down just-in-time logistics may not be fixable; civil war, peak oil or climate change. There are few options in times of shortage of essentials; rationing or stealing.
Brexit is becoming dramatic. You are correct. The incompetence and pending devastation are clear to see. My Dad was born 100 years ago. Today has the same feel as the lead up to the Great War. The Wiltshire poisonings are a repeat the Anthrax Terror seven days after 9/11 that helped ignite the current 17-year old Holy War against Islam.
Will PM May ignore the victories of the England football Team in the World Cup? If so, the intention is another war in Europe. Who in the hell thinks they will make money from this calamity. Airbus and BMW are clear it is not them. There are vampire capitalists devoted to chaos and the free movement of labor and capital above all else. The need to be jailed.
With the fall of journalism one is left on our own trying to figure out what is going on. This is impossible if the underlying cause is ignored. The rich are getting wealthier at the expense of everyone else.
People under stress revert to their old myths and religion. In Europe the free movement of people, goods, services and capital is impossible with a Holy War against Islam being fought on the border forcing millions to flee to safety. Eastern Orthodox Greeks and Russians are scapegoated instead of ending the forever wars and writing down bad debt.
Donald Trump is the ultimate disrupter. He has picked up on the unrest that is directly correlated with the declining well-being of western society. The problem is that the myths that get the greatest applause have nothing to do with the shrinking Middle Class.
National and Global Oligarchs are skirmishing over power. The separation of children from their parents at the southern border blew up because it reflects the opposing myths between those economically hurt by immigration and the credentialed who believe the economy is good and society caring.
Plutocrats who use the forever wars plus global labor and environmental arbitrage with in-time logistics to increase their bonuses are playing with fire. The President wants to end this global system. This appears to be escalating into catastrophe. It will only be averted if the well-being of western society is increased. Corruption ended. Corporate criminals jailed. Climate Change and over-population halted.
Chaos makes criminals and war profiteers rich. Once financiers were given a pass to avoid jail; the West’s fate was sealed. If there are still human tribes left to tell their myths, the tragedy of America will join Sodom and Gomorrah. Such a short time; less than a century.
The former Greek Finance Minister said it. The ECB technocrats know the consequences of austerity. The blowback from the Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian Wars on Islam is predictable. A War with Russia, China or Iran will devastate the earth. The consequences of exploiting the Americas to increase inequality is known; even to me. Mid-America is a global corporate colony. All that can be said of Clinton, Bush, Blair, Merkle or Obama is that they cashed out. But, they ignited the inevitable collapse of the West.
Yes, the West is bombarded by corporate media propaganda. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer lead America into the Spanish-American War. In this case, the agitprop is clearly a continuation of the coup against Donald Trump, promoting open borders and acerbating wedge politics. Women and children are fleeing Central America because life is impossible at home. Migration from Mexico has reversed. Unless repudiated, the forever wars, the destruction of rural America, austerity, and media mogul prodding will splinter the USA apart. There has been 30% increase in suicides in the USA this century. The only resolution is to take some of the hoarded wealth and make life livable again in America.
Yes. Thanks. The impact of the G7 picture is Donald Trump at the center and his dominance and the decreasing power circling the table and then fading out to the left. The British PM is a washed-out patch of gray hair.
He is the only oligarch there. The rest are incompetent credentialed servants of global plutocrats except perhaps for the invisible new Italian PM. Like the last supper, this picture marks the beginning of the end of an old world. A civil war has broken out between Western globalists and democratic elected nationalists. This will not turn out well. The Atlantic Alliance is dead. There will be no resurrection.
Karl Rove’s creation of a new reality is operating in full force. There is no alternative. History has vanished. Italy, Greece and Spain will always be shackled without their own sovereign currency unless there is redistribution of wealth within the EuroZone. To break free, the peripheral states need to write down their bad debt. The simple fact is that wealthy bond and debt holders would rather blow everything up than lose anything. The closure of the banks for a couple of weeks was enough to fetter Greece.
The basic human need to horde wealth and have the power to tell others what to do is destroying the earth. To survive, it must be constrained.
Today’s post sure seems like 2007 is about to replay itself again; except, now there is no way out. There is deflation in the price of goods but inflation in healthcare, shelter and education. Plus, rising inequality.
The question was asked here earlier in the comments to name the names of those who use the EuroZone and European Union to supersede sovereign democracies and become richer and more powerful. Look at Italy. An elected government is rejected because of a Euro skeptic finance minister and a former IMF apparatchik appointed as interim prime minister.
Unpayable debt must be written off in organized and just manner by democratically elected governments. If not, revolt and war will destroy concentrated wealth, real and digital, as it always done in the past since the rise of civilization. The problem in the nuclear age is that a world war will destroy the earth. And, as pointed out above, the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia are acting insane.
This is all true. But, the USA and UK do not have the Euro and are splintering apart all by themselves. Western political leaders are incompetent at best and insane at worst. To me the underlying problem is that nations are now subservient to trans-national corporations and oligarchs. The politicians serve them not the people. The Euro, debt, refugees, early death, endless wars will all get worse until either democracy is restored or the Dark Ages return. That is if a nuclear war is avoided.
American clients, Israel and Saudi Arabia, want a war in Iran. This is clearly against the interest of the European States and American citizens. The founding problem of the EU is that the idealism of the “Free movement of people, money, service and goods” and the memory of WWII were used to erect an economic superstructure controlled by globalists and multi-national corporations. The West threw the bottom 80% of the people under the bus. Rising inequality means more are doing without. Many are living in war zones. People are forced to move to survive. Oligarchs favor this for the cheap labor. Wars also supply Oligarchs their loot. This is their nature. There is a silent battle ongoing between wealthy Western Nationalists and Globalists. On the other hand, Democracy requires strong borders and redistribution of wealth to benefit society. The EU will inevitably splinter apart in the expanding Syria/Ukraine war unless European Sovereign Nations can sign a Peace Treaty with Iran, Russia and China while anti-globalist Donald Trump is still President. If a Globalist supersedes Donald Trump, the whole world will be at war.
There will be debt jubilee. Either a disastrous crash or the nationalization of the banks (Government auditors telling Oligarchs which good loans they can keep and which ones need to be written off the books since no one has paid any interest on them). Since an orderly write down means the Elite won’t be as rich as they think they are, I doubt this can be done rationally. To see an example of Oligarchs behaving badly just look at Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump. The 2008 crash indicates the New Deal was a fluke of luck. After the next Crash, the little people will have to deal with either a world at war or living on the cash on hand or bartering.
It is astonishing simple. Mid-American Democrats did not vote for Hillary Clinton because her husband moved their family’s jobs to China. Scapegoating Russia or a War with Iran won’t get these votes back in 2018 or 2020.
True and sad.
History has gone into the cone of silence. The past is avoided, less the wars and the exploitation of 80% of Americas end. The draftees of the Vietnam War are starting to pass on and the lessons learned from half a century ago forgotten.
The USA is into its 17th year of the forever war that will destroy the Empire. A new Westphalian multi-polar Peace is required now before the West crashes into bankruptcy or a nuclear war destroys the earth.
