Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - 1-28-2023

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Why the continued focus on Ukraine conflict? Because it has accelerated the reshaping of our world and not in the direction desired by the World Economic Forum (WEF or Davos crowd). Economic instability and rising energy costs are two of the direct effects on our personal futures.

The Most Egregious Mistake Zerohedge by Alastair Crooke, former British Diplomat Jan 27, 2023

It is the miscalculation of this era – one that may begin the collapse of dollar primacy, and therefore, global compliance with U.S. political demands, too. But its most grievous content is that it corners the U.S. into promoting dangerous Ukrainian escalation against Russia directly (i.e. Crimea).

Washington dares not – indeed cannot – yield on dollar primacy, the ultimate signifier for ‘American decline’. And so the U.S. government is hostage to its financial hegemony in a way that is rarely fully understood.

The Biden Team cannot withdraw its fantastical narrative of Russia’s imminent humiliation; they have bet the House on it.
...
And now with the ‘Great Reveal’, the focus on the real economy is seen as a key insight underpinning the New Global Order, differentiating it sharply in terms both of economic systems and philosophy from the western sphere.

The new order is separating from the old, not just in terms of economic system and philosophy, but through a reconfiguring of the neurons through which trade and culture travels. Old trade routes are being bypassed and left to wither – to be replaced by waterways, pipelines and corridors that avoid all the choke points by which the West can physically control commerce.

The north-east Arctic passage, for example, has opened an inter-Asian trade. The untapped oil and gas fields of the Arctic eventually will fill the gaps in supplies resulting from an ideology that seeks to end investment by western oil and gas majors in fossil fuels. The North-South corridor (now open) links St Petersburg to Bombay. Another component links waterways from northern Russia to the Black Sea, the Caspian and from thence to the south. Yet another component is expected to pipe Caspian gas from the Caspian pipeline network south to a Persian Gulf gas ‘hub’.

Look at it in this way, it is as if the neural connectors in the real economic matrix are, as it were, being lifted up from the west, and are being set down in a new location to the East. If Suez was the waterway of the European era, and the Panama Canal represented that of the American Century, then the north-east Arctic waterway, the North-South corridors and the African railway nexus will be that of the Eurasian era.

In essence, the New Order is preparing to sustain a long economic conflict with the West.
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This scheme might be felled by Russian Resilience – and by much of the planet peeling away into a separate economic model, no longer dependent on the dollar for its trading needs. (i.e., new ‘money in’ to the dollar ‘Ponzi’ turns negative, just as ‘money out’ explodes, with the U.S. having to finance ever bigger deficits (now domestically)).

Washington clearly made a stratospherically bad error in thinking that sanctions – and the assumed collapse of Russia – would be a ‘slam dunk’ outcome; one so self-evident that it required no rigorous ‘thinking through’.

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Vladimir Soloviev interviews Colonel Richard Black on 1/18/2022 (20:32 min).
Retired Senator Black would have access to back channels of information and possibly an active security clearance for access for confidential info. Not repeating mainstream media propaganda, he has been impressed with Russian military actions on the field of battlefield. Both men believe a week before Biden's announcement the tanks were a done deal, only optics need to run the course for propaganda reasons.

Of note, interviewer Vladimir Soloveiv does not consider providing tanks crossing a Red Line, but the beginning of the Sacred War for Russians.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGjWlQJ_jQM]

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Insider jokes are normally kept within "cool gang" for secret snickers acknowledging superior intelligence, but Biden's mental status strikes again. The announcement of the 31 Abrams battle tanks could be considered a Birthday Gift for Zelensky. --To bad there is not as much concerns about keeping people alive and living happy, productive lives.

January 25, 2023 - in his own words (only need to watch a few seconds)
[video:https://youtu.be/9YYD0I3sscY?t=543]

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A concise history of evolving events since WWII between Germany and Soviet Union to the current situation between two ex-Soviet Union states and NATO, the European military alliance created in the aftermath of WWII.

SCOTT RITTER: The Nightmare of NATO Arms to Ukraine Consortium News January 24, 2023 (highlighted in Wednesday's The Evening Blues)

Ukraine and its NATO allies have been training and planning a February Offensive to retake Crimea. Unfortunately for the Ukrainians they have been losing territory, men and equipment at an accelerated rate.

The Ukrainian commander noted that the February “war” would have Ukraine resuming the attack:

“We have made all the calculations — how many tanks, artillery we need and so on and so on. This is what everyone needs to concentrate on right now. May the soldiers in the trenches forgive me, it’s more important to focus on the accumulation of resources right now for the more protracted and heavier battles that may begin next year.”

The goal of this offensive, Zaluzhnyi said, was to push Russia back to the borders that existed on Feb. 23, 2022, the start of the Russian invasion. He also indicated that the liberation of Crimea was an objective.

“In order to reach the borders of Crimea, as of today we need to cover a distance of 84 km to Melitopol [a strategic city in the south of the Donetsk Republic]. By the way, this is enough for us, because Melitopol would give us a full fire control of the land corridor, because from Melitopol we can already fire at the Crimean Isthmus.”

Zaluzhnyi exuded confidence. “I know that I can beat this enemy,” he said. “But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 IFV’s [infantry fighting vehicles], 500 Howitzers. Then, I think it is completely realistic to get to the lines of February 23rd.”
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For U.S. General Milley, the equipment shortfall wasn’t the issue — training was. Prior to arriving at Ramstein, Milley toured the sprawling Grafenwoehr training grounds in Germany. There the U.S. Army is in the process of training some 600 Ukrainian soldiers to effectively move and coordinate their company-and battalion-size units in battle, using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.
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Operational training, no matter how competently delivered and absorbed, does not paint an accurate picture of the true combat capability being turned over to Ukraine by the West. The reality is most of this equipment won’t last a month under combat conditions; even if the Russians don’t destroy them, maintenance issues will.
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The reality is, however, that the consequences of the Ramstein Contact Group’s work will be far more detrimental to Ukraine than Russia.

Under pressure from the West to carry out a major offensive designed to expel Russian forces from the territories captured last year, General Zaluzhnyi will be compelled to sacrifice whatever reserves he would be able to assemble in the aftermath of Ramstein for the purpose of engaging in fruitless attacks against a Russian opponent that is far different from the one Ukraine faced in September and October of last year.

The two interviews were done by Ritter after authoring the above article covers some of the same subject matter.

Scott Ritter: On "Le Grand Final" in Ukraine (1.01 hr) - interviewer from Poland
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmTH-GKF4Cg]

Ukraine, Tanks & Putin - w/ Scott Ritter (23.5 min)
Latter part of the interview a small dog is making a fuss after visitors arrive at his home.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu6jD0QJWYY]

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Col. Douglas Macgregor: Ukraine/Russia War Update - interview with Mike Krupa from Poland on Jan 27, 2023.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gfNDBnv8_c&t=1s]

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Not to forget the Pacific Theater. A recap of Biden Team's interaction with China.

US-China relations as a disaster in the making Asia Times January 27, 2023

In his online meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in November 2021, US President Joe Biden proposed guardrails for the US-China relationship. His proposal reflected deep concerns about the potential for a military confrontation due to a miscalculation or an accident.

More than a year has passed since then, so have such guardrails been established? Is the relationship between the two countries less likely to fall off a cliff than before? The answer, unfortunately, is no. Guardrail-building has largely remained rhetorical and the US-China relationship is now closer to a historic breakdown than it has been before.
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Russia’s war against Ukraine further complicated efforts to stabilize the relationship. Despite external and domestic pressure, China opted for neutrality. China did not endorse Russia’s military operations in Ukraine because they violated the UN Charter.
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US congressional activism on Taiwan has made things even worse. The more than 30 draft bills and resolutions related to Taiwan before the US mid-term election have had one thing in common: to shore up support for the Taiwan authorities amid rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
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Washington has largely reneged on its commitments related to Taiwan it made in 1979, including not having formal diplomatic relations, abrogating the mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, and not stationing military personnel in Taiwan.

To Beijing, these commitments were the political foundation for its diplomatic relationship with Washington. After all, the two countries could not establish diplomatic relations largely because of their disagreements over Taiwan for 20 years after the People’s Republic of China was founded.

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Pepe Escobar's latest article keeps Iran perspective in the mix.

‘Doomsday clock’: 90 seconds to midnight The Saker January 27, 2023

The Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy could even absorb a strategic alliance between Russia and China – as painful as it may be. But never Russia, China and Germany.

With the collapse of the JCPOA, Iran is now being re-targeted with maximum hostility. Yet were Tehran to play hardball, the US Navy or military could never keep the Strait of Hormuz open – by the admission of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Oil price in this case would rise to possibly thousands of dollars a barrel according to Goldman Sachs oil derivative experts – and that would crash the entire world economy.

This is arguably the foremost NATO Achilles Heel. Almost without firing a shot a Russia-Iran alliance could smash NATO to bits and bring down assorted EU governments as socio-economic chaos runs rampant across the collective West.

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What is on your mind today?

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Thank you student of earth.

This guy understands what happened yesterday and the implications:

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NYCVG

snoopydawg's picture

@NYCVG

How long until we start seeing stories about how Germany never lost to Russia after all and it was Russia that supported the Nazis? In replies to the tweet I’ve seen people saying that there is a lot of Nazism in Russia today. And they serve in the Wagner group.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg I had not seen that tweet. It is right about the Stepan Bandera acolytes who live on. Thanks for posting it.

It also may be true that Poland is looking to reclaim the area of the Banderites called Galicia in Western Ukraine.

Apparently the West and Russia are contemplating this partition.

Ukraine ---Kiev---will certainly object and that may be the reason for the buildup and escalation we are seeing now.

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NYCVG

@NYCVG

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@humphrey

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NYCVG

"Washington dares not – indeed cannot – yield on dollar primacy, the ultimate signifier for ‘American decline’. And so the U.S. government is hostage to its financial hegemony in a way that is rarely fully understood."

"The Biden Team cannot withdraw its fantastical narrative of Russia’s imminent humiliation; they have bet the House on it."

From the first article posted today called The Most Egregious Mistake.

My question is Now, What?

NBC News offers an answer. War with China 2025

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-air-force-general-...

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NYCVG

of them who try to explain his gaffs

@NYCVG

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-accuses-russia-twisting-min...

Germany accuses Russia of twisting minister's war comments for 'propaganda'

BERLIN, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Russia has twisted comments by Germany's foreign minister about the war in Ukraine for propaganda purposes, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday, stressing Berlin's position that NATO must not become party to the conflict.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock riled Moscow with comments at an event in Strasbourg on Tuesday, when, speaking in English, she said that "we are fighting a war against Russia, and not against each other".

While Baerbock has often sounded more hawkish than other members of the German cabinet about supporting Ukraine, Berlin has repeatedly stressed that it wants to avoid the NATO alliance becoming a party to the conflict. This concern was part of the reason for Germany's delay in agreeing to send the Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

"Russian propaganda continually takes statements, sentences, stances, positions of the government, our partners and uses them to serve their purposes," said the German foreign ministry spokesperson.

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snoopydawg's picture

homeless and now Newsom is going to reopen them and send 'ill' homeless people back into psychiatric wards that will make a killing for the private prison complex and high profits for businesses that use prison labor.

California’s Plan to Disappear the Homeless

Elected officials continue to turn to draconian measures to disappear homeless people. In addition to passing a wave of laws across the country criminalizing homelessness, California is moving ahead with a plan that will allow the state to force the unhoused into court-ordered treatment programs for a period of up to two years – and potentially much longer. (New York is is considering a similar law.)

The California law is not designed to actually help the homeless or stop more people from becoming homeless, which would actually require resources and/or taking on powerful interests like the private equity-dominated real estate rental market, the healthcare industry that bankrupts people, major corporations that pay poverty wages, etc. Let’s remember that 40-50 percent of people experiencing homelessness are employed. Instead these laws are simply designed to remove from view the people our society has chewed up.

The criminalization route allows politicians to look tough and say they’re doing something (and maybe eventually it means the homeless can help make money for the private prison industry and/or become slave laborers to help line the pockets of some of the largest and most profitable companies in the US). The court-ordered treatment policies allow politicians like California Governor Gavin Newsom to preen himself for being compassionate. So naturally the California law is called the CARE (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment) Act.

Of course they aren’t ever going to address the why people become homeless in the first place because the owners would frown on that. I wonder just how much more cruel and barbaric our government is going to make this country? But sure we can vote our way out of this nightmare if we just vote hard enough and give democrats control of government…wait what? Newsom is a democrat? You don’t say!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg that cannot be solved humanely, will not be solved humanely.

NYC is overwhelmed by incoming migrants added to the already large "housing challenged" population. 56,000 in shelters. Covid eviction stoppage is over and the courts are back to processing unlucky, unprotected renters. Landlords are warehousing 35,000 empty rent-regulated apartments for no good reason and newest horror story is that the NYCHA----NYC Housing Authority----Public Housing, now has an unsustainable number of tenants who have stopped paying their rents. (Years ago 95% of NYCHA residents paid their rents. Now the non=paying percentage is heading up towards 90? IIRC. Have to check that number.)

Mentally ill people need safe supportive housing. Will they get it in CA or NY? Not bloody likely

Neither will any group or individual that cannot pay the going rates. It is a cruel cruel world.

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NYCVG

@NYCVG stick the seriously mentally ill into housing and expect the problem to be solved. They would be lost troubled souls in private housing. They need serious mental health assistance first to get stabilized.

If we can get the 25-30% of the serious mental cases off the streets and into treatment and do so fairly to those affected, that would make for a good start towards then tackling the rest of the homeless population. Not a perfect solution, but I haven't seen a perfect plan yet brought forward.

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@wokkamile @wokkamile means in NYC, staff on premises. Mental health workers, laundry, kitchen facilities.

Not just "here is an apartment." I should have been clearer.

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NYCVG

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg @snoopydawg
He won Mayor of SF on a "F the homeless" platform (he called it "Care Not Cash(?)") The good news is that he did absolutely nothing after the election.

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On to Biden since 1973

@snoopydawg bold stroke, and the bill was passed almost unanimously in the legislature, so it has complete political support. Something not stressed enough in the piece is that it isn't designed to tackle all the homelessness problem, but only the slice of that population (25-30%) who are seriously mentally ill and who shouldn't be living on the streets.

You can't just house these people and leave it at that. They need good mental health services first, then the kind of housing appropriate for their situation, before they could then be transitioned to more regular housing along with other social services to help them get their lives back.

I'm inclined to want to see this law carried out, as a possible workable and fair solution to a very complex problem, provided the legal and mental health services prove to be adequate for those brought into this system.

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@wokkamile I hope it happens in CA and NY and everywhere it is needed.

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NYCVG

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg this will make the facilities a windfall profit, aside from the loose wording which allows most anyone to be called a mental case by someone who wants to make money off of them, aside from mandated meds, aside from loss of freedom without due process, aside from giving "conservators" rights to manage someone's life, money, medicine,and ultimate fate...
It doesn't solve the problem underlying homelessness, doesn't provide responsible and professional health care.
Human beings will be Hoovered up into "programs" and disappeared on taxpayers dimes.
No wonder Californians are moving to Texas.
edit:wording corrected

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp of your objections. Only the very seriously mentally ill are affected as diagnosed in what appears to be a fair process, funding is being provided by the state to counties for mental health professionals, there will be public defender legal counsel at the key stages of the legal process, and on profit, it's almost always the case that someone somewhere will benefit financially with anything that is done.

The important thing is for the state and courts to monitor and revise this plan as needed. Gov Newsom himself has tied his political fortunes to tackling the homelessness problem, and this plan is a key element. So he has considerable incentive to keep it narrowly focused, adequately funded and on track in implementation.

Is there a better plan out there dealing with this important part of the homeless situation?

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snoopydawg's picture

@wokkamile

Lots of agencies that deal with the mentally ill are not in favor of it and they explained it in the article. The NY bill is even worse and as the article points out they don’t address what is causing the huge increase in homelessness. Sure it’d be great to see people get the help they need, but these bills won’t do that. People will be preyed upon by big pharma as they have been in the past and used to increase corporations profits. Maybe you missed seeing those things?

And no one is saying to just put people in apartments and walk away. Countries that have given their homeless homes also give them tons of support and many go on to having a productive life.

ETA: OTC nails a lot of the reasons why this is bad and I don’t understand how you feel that none of the problems won’t pop up like people being forced medicated with drugs that no one knows if they work or some new experimental ones which has been used on people in the past. We are either a nation of laws and rights or we are not. These bills will say that we are not.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg a bill to do away w homelessness generally, but strictly focuses only on the 25% of that segment suffering from serious mental illness (part of them bc of heavy drug use). I haven't given it a ringing endorsement, as I've noted the program needs strict oversight, adequate legal and medical assistance to those affected, but feel it's something worth trying. Something different needs to be tried for this group who are unable or unwilling to help themselves.

But once again I ask, what is your alternative plan to dealing w this part of the homeless population?

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snoopydawg's picture

@wokkamile

suggestions in the article. They aren’t hidden. Probably the best thing to do is to make sure that people have a living wage and stop private equity companies from buying homes and apartments, raising rents too high and stop letting them sit on hundreds of thousands of empty homes. And I see nothing in the bill that only targets the mentally ill. The one in NY certainly doesn’t. I wonder how you’d feel about this if it was republican governors wanting to throw the homeless into mental hospitals instead of dem ones?

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3 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg requires formal evaluation by mental health professionals that person is potential harm to self and others and is incapable of taking care of himself, as I understand. Person is given legal counsel (public defender) at each stage of the process. Court must sign off on any evaluation process that results in person being placed in mental health facility for care.

The other "solutions" being offered in the piece and elsewhere are more relevant to the larger homeless population, not the seriously mentally ill, and some proposals carry their own serious legal/constitutional set of problems. Most are also unlikely to be passed into law anytime soon. By contrast, this CA law was passed nearly unanimously -- only two R legislators objected in both chambers. If more than a few mental health groups objected, they did a weak job of lobbying the Sacto reps and in public messaging.

I can't comment on the NYC law. We have enough problems w homelessness here in CA. The state has 1/4 of the US homeless population and people are getting impatient and beginning to blame Newsom and the Ds for the ongoing situation. I have seen this first-hand with a few visits to the homeless encampments on the sidewalks of Venice and a drive-by of the depressing situation downtown on Skid Row.

Failure to take quick action to address this huge issue, which has been building for years, will lead to a certain political backlash against those currently in power and make far more draconian solutions likely as the more hardcore law-n-order types win local and possibly statewide offices.

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@snoopydawg entering with their scary experimental medications and big profits, focus should be on what they have already done and have planned for the near future with the experimental gene therapies.

Re opportunities to make even more ill-gotten gains, they won't be salivating over this CARE Court program, which affects only a few tens of thousands, but have their sights set on more big profits from even more expensive, unsafe and ineffective covid vaccines for millions, possibly including a school-age mandate for same. And unlike the CARE program, those kids and their parents will need to find their own legal counsel to fight such mandates. As for the rest of us, there is also the possibility, recently reported, that Pfizer will try to covertly engineer the existing virus to keep it ever more virulent and dangerous, thus requiring (they'll say) still more vaccines to fight the new strains.

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From the opening quote box above, by Crooke:

Washington clearly made a stratospherically bad error in thinking that sanctions – and the assumed collapse of Russia – would be a ‘slam dunk’ outcome; one so self-evident that it required no rigorous ‘thinking through’.

The term, Washington, conveys the idea of a unitary mental process that assesses world economic and political conditions and then makes decisions on how to steer the mighty American Ship of State in persuit of its goals, which Crooke assumes to include keeping the USA as the Predominant nation state on the planet. Thus he concludes that these unnamed captains of the hegemon simply made a dumbell move in imagining that sanctions would induce Russia to collapse without bothering to think the idea through.

I suppose it is possible that stuff shirts who never had to scramble for anything in their lives of privilege through Ivy League education and up through the ranks of the National Security Community could wind up being book smart morons, too arrogant to consider downside risks or Murphy's Law as they go about the project of giving Russia a new government. But I don't buy it.

Sanctions have still not brought the island of Cuba to heel. And Iran continues to thumb its nose at Uncle Sam. If random internet voices can figure that out, it seems unlikely to me that our National Security Community is too thick to grasp it. These folks show truly incrdeble acumen at keeping themselvesi power while deposing JFK and Nixon and controlling both political parties -- just as Ike warned they might.

One possible explanation would be that the profit-making arm of the Community sees the end coming, and wants to cash in, selling us the rope to hang ourselves with. I don' buy this Marxian interpretation, either, but it seems more plausible to me than the suddenly prevalent idea that it is just stupidity.

My own guess is that they are scuttling the ship of state, part two of a transition plan. Part one was Covid. Big money has not been part of the USA for quite some time as globalization of capital has developed. Eventually there will be a Global State without any nationalistic hassling.

May God grant that I'm as crazy as this sounds to MSNBC viewers.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

I suggest that it is possible - and in keeping with the behavior of the people involved - that our present crisis storm is the WEF and their ilk (if there is anyone of their type who is not WEF) to manipulate and benefit from circumstances rather than actually create them. COVID was most likely either naturally occurring or a mistimed release, but once it happened it was easy to take advantage of the social disruptions - at least you saw them happen, you did not have to predict what they would be. Inflation was going to destroy small businesses first - and it was going to happen, no need to create it. The same with climate catastrophe, food shortages, war, you name it. Things might not go as you plan, but corrupt politicians will do what they are paid to.

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On to Biden since 1973

enhydra lutris's picture

I'm just back from our farmers' market with an assortment of veggies to work into next week's meals (my week to cook starts tomorrow). I find that the more I concern myself with getting through the days and weeks, the less I stress over the global mishegoss to the detriment of my health and psyche.

Meanwhile, Falcon mating season is warming up and Annie has a new suitor, with the stand-in who replaced her prior mate when he kicked it being AWOL. It is possible that he followed the shorebirds, his favorite prey, and will return in spring, but he also might just have bugged out. Meanwhile Cal has banned drone flying anywhere remotely near the Campanile.

When we did animal rehab, my wife and I learned that the more intelligent a confined animal is, the more it needs "enrichment", the provision of toys, distractions, puzzles and entertainment to keep it from going batshit. Thus, football. Also, futbol, roundball, and beisbol. Something to ponder while watching the playoffs this weekend if you plan on so doing.

Meanwhile tasks, chores and all like that call.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

studentofearth's picture

@enhydra lutris

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

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studentofearth's picture

@humphrey learn new skills or fix broken equipment. Done it myself. Unless communication is interrupted would be logical to use in Ukraine. (DIY = do it yourself)

Remember the news last spring when the Ukrainian's were building airplanes from spare parts. A follow-up to the story.

NATO member secretly provided Ukraine with fighter jets – media Russia Times Jan 26, 2023

In spring 2022, Warsaw secretly delivered several of its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, despite the Polish government officially denying any such deals, a local paper has claimed, citing sources.

According to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (DGP), the planes were sent over using a “combined” method, apparently meaning that they were delivered in a disassembled state and declared as spare parts.

“The fuselage and the wings are also spare parts,” DGP wrote Wednesday, citing sources within the Polish government.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

soryang's picture

Saw this in the Asian Pacific Journal last night while I was looking for links to other items.

Imperial Gateway: Colonial Taiwan and Japan's Expansion in South China and Southeast Asia, 1895–1945

Seiji Shirane Oct. 22, 2022

Abstract: Seiji Shirane’s Imperial Gateway: Colonial Taiwan and Japan's Expansion in South China and Southeast Asia, 1895–1945 (forthcoming with Cornell University Press in December 2022) explores the political, social, and economic significance of colonial Taiwan in the southern expansion of Japan’s empire from 1895 to the end of World War II. Here’s the unabridged introduction to the volume.

https://apjjf.org/2022/17/Shirane.html

The intro is rather lengthy but is a great summary of the Japanese colonial presence in Taiwan for a half century placed in the context of the expanding Japanese Empire. It is said in other sources that Shinzo Abe was the proponent of the Indo-Pacific strategy (along with making Japan great again). This introduction authored by Shirane, lays out the geopolitical significance of Taiwan in the old Japanese Empire and in so doing adumbrates the role Taiwan plays today in US Asian imperialism. My opinion remains that the US seeks to recreate the Japanese imperial structure in the Asian littoral states, islands and territories.

Now, the Chinese "threat," to the extent it exists at all, was precipitated by a de facto US repudiation of multiple joint US-China communiques on Taiwan* and an increasingly uncompromising US militarism. Such an approach is necessary to feed the Eastern US Empire. If US forces are adequate to preserve security in the region, why does the US promote Japan acquiring "counterstrike" (offensive weapons) and doubling their defense budget? The US leaders desire to build a NATO like alliance structure in the Far East to contain China. What could go wrong?

Just as the US disastrous refusal to concede the existence of vital national interests of Russia in the riparian states on its European border, it also refuses to recognize the valid Chinese national interest in Taiwan or the littoral seas of China.

*How the US betrayed 3 Joint Communiqués with China over Taiwan question
By Franz Gayl
Global Times Nov 19, 2021 12:38 PM
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202111/1239398.shtml

This is my contribution to the ongoing avian theme. I found myself staring at some loons, cranes, egrets and ducks at a small lake near the medical clinic where I waited for my better half. I found it very soothing. The small lake was like an oasis in the noisy, congested area I find myself in. I hadn't seen it before.

So I was motivated again to seek out the other of my two bird song translations. I found it needed more work. It's probably the oldest lyrical poem in Korean. I went back to the original hanja composition, in an attempt to decipher it. Not too sure I got it right, but it's all a matter of interpretation.

황조가 (Hwangjopa)-이정표 (Jungpyo Lee) from KBS 바람의 나라 ost

Lee Jung-pyo is the singer/composer on the gayageum.

The lyrics of a poem ascribed to King Yuri ( 19 BCE- 18CE ) of the Goguryeo Kingdom ( 고구려 高句麗 ) from the three kingdoms period. The song title is Hwang Jo Ga 황조가 , Yellow Bird Song according to the Hanja explanation in naver.com. This was the theme song from the KBS historical drama Kingdom of the wind 바람의 나라 (2008). The series was a rendition of the Jumong legend. Jumong was the founder of the Goguryeo Kingdom. Yuri was the second king.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goguryeo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_the_Winds

My translation may not do the song justice:

There fluttering oriole.
Affectionate bond
between male and female.
When a lonely feeling arises in my small body,
Who shall go together
with me?

Thanks SOE for the OT and the informative links.

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語必忠信 行必正直

@soryang @soryang

there is a symmetry to the Japanese militarism by the US
attempting to create another vassal state in the east
meanwhile, I read North and South Korea are making
another attempt at resolving divisions.

I hope your spouse is doing well. I love loons.
And your tune is very soothing.

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soryang's picture

@QMS @QMS Yes, thankfully, my wife seems to be recovering well, from an illness caused by another clinic, then worsened by the drug prescribed.

I guess this is what your are referring to:

Seoul to work with Hanoi to pursue peace on Korean peninsula Korea Times Jan 27-29.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2023/01/103_344358.html

I'll have to wait and see on that. To me the Hanoi official's statement is inscrutable.

Maybe it's the English translation that is poor. What Yoon had to say is consistent with the US maximum pressure policy expectation of North Korean collapse, and Yoon's mystical guru predicting Korea will be unified by the end of Yoon's term. I think North Vietnam would grudgingly acknowledge anything South Korea said because they invest a lot of money there.

The article from the conservative Korean Times English language news source also seems to be responding to widespread criticism of the Yoon administration's use of the national security law to suppress labor and civic organizations and intimidate his political opposition generally. I won't repeat my list of acts of political oppression by Yoon and his dictatorship of prosecutors. But I will mention that Lee Jae-myung the democratic party's leader and former presidential candidate against Yoon was interrogated by police on for twelve and a half hours yesterday on accusations anyone familiar with the evidence knows to be bogus in connection with a corrupt real estate development project in which Yoon himself has been implicated.

As Stoltenberg met with the South Korean foreign minister yesterday, and North Korea's Kim Yo-jong criticized NATOs tank transfer plans. Positions seem to be hardening. As a factual matter, South Korea's relations with North Korea are worse than they have been in years, thanks to Yoon's adopting the US-Japanese hard line approach lock, stock and barrel. Both North Korea and South Korea violated the armistice in connection with the Dec 26 drone incursions.

Thanks for picking up on this story, I was unaware of this. I don't think anything Vietnam did in terms of opening itself up to trade is a lesson to North Korea. North Korea's informal market reforms were basically shut down by covid. I understand there is some public health issue (described as respiratory disease) there now. North Korea is otherwise under what amounts to a US/UN embargo. This is why their economy suffers. Korea needs to be unified and reconnected to mainland Asia on the ground. The prior South Korean administration of Moon Jae-in had policy initiatives to open up North Korea, and the US shut them down.

The only possible positive sign I see is an apparent hiatus in threatening military activities on both sides since the first week in January. This is a speculative inference based on a lack of reports otherwise. Who knows? My usual sources in South Korea media haven't commented on this possibility of north-south dialogue as of yet.

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語必忠信 行必正直

@soryang

think it may have been RT or Naked Cap?
There is some dialogue going on, beyond the
Rus and Chn taking the NK "under their wings".
One could hope the stress against the SK and JPN
war mongers will have a push back. We'll see.

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soryang's picture

@QMS Here's one from RT on the 27th.

South Korea unveils path to ‘normalize’ ties with Pyongyang
Seoul will seek “direct and indirect” contact with North Korea, the government said

...“It is important for North Korea to come back to dialogue with sincerity,” Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said. He added that, although Seoul has remained open to restarting negotiations with Pyongyang, his government was not considering a concrete offer to North Korea at the moment.

At the same time, the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper quoted the Unification Ministry as saying that Seoul was hoping to push its neighbor towards negotiations by strengthening diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea and by maintaining the alliance with the US. “We will create conditions, in which North Korea… will have no choice but to come to dialogue,” Kwon said, as quoted by the newspaper.

https://www.rt.com/news/570559-south-korea-normalization-plan/

QMS Appreciate your interest in the North Korea issue.

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語必忠信 行必正直

@soryang

therein lies the bullshit
thanks for pointing it out
the US is not going to do anything
to allow NK diplomatic channels open to
Seoul nor vice a versa
whenever I see economic in a statement
it is code speak for the dollar drudge
sorry to see the SK and JPN leaders go
down that path

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studentofearth's picture

@soryang Thank you for providing. Well worth the time to read. Enjoyed the music video and translation.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Here is something I received today, athough I don't actually know the guy.

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritter/p/twelve-years-and-nine-months...

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studentofearth's picture

@QMS seen the article.

Good view into part of society most of us will never have firsthand experience. Plus insight into our country from an individual raised in a different culture and had visited many parts of the world.

Viktor was a high-profile individual, an accused arms dealer who, in 2011, had been found guilty at trial of several serious charges which derived from a 2008 DEA sting operation, and who had subsequently been sentenced to serve 25 years in prison. But in early December of last year, after serving fourteen years and nine months of his sentence, Viktor Bout was released from incarceration, part of a deal between the US and Russian governments that saw Viktor exchanged for WNBA star Britnney Grimes, who had been imprisoned in Russia on drug-related charges.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLOzzuByYzc]

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

studentofearth's picture

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

snoopydawg's picture

b covered Taibbi's latest Twitter dump on Hamilton 68 and their Russia Russia nonsense. The question is what will happen to them after the biggest psyop in history?

Not a thing. The left have eagerly embraced Russia as an opponent, an incredibly successful piece of domestic psyops that made the most anti-war demographic in America into full blown war boosters. To the extent they’ll passively accept further cuts to social spending.

The right gamed themselves when they accepted in opposition to any solid evidence, that their Pres was cheated of his rightful 2nd term.

The real govt gets it all, Left vs Russia, Right and Left vs China, both against the Center and any vestige of common sense or govt accountability for where their taxes go. And for the rest of us scratching our heads “this was WAY too easy”.

Posted by: MillerJ | Jan 28 2023 16:31 utc | 25

I see many shitlibs saying that they have always been anti war, but….as they fully get behind Ukraine in kicking Russian butt.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Edited to add:

Iran does not react in a kneejerk way. I do believe that there will be a future follow up response.

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@humphrey two were caught in safety nets and exploded, damage was to a roof that caught fire, no loss of life.
From the Iran site that came up on a Google search about 30 minutes ago.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981