The Evening Blues - 9-8-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues rock outfit Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Enjoy!
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Everything's Gonna Be Alright
“Convenient mythologies require neither evidence nor logic.”
-- Edward S. Herman
News and Opinion
If Everyone Understood That The US Deliberately Provoked This War
War is the single worst thing humans do. The most insane. The most cruel. The most destructive. The most traumatic. The least sustainable. Those who knowingly choose to steer humanity into more war when it could be avoided are the worst people in the world, without exception.
And there are mountains of extensively documented evidence that that’s exactly what the drivers of the US-centralized empire did in Ukraine. That’s why so many western analysts and experts spent years warning that the actions of western powers were going to lead Ukraine into disaster, and it’s why US empire managers keep openly boasting about how much their proxy warfare in Ukraine advances US interests. They knowingly steered Ukraine into war to advance their own geostrategic interests while being fully aware that no powerful nation would ever permit the kinds of foreign threats the west was amassing on its borders, and then they intervened in the early days of the war to prevent the outbreak of peace.
If there was widespread awareness of these facts, the US war machine would lose support around the world — not just for its actions in this one war, but for all future wars as well. Which is why so much energy goes into making sure this does not become a widespread understanding.
The official mainstream narrative throughout the western world is that Putin invaded Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom. That’s the actual, literal belief about this war that the western political/media class works to instill in the western public. Anyone who counters this self-evidently ridiculous assessment with facts and evidence gets branded a Russian agent and swarmed with pro-US trolls on social media, and loses all hope of securing a major platform in any mass media.
And it’s important to notice that shutting down all mature adult analysis of the events which led to the war in this way does not actually save a single Ukrainian life. It doesn’t make Russia any more likely to stop fighting and withdraw its troops. All it does is prevent people from seeing the US empire for what it really is. It isn’t being done to protect Ukrainians, it’s done to protect the empire.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to the information interests of the US empire would be for a critical mass of people to become aware that all this death and destruction in Ukraine could have been avoided by the US-centralized empire behaving less aggressively on Russia’s doorstep, and that those aggressions were instead increased with the goal of advancing US strategic interests on the world stage. If everyone really, deeply understood that all this suffering, all these mountains of human corpses could simply not have happened if the US hadn’t been feverishly focused on securing planetary domination at all cost, the US would no longer be able to manufacture consent for its agendas. It would no longer be able to whip up international support for its actions against its enemies. It would no longer be able to persuade the world to help prop up the hegemony of the dollar.
But because the US empire has the most advanced soft power apparatus that has ever existed, hardly anyone understands this. Not even the people who understand that the west provoked this war have deeply grappled with exactly what that means on a visceral emotional level, for the most part. It’s more of a superficial intellectual understanding for most, without really grokking into the horror of it all, really letting the enraging nature of what the US empire did wash over them.
The west was deceived into supporting yet another evil American war, this time with the added dimension of nuclear brinkmanship threatening the life of every terrestrial organism. All to suck Moscow into another draining military quagmire so war plans can be safely drawn up against China while advancing US energy interests in Europe and building support for US military alliances. It’s almost too evil to take in. There aren’t really words for it.
And that’s one of the reasons it’s hard to get people to take in exactly what happened with Ukraine: people have a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea that anyone could be that evil, much less the government we’ve been trained by Hollywood to think of as sane and humanitarian.
It’s about as monstrous a thing as you could possibly come up with. Yet here it is, still unfolding in all its blood-spattered glory.
Our task then is to help people see this and understand it, not just intellectually but emotionally. Help people really grasp deep down the horrors the US empire unleashed upon our world with the war in Ukraine; the suffering; the death; the existential danger. We can’t fight the empire on our own, but we can each do what we can to help weaken the consent manufacturing machine it uses to rule and terrorize the world.
Hotel Ukraine - You can never leave w/ Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen
Western Sanctions on Russia Fracture G20 Ahead of Upcoming Summit
The Washington-led effort to remove Russia from the world economy is widening the division in the Group of 20 (G20), according to the AP.
The outlet reports, “Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is facing growing skepticism from some leading rich and developing nations as the residual impact of sanctions against Russia is deepening divisions among the Group of 20 countries.” It continues, “With world leaders and finance ministers meeting this week in India for the G20 summit, fractures have [come] into the open, and alliances are tightening among some nations that have long been resistant to the U.S.-led efforts to exact economic punishment on Moscow for its war in Ukraine.”
Demolishing democracy at home to promote it in Ukraine
Elon Musk ordered Starlink to be turned off during Ukraine offensive, book says
Elon Musk ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships, according to a new biography. CNN quoted an excerpt from the biography Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which described how armed submarine drones were approaching their targets when they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”.
The biography, due out on Tuesday, alleges Musk ordered Starlink engineers to turn off service in the area of the attack because of his concern that Vladimir Putin would respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Crimea. He is reported to have said that Ukraine was “going too far” in threatening to inflict a “strategic defeat” on the Kremlin.
Musk’s threats to withdraw Starlink communications at various stages of the conflict have been previously reported, but this is the first time it has been alleged he cut off Ukrainian forces in the middle of a specific operation. The date of the would-be attack was not specified. Musk reportedly referred to it as a “mini Pearl Harbor”, although Ukrainian forces were operating within their internationally recognised territorial waters.
Musk, the CEO of the Tesla electric car company and SpaceX rocket and spacecraft manufacturer, as well as owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, initially agreed to supply Starlink hardware to Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion disrupted Ukrainian communications. But he reportedly had second thoughts after Kyiv succeeded in repelling the initial Russian assault and began to counterattack.
“How am I in this war?” Musk asked rhetorically in an interview with Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
Ukraine’s Growing Assassination Program
Ukraine’s domestic security service (SBU) has an elite ancillary known as the fifth counter-intelligence directorate, which has taken a central role in “counter-Russia operations” specializing in “wet work” or assassinations, according to a report in The Economist.
The report discusses the killing of Yevhen Yunakov, the former mayor of Velykyi Burluk in the Khariv region, after he had been targeted as a “collaborator” with Moscow. Yunakov was meticulously stalked for days by a group of local officers from the Special Operations Forces (SSO) before being murdered with a bomb. ...
SSO is described as a relatively new group that directs the Resistance Movement, Ukraine’s partisans. One officer in the SSO, told the outlet the group is demanding more authority to conduct operations within Russia.
Ukrainian military intelligence has been implicated in various attacks inside Russia which have targeted civilians. “If you are asking about [creating a version of] Mossad…We don’t need to. It already exists,” General Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Main Directorate of intelligence for the Ukraine defense ministry, boasted during an interview this July.
US ‘Increasingly Concerned’ With Ukraine Battlefield Tactics Against Russia
US officials have expressed concerns regarding the battlefield tactics Ukraine is using to combat invading Russian forces.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials told The New York Times that Kyiv has been deploying too many troops in the wrong places.
They said the country’s best combat units are being sent equally to the east and south when they should concentrate more in the south where heavy fighting normally occurs.
An interesting article worth a read. Here's a snippet to get you started:
LEAKED: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution In Indonesia
Documents passed anonymously to MintPress News reveal the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a notorious CIA front, is laying the foundations for a color revolution in Indonesia.
In February 2024, citizens will elect their President, Vice President, and both legislative chambers. Current maverick leader Joko Widodo, widely beloved by Indonesians, is ineligible for a third term, and NED is preparing to seize power in the wake of his departure. This operation is conducted despite the leaks indicating Jakarta’s foremost intelligence agency has expressly warned U.S. officials to stay put.
The paper trail is a stunning insight into how NED operates behind the scenes, from which obvious inferences can be drawn about its activities elsewhere, past and present. By the organization’s own reckoning, it operates in over 100 countries and disperses in excess of 2,000 grants every year. In Indonesia, these sums have helped extend the Endowment’s tendrils into various NGOs, civil society groups, and, most crucially, political parties and candidates across the ideological spectrum.
This broad spread bet goes some way to ensuring U.S. assets, one way or another, will emerge victorious next February. However, a veritable army of NED operatives on the ground is also primed to challenge, if not overturn, the results should the wrong people win. Personal grants – in other words, bribes – from the Endowment have already secretly been distributed to Indonesians for staging anti-government protests.
Mass. Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira again denied pretrial release in leaked document case
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking secret military papers through social media, is once again being denied his request to be released while awaiting trial. United States District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued an order on Friday upholding the previous decision of a magistrate judge that Teixeira kept behind bars while awaiting trial. ...
Citing evidence the government believes is still missing, the judge also expressed concern that Teixeira could have an opportunity to obstruct the case if he was released. Talwani noted that a computer hard drive and Teixeira's former cellphone have not been found. She also said that investigators have not located the original copies of any documents allegedly taken from from Otis Air Force Base.
"The circumstances of the offense leave open the possibility of further harm because some of the classified information at issue has not yet been recovered," Talwani wrote. "The government has not found any of the physical documents Teixeira allegedly printed, nor has it located the hard drive from Teixeira’s home computer, or the digital copies of documents Teixeira may have stored electronically and then posted online. In the wrong hands, the information and documents that the government has not recovered could do great harm to the community by threatening national security."
Atlanta police arrest five activists chained to bulldozer at ‘Cop City’ site
Atlanta police arrested five activists, including two clergy members, on Thursday after the activists chained themselves to a bulldozer at the construction site for “Cop City”, a huge police and fire department training center being built in a forest south-east of Atlanta.
The activists entered an open gate around 9am local time where trees are being cleared and land is being graded for the training center, which would occupy a footprint of 170 acres if completed according to plans. Two Unitarian Universalist church clergy members hung a sign on the bulldozer saying: “Stop work.”
The action, which was supported by a rally outside the gate, took place only two days after the state attorney general, Chris Carr, indicted 61 people under Georgia’s Rico racketeering law who had previously been arrested in connection with opposition to the training center in the last year-plus.
The indictment is believed to be the largest group of protesters or activists ever charged under a law meant to prosecute conspiracies to commit crimes and often used against organized crime gangs like the mafia.
Mary Hooks, an organizer with an effort to put the question of whether Cop City should be built on a referendum for Atlanta voters to decide, was at the rally outside the construction site. “We’re here to assert the people’s will,” she said. “We will not be deterred.” The referendum effort has already collected more than 100,000 signatures – nearly twice the required amount to get the question on the ballot in an upcoming election – but the city of Atlanta is currently holding up the process in court.
Trump may seek to transfer Georgia 2020 election charges to federal court
Donald Trump’s lead defense lawyer notified a judge in Fulton county on Thursday that he could soon seek to remove to federal court the racketeering prosecution charging him with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. The unusual filing, submitted to the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee, said only that the former president “may seek removal of his prosecution”, stopping short of submitting a formal motion to transfer the trial venue.
Trump has been weighing for weeks whether to seek removal to federal court and, according to two people familiar with deliberations, is expected to make a decision based on whether his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his own effort.
The idea with waiting on a decision in the Meadows case, the people said, is to use him as a test. If Meadows is successful in transferring to federal court, the Trump legal team is intending to repurpose the same arguments and follow a similar strategy.
To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level. The rationale to seek removal to federal court is seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.
White House set for Hunter Biden battle as Republicans look to pounce
The White House is bracing for political trench warfare after prosecutors pursuing Joe Biden’s son on a gun possession charge said they would seek a criminal indictment by the end of September.
The prospect of Hunter Biden standing trial is likely to energise Republicans preparing to launch an impeachment inquiry into the president even as Congress tries to avert a government shutdown.
The White House has reportedly set up a “war room” of two dozen lawyers and aides to combat the Republican effort, partly by studying how Bill Clinton turned his 1998 impeachment to his political advantage.
Long a political liability for his father, Hunter Biden bought a pistol in 2018 and allegedly lied on a federal form by stating he was not a drug user at the time. In a Wednesday court filing, the special counsel David Weiss said the government would seek a grand jury indictment before 29 September.
Keeping the "Dem" in Dementia:
Pelosi says she'll run for reelection in 2024 as Democrats try to win back House majority
Ending months of speculation, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday that she will seek reelection to the House in 2024. ...
The 83-year-old has represented San Francisco since 1987. She is the first woman elected as Speaker of the House - twice.
Antarctica warming much faster than models predicted in ‘deeply concerning’ sign for sea levels
Antarctica is likely warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate change models are predicting, with potentially far-reaching implications for global sea level rise, according to a scientific study.
Scientists analysed 78 Antarctic ice cores to recreate temperatures going back 1,000 years and found the warming across the continent was outside what could be expected from natural swings.
In West Antarctica, a region considered particularly vulnerable to warming with an ice sheet that could push up global sea levels by several metres if it collapsed, the study found warming at twice the rate suggested by climate models.
Private equity profits from climate disaster clean-up – while investing in fossil fuels
Private equity firms are increasingly profiting from cleaning up climate disasters in the US, while failing to better protect workers and often also investing in the fossil fuels that are causing the climate emergency, new research has found. The demand for skilled disaster restoration or resilience workers, who are mostly immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Asia, is soaring as greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels heat the planet, provoking more destructive storms, floods and wildfires.
As the industry has become more profitable, at least 72 companies that specialize in disaster cleanups and restoration have been acquired by private equity firms since 2020, according to the research, by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PSEP) and Resilience Force, a labor rights organization with thousands of members. Wage theft, lack of protective clothing, and other unsafe conditions are rampant across the industry at the expense of workers, communities and climate, according to the report, Private Equity Profits from Disasters, shared exclusively with the Guardian. ...
It is impossible to say precisely what proportion of the disaster workforce is currently controlled by private equity, but acquisitions are gathering pace, with 14 in the first six months of this year compared to 13 during the entire course of 2020. Acquisitions included companies from 28 states, but most were in Florida and Texas – states hit by multiple billion-dollar climate disasters in recent years. ...
Researchers found a third of the private equity companies with disaster restoration company investments are also backing fossil fuel-linked projects – ostensibly profiting from the cause and effect of the climate emergency. ... The Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private equity firm, which manages over $1tn, backs 21 energy companies, of which 52% are fossil-fuel projects. ... In March 2019, Blackstone acquired a majority share in Servpro Industries, a damage restoration company with more than 2,000 independently owned and operated franchises across the US and Canada. Servpro franchises helped with restoration efforts after Hurricanes Harvey, Matthew and Sandy – some of the most devastating storms to hit the US mainland in recent years. ...
In another example the commercial restoration firm BlueSky, which operates in more than 40 states, is owned by two private equity companies including Partners Group, whose portfolio also includes gas pipeline companies in the US and Europe.
Watchdog Finds Trump Border Wall Harmed Environment, Indigenous Sites, and Wildlife
A U.S. government watchdog agency on Thursday released a report exposing how former President Donald Trump's wall construction along the nation's border with Mexico negatively affected cultural and natural resources, as critics have long argued.
"The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Defense (DOD) installed about 458 miles of border barrier panels across the southwest border from January 2017 through January 2021," according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. "Most (81%) of the miles of panels replaced existing barriers."
"The agencies installed over 62% of barrier miles on federal lands, including on those managed by the Department of the Interior," the report continues. "Interior and CBP officials, as well as federally recognized tribes and stakeholders, noted that the barriers led to various impacts, including to cultural resources, water sources, and endangered species, and from erosion."
The GAO document details how the border wall work caused severe erosion; disrupted natural water flows; damaged native plants while spreading invasive species; disturbed wildlife habitats and migration patterns, including for threatened and endangered species; and destroyed Indigenous burial grounds and sacred sites.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
‘Occupied by the US’: wildfires renew Native Hawaiian call for sovereignty
Pepe Escobar: No Respite for France as ‘New Africa’ Rises
Thanks to Biden, the War Party is back
Drone Manufacturer Makes Bank on Ukraine War
What It Means When a Former Mossad Chief Recognizes Israeli Apartheid
Senate Banking to Convene Hearing Today on Climate Crisis Becoming a Homeowners Insurance Crisis
Mexico Decriminalizes Abortion in Major Step Forward for Reproductive Rights in Latin America
Five decades on, Chile still grapples with legacy of Pinochet dictatorship
A Little Night Music
Paul Butterfield Blues Band -Walking Blues
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Last Night
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - I Got a Mind to Give up Living
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Mystery Train
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Two Trains Running
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Lovin' Cup
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - One More Heartache
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Born Under A Bad Sign
Paul Butterfield Blues Band at Newport 1965
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - A&R Studios NYC 1970 (Complete Bootleg)
Comments
The sad thing about this is that the people who are supporting
.
Ukraine were once very aware of it and how consent for war is manufactured.
Most of them saw that Bush/Cheney were lying to us about the reason why we had to invade all of Iraq to remove Saddam and they were very much against the war on Iraq and even more so against the war on Afghanistan. But then Hillary and Obama lied to us about why we had to invade Libya and then Syria to remove their leaders and they suddenly became cheerleaders for the wars. They rarely mentioned the Yemen genocide.
Shitlibs are absolutely livid with Elon Musk not allowing his Starlink satellite service to be used by Ukraine when they were sending drone boats to attack the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. They know that Musk said that he was afraid that a successful attack would bring out nuclear weapons. But they are calling for him to be tried for treason and for the government to take his Starlink program away from him. And even worse things should be done to him. So they aren’t seeing the evil behind the government lies and actions, but they have willingly joined it in being evil themselves.
Speaking of evil:
Unbelievably callous.
https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1699878099100266898
MEP: "You said that Ukraine is gradually conquering territories. But that's not true. Half a million people died. Now they have begun to mobilize even the limitedly fit and the sick and disabled."
Stoltenberg: "No one ever said it would be easy."
Me: "No one explained why Johnson told Zelensky not to sign the peace treaty with Russia 1 month after the war started that gave Ukraine a lot of things that they wanted. If they had then most of the dead Ukrainians would not have died in vain. Now Ukraine will lose even more territory and its workforce has been obliterated. I wonder how many people there know that Zelensky has sold a lot of the country to the global parasites? And he is going to implement even more harsh austerity measures. So just what are people fighting for?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
short answer
Q: So just what are people fighting for?
A: Money
evening snoopy...
but, you see, bad wars are only made by republicans, so their critical thinking switches off when a democrat is in office.
what a bunch of twits.
speaking of twits:
treason? really? do they have any clue as to the legal meaning of treason? did the u.s. congress declare war on russia while i wasn't looking? have these people ever heard of the 5th amendment's takings clause?
Yeah but…
Those who pointed out that we aren’t at war with Russia say that there should be an exception for what Musk did. After all Ukraine had spent months planning the op and Musk was very naughty because he kept them from…oh never mind. I got whiplash trying to figure out all the things and nonsense they were saying. But at times they are amusing.
Their thinking on this is right up there with their saying that Biden is the most union friendly president of all time.
Did you post this already?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeTe9Z7Zkjk
West really has some great blinders on. Jimmy says that Biden has done more damage to the black community than Trump did and named the crime bill and a few other things that Biden is famous for, but West just couldn’t see it. Sadly Jimmy had poor form by yelling and not letting brother West speak. Quick question. What is the definition of fascism? lol.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
heh...
i haven't posted that yet. i haven't been able to get through the whole thing and reflect on it. so far as i can see so far, west came out of the interview looking a bit willfully obtuse about the evil that joe biden represents, while dore came off looking like a bit of an asshole. at the bottom of it, dore had some good points/criticisms but his manner of expressing them (at least to my eye so far) seems not to support his spoken goal of helping west to fine tune his message.
i dunno. i'm still taking it all in.
The PBBB be alright
One hell of a jam dat. Had to don the headphones for the full effect.
Thanks joe, made my night alright.
evening qms...
glad you dug it! i found a couple more butterfield band-related albums in the basement and i'm planning to clean them up and digitize them soon for a weekend dispersal in a few weeks.
have a great evening!
Good gravy, Jake
.
Biden willingly made the deal with republicans to kick millions off not only Medicaid, but food stamps too. Plus he promised to veto any bill that would give us universal health care and reneged on the public option. As for it being Biden’s legacy do you really think he gives a damn about his legacy after all the heinous bills he has helped get passed in his 50 years of sucking everything he could from the working class? Instead of canceling student loans he should be getting congress to rewrite the bankruptcy code that keeps people from discharging their loans through it. Obama had the majority for 2 years and he did squat about it. I feel a rant coming on….
Quick let’s send a few more millions to Ukraine…oh wait! Blinken is there now doing just that.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
heh...
every now and then, i feel the need to post this. now is one of those times:
1984 Part 2, Chapter 9
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient -- a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete -- was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person. Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society. As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute -- the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.
Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940. The economy of many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation, capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity. But this, too, entailed military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted were obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter -- set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call 'the proles'. The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.
the undisputed master of the entire world
wow man, that is some heavy stuff. Haven't gone back to 1984 in a long time, for mental
health reasons. Thanks for sharing that nugget from George. Now I'm supposed to sleep?
heh...
i suppose that counting sheep would probably bring up bad thoughts about our fellow citizens?
sorry.
that's funny
and appropriate
sleepy sheep for sure
no need for apologies
we are in this together
Orwell was spot on
I think this is a good description of the world we are living in today too. When I was just a wee one I thought the future would be much different than what it is. We might have had it after the USSR collapsed, but that’s when the war machine ramped up. Many see his book as a warning of what happens if we don’t hold government accountable. How we could have done that is the question. But Smedley gave us a good idea what we could have done. Not join the military and become muscle and cannon fodder for the parasite class. I think people are getting the message now, but not enough of them.
Thanks for posting it.
This rang true too.
We're Living In A Neofeudal Bubble
Almost every penny we earn goes into an oligarch’s pocket and people have limited amounts of money to just play and buy things that they want that can bring them joy.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
heh...
that's one of the reasons that precarity is important to the (real) powers that be, keeping a class of people willing to join the military in order to "get ahead" and go to college, etc. unemployment is important to the military's prospects as well. a while back i remember some congressworm making it explicit that we should end covid supports in order to drive up recruiting. nice guy!
if everybody refused to join, they would bring back conscription, though.
Who was it that said
"If we raise the minimum wage then that would affect how many people join the military." ?
Nothing like saying the quiet part out loud.
How does one get this….
from this?
Nowhere does Musk say that he spoke to Russia about turning off the Starlink connection. They asked him to activate them from government authorities which I take means someone in OUR government because why would Russia ask him to do that? I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that Musk talked to Putin himself who asked him to turn off something that wasn’t turned on. He says that he doesn’t want his company involved in the war. And what if Ukraine blowing up a lot of the Russian fleet did lead to nuclear war? Would kos and his friends be so glib about that? I think not.
I’m thinking instead that it has something to do with Musk fighting the ADL and the EU's draconian digital service act that is telling social media to censor more disinformation. Greenwald talks about the censorship here.
https://twitter.com/SystemUpdate_/status/1699834217415217488
Musk is simi trying to buck the system and people don’t like it and want him to toe their line.
I’m still unable to embed tweets. I don’t know how to ask the Twit gawds how to fix it.
I get this every time I try.
It’s harshing my vibe!
Hey Humphrey where you be?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
censor more disinformation
honestly don't get it
in plain language that reads as
control information
sorry, don't twit so can't help
good luck
here's that tweet:
G7, G20, EU
Are collectively being relegated to the penalty box by stronger world orders.
The inability of the collective west to recognize their demotion in the face of
BRICS+ is very telling. France can not negotiate with Niger, US can not
negotiate with Russia or China in good faith. NATO only wants more war.
EU wants to include minor members to beef-up their impotency. US is
going headlong into un-payable debt. Whenever the adults return to the
room and start making viable financial decisions, it may be too late to save
the crown.
heh...
but will the ruling elite still be on top?
gotta be sittin' on top of the word
yeah, no
once the crown falls down
that's it till next time
Hadn't heard that in
quite a while, QMS.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Yeah, the harmonies at the beginning and end
really make the piece memorable
like an Oreo cookie,
I skip the middle parts
Good evening Joe et. al. Thanks for the EBs, Joe, especially
the good old PBBB. Always extra good to inclued Pigboy.
Have a great weekend, be well and have a good one
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 --
evening el...
have a great weekend! i have some more pigboy almost ready to go for some future weekend.