weekly watch

The Weekly Watch

Light and Dark

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This Wednesday is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year. The sun has made it's march south, and now pauses before it climbs back up in the sky. Days will grow longer in the endless cycle of light and dark. Tonight is the start of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights that lasts for eight days and nights in honor of a 2,000-year-old miracle in which light won out over darkness.

The Weekly Watch

News and Views

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It's been another busy news cycle this week: Drone strikes in Russia, war grinding on in the Donbass, a supposed coup attempt in Germany, a definite presidential coup in Peru, China meets with Saudi and Qatar adding another blow against the petrodollar, Egypt joins the BRICS+ bank, Twitter files reveal FBI involvement, 'elensky is Time magazine and The Financial Times "Man of the Year", Dutch farms seized, and more. Jump in below the fold for details...

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The Weekly Watch

Every Empire Falls

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It is a long litanty of fallen empires including Greek, Roman, Mongol, Spanish, Dutch, and British. Now, it is the US turn to experience the loss of it primacy. It is easy to see the decline of America in the last couple of decades. Some historians point to patterns of decline. This author suggest seven common signs: fixation on their ideology, absorption in amusement and entertainment, government corruption, degrading public health, nutritional stratification and food challenges, over expansion, and constant war.

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The Weekly Watch

Homecoming?

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After missing the posting of this column last week, it feels like homecoming to publish today's musings. Last week we managed to avoid WWIII, as the missile that hit Poland was confirmed to be Ukrainian. Gonzalo said (5 min) thank God for the Polish potato farmer and his posted photograph of the missile, without which the war mongers might have called on article 4 of the NATO alliance. Both Gonzalo and Scott Ritter speculate the missile was fired as a false flag to escalate the current conflict. And so the NATO proxy war with Russia continues...

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The Weekly Watch

Signals Flashing

Train Wreck Coming

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Empires rise and empires fall. We're living during one of those transitions which have occurred many times before. The loss of the dominance of the US dollar is happening before our eyes as American arrogance, aggression, and bullying has turned much of the world away from the US/west and toward the evolving "fair world" multipolar order. There are many signals flashing, giving warning, and it is time to think ahead and prepare for the coming storm.
This chart looks back 1400 years and charts the estimated relative supremacy of the great empires. Of note: the blue American A-frame with a peak around 1955, and the meteoric rise of red China.

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The Weekly Watch

Change of Time

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Time of Change

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Recently, the country’s Senate approved a bill to end the seasonal time change and establish a fixed one. However, this still continues as a proposal since the bill has not been approved by the House of Representatives, which means that the mandate must continue to be fulfilled. Two states, Hawaii and Arizona do not make the change because they have their own state laws to keep their hours fixed.

I live on the time cusp between Eastern and Central time, so I convert from fast time to slow time and back on the regular. None the less I wish they would leave time alone.
Now as to the "time of change", we are experiencing the biggest swing in the balance of power in my lifetime, from western hegemony to a multipolar fair and balanced world order centered around the BRICS+ alliance.

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The Weekly Watch

Spooks and Scary Stories

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We often talk about the "deep state" which I call the mafia branch of our government, but perhaps the "dark state" is a more appropriate descriptor. I've speculated before that Wallace was removed and Truman inserted as FDR's veep in order to insure the creation of the CIA. Of course the FBI has existed longer, starting in 1908 with J. Edgar Hoover joining in 1917. Theoretically the FBI is domestic and the CIA international, but the lines have blurred. I find both organizations rogue agencies ignoring law and promoting their own power and control. I think they are both scary.

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The Weekly Watch

Looking for the Exit

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As we've discussed many times, the US system is broken. The government has been captured and the pols are owned by corporate oligarchs and do their bidding, not the people's business. Is there a way out of this situation? Similarly, the US is creating endless war with arms manufacturing in about every district in America to insure compliance. Is there even a way off the war treadmill? I've been looking, but I can't find the exit.

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The Weekly Watch

Suppressing Competent Leaders

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In the west, empty headed puppets are preferred as the leadership class. They're so much easier to control and manipulate. Any thinking candidates who will try to serve the people will be maligned, derided, and ignored. What brings this to mind is both Tulsi's resignation from the democratic party, and a clip below of Jeremy Corbyn. Both of whom if given a chance would be competent leaders, IMO. As a result they've both been smeared and sidelined. I find Putin and Xi competent leaders working for the good of their own people rather than corporate profit. Contrast them with the likes of Joementia, Liz Truss, Scholz, or Macron the banker.

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The Weekly Watch

Big Lies

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A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth, used especially as a propaganda technique. The German expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his book Mein Kampf (1925), to describe the use of a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

The following supposed quotation of Joseph Goebbels has been repeated in numerous books and articles and on thousands of web pages, yet none of them has cited a primary source. According to the research and reasoning of Randall Bytwerk, it is an unlikely thing for Goebbels to have said. None the less it seems a common and effective strategy.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

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