Thursday, November 28, 2019

Incremental

Baby Stepping,

I am in the habit of looking at what history demands of us going forward, and also what history has provided at similar junctures in the past.
Right now, at the Wile-E-Coyote moment of global economy, with the cheap and easy resources all in terminal decline, and toxic waste products already a big problem for a long time, we need to steer out of exploitive  economic and military competition, and into cooperative stewardship of life on earth. 
We will need an efficient economy, in terms of meeting human and ecological needs.
What history has provided in the past is massive war, but there was always resource to exploit somewhere to pay for the war after it ended.
Not this time.
Therefore massive war is clearly against global elite interests, though some rigid nationalist elites may speculate a gain for themselves (see Israeli politics).
Cooperative resource stewardship is clearly against power elite goals, but not dangerously so. It won't kill half of them.
As long as there is a path of little, incremental steps, going forward, then massive war will be the riskier step each time. 
If we can make not-WW-3 the obvious step for every power-lizard, every day, then we may keep living to work on this very complicated problem.
Trump threatening war for the media, and not pushing the big red button, is par for the course, as far as I can tell.
What comes next?

North Korea launched a couple of missiles in the general direction of Japan, with high trajectories, which plunked down in Korean waters, far from Japan. Just showing that they can...

China responds to Trump signing Hong Kong Rights legislation, in unanimity with Congress.
 The United States signed the so-called "Hong Kong Bill of Rights and Democracy" into law. This move seriously interfered with Hong Kong affairs, seriously interfered with China's internal affairs, and seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relations. It was a naked hegemonic act, and the Chinese government and people firmly opposed it.
 Since the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, "one country, two systems" has achieved universally recognized success, and Hong Kong residents enjoy unprecedented democratic rights in accordance with the law. The United States ignored the facts, turned black and white, and blatantly supported the violent criminals who smashed and burned innocent people, trampled against the rule of law, and endangered social order. They are extremely bad in nature and very dangerous. Their fundamental purpose is to undermine Hong Kong ’s prosperity and stability, The great practice of "one country, two systems" undermines the historical process of the Chinese nation's great rejuvenation.

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Stay Home!
 Global Times editor-in-chief and notorious twitter troll, Hu Xijin ,tweeted Thursday that China is considering adding those who drafted the Hong Kong Bill of Rights and Democracy Act into law on a no-entry list, banning them from traveling to China's mainland, Hong Kong, and Macau.

 WSJ summarized, for all its huffing and puffing, "China’s leadership still wants a deal to help alleviate pressure on its fast-weakening economy", which incidentally coincides with Trump's own interest as he hopes to clinch a deal to boost his re-election bid.
 Indeed, as the WSJ's Lingling Wei also notes, Trump "Trump also chose the evening before Thanksgiving to sign the measure, a time guaranteed to get little attention in the U.S. While his signature still makes the bill law, his timing suggests he was trying to play down the political impact at home.

 The cat is out of the bag: Boris Johnson is dancing to Donald Trump’s tune, regardless of the damage this might cause to Britain. His promises to maintain Britain’s ‘high standards’ after Brexit are not worth the paper they’re written on.
 That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from a set of leaked papers detailing trade talks between US and UK officials over the last 3 years. The minutes, redacted versions of which Jeremy Corbyn held up at last Tuesday’s leaders debate, were posted by an anonymous source on the discussion website, Reddit. They show how the US administration has already successfully bullied Britain into taking a harder Brexit position, which is good for Trump’s geopolitical games and US big business, but bad for Britain’s economy and British welfare...
​ ​Papers from the time of Theresa May’s ‘Chequers plan’ are illuminating because the administration is clearly furious at May’s promise of long-term alignment with EU standards which would prevent the dilution of British food regulations which US agribusiness hopes to benefit from.​..
   US officials explicitly mention the infamous chlorine-washed chickens, promising to help the British government sell the concept to a sceptical British public. They attack attempts to reduce sugar in food, the protection of regional products (like Stilton cheese and Cornish pasties) and even nutritional labelling, which they say is more harmful than it is useful.​..
 ... They call the European Parliament’s decision to temporarily ban the Monsanto-owned chemical glyphosate “unhelpful”.​..
...​US seems interested in introducing a ‘corporate court system’ in a US-UK deal, formally known as ‘investor state dispute settlement’ or ISDS, a mechanism regularly used in other trade deals to make government action on climate change more difficult. ISDS would allow thousands of US multinationals access to secretive tribunals, for the first time, where they can sue the British government for treating them ‘unfairly’.​..
 Both the British and American sides agree that these talks should be secret – exempt from freedom of information rules – and it’s clear to see why.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/leaked-us-trade-talks-show-how-trump-is-dictating-johnsons-approach-to-a-hard-brexit/  


French farmers drive tractors through Paris to protest plans for further beatings with globalist sticks. 
It has been a long time since farmers got a carrot.

Thanksgiving Meditations

Let's Get Together, Jefferson Airplane (band of Dino Valenti, the songwriter)

Before The Deluge, Jackson Browne

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