Sunday, July 31, 2022

President Pelosi

 Flying Economy Class,


  Nancy Pelosi is flying to Taiwan with a whole aircraft carrier group going ahead and not one, but many military planes in a huge defensive formation.
Nancy unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square back in 1991, when she was just a little Congresswoman, standing between 2 tall white neocon guys. 
It was a photo-op 2 years after the 1989  incident (largely arranged by the US), and the Chinese shut it right down, but they didn't forget it.
  So, from a Chinese perspective, the most actually-powerful elected official in US government, second-in-line for the presidency, behind a president who will be ousted later this year, and a VP who can never, ever be more than a bad stage prop, certainly not POTUS, goes to China's trigger-point-red-flag with a huge air-sea armada as an open challenge. (Recall how Agnew was removed before Nixon was deposed.)
  This can only be completely intentional on the part of American Ruling Elites. China can see this. Xi just talked to babbling-Joe. Xi gets it, I'm sure.
This simultaneously signals a change of direction and a change of leadership. Nancy P. is plausible as an actual POTUS, not a string puppet.
 The Biden Crime Family was deeply tied into Ukraine and China by graft. There is enough in the press to convict Joe and Hunter. Joe and Hunter can take the fall for Ukraine and also tar China,. This will justify more hostility towards China, which will crash the American consumer economy, but reduce the trade deficit. It will set the stage to rebuild American industry. China can play into this now by sending fighter planes up to scare fearless Nancy, and the Chinese Navy to threaten brave Taiwan, and the brave American navy with the Ronald Reagan carrier group.
  Xi is kind of stuck. He has to look strong at home against this American provocation, which it really, clearly is, but how can he look strong at home without looking mean and threatening to brave Nancy Pelosi in the US? He can't. He's caught in this trap. Nancy looks Presidential and Joe looks befuddled and beholden to China.
Nancy P. has been looking at the POTUS job a long time, but did not look electable, but she would be re-electable, especially if the US goes to "war" with China.
  The timeline would need to go pretty quickly, because Europe needs to be friends with Russia again before the weather cools off, before October. Europe can't sustain its economy. It has proven that, and after a no-energy winter, it might not be able to revive. NATO/EU shoving Russia down the basement stairs failed spectacularly. Russia never even lost balance and is stronger every day. China is economically very strong, but has a lot of exploitable weak points, both economically and militarily. Russia has proven unassailable, so China becomes the enemy of choice now.
  In my opinion, this would also signal a transfer of power to the "nationalist", "rationalist" American elites, and under a strong and believable chief executive. The American power-muddle would be settled, not by The Donald, but by The Nancy. 
  You might consider this scenario overly fanciful, but it would be a pivot to allow a lot of policies to change quickly, which is practical, and it would give the Democratic Party some kind of hope to hang onto power in 2024, even presuming that they lose the midterms badly this November.

Was/is Taiwan an "inseparable" part of China?  Wikipedia has this:
  From the late 13th to early 17th centuries, Chinese people gradually came into contact with Taiwan and started settling there. Named Formosa by Portuguese explorers, the south of the island was colonized by the Dutch in the 17th century whilst the Spanish built a settlement in the north which lasted until 1642. These European settlements were followed by an influx of Hoklo (a Han group) people including Hakka immigrants from the Fujian and Guangdong areas of mainland China, across the Taiwan Strait.
  In 1662, Koxinga, a loyalist of the Ming dynasty who had lost control of mainland China in 1644, defeated the Dutch and established a base of operations on the island. His forces were defeated by the Qing dynasty in 1683, and parts of Taiwan became increasingly integrated into the Qing empire. Following the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Qing ceded the island, along with Penghu, to the Empire of Japan...
  So, after about 200 years of Chinese imperial rule, as something of a backward colony, Taiwan entered the modern era with 50 years of Japanese rule, followed by a form of industrial fascism under Chiang Kai-shek, with American overlordship. After that, Taiwan became a neutral territory, in an agreed stalemate between the American Empire and a rising China, which could not yet militarily contest it. During this time of peace, Taiwan became the foremost chipmaker in the world, with manufacturing excellence in other fields, similar to that of South Korea and Japan. 
  Taiwan makes the chips that no other nation (Russia maybe?) can do without. No country can do without Taiwanese chips, but neither China nor the west can allow the other to completely control Taiwanese chipmaking. Making Taiwan a battlefield would be a horrible loss, but losing Taiwan would be political death. 
  Posing to make Taiwan the next battlefield in WW-3 definitely looks do-able. A risky plan for Taiwanese, Chinese and Americans, in that order.

This article says that massive death is the only assured outcome of a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan.

This article from The Saker blog is one-sided, and misses that China's rhetoric is at least as strong as that of the US. 
China cannot discard her rhetoric, as the US can still choose to do. (Taiwan is not Ukraine. There's a lot of water in between. There are other differences, too.)
  The current hot war of words regarding Nancy Pelosi’s announced visit to Taiwan is reaching a dangerous nexus and threatening to spill over into military action.
  China considers this belligerent approach as a threat to their stated One Country, Two Systems policy as well as a threat to the 1992 consensus. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait reached the consensus in 1992 that “both sides belong to one China and will work together toward national reunification”. It defines the fundamental nature of the cross-Strait relationship and lays the political foundation for its development.
  Taiwan is being used as a casus belli (an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify war) in the very same way that Ukraine was used and is currently used. A war of media, tremendous even brutal propaganda to their own citizens to paint the enemy as evil to justify their own actions, continual accusations using a human rights platform, and doubling down!


Xi can't back down. Joe will likely be leaving sooner, rather than later.
..China state sources are reporting that - in a moment perhaps intent on humiliating the US administration - Xi warned Biden "those who play with fire will get burned." 
  Bloomberg cited Xi as saying, based on early Chinese state media reports, that "China firmly opposes separatist moves toward Taiwan independence and interference by external forces, and never allows any room for Taiwan independence forces in whatever form." As usual, Biden was urged to stick by the one-China policy, with the US president reiterating that the US intends to.
  In the face of Xi's firm words on the Taiwan issue, Biden affirmed that the United States does not back Taiwan independence.
  Not only did Xi again lay down China's 'red lines' on Taiwan, but the Chinese leader stressed Beijing vehemently opposes the "intervention of other powers," according to quotes in China state media.
  The warning comes just hours after the USS Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered 'super carrier' has entered waters of the South China Sea, triggering PLA snap military drills in the area in response.

North Korea has recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Here are some reasons why. there may be more reasons.

  Cynthia Chung looks at an excellent topic, that of the overnight change of US foreign policy from anti-imperialism under FDR to pro-imperialist, especially the British Empire, under Truman. who Roosevelt never trusted, and rightly so. (Joseph Stalin believed that "Churchill's gang" poisoned FDR and was insulted that Russian diplomats were refused their request to see Roosevelt's body. Eleanor Roosevelt was refused a visa to the USSR for this affront.) Thanks Michael R.
‘The Special Relationship’: How the British Reconquered the United States and Established an Anglo-American Empire

  Berlin’s policy of abandoning imports of Russian natural gas is likely to create hardship and spark unrest, seven mayors from the German island of Ruegen wrote in a letter to the regional and federal governments on Wednesday. They also urged the federal government to allow gas imports via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, given the current technical difficulties with Nord Stream 1 – something Berlin has steadfastly rejected.

Did Ukraine kill these Ukrainian POWs, largely from Mariupol, held by Russian/Donetsk forces, intentionally? They get excellent targeting information from the US.
  Ukrainian troops shelled a prison housing prisoners of war in the suburban settlement of Yelenovka early Friday morning, according to the Donetsk People’s Republic’s deputy information minister, Daniil Bezsonov.
  “There was a direct hit at a building with prisoners,” Bezsonov wrote on Telegram. “The results as of now: 40 killed, 130 wounded.”
The minister added that he believes Kiev used US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers for the attack.  
https://www.rt.com/russia/559817-ukraine-shells-prison-holding-pows/

What is "Russian soil"? What is "Ukraine"? Hit it with HIMARS and find out?
  Kiev will not hesitate to attack Russian soil if it deems it necessary, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, threatened during a live broadcast on Wednesday.
  The security council closely follows all the missile and air strikes Russia launches against Ukraine, Danilov said, adding that Ukrainian authorities are well aware of all the locations in Russia from which the attacks have been carried out. Kiev possesses “enough political will” to order a strike against these targets if such a need arises, he added.
  “If needed … anyone [in the government] will act without hesitation and sign anything that needs to be signed to destroy these objects,” Danilov said.

  Russian forces have targeted an ammunition depot in Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, destroying over 100 US-made HIMARS rockets, according to an update from Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday.
  “On July 24, a strike by Russia’s Aerospace Forces on an ammunition depot near the settlement of Lyubimovka, Dnepropetrovsk region, destroyed more than a hundred missiles for the US-made HIMARS Multiple launch rocket system,” the ministry’s report reads. It is also noted that up to 120 Ukrainian military personnel guarding the facility, as well as foreign mercenaries and technical specialists, were killed.

Medvedev shows a map of "Ukraine" as being everything within about 80 miles of Kiev, but nothing more than that.
Former Russian president presents future map of Ukraine
Medvedev offers Kiev a visual on its worst case scenario


Ann Pettifor writes a very good article on the financialized starvation weapon.
Grain Inflation: Starve the Poor, Feed the Rich
  In a world of financialised globalisation, prices of food are not determined by the simplistic laws of supply and demand.
  Prices are determined by a wall of money wielded by relatively few, invisible speculators and aimed at largely unregulated global grain markets.

Horowitz: Almost every single COVID death in Australian state was vaccinated  
  An Australian writer has collated the recent reports from New South Wales Health and found that out of 798 reported COVID deaths in the most populous Aussie state over the past eight weeks, just two of them might have been unvaccinated. For the latest full week ending on July 16, all 142 reported deaths were jabbed and 68% of them were triple-jabbed.

This is now a recurring theme.
Worldwide Monkeypox Health Emergency (PHEIC): For Bill Gates, It’s “Moneypox”: Simulation of Fictitious Monkeypox Virus Pandemic in March 2021, Goes Live in May 2022

​At Reduced Risk (illustrating why one should not go 5 days without harvesting the okra)​


Monday, July 25, 2022

Western Tyflocracy

 Shell-Gamed,


(I'm hearing the voice of Rod Sirling reading this out loud.)​  
Tyflocracy: The New Art of Oppressive Governance​, The Ethical Skeptic
  ​Imagine a new form of totalitarian governance, composed of non-elected officials who have been indoctrinated into believing that they hold a superior intellect and humanity to those whom they were appointed to serve.
​  ​Imagine a new form of government so convinced of its own virtue mandate and the contrasting original sin of its constituents, that it has adopted the view that its own citizens are now a less-than-human enemy – no longer worthy of the full slate of human rights.

​A case in point:
  Mario Draghi’s defenestration has left the Italian — and indeed international — establishment reeling in horror. This is not surprising. When he was nominated as Italy’s prime minister at the beginning of last year, Europe’s political and economic elites welcomed his arrival as a miracle...
..Draghi, however, doesn’t just leave behind him a scorched economy but also a deeply fractured and divided society. He is the man responsible for devising the most punitive, discriminatory and segregational mass vaccination policies in the West, which not only excluded millions of unvaccinated people — including children — from social life, by extending vaccine passports to practically all public spaces, but also restricted many people from working. He also helped make the unvaccinated the target of institutionally sanctioned hate speech, such as when he infamously claimed: “You don’t get vaccinated, you get sick, you die. Or you kill.”​ ...
..In fact, they have little choice but to go along with what Brussels and Frankfurt say, and if they don’t play ball the ECB is always ready to turn up the heat. At that point, if the government doesn’t back down, the ECB will engineer a full-blown financial crisis (think Italy in 2011 or Greece in 2015) — which usually leads the political parties to turn to EU-backed technocrats to fix a problem the EU created in the first place...
..In other words, the next Italian government, if it wants to stay financially afloat, will have little choice but to follow the economic diktats of the EU — or else. In such a context, how long before the last remnants of democratic legitimacy in countries such as Italy break down? And what then?

​Gail Tverberg closes her latest essay on the economy, as energy resources decline, with this:
​  ​Governments at all levels have promised pension plans. In fact, many employers have promised pension plans. Without a growing supply to cheap-to-produce energy, these promises are meaningless. Somehow, governments will find it necessary to cut back on their promises. Perhaps, Social Security and Medicare programs will be handed back to US States to fund, to the extent that the states have funds for these programs. Governments around the world can expect to face similar problems.
​  ​With less energy supply available, the whole world economy that we know today seems likely to start falling apart. Fewer goods will be available through international trade. It is cheap energy that has allowed today’s economy to function. Once this cheap energy is depleted, the world economy will need to shrink back in many ways, at once.
​  ​We don’t really know precisely what lies ahead, and perhaps, this lack of knowledge is for the best. We cannot even imagine a world economy changing rapidly for the worse.

“Climate Change”, Food Shortages: Coordinated Destruction of Humanity by the World Economic Forum and Its “Elite Cult”
​  ​And as if it was a bad coincidence, in parallel with the heat wave, the Dutch Government under the leadership of Mark Rutte, a scholar of Klaus Schwab’s Academy for Young Global Leaders, under close surveillance of the WEF and its “Green Agenda” (coinciding with the US and the UN Green Agenda), is imposing on its farmers an up to 30% reduction of farmland and cattle farms – under the pretext that the cattle’s manure releasing these horrible climate change gases, Ammonia (NH3), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), will help accelerate “Climate Change”.​..​
..Any thinking-human – and indeed there are thousands of scientists to prove it but many are silenced – will conclude (and have proof) that we are being lied to again, that we are being drawn into a multi-trillion-dollar business, the so-called Green Agenda, by the neocons and the financial giants who control them, BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street et al. All with the objective to take full control of our planet’s resources and humanity...
..What is being played out now, the disruption and outright destruction of food production, as well as the implementation of a harsh climate agenda, is real. And it fits perfectly the agenda of the Great Reset...
​..​If this diabolical “Pandemic Treaty” passes a two thirds majority of the WHO Health Assembly (total 194 member states), it will become international law by which the WHO may override and overrule every country’s sovereign health regulation, and dictate heath policy in every country. Apparently it is possible and likely, that the two-thirds law is quietly and silently being amended to a simple majority.​..

​No grain facility was harmed.
Russia Belatedly Admits Strike On Odessa Port - Says Warship With US Missiles "Destroyed"
"In the seaport of Odessa, on the territory of a shipyard, a docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse of Harpoon anti-ship missiles, supplied by the US to the Kiev regime, have been destroyed by sea-based high-precision long-range missiles," the ministry said Sunday.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-belatedly-admits-strike-odesa-port-says-warship-us-missiles-destroyed

​HIMARS for breakfast?
​  ​A battery of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems arrived from Crimea in the Kherson region – with the task of defending the Antonovsky Bridge. On July 21, the Ukrainians tried two new platoons. Again with long-range rockets that American satellites and Avax guide to the target. But the S-400 intercepted and shot down all 12 missiles launched.
​  ​Thus, the S-400 reduced to zero the American myth that the missiles of their multi-barrel rocket launchers are uncatchable (undefeatable). This is a hint that more and more new S-400 systems will arrive in Ukraine in the coming days. To close the sky over strategic objects under Russian control and over ongoing operations. At the same time, the Russian army began serious preparations for the complete destruction of HIMARS.


​We won't hear much about this.
​  ​Syrian media has regularly reported on the movements of US convoys into and out of the war-scarred country, catching Washington bringing military equipment and supplies in, and smuggling stolen crude oil and food out. This week, the leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey called on Washington to end its occupation of eastern Syria.
​ US forces have evacuated a 156-vehicle strong convoy from the Kharab al-Jir Airport in Syria’s Hasakah province via the illegal al-Waleed border crossing, the Syrian Arab News Agency has reported, citing a local sources on the ground in the nearby town of Rmelan.


​Igor Chudov's Newsletter: ​
Boosters Now PROMOTE Covid Deaths in Europe
Ba.5 turned out to be the "Boosted People Variant" after all


UK Government confirms the Triple / Quadruple Vaccinated account for 91% of all COVID Deaths since the beginning of 2022

Adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines and measures to prevent them
​  ​Recently, The Lancet published a study on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and the waning of immunity with time. The study showed that immune function among vaccinated individuals 8 months after the administration of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine was lower than that among the unvaccinated individuals...

​Meryl Nass MD   (YUCK, Bug Juice DNA Shots!)​
Novavax vaccine contains 1 mcg of insect (the fall armyworm) and baculovirus proteins and a bit of their DNA too, which is injected into you with each dose
And that's before we consider the Matrix-M novel adjuvant it contains


​From 1 year ago, but I missed it. (I drank green tea all day at work, until I got fired for vaccine-refusal last October. I caught Delta for New-Year. Related?)
Epigallocatechin gallate from green tea effectively blocks infection of SARS-CoV-2 and new variants by inhibiting spike binding to ACE2 receptor

 ​We demonstrated that green tea beverage (GTB) or its major ingredient, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), were highly effective in inhibiting infection of live SARS-CoV-2 and human coronavirus (HCoV OC43). In addition, infection of the pseudoviruses with spikes of the new variants (UK-B.1.1.7, SA-B.1.351, and CA-B.1.429) was efficiently blocked by GTB or EGCG. Among the 4 active green tea catechins at noncytotoxic doses, EGCG was the most potent in the action against the viruses. The highest inhibitory activity was observed when the viruses or the cells were pre-incubated with EGCG prior to the infection.​..
..​The inhibitory effect on the virus infection was highly potent as GTB at a 320-fold dilution remained significantly effective (Fig. 2b, c).

Baffled with Bullshit  (pictured with Jenny and watermelon recently in the garden)​


Friday, July 22, 2022

Preparing Creation

Creative People,

  I'll encapsulate this interview with Michael Hudson, which is available here as a transcript.
  Hudson explains that financial capitalism is extractive, not creative as was industrial capitalism. Financial capitalism got the upper hand when the US Treasury gave up its role of creating money to this private corporation, based largely in New York. This was the plan of J.P.Morgan and other globalist bankers. Prior to this industrial capitalism had been gaining power over extractive "rentier" interests, like hereditary landowning "nobles".
  American industry, like British and German industry had been doing well by raising the living standards of workers, which became more innovative and productive participants in industry. This was protectionist and Fordist capitalism. The workers had good lives and did good work and could buy the Ford cars they built.
  To keep the costs of production down the governments built roads, canals, railroads and ports, and provided education at no cost to those who had the capacity to advance their intellectual abilities in specialized fields like physics and engineering. 
  Socialism was broadly endorsed in the world before WW-1 and the Federal Reserve banking system, which demanded that all debts be paid by foes and allies for the massive production of weapons sold for the war. The Europeans had not expected to be held to this, tried to milk it out of Germany, which could not pay it, and the Great Depression and WW-2 were largely a result of that.
  Hudson says that all monopolies, like water, electricity and sewage, as well as roads and communications, should be publicly owned, to keep costs down for the economy, which keeps it efficient, with low production costs and higher standards of living, "Fordist capitalism". The extraction of "rent" by private rentiers has taken over most western economies, where medical "rent" is very high and housing rent mayne 40% or more of income. This makes production costs high in countries like the US and UK, which have long been on this "privatizing" path.
  The most erosive feature of financial capitalism, which assures it's ultimate failure is that it cannibalizes production, like bankrupting GE, which sold off productive divisions and bought its own stock to just give the money to stock-hulders as profits, capital gains, then went bankrupt. This cannibalistic gutting destroyed Sears in the same way.
  This kind of system must expand its range into virgin territory with new resources to plunder, or it will collapse. It was starting to consume Russia after the collapse of the USSR, but that was halted, making Russia the "enemy", a prize withheld, a prize to be taken and consumed. China had practiced industrial capitalism while paying tribute to Wall Street, but kept banking in the public domain for the most part, especially the creation of money. This ultimately makes China a competitive threat, even as it pays tribute to Wall Street and London, because it is building up a big, productive economy with public money, as the US did between the Civil War and 1913.
  Classical economics sought to eliminate parasitic rent collection, putting all "utilities" and natural monopolies in public control, for the general welfare, and this would include medical care and retirements. Naturally, there are problems with bureaucracy, but those are worse when the bureaucracy is made to extract value from the system, rather than to provide the most value for the lowest cost to the public.
  The "neoliberal" financial capitalist system is at a crisis point, where it needs to massively extract value from all of the nations of the world, by raising the price of the $US to where they cannot afford to pay their debts by production, and have to sell off mines, oil wells and public utilities to rentier interest to make the payments, like the Asian Economic Crisis.
  Opposing this takeover of assets in debtor countries is the BRICS+ arrangement, which is promising finance for productive project that support national economies, not just export of raw materials to the (still) industrialized countries.
  The US/Wall Street interests are creating a new "iron curtain" to contain Europe, which is destroying Europe by cutting it off from inexpensive and reliable Russian natural gas, oil, nickels, wheat, etc.
  (This is the crisis which we are all a part of. Practically, the system which is more nationalist, where Fordist capitalism and public banking keep value in the commons, and prevent extraction of value by parasitic rentiers needs to prevail. This will hurt a lot of Europeans and Americans hard, but we must work through this to assure that the new-boss is not just like the old-boss. This will be something like the 1990s was for Russia, I think.)

 John Michael Greer, has part 1 of The Great Rehash, The Best and the Brightest. I'd say "Schwab Does Sri Lanka, but Dutch Farmers Resist": Thanks Michael R.
..Most governments around the world thus learned sooner or later that when earnest young Ph.D.s from Harvard or Oxford came calling, the best strategy was to smile and nod, and then make sure your government did everything possible to throw sand in the gears, knowing that eventually the earnest young Ph.D.s would give up and go home. Since the Ph.D.s typically had the backing of an industrial nation with whom it was necessary to maintain good relations, throwing them out of the country or, say, shooting them in the back and blaming the killing on poachers was rarely a viable strategy, but the costs of letting them have their way generally ranged from economic and political crisis straight up the scale to full-on national collapse...
..So European intellectuals like Klaus Schwab keep on rehashing the same dreary rhetoric and churning out the same shopworn plans for reordering the planet.  Meanwhile European politicians tolerate the metastatic growth of the European Union, which is the sort of ever-expanding bureaucratic sprawl, answerable to nobody, which populates the wet dreams of would-be world-reformers. It’s not surprising that the overprivileged classes here in the United States gaze longingly across the Atlantic, hoping that someday they, too, can establish a bureacratic oligarchy that can ignore democratic institutions and rule by edict the way the EU does—and it’s also not surprising that people who find this prospect less than appealing have turned Klaus Schwab and his Great Reset into a convenient focus for their wrath...
..The consequences of this sort of thinking are not good, and this is where we reach Sri Lanka, where the government is sending soldiers into the streets just now in a frantic attempt to restore public order.  That was not supposed to happen. In 2018, in fact, Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe published an essay on the World Economic Forum website announcing that his country was going to become rich by 2025. His strategy for getting there involved following a bevy of WEF diktats, and he did it with such enthusiasm that Sri Lanka had a near-perfect 98 ESG (environmental, social, and governance) rating, higher even than Sweden’s.
  As it turned out, though, the saying “get woke, go broke” doesn’t just apply to corporations; it also applies to countries.  Those highly touted WEF programs proceeded to trash the Sri Lankan economy, wreck its agricultural sector, plunge half a million people into extreme poverty, and send furious mobs crashing through the doors of the presidential mansion. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, have both resigned and Rajapaksa has fled the country. That ebullient essay by former prime minister Wickremesinghe, by the way, has abruptly vanished from the WEF website in the last few days.
  (Those same WEF programs, by the way, are currently being applied to agriculture in the Netherlands, and the government of Canada is moving to put them in place too. Perhaps Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau can call ahead and have Rajapaksa make reservations for them once the inevitable happens.)...
..Like the American soldiers in Vietnam, in other words, most of the people in today’s world are being expected to slog through a nightmare of misery and enforced failure.  Those expectations have been laid on them because so-called experts with too many university degrees and too little contact with the real world insisted, like Robby Mook in Hillary Clinton’s foredoomed presidential campaign, that the officially approved models disproved the lived experience of those who actually get to see the consequences up close. That didn’t end too well for Mook or his employer; it isn’t ending well for Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa; and all things considered, it may not end well for Klaus Schwab, whose Great Rehash simply serves up the same repeatedly failed programs under a new label.

​  ​T​​he EU rushed to back Ukraine without asking its businesses or citizens for permission and now the European economy is suffering the most from the anti-Russia sanctions, French investment banker Philippe Villin has said.
​  ​European politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels threw their support behind Ukraine “without a democratic debate,” Villin wrote in an op-ed published by Le Figaro on Monday.
​  ​“What is worse, they did not even consider it useful to consult with us about the military escalation, or the terrible consequences of the sanctions for our economies,” he said.​..
​..​“And the worst thing is that Europe is suffering from the increase of the prices of energy and raw materials far more than the United States or China,” Villin wrote.​..
..“I hope that, before our people eventually revolt, a quick electric shock will open up a political debate, in which we, citizens and business leaders, could challenge our blind politicians and Eurocrats, who are leading us to ruin by lying to us.”
https://www.rt.com/news/559397-france-sanctions-hurt-economy/
Moon of Alabama (German) 
Why Nord Stream II Must Be Opened Immediately​  
  ​The German and other European governments have pledged to suicide the German economy and the wealth of their citizens solely out of spite over the Russian government's action in the Ukraine. They deny that it is THEIR action that is causing the crisis.
Here is a neutral source, an Indian diplomat, explaining the basics of the business to the dimwits who are ruling over Europe:
Russia teaches Europe ABC of gas trade
They, and their media, ignore that Russia has had, and has, sound reasons to defend the Donbas republics. They do not tell you that the Ukraine, in late February, had planned and was ready to attack the citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk with overwhelming force.
Here is additional evidence for that:
OSCE Reports Reveal Ukraine Started Shelling The Donbas Nine Days Before Russia's 'Special Military Operation'
They deny that Ukraine is controlled by extreme right wing elements. They deny that there are full fledged Nazis formations in control of Ukraine even as their own media have for years warned of those.
They are lying to you.
All German natural gas storage sites can be filled to the brim via Nord Stream II if the Germany government would allow for it. It does not do so. That is the reason why you in Europe will to have pay much more for heating and electricity in the months and years to come.Land of make-believe...
Former Clinton Advisor Says 

​A very strong official statement from China:​
​  ​The Chinese Foreign Ministry said further in a press briefing earlier this week that while the US could be pursuing peace and formal talks between Russian and Ukraine, it is busy playing "world police" while fueling the conflict - and all the while trying to confront China - according to the words of foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian...
..The FM spokesman said: "As the one who started the Ukraine crisis and the biggest factor fueling it, the US needs to deeply reflect on its erroneous actions of exerting extreme pressure and fanning the flame on the Ukraine issue and stop playing up bloc confrontation and creating a new Cold War by taking advantage of the situation," according to an official transcript.

  ​Thanks for this article, Red. ​I’m becoming enamored of Irina Slav from oilprice.com , who cuts to the point that Africans really know that they need to use African gas for African economy, because this game has been played for a very long time, and the countries that export energy and other resources remain impoverished. That’s the plan, but those enforcing the plan have been weakened, confused and are becoming desperate…  

​A very good interview with Sergey Lavrov is worth reading for perspective. A few high points:
​* ​It can hardly be in Europe’s interests to fully cut off ties with Russia and switch to liquefied natural gas supplies from the US;
​* ​If the EU suddenly changes its position and proposes Russia to restore relations, Moscow needs to decide if this is beneficial to the country;
​* ​The geographical area of the special operation has changed and expanded beyond Donbas due to Kiev receiving the US-made HIMARS and other weapons.​ ​

​The Power Troika Trumps Biden in West Asia, Pepe Escobar (this is a very big deal)​
​  ​The presidents of Russia, Iran, and Turkey convened to discuss critical issues pertaining to West Asia, with the illegal US occupation of Syria a key talking point.  Oil and gas, wheat and grains, missiles and drones – the hottest topics in global geopolitics today – were all on the agenda in Tehran this week.

Nasrallah: If Lebanon is denied its oil and gas resources, we will shut down all Israeli platforms
http://thesaker.is/nasrallah-if-lebanon-is-denied-its-oil-and-gas-resources-we-will-shut-down-all-israeli-platforms/

​Eleni sends this encouraging story from Pakistan. Imran Khan is not dead. His political take-down has not reduced his popular support. He is a true natianalist, not a foreign tool of manipulation. 
​..​The mammoth crowds that follow Imran Khan everywhere are indeed turning into votes. Without doubt, it is after a very long time that a truly charismatic politician has appeared on the Pakistani political landscape.
​  ​Khan has stunned his detractors and political opponents by taking control of the crucial Punjab provincial assembly. His party won 15 of 20 seats up for grab in by-elections, trouncing arch-rival Pakistan Muslim League-N (which incidentally heads the federal government in Islamabad also since April after Imran Khan’s ouster) on its home ground.
​  ​The result is not only a major blow for current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif but is also widely regarded as a foretaste of what could happen in a general election. Imran Khan has been demanding an early general election which is otherwise due in October 2023.
  The conventional wisdom that the Pakistani military establishment would feel challenged by such a spectre has been proven wrong this time around (which also augurs well for the country’s political future.)...
​..​Imran Khan has rewritten Pakistan’s political history by knocking at the doors of political power so soon after his ouster by an unholy alliance of time servers with foreign patronage.

Hillary is Preparing to Run Again in 2024​ , "One of the great political rematches of all time."​ 
“Much like Biden’s surprise entrance in 2020, Democrats will see her as their savior, an experienced politician able to bridge the left and more moderate wings of the party.”​   https://summit.news/2022/07/20/former-clinton-advisor-says-hillary-is-preparing-to-run-again-in-2024/

Natural immunity remains superior... You are better protected from current strains if you had Omicron.
​  ​Effectiveness of a previous Omicron infection against symptomatic BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 76.1% (95% CI: 54.9-87.3%), and against any BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 79.7% (95% CI: 74.3-83.9%).
​  ​Results using all diagnosed infections when BA.4/BA.5 dominated incidence confirmed the same findings. Sensitivity analyses adjusting for vaccination status confirmed study results. Protection of a previous infection against BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was modest when the previous infection involved a pre-Omicron variant, but strong when the previous infection involved the Omicron BA.1 or BA.2 subvariants.”

​  ​Effectiveness of a previous pre-Omicron infection against symptomatic BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 15.1% (95% CI: -47.1-50.9%), and against any BA.4/BA.5 reinfection irrespective of symptoms was 28.3% (95% CI: 11.4-41.9%). Effectiveness of a previous Omicron infection against symptomatic BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 76.1% (95% CI: 54.9-87.3%), and against any BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 79.7% (95% CI: 74.3-83.9%).

D​o It Yourselfer​ (Pictured with bifold door and walls of kitchen pantry just finished with polyurethane)


 

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Forsaking Fictions

Practical People,

  Charles Hugh Smith looks at debt default ("the final frontier") and where the defaults might be imposed within society. Things like this don't just happen, losses are "imposed" upon classes of debt holders by the power structure. The western power structure has long been divided, and has borrowed more and more to avoid imposing losses. The phantom "wealth" is huge. What classes of investors can take the losses without destroying the society? Is this possible?
  The destruction of phantom wealth via default has always been the only way to clear the financial system of unpayable debt burdens and extremes of rentier / wealth dominance. Let's guess that a bare minimum of $100 trillion of the $300 trillion mountain of global debt will default far sooner than most expect. The only question is who will absorb the $100 trillion in losses. Choose wisely, as defaults of debt that are transferred to the public end up bringing down the entire system via political overthrow or currency collapse...
..The favored solutions of the state--printing money or transferring the losses to the public--are no longer viable. Now that inflation has emerged from its slumber, printing trillions to bail out the wealthy is no longer an option. The public, so easily conned into accepting the bailout of the wealthy in 2008, has wised up and so that particular con won't work again. ("Bail out the super-wealthy now or your ATM machine will stop working!" Uh, right.)
  The state is the protector of the wealthy, and so defaults that actually impact the wealthy are anathema. The wealthy will demand the state absorb their losses (recall that profits are private, losses are socialized) The only equitable solution is to force the losses on those who bought the debt as a rentier income stream...
..Very few ordinary households own other people's debts as assets. It's the wealthy few who own most of the student loans, vehicle loans, mortgages, government and corporation bonds, etc.
  Yes, ordinary households may own other people's debts through pension plans or ownership of mutual funds, but by and large debt is a favored asset of the rentier class, i.e. the wealthiest few.
  We're constantly told that mass defaults would destroy the economy, but this is flim-flam: mass defaults would destroy much of the wealth of the rentier class which has been greatly enriched by the global expansion of debt, while freeing the debtors of their obligations.

More from Charles:  The Real Policy Error Is Expanding Debt and Calling It "Growth"
..The financial punditry is whipping itself into a frenzy about a Federal Reserve "policy error," which is code for "if the music finally stops, we're doomed!" In other words, any policy which reduces the flow of juice sluicing through the sewage pipes of the financial system (credit, leverage and liquidity--the essential mechanisms of financialization and globalization) endangers the entire rickety, rotten structure of phantom wealth that's enriched the few at the expense of the many...
The history of central banking is actually quite simple:
1. Central banks act to protect the wealth and power of those who own / control most of the wealth
. This is their core unstated reason to exist.
2. To justify this absurdly transparent protection of the elite in the eyes of the public, central banks go through the motions of trying to extinguish the business / credit cycle, that is, trying to eliminate defaults and credit crunches which are the frequent but low-intensity fires that burn up the financial deadwood...
​..​When $100 trillion in global deadwood-debt burns to the ground, that merely returns global debt to the levels of 2012. Central bank policies guarantee the forest will be consumed by an uncontrolled conflagration. That's the cost of claiming waste and debt are "growth" and protecting the phantom wealth of the few at the expense of the many.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly22/policy-error7-22.html

​  
Again, the extreme actions taken during the pandemic were for maintenance of the parasitic financial structure, not public health.
​  ​The IMF and World Bank have for decades pushed a policy agenda based on cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest and moves to undermine labour rights and protections.
​  ​IMF ‘structural adjustment’ policies have resulted in 52% of Africans lacking access to healthcare and 83% having no safety nets to fall back on if they lose their job or become sick. Even the IMF has shown that neoliberal policies fuel poverty and inequality.
​  ​In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports...
..COVID was a crisis of capitalism masquerading as a public health emergency...
​..​By late 2019, many companies could not generate sufficient profit. Falling turnover, limited cashflows and highly leveraged balance sheets were prevalent.
​  ​Economic growth was weakening in the run up to the massive stock market crash in February 2020, which saw trillions more pumped into the system in the guise of ‘COVID relief’.​..​
..Come 2019, former governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King warned that the world was sleepwalking towards a fresh economic and financial crisis that would have devastating consequences. He argued that the global economy was stuck in a low growth trap and recovery from the crisis of 2008 was weaker than that after the Great Depression.
  King concluded that it was time for the Federal Reserve and other central banks to begin talks behind closed doors with politicians.  That is precisely what happened as key players, including BlackRock, the world’s most powerful investment fund, got together to work out a strategy going forward. This took place in the lead up to COVID.
​ ​ Aside from deepening the dependency of poorer countries on Western capital, Fabio Vighi says lockdowns and the global suspension of economic transactions allowed the US Fed to flood the ailing financial markets (under the guise of COVID) with freshly printed money while shutting down the real economy to avoid hyperinflation. Lockdowns suspended business transactions, which drained the demand for credit and stopped the contagion.
  COVID provided cover for a multi-trillion-dollar bailout for the capitalist economy that was in meltdown prior to COVID. Despite a decade or more of ‘quantitative easing’, this new bailout came in the form of trillions of dollars pumped into financial markets by the US Fed (in the months prior to March 2020) and subsequent ‘COVID relief’.
The IMF, World bank and global leaders knew full well what the impact on the world’s poor would be of closing down the world economy through COVID-related lockdowns.
  Yet they sanctioned it and there is now the prospect that in excess of a quarter of a billion more people worldwide will fall into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone.

​Single excerpt of Michael Hudson from an interview with him and Steve Keene:​
​  ​A central element of the World Bank from the beginning is to convince countries not to grow their own food, but to create plantation agriculture, to prevent family-owned farming of food, to grow plantation export crops, and to become dependent on the United States for their grain. Well, if imports are a benefit and imports mean that the United States can put a sanction on you and starve your people like the United States tried to do in China in the 1950s, do you really want to become import dependent on food?
​  ​Let’s compare the World Bank to the Chinese Belt and Road and the BRICS bank that’s proposed. The World Bank would only make foreign exchange loans. That meant it would only make loans to countries who would invest in infrastructure that would help its exports. Well, imagine how this works for agriculture.
​  ​If you were going to develop your agriculture in the global South countries, you’d do pretty much what the United States did in the 1930s that had the most rapid increase in productivity of any industry in the last few centuries. And that was because the government took the lead in agricultural extension services, seed testing, educating farmers as to seed variety, setting up local farm management organizations.
​  ​Before the time that Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland became the great intermediaries in promotion of domestic self-sufficiency for farms, the World Bank wouldn’t make any loans at all for this, even though the World Bank local commissions and reports all said that this is what they need. The World Bank was almost always headed by someone very close to the US Military, starting with John J. McCloy at the beginning and going through McNamara and all of the subsequent Pentagon people who were put in charge of the World Bank.
​  ​And above all, they wanted to continue to base America’s export boom in agriculture and to make other countries food dependent. And that is one of the things that has led them into debt. So if you have a country like Chile that has the richest land in the world because it has the richest supply of guano deposits in the world. It also has the most unequal land distribution in Latin America – latifundia and microfundia – not any kind of balanced food production.
​  ​So that all of Chile’s exports and copper, by specializing, have been overwhelmed by the costs of importing food that it could have grown all by itself. So the idea of free trade is shaped by what will the international organizations controlled by the US give credit for, ends up to create underdevelopment and dependency instead of development. And that developmental aspect is a different story from MMT money creation. And we’re talking about something else that is part of a much bigger system.

​Canadian crops are looking good, also.
​  ​Infrared satellite imagery designed to measure moisture levels and the health of farmlands suggests that staple crops such as wheat are in poor condition and in sharp decline among major exporters including the Ukraine, the US and India.  Two countries do have bumper crops so far though; namely Russia and China.

​The US, Israel and Saudi Arabia are (still) plotting war with Iran
  A​ ​war with Iran would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.  It would spread swiftly throughout the region. The Shiites across the Middle East would see an attack on Iran as a religious war against Shiism. The two million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern province; the Shiite majority in Iraq; and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey would join the fight against the U.S. and Israel.
​  Iran would use its Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, rocket and bomb-equipped speedboats and submarines, mines, drones and coastal artillery to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquified gas supply. Oil production facilities in the Persian Gulf would be sabotaged.
​  ​Iranian oil, which makes up 13 percent of the world’s energy supply, would be taken off the market. Oil would jump to over $500 a barrel...

..In 2002, the U.S. military conducted its “most elaborate war game” ever, costing over $250 million. Known as the Millennium Challenge, the exercise was between a Blue Force (the U.S.) and the Red Force (widely considered as a stand-in for Iran). It was meant to validate America’s “modern, joint-service war-fighting concepts.” It did the opposite. The Red Force, led by retired Marine lieutenant general Paul Van Riper, conducted a swarm of kamikaze suicide boat attacks and destroyed 16 U.S. warships in under 20 minutes.

Stocks Soar On Report Russia Will Restart Nord Stream 1 Gas Flow On Thursday

​  ​A crucial turbine from the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline was airlifted from Canada to Germany on Sunday, Kommersant newspaper has reported, citing its sources. The part will then travel for another five to seven days by ferry to its destination in Russia, the paper revealed on Monday. If everything goes smoothly and there’s no delay at customs, the turbine will be fitted and ready to pump gas in early August, Kommersant noted. The Siemens turbine was stuck in Canada after undergoing repairs there due to Ottawa’s Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia. Canada initially refused to return the part, as it regarded the equipment as a dual-use product subject to sanctions​.​
https://www.rt.com/business/559156-russian-turbine-return-canada/

Russian state energy giant Gazprom has signed a major deal with Iran worth billions at a moment President Putin is in Tehran to meet with President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

​Moon of Alabama (German)
​  ​Gazprom is a strong partner and can not be hindered by U.S. sanctions. Iran will finally be able export more of its plentiful gas. Russia will also have a chance to work with Iran to keep the prices at a certain level. With such a large deal will also come protection. Iran will be able to call on Russia should someone start hostilities against it.
​  ​When Iran produces enough gas it can also revive the old project of a pipeline to India. This could either go through Pakistan or, as India would probably prefer, through an undersea pipeline:
​  ​A 1,300-km undersea pipeline from Iran, avoiding Pakistani waters, can bring natural gas from the Persian Gulf to India at rates less than the price of Liquefied Natural Gas available in the spot market, proponents of the pipeline said on Tuesday.
​  ​Releasing a study on the Iran-India gas pipeline, former oil secretary T.N.R. Rao said natural gas imported through the over $4 billion line would cost $5-5.50 per million British thermal unit at the Indian coast, cheaper than the rate at which some of the domestic fields supply gas.
​  ​Despite U.S. sanctions Iran is again becoming fully integrated into its region. It is a great success and the gas and transit deals will help its economy to make some gains even as the U.S. adds new sanctions. Russia, India and China are partners who can and will ignore those.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/07/in-the-multipolar-world-iran-will-no-longer-fear-us-sanctions.html#more

​NATO has not been able to deploy the 40,000 man force, which supposedly exists, so NATO  will declare this "virtual" force to be 7.5 times larger.
  Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, recently announced the US-led military bloc’s goal of expanding its so-called ‘Response Force’ from its current strength of 40,000 to a force of more than 300,000 troops. “We will enhance our battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance up to brigade-levels,” Stoltenberg declared. “We will transform the NATO Response Force and increase the number of our high readiness forces to well over 300,000.”
​  ​The announcement, made at the end of NATO’s annual summit, held in Madrid, Spain, apparently took several defense officials from the NATO membership by surprise, with one such official calling Stoltenberg’s figures “number magic.” Stoltenberg appeared to be working from a concept that had been developed within NATO headquarters based upon assumptions made by his staffers, as opposed to anything resembling coordinated policy among the defense organizations of the 30 nations that make up the bloc.


​  ​The State Department on Sunday implied that Ukrainian forces are allowed to use US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) against Russian targets in Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014.
​  ​When the US first announced it was sending HIMARS to Ukraine, Biden administration officials said they received “assurances” from Ukrainian officials that the rockets won’t be used to target Russian territory.
​  ​When asked if the ban on Ukraine using the HIMARS to target Russian territory applies to Crimea, a State Department spokesperson told Antiwar.com, “Crimea is Ukraine.”
​  ​“The United States does not and will never recognize Russia’s purported annexation of Crimea. We will continue to stand up against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war against the people of Ukraine,”
 the spokesperson said.
​  ​On Saturday, a Ukrainian intelligence official said that Ukrainian forces should start attacking Russian facilities in Crimea and suggested US-provided HIMARS could be used for such strikes.
​  Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, warned Sunday that if Ukraine launched attacks on Crimea, it would mean “doomsday” for Ukrainian leadership.
​  ​“Should anything of the kind happen, they will be faced with a doomsday, very quick and tough, immediately. There will be no avoiding it. But they keep on provoking the general situation by such statements,” Medvedev said, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.
​  ​Medvedev also said that the fact that Ukraine and Western nations don’t recognize Crimea as Russian territory poses a “systemic threat” to Russia
.

Crimea is of particular strategic importance to Russia as it includes the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol.

​  ​Ukraine will crush Russia’s Black Sea fleet and regain control of Crimea with Western weapons, the country’s Deputy Defense Minister, Vladimir Gavrilov has vowed during a visit to the UK.
​  ​Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, is “a permanent threat” to Ukraine, and Kiev has to address this issue, Gavrilov said in an interview with the Times on Tuesday.
https://www.rt.com/russia/559240-ukraine-crimea-fleet-peskov/

Moscow orders troops to prioritize destroying Ukraine’s Western-supplied long-range missiles
​  ​On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered his generals to prioritize destroying Ukraine's long-range missile and artillery weapons. His order came after the Western-supplied weapons were employed to hit Russian supply lines.
​  ​According to a statement by the defense ministry, after inspecting the Vostok group which is fighting in Ukraine, Shoigu “instructed the commander to give priority to the enemy's long-range missile and artillery weapons.”
​  ​The statement also claimed that the weapons were being used to strike residential areas of Russian-held Donbas and to intentionally set fire to wheat fields and grain storage silos
.

  The Ukrainian website Mirotvorets, meaning peacemaker, publishes the names and addresses of those it deems to be “enemies of Ukraine.”
The opening page shows pictures of dead Russian soldiers.On the list are domestic and foreign journalists, politicians and citizens that are believed to have aided or worked with pro-Russia forces in the country in some way. Now, surprisingly enough, children are being added to the list.  Faina Savenkova is 13 years old. And she has been writing about her experiences here in Donbas. After her name appeared on the list, she started to receive threats of physical violence online. Numerous journalists and public figures have been murdered after being put on the list. Like Oleg Buzina who was shot near his home in Kiev. And Andrea Rocchelli, an Italian journalist. After he was killed on the front line, the website posted the word “Liquidated” over his photo.

​  ​On Monday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he delivered a letter to President Biden last week where he pleaded for the US not to prosecute Julian Assange and renewed an offer to grant asylum to the WikiLeaks founder.
​  ​Lopez Obrador said he explained in the letter that Assange “did not cause anyone’s death, did not violate any human rights and that he exercised his freedom, and that arresting him would mean a permanent affront to freedom of expression.”
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/07/18/mexican-president-renews-offer-to-grant-asylum-to-julian-assange-in-letter-to-biden/

​Steve Kirsch: ​The UK government now has a huge problem. A triply vaxxed child is 45 times more likely to die than an unvaccinated child. That makes the vaccine the biggest child killer ever deployed by any government and makes COVID deaths look like rounding error (45X vs. 0.05X).

Pfizer Crimes against our Children: Cardiac Arrest of Two Month Old Baby an Hour after Experimental Vaccine
58 Babies Who Received mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Suffered Life-threatening Adverse Events

An analysis of VAERS reports shows that contrary to the FDA's briefing document claiming that the majority of adverse events in Pfizers' clinical trial were non-serious – at least 58 cases of life-threatening side effects in infants under 3 years old who received mRNA vaccines were reported. For some, it is unclear if they survived. It is also unclear why the infants were vaccinated, and whether they were part of the clinical trials.

​Geert Vanden Bossche​ Ph.D. in Virology, is a vaccine expert with a good track record during COVID, much quoted in alternative media. His view is that COVID-vaccinations are making the vaccinated more susceptible to the newer strains, even as they had apparently started doing by June 2021, in those vaccinated over 6 months in UK data series. All of that continued to progress, with more heavily vaccinated populations now having more COVID infections and hospitalizations per capita.  He sees unvaccinated as being at lower risk as viral mutation proceeds to further target those vaccinated against January 2020 spike-protein.
​  ​Unvaccinated can now largely forget about contracting severe C-19 disease as the next big mutation will most likely make the unvaccinated resistant to the virus. However, if they have not yet been infected at all by any of these highly infectious variants, they could still contract C-19 disease (before that new variant emerges) and become seriously ill (but not ‘severely ill’ as longas they are in good health with no comorbidities and predisposing factors). To avoid this, they should either prevent risky contacts (difficult) till the next variant appears (in my opinion, just a matter of weeks) or take Ivermectin orHCQ as soon as symptoms manifest (but not prophylactically).

  Dr. Vanden Bossche advocates, as do I, treatment with repurposed antivirals, like HCQ and Ivermectiin for illness. Not prophylaxis at this point. 
(I'll add that most people who don't surf daily in Hawaii, or do landscaping work, should take 5000 units per day or more of vitamin-D, to optimize blood level in the normal range of 30-100, to allow normal immune system function.)
This late December 2021 post regarding OTC Rxs for Omicron remains practical and useful. 

Health Advocate (pictured recently with a sink, still awaiting custom countertops)


 

Sunday, July 17, 2022

But Not Simpler

 Seeking Clarity,


  How much of the false-presentation of reality, with which we are increasingly deluged, has been well-planned and arranged, and how much has been thrown like spaghetti against a wall, and used until it quit sticking? You might also have been struggling with how to approach models of human behavior in times of rapid change, brought on by economic degradation, as the provisions for life become unpredictable, then life-threateningly short. A society entering crisis needs to adjust, but the specific needs of the owner class, the working class and the skilled classes may be so disparate as to make that impossible until some class capitulates. It migh have to be the owners who capitulate in order for an actual, healthy reformation of social economy, the "social contract" to start getting worked-out..

This article says that "Ideologies are no longer the way we know them, and that means the world is being reconfigured". There are always  flaws and corruptions of ideologies, also. Ideologies are simplifications that people can "agree" upon to work in harmony, but with a range of interpretations and embodiments.
​  ​Capitalism at war means monopolies arising, while communists at war means massive genocides arising.
​  ​Corroded ideology is not necessarily a bad thing, but it shows a breakdown in thinking in society
​  ​Ideologies arise as a way of trying to organize models of government, and several of them have even been criminalized around the world due to the massacres they have carried out. But at the same time, this does not mean that they will cease to exist.
​  ​When a society thinks 50% one thing and another half thinks 50% another thing, this means that there is a polarity of thoughts that can only lead to chaos and barbarism, because the people, hungry or in difficulty, are not able to come to a consensus, and then authoritarianism and popular uprisings arise.

​Bill sends this fine article about the Psychology of Totalitarianism, part of a series by Harrison Koehli, which has been looking at and synthesizing the observations and theories of some of the best authors. This is a snippet from somewhere in the middle. Good concentration is essential to understanding this piece. A key concept is that of the inherent order of mass behavior which arises from a few simple guiding "rules", as in the movement of a murmuration of starlings, or the Sierpinski Triangle.
(Ponerology: The study of evil.)
​..​Anyways, those are Desmet's views. How do they compare with Political Ponerology [PP]? Pretty well, on the whole. On the last point, Lobaczewski warns: "oversimplification of the causal picture as regards the genesis of evil — often to a single, easily understood cause or perpetrator — itself becomes a cause in this genesis" (PP, p. 132). More generally pathocracy is a "complex causal system" (PP, p. 79) that emerges largely unconsciously, as a result primarily of psychobiological factors. Here are some quotes that get across the point:
... in leaving behind our old natural method of comprehension and learning to track the internal causality of the phenomenon, we marvel at the surprising exactness with which the latter turns out to be subjected to its own regular laws. ... The entirety is ... clearly subject to causative determination to a degree that the researcher could not have anticipated. (PP, p. 235)
... the system is rigidly causative and lacking in natural and rational freedom of choice. (PP, p. 256)
... the image of the phenomenon is so dominated by psychological causation that there is not much room left for free choice. (PP, p. 316)
​  ​The range of causal factors Lobaczewski brings to bear is extensive (more extensive than Desmet's). His account involves a number of what he calls "pathological factors" (specific personality disorders and disturbances, whether primarily genetic, organic, or functional, of varying severity), "ponerogenic phenomena" (like pathological narcissism, paramoralisms, reversive blockades, conversive thinking, spellbinders), and "ponerogenic processes" (like hystericization and ponerization of groups) that proceed roughly in stereotypical sequences, utilizing ideologies. All of these form a complex mosaic structure that makes up the macrosocial phenomenon of pathocracy, much like the fractal of Desmet's description.
​  ​For Desmet, "The whole of society has a part in [totalitarianism's] rise in one way or another; every person bears a responsibility in it" (PT, p. 139). Similarly, for Lobaczewski,
​  In ponerogenic processes, moral deficiencies, intellectual failings, and pathological factors intersect in a spatio-temporal causative network giving rise to individual and national suffering. (PP, p. 224, cf. p. 78)
​  ​He often repeats that one kind of evil ("normal" human weaknesses and failings) "opens the door" to another (psychopathic). In this regard, the people most responsible for the early stages of ponerogenesis are not evil per se. They are just weak. And that weakness provides the opening for unimaginable evil.
​  ​Desmet thinks that ideology is what selects for position in totalitarianism. Here, Lobaczewski would disagree, arguing that ideology becomes increasingly irrelevant and essentially window dressing as pathocracy takes on its dissimulative form. In an ordinary society, a social structure forms as a result of many factors (see PP, pp. 38-48). The resulting structure is in no way planned, but a kind of self-organizing superorganism the develops out of all the individual and group interactions, cooperation and competition of the people that constitute it.
​  ​Pathocracy is a demented Bizarro-world version of this process (OK, he doesn't use those terms precisely). Ideology may provide the initial impetus and outer clothing, but the ultimate selection process, like the causality, is psychobiological in natureIn terms of ponerogenic groups like the Bolsheviks, "Rigorous selective measures of a clearly psychological kind are applied to new members" (PP, p. 165), resulting in a "pathological social structure." (The same dynamic applies to the periodic purges of Party and society.) Just as humans tend to self-select into suitable roles based on their unique cognitive repertoires, a similar process plays itself out in ponerogenic groups and, ultimately, in a pathocracy.​..

​Maajid Nawaz, It's about Globalism, Stupid​  There is a lot here about the reorganizations in the UK and Sri Lanka, as well as other countries, and one should consider the assassination of Shinzo Abe in Japan, which we will touch on later. Joe Biden going under the bus is not a fix, just a head-fake to expect.
  Ever wonder why Bill Gates was in Pakistan for his first ever visit not long before that country’s populist PM Imran Khan was deposed? Well, keen twitter observers have noted that the same Bill Gates appears to also have landed in the UK on the day populist Boris Johnson was deposed.

The Consciousness f Sheep looks at the Globalist plans to break eggs preparatory to cooking their BBB omolette. The Great Unravelling
  "The supply destruction that is going on behind the scenes as corporations shut down operations and scrap equipment, machinery and vehicles will only come to public prominence when governments declare the pandemic to be over.  Only then, when key fuels and resources are no longer available to us in the quantities required will we fully understand the folly of shutting down economies in a failed attempt to halt the spread of a not particularly dangerous virus.  But the consequences of that third wave, which will give rise to evils from third world debt defaults and increased poverty and hunger to trade and resource wars, will be beyond our capacity to resolve.  Lacking the energy and resources even to develop a steady-state economy, the global economy which emerges out of the pandemic response can only collapse; most likely rapidly.”
​  ​This was always going to create the greatest risk to states like Sri Lanka which are heavily indebted and dependent on just one or two commodity exports to secure the foreign exchange currency they need to stay afloat.  According to the US thinktank the Council on Foreign Relations, Sri Lanka is just one country which was at risk of collapse.  Others include Argentina, Egypt, Ghana, Lebanon, and Pakistan.  Nor is the risk limited to the global south.  European states like Albania, Lithuania and North Macedonia are also candidates for near-term collapse as their dollar-denominated debt becomes unpayable.
​  ​The problem is compounded by a global investor flight which is driving the US dollar up to unsustainable highs… thereby devaluing the currency of any state which needs dollars to do business.  This is setting up a vicious spiral in which as more national economies crash, the more investors will seek the relative safety of US assets even if the return on these is miniscule… or even if the Federal Reserve takes the rate negative.
​  ​The pachyderm on the sofa in all of this though, is the volume of derivative “assets” which have been created on the back of all of this increasingly unrepayable sovereign debt.  Just as in 2008, we only discovered the extent of the derivatives based on mortgages after the banking system began to collapse, so this time round we will likely only fully understand the extent of the problem as the entire global economy succumbs to a world-wide sovereign debt crisis.
​  ​Unlike 2008, there won’t be any states left standing to bail the system out.  And with western leaders seemingly determined to drive the emerging Eurasian/BRICS bloc into setting up an alternative system which disadvantages the west, the prospect for a rapid descent into economic, political and social chaos looks inevitable.
​  ​Little wonder Herr Schwab and his buddies are keen to erase the WEF’s role in it.

​Surplus Energy Economics looks at The Affordability Crisis. which results from the above. (Heavily edited)
..We need to be absolutely clear, though, that money has no intrinsic worth, but commands value only as a ‘claim’ on the material products and services made available by the energy economy...
..Central banks can ‘print’ money (digitally), but they can’t similarly print low-cost energy. The banking system can lend money into existence, but we can’t lend resources into existence...
..Whether we think in energy or in financial terms, what’s happening now is that the economic resources of households, and of the economy itself, have ceased to expand, and have started to contract, whilst the costs of essentials are rising.
  This is what is meant by an affordability crisis.
An affordability crisis does what it says on the tin, and has two main effects.
First, consumers who have to spend more on necessities have to cut back on purchases of discretionary (non-essential) goods and services.

Second, households suffering from affordability compression struggle to “keep up the payments”.​..
..Perhaps the biggest single risk of the lot would be a wave of ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’ reaction by the public.​..
..​None of this is going away. An outbreak of peace and conciliation between Russia and its opponents, welcome though this would be, wouldn’t alter the fundamentals, which are that the ECoEs of energy supply are rising, reducing the affordability, not just of energy itself, but of all energy-intensive resources and products.
Fourthly, there’s no “tech fix” for structural affordability compression.​..
..It’s worth remembering, in this context, that energy sources must precede applications...
..Technologies are optimised to the energy sources available, not the other way around.
  The big question now isn’t whether an affordability crisis is going to happen – because it already is – but when this reality is going to gain recognition as a feature of the system...​   (Dick Cheney always knew this. Who else?)​
..Discretionary consumption has entered an irreversible decline, and that the economy, just like millions of households, is struggling to ‘keep up the payments’ required by an increasingly financialized system.

​The Rape Of Europe Is Next​   Jorge Vilches (Already underway from my vantage point. It's more than "grooming".)
​  ​It is becoming ever clearer for European public opinion that without Russian energy, Russian food, and Russian produce at large quite simply Europe cannot survive. So as Frank Sinatra foresaw, the end is now near and Anglo-Saxon+EU joint plans for Russian piracy – plan A — are just about over. Never in their history have Europeans depended so much strictly from Russian produce that very simply cannot stop coming in. All the way to very distant Japan and South Korea, with these Russian sanctions their much-required ´Just-In-Time´ strategy is rapidly becoming ´Just-In-S**t. So now Europeans and Western-compliant Asians would freeze and starve with massive migrations democratically spread out everywhere. That´s why plan B “let´s rape Europe instead” will necessarily kick in soon.​..
​..The Anglo-Saxons basically just want to change the tide and win at something-anything, so if Russia cannot be defeated they´ll rape continental Europe first and try to make buddies with whomever later, even Latam or Africa… with investments profits on top. And Australia, as an active part of the AUKUS core may also perform a key role regarding “unfriendly” Asians. And beware: if you care to believe the Anglo-Saxons, between Fort Knox and the Bank of England they both pretty much vault everybody else´s gold, Europe´s included. So be carefully aware of the plenty of food for thought before you. Gold is real money as Lawrence of Arabia learned the hard way...

​A few excerpts from the recent (Swiss Strategic Security veteran) Jacques Baud interview. Thanks Noirette. (When will Europe realize she is being raped?)
​  ​In the English-speaking world, the U.S. and European Union strategy is increasingly being questioned by military and intelligence officials. This trend is reinforced by U.S. domestic politics. Republicans and Democrats have a very similar view of Russia. The difference, however, lies in the effectiveness of the investments in support of Ukraine. Both share the goal of “regime change” in Russia; but Republicans have noted that the billions spent tend to backfire against the Western economy. In other words, they seem unable to achieve their intended goal while our economies and influence weaken...
..In Europe, and in the French-language media in French-speaking Switzerland, France and Belgium, the rhetoric faithfully follows what the Ukrainian propaganda says. We are shown a fictitious reality that announces victory against RussiaThe result is that we are not able to help Ukraine overcome its real problems...
..There is a general anti-Russian mood there. People are more Catholic than the Pope. That was also the case with the oil embargo. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, advised the EU against an oil embargo. But the EU wanted to do it anyway, leading to skyrocketing oil prices. So, it is obvious that there is a certain dynamic in the EU related to the generation of the current political leadership. European leaders are very young, have no real experience, but are ideologically fixed...   ("Young Globalist Leaders")
..In Europe, our understanding of the problem lags behind that of the USA. We are not able to discuss the situation calmly. In the French-language media, it is impossible to take an alternative view of the problems without being called “Putin’s agent.” This is not only an intellectual issue, but first and foremost a problem for Ukraine. By confirming the view proposed by Ukrainian propaganda, our media have pushed Ukraine towards a strategy that costs a huge number of lives and leads to the destruction of the country... 
..In the United States, a distinction must be made between the government and the mainstream media on the one hand, and the military and intelligence professionals on the other. Among the latter, there is a growing sense that Ukraine will suffer more from Western strategy than from a war with Russia. This sounds like a paradox , but more and more intelligence people seem to recognize that.​ ​ In French-speaking Switzerland—in my experience—people do not understand that. They follow the rhetoric of the American government. This is an intellectually limited, extremely primitive, extremely dogmatic and ultimately extremely brutal view towards the Ukrainians. It is, again, a view that is more Catholic than the Pope, because even the US military seems to understand that this approach will lead to failure..​.​
..Let us consider the situation in Mariupol. Our media seem to deplore that the fighters of the Azov Movement surrendered. They feel sorry for them. They would have preferred that they all died. This is extremely inhumane. But now it appears their fighting had no longer any impact on the situation. If you read the Swiss French media, they should have fought to the death, to the last man. These media would have done a “wonderful job” during the defense of Berlin in April 1945! .....NATO is not a peace organization. NATO is fundamentally a nuclear-power organization, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. That is the purpose of NATO—to put allies under the nuclear umbrella. NATO was founded in 1949, when there were only two nuclear powers—the U.S. and the USSR...
​..​The very concept of war was not adapted to the realities. NATO is a regional security and defense organization. It was designed in 1949 for a war in Europe with nuclear weapons, tanks, artillery, etc. In Afghanistan, however, there were no nuclear weapons, tanks, or fighter-bombers. That was a very different kind of war. But NATO did not identify the problem...
..To make it simple, let’s say that a war in Europe is a technical challenge. A war in Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a societal challenge. NATO has not understood this essential difference. I mentioned the war in Afghanistan because NATO was engaged there as an organization. In Iraq, it is better to talk about “NATO countries.” But the fact remains that they did not understand that they were waging totally different types of war. Western armies are not prepared for it and have a dogmatic understanding of war...
.. The idea of a common European house, as formulated by Gorbachev and favored by the Russians, is inconceivable to the United States. For this reason, Russia has always had a certain respect for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). After the end of the Cold War, this model could have been expanded to build security through cooperation rather than confrontation...
.. A 2017 US Army study found that the USSR did not attack Europe because it never intended to. So, our security does not depend on NATO, but on our ability to have good relations with our neighbors. In fact, I believe that NATO membership would put our security at risk. That applies equally to Finland and Sweden.​..
..Since the early 1990s, the Russians had a conception of security in Europe that was inspired by the OSCE: security through cooperation, not confrontation. That’s why the Russians were interested in joining NATO at that time. But the very concept of NATO, with a dominant power tied to the very nature of the organization itself, cannot integrate the Russian perspective. If you look at the current challenges in the world, the Russian vision can be seen as much more realistic than the Western vision...

​Red contributed this analysis of the assassination of Japanese Nationalist "paramount leader" Shinzo Abe:
​  The critical event that likely triggered the process leading to Abe’s assassination was the NATO summit in Madrid (June 28-30).
  The NATO summit was a moment when the hidden players behind the scenes laid down the law for the new global order. NATO is on a fast track to evolve beyond an alliance to defend Europe and to become an unaccountable military power, working with the Global Economic Forum, the billionaires and the bankers around the world, as a “world army,” functioning much as the British East India Company did in another era.
  The decision to invite to the NATO summit the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand was a critical part of this NATO transformation.
  These four nations were invited to join in an unprecedented level of integration in security, including intelligence sharing (outsourcing to big tech multinationals), the use of advanced weapons systems (that must be administrated by the personnel of multinationals like Lockheed Martin)joint exercises (that set a precedent for an oppressive decision-making process), and other “collaborative” approaches that undermine the chain of command within the nation state.
  When Kishida returned to Tokyo on July first, there can be no doubt that one of his first meetings was with Abe. Kishida explained to Abe the impossible conditions that the Biden administration had demanded of Japan.
  The White House, by the way, is now entirely the tool of globalists like Victoria Nuland (Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs) and others trained by the Bush clan.
  The demands made of Japan were suicidal in nature. Japan was to increase economic sanctions on Russia, to prepare for possible war with Russia, and to prepare for a war with China. Japan’s military, intelligence and diplomatic functions were to be transferred to the emerging blob of private contractors gathering for the feast around NATO.
  We do not know what Abe did during the week before his deathMost likely he launched into a sophisticated political play, using of all his assets in Washington D.C., Beijing, and Moscow—as well as in Jerusalem, Berlin, and London, to come up with a multi-tiered response that would give the world the impression that Japan was behind Biden all the way, while Japan sought out a détente with China and Russia through the back door.
  The problem with this response was that since other nations had been shut down, such a sophisticated play by Japan made it the only major nation with a semi-functional executive branch.


Globalists are racing time against this threat!
​  ​Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt plan to join BRICS, and their potential membership bids could be discussed and answered at next year’s summit in South Africa, Purnima Anand, the president of the organization, told Russian media on Thursday.​..
..“I hope that these countries will join the BRICS quite shortly, as all the representatives of core members are interested in expansion. So it will come very soon,” Anand added.
  The news of the three nations’ plans to join BRICS comes after Iran and Argentina officially applied for membership in late June, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh touting the bloc as a “very creative mechanism with broad aspects.”  

Pepe Escobar has broad-ranging analysis of Eurasian economic integrative processes again:
​  ​As it stands, it’s important to realize that dozens of BRI projects in industry and investment and cross-border inter-regional cooperation will end up consolidating the Russian concept of the Greater Eurasia Partnership – which essentially revolves around establishing multilateral cooperation with a vast range of nations belonging to organizations such as the EAEU, the SCO, BRICS and ASEAN.

​"Quitting bad science"​ : I can relate...
Health experts are quitting the NIH and CDC in droves because they're embarrassed by 'bad science' - including vaccinating children under 5 to 'make their advice palatable to the White House.'

(finally dinged for) Breaking-the-law:  
  A federal district court in Ohio has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on thousands of U.S. Air Force service members who remain unvaccinated after having opposed the shot on religious grounds but have had their religious exemption applications denied.

  And it's not just sugar. There is wholesome food for thought here:
Research suggests sugar can trigger reward and craving states in your brain similar to addictive drugs, and lead to brain-related health issues such as depression, learning disorders, memory problems and overeating.

​The Ethical Skeptic: The ‘Worthless Human’ Lie of the Diet Cartel  
(5-courses of intellectual nourishment  for the thoughtful.)


​Seasonal Diner  (pictured recently with veggies ​after morning gathering)