tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19440868221583815372024-03-16T11:53:10.930-07:00Biped TwilightReflections on the inexorable, sad and yet oddly glorious demise of the human race.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-30320197624344107542023-09-02T09:22:00.000-07:002023-09-02T09:22:54.422-07:00In dangerous countries far away, they throw popular politicians in prison<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLQSYWgVCaEvWQxtxFcYxtaI3rJPRp5Xu13trtvCDGiyIsiLaZHaaWzeYO2XGkAt7JtfH2L1RDIIEo-lF4Q3dz1fWTyvto4F1JClh9QXtPGxSBDi3YGRvF6HpAL104rwDlgCLirFV1WPPDxXneXw2jgOe-PVB9HINjWr7NiIp3IJT2WEGk_aQjW4Ks9N_D/s1125/prisoner.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1125" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLQSYWgVCaEvWQxtxFcYxtaI3rJPRp5Xu13trtvCDGiyIsiLaZHaaWzeYO2XGkAt7JtfH2L1RDIIEo-lF4Q3dz1fWTyvto4F1JClh9QXtPGxSBDi3YGRvF6HpAL104rwDlgCLirFV1WPPDxXneXw2jgOe-PVB9HINjWr7NiIp3IJT2WEGk_aQjW4Ks9N_D/s320/prisoner.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In April 2022, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was
<a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/04/10/pakistan-s-prime-minister-ousted-in-no-confidence-vote">ousted in a no-confidence vote</a> engineered by his enemies. The U.S. was
suspected of meddling in Pakistani politics because Khan visited Moscow on the
very day of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. (We recently learned that the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/">fat thumb of Washington</a> was very much involved in tipping the scale.) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then on August
3, Khan was jailed after conviction on the charge of “illegally selling state
gifts.” He was promptly<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/24/pakistan-antiterror-court-allows-ex-pm-imran-khans-arrest-over-may-riots"> rearrested by an anti-terrorism court</a> on charges related to a May, 2023, riot in which his
supporters attacked an army office. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Khan remains extremely popular in Pakistan as an outsider to the two-family duopoly that has pretty much owned the country since its birth in 1947 in cahoots with its highly politicized military. Though temporarily freed, Khan is likely to be in and out of
detention and effectively blocked from contesting the next election despite his
tens of millions of backers. While Pakistan retains the outward shell of an
electoral democracy, there are few illusions about who rules the place.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Donald Trump, a former president, now faces <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-cases-georgia-washington-florida-nyc-charges-key-dates-213951743.html">91 felony counts</a>, which cumulatively could put him in prison for decades. The
charges range from the silly, like the felony of conspiring to pay off a hooker,
to the genuinely disturbing—trying to drum up a precise number of votes needed
to flip a close election and stay in power. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The U.S. is not Pakistan. But the end run to avoid allowing
the popular will to be heard is unsettlingly similar. In both cases, lawfare is
at work to jigger the results of the next election. This is true whether or not
Khan is guilty of keeping state swag and egging on his supporters to riot or whether
Trump is guilty of attempted vote-stealing. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The situation did not suddenly materialize out of nowhere. The
steady decline of what passes for democratic process did not originate with
Trump, despite the fervid beliefs of his anti-partisans. Amidst the deafening
clamor about electoral manipulation, one rarely hears the merest reference to
one indisputable fact: Our presidents are not elected by the majority of voters.
And no one seems to care.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The year 2000—not 2020—marked the modern wave of democratic
collapse. Not only did we witness the Supreme Court’s judicial coup handing
power to George W. Bush, but the Democrats, after the briefest of fussing, said,
Okay fine. They then embraced Bush as a legitimate president, absolved him for
9/11 (imagine the blame-howling if Gore had presided over that nightmare), and
saluted his decision to invade, conquer, and destroy a country halfway around
the world. War-making, not the detail of who was to preside over it, was the
overwhelming consensus. Defying the popular will didn’t matter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But, many will argue, elections do matter, and the orange
guy tried to subvert it. He made up fake stories, declared the winner
illegitimate, and sent his minions to intimidate election officials and even Congress
itself. True, and perhaps punishment is in order. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And when will accountability arrive for those who claimed
the 2016 election was rigged, delegitimized him, then cooked up a phony link to
a foreign power using the full resources of the intelligence/security state and
slavish collusion by most media? The long-running Russiagate scandal was orders
of magnitude worse than Watergate, but that subversion of the electoral process
is still given a full pass. Take a moment to view Matt Orfalea’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOYQeIrVdYo">mash-up video</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>juxtaposing Trump’s inflammatory
statements about 2020 with Hillary’s and her minions’ claims about 2016. (Watch
it quickly as YouTube has flagged it again as a violation of its policy for “glorification,
recruitment, or graphic portrayal of dangerous organizations,” despite the
content consisting solely of video clips of public statements.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The pursuit of Trump’s wacko election denialists is
selective prosecution, the definition of a rogue state no longer subject to the
rule of law. Trump did try to subvert the electoral process, but he wasn’t the
first to do so, only far clumsier at it. He is also unprotected by the uni-party war state, unlike Team Dem.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The U.S. is not only approaching Third World-levels of income and
wealth inequality but also the WWF approach to electoral showmanship we associated with it. For example, Senegal
has a sorta-kinda democracy with regularly scheduled elections, but its main
opposition figure, Ousmane Sonko, is now on <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/08/18/as-senegal-organizes-troops-to-invade-niger-violence-mars-constitutional-order-within-its-own-borders/ ">hunger strike</a> after being indicted
again, this time for “undermining state security, criminal association, and creating serious
political unrest.” That sounds a little more tinpot-dictator-ish than what’s
happening here, but not by much. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sonko’s party was also dissolved, which so far hasn’t
happened to the Republicans. But if Democrats and their selected prosecutors
have their way, Donald Trump may have to resort to a hunger strike to prevent
state officials from blocking his name from the ballot based on an
<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-constitutional-case-for-barring-trump-from-the-presidency">interpretation of Article 3</a> of the Constitution that is getting quite a bit of
airtime. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Imran Khan can’t participate in Pakistani elections for 5
years, and if he’s still popular by then, no doubt new charges will appear to
make sure he doesn’t. Mr. Sonko might try to run for president of Senegal, but campaigning
from a prison cell will limit his chances. Once upon a time, we looked upon
these sham exercises as uncivilized and backward, worthy only of banana
republics. Now, we’re eager to join them. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The real winner of the last election and, in all likelihood,
the next is the MICIMATT*, the machine overseeing the churn of our national
wealth into the lucrative business of making war. Our polity resembles less a
republic than a Rome-ish state built on expeditionary legions and headed by a
figurehead emperor. There’s far too much money on the table to leave important decisions
in the hands of mere citizens of whatever partisan stripe. That will persist
until the propaganda-induced illusions of military prowess and supremacy
finally crumble and collapse. Stand by for news on that. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(*Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academic-Think
Tank Complex, h/t Ray McGovern, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity—VIPS)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-13978765208748914712023-07-20T10:43:00.000-07:002023-07-20T10:43:00.861-07:00Odors of defeat and the wages of trickery<p style="text-indent: 48px;"><br /></p><p style="text-indent: 48px;"><br /></p><p style="text-indent: 48px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAHUCmbincJI3cuq0o4gJZfm7voj_ox8JV4IOlXaq61bFu6_6tIrgz9b0K6w0UUCs51R-I14opfLtPr2aWaXVKDA4AOQktRXh468YroBlIA6PVFUqtCixSFPoktjKIsLAtUqwcx7C__0R0wQbAqK_Ypgl0htRF0Om6jqK819NMKiC41xQIAphHVPZvQUso/s976/Brave%20Commander%20ship.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAHUCmbincJI3cuq0o4gJZfm7voj_ox8JV4IOlXaq61bFu6_6tIrgz9b0K6w0UUCs51R-I14opfLtPr2aWaXVKDA4AOQktRXh468YroBlIA6PVFUqtCixSFPoktjKIsLAtUqwcx7C__0R0wQbAqK_Ypgl0htRF0Om6jqK819NMKiC41xQIAphHVPZvQUso/s320/Brave%20Commander%20ship.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />We’re being told that the Russians are indifferent to the
plight of hungry Africans because they kaboshed a deal with Ukraine in which
the latter’s grain exporting ships were permitted to transit the Black Sea
without interference. As usual, that’s a false reading of the situation.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The headlines were dire: “Russian Grain Deal: Why Moscow Is
Being Accused of Using Hunger as Blackmail,” <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/russian-grain-deal-why-moscow-102942030.html">trumpeted <i>Yahoo News</i></a>. “A hit to global food security,” <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-07-17/russia-halts-grain-deal-ukraine-war-world-hunger">said the <i>LA Times</i></a>. As usual, the war propaganda we’re being fed is heavy-handed
enough to sink one of those giant boats laden with barley and sunflower seeds. In
fact, the grain deal had<a href="https://www.un.org/en/black-sea-grain-initiative"> two major components</a>, not just one.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yes, the Russians agreed to let Ukrainian grain exports
travel freely to alleviate food shortages in the global South. In exchange,
they were promised access to world markets for their own food products and
fertilizer, including an agreement that Rosselkhozbank, the Russian
Agricultural Bank, would be reconnected to the SWIFT payments system. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Russians fulfilled their part of the bargain; Europe and
the U.S. didn’t. After agreeing to several postponements, Moscow finally decided
that the foot-dragging had gone far enough. Now, while the Russians say the
deal can come back any time the original terms are carried out, they are no
longer willing to cooperate on the basis of empty promises. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Don’t expect our self-righteous pols and pundits to
acknowledge that aspect of the situation any time soon. The neocon cabal in
D.C. will bash Russia with letting African babies starve and further wrecking Ukrainian
finances. The idea that the deal could have been carried out by all parties as
originally promised won’t enter the debate. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A nasty little side secret is that the Ukrainians’ supposed
relief to the tables of the underdeveloped world was <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/07/ap-obfuscates-the-real-grain-deal-numbers-.html">a bit exaggerated</a>. A large portion—probably the majority—of the exported grain
was headed <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/17/as-russia-exits-grain-deal-which-countries-will-be-affected">right back to Europe</a>. It’s important for the EU struggling with a staggering food inflation problem that
they have enough feed for their animal stocks. But it’s not really a huge deal
for, say, Egypt. John Helmer at <a href="https://johnhelmer.net/the-food-war-the-grain-deal-and-the-real-deal/">Dances with Bears</a> says that poor African countries received only 2.5% of the grain freed up under the deal.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Propaganda points aside, there is a danger in consistently
saying you will do something and then not doing it. When the U.S. and its junior
allies finally sit down to sort out what to do about the lost war in Ukraine,
their Russian counterparts are not going to be in a trusting mood. A few years
ago, various final arrangements could have been discussed among the hostile
parties; now, U.S. diplomats are more likely to be handed a sheet of
instructions. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Recent talk about a “stalemate” that will lead to a kind of
Korea-style DMZ <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-and-does-war-ukraine-end-need-grand-strategy">freezing the lines</a> in eastern Europe for another half-century might
have made sense if the parties involved were capable of coming to terms. They’re
not. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Biden’s neocons and their European servants like Macron and Merkel
haven’t been serious about the things they put their signatures to, such as the
notoriously bad-faith <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/document-search?field_paregion_tid=All&field_paconflict_tid=All&field_pacountry_tid=Ukraine&keys">Minsk accords</a>. “We just did that to buy time for the
Ukrainian military build-up,”<a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/22/ffci-d22.html"> they boasted</a> not so long ago. That would once
have been considered undiplomatic, but it sounded good when western leaders
were eager to out-swagger each other. It was an expensive self-indulgence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Proving that you’re a country incapable of keeping its word
has a cost once others wise up to you. It means that the future of what’s left
of Ukraine will be decided on the battlefield, not the negotiation table. The
grain deal’s demise is only the prologue.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d61da24f-7fff-4465-d2f9-800a6bf96bfb"><br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-57356541263628512182023-07-19T05:57:00.002-07:002023-07-19T05:59:24.971-07:00Fighting WWF style<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4ncH4VjTBxZ14wQnUYdkzPiEFINy_4WLSFRjrIq4FX5nsKxFfMozejhFrjww528m1pdvIfPA7LE-9T7-Isrt3_31o9VPqwiL1geSQLycAuRtn6DWoyzvIG-D1ZjsD99q0S7KI_nJLfovmP7ln9UwVvv7kH92Rtn6bwtIlYdJauoyUX0jFHW-0fd75PwQ/s550/student%20loan%20example.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="550" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4ncH4VjTBxZ14wQnUYdkzPiEFINy_4WLSFRjrIq4FX5nsKxFfMozejhFrjww528m1pdvIfPA7LE-9T7-Isrt3_31o9VPqwiL1geSQLycAuRtn6DWoyzvIG-D1ZjsD99q0S7KI_nJLfovmP7ln9UwVvv7kH92Rtn6bwtIlYdJauoyUX0jFHW-0fd75PwQ/s320/student%20loan%20example.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I received an email from the Department of Education a few
days ago in which Secretary Miguel Carmona promised that “we will not stop
fighting to provide debt relief to borrowers,” the “we” presumably being the
whole Biden team and perhaps the party they belong to. Later in the note, Mr
Secretary reiterated the concept: “We will not stop fighting to make sure that
student debt is not a barrier for Americans.”<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">How grand that they’re in there “fighting” on my behalf!
What Carmona pointedly did <u>not</u> promise was actually <u>winning</u> any
of these noble fights. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A skeptic might wonder if he and his boss Joe ever meant to win
them in the first place. They certainly did things that undermined their
chances of success while waving their arms vigorously about how hard they’re
fighting. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To start with, it took President Biden nearly <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/">two years </a>to formulate a student debt relief plan. Once he did so, the pearl-clutching predictably
began by the financiers making a pile off student debt. Unfair to the
prosperous who paid theirs off! Costly! Giving away free shit! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These Murdoch-world talking points flooded the airwaves and
journals, obscuring the realities of the vast burden of student debt that is
crippling the prospects of the nation’s youth. Furthermore, even the most
generous proposed forgiveness ($20,000) wouldn’t put a dent in the debt peonage
many borrowers now live under.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Republican governors and the company that manages my own
loan, Mohela, sued to stop the debt forgiveness, and the Trump-heavy Supreme Court
<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf">agreed with them</a> in June, even fast-tracking the decision by using their
so-called “shadow docket” to leapfrog the issue past lower courts.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mohela is a private entity, allowed by the Federal
Government to enjoy free money by handling loans that pay them substantially
more than the miniscule interest banks were charging for most of the last
decade. Not only that, Mohela isn’t on the hook for non-payment—a sweet deal,
but obviously not sweet enough. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have a personal stake in the matter. I obtained a master’s
degree late in life and took on debt to finance it. I’m not complaining because
it boosted my earnings substantially, and I haven’t had any problems paying the
amount established when I consolidated them and started out on a 20-year
repayment plan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But my loans have been a saga of betrayal. The deal I was
promised in 2006 was that, in exchange for keeping up steady payments while
working in the public-interest sector, I would be eligible for full forgiveness
of the balance. That is, if I stuck to the nonprofit world or worked in
underserved communities for a decade, <a href=" https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service">Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)</a>
would kick in. It was meant to encourage new nurses or MDs to take up positions
in faraway posts or to eschew more lucrative gigs in the private sector. The
deal was straight up: 10 years of sacrifice in exchange for full debt relief.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I duly did so. However, after eight years of regular
payments, I was informed that the rules had changed and that I had to switch to
an income-based payment plan. And oh by the way, sorry, but all your payments
up to now don’t count! We made a mistake, and you will pay for it. Start over
from zero.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s the way loan forgiveness has worked so far. Even
among those who did manage to jump through all the correct hoops, a tiny
percentage have successfully obtained loan forgiveness after turning in all the
paperwork. That’s how all these wonderful programs that Fox News gets all
knickers-twisted over actually work. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I decided not to give in to the new regime and continued to
make my original payments, thinking that perhaps some well-intentioned
government would someday, somehow, fix the sorry mess. When Biden’s plan arose,
and the lawsuits followed, I promptly contacted my congressional representative,
Adriano Espaillat, to encourage the Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress to take
legislative action. After all, the lawsuit argued that Biden did not have
executive authority to issue the forgiveness, so the obvious solution was to do
it through statute.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here’s what I wrote to Espaillat: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">President Biden’s executive order to forgive a small portion
of outstanding student loans has been overturned by a federal judge on the
grounds that the executive is usurping a legislative function. There is a
simple remedy: take legislative action to authorize the loan forgiveness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I urge you to support H.R. 9110, which would amend the
relevant statute. This must be done in the remaining days of the current
session as your party is likely to lose control of the chamber starting next
year. </span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Well, golly gee howdy! I was entirely correct in my
assessment, for which I enjoy no glee. An Espaillat staffer later assured me verbally
that all was well, that they had everything under control, and that the debt
forgiveness package was safe. It wasn’t. Did he know that, or is Espaillat just
a lousy defender of his constituents?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If I continue to pay off the loan I took out at the rate
established by Mohela at the outset, I will retire the debt somewhere around
2031, or 25 years after I graduated. I will be 80 years old. Meanwhile, Biden, Carmona, and their pals will still be
“fighting” for my interests and well-being. And Lucy will still be holding the
football for Charlie Brown to kick.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Incidentally, while Joe’s pretty confused these days, I’m
convinced that on this one he knew exactly what he was doing. <o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-82529389812182716132023-07-16T10:02:00.001-07:002023-07-16T10:02:32.441-07:00Water Rights on a Hot Planet<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhAYQZ7lloPpljlspkF6cfzHqeGvqZVUdwEjjWW3kDGwIb_WHm5AznoHtTrdIqCArezA7cHMi1A_XVVGlVO0oGQ383_TJ0tim9Ejigs05l9HdtxKc5mGMc82hs5Y4bF4PDI7n6bqBh4aNL6r9JY20CWmjpqmUM6IoeEb7fX-5pnDv9nWI_o9z4eRQh00Ri/s4032/Chaco%20amphitheatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhAYQZ7lloPpljlspkF6cfzHqeGvqZVUdwEjjWW3kDGwIb_WHm5AznoHtTrdIqCArezA7cHMi1A_XVVGlVO0oGQ383_TJ0tim9Ejigs05l9HdtxKc5mGMc82hs5Y4bF4PDI7n6bqBh4aNL6r9JY20CWmjpqmUM6IoeEb7fX-5pnDv9nWI_o9z4eRQh00Ri/s320/Chaco%20amphitheatre.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">[Photo: Chaco Canyon in northeastern New Mexico, the site of a flourishing civilization c. 800-1250 C.E.]</p><p class="MsoNormal">The Supreme Court told the Navajos almost literally to pound
sand in its <a href=" https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1484_aplc.pdf">June 22 decision</a> in <i>Arizona v. Navajo Nation</i>, a case dealing with the ongoing struggle
over water in the increasingly parched Southwest. The decision was 5–4 because a
Trump-appointed justice, Neil Gorsuch, sided with the marginalized court
liberals this time and, in fact, wrote quite an eloquent dissent to the
majority opinion. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That majority took a look at the 1868 <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Bosque_Redondo">Treaty of Bosque Redondo</a></b>
between the United States and the Navajo Nation and did not see any explicit language
there that compels the U.S. to provide Navajos the water they need. No matter
that the tribe wasn’t asking for that. The court said the U.S. had no “affirmative
duty”—surely a provocative choice of language these days—to do anything other
than what is expressly stated in treaties, statutes, or regulations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Gorsuch gave his fellow justices a history lesson that I
will bet a large sum they either didn’t read or could care less. The 1868
treaty arose from a sorry, though familiar, history of genocidal destruction of
Navajo life through forced resettlement into a desolate, virtually
uninhabitable tract of land in eastern New Mexico. While the Navajo rebelled
and eventually won the right to return to their ancestral territories in what
became Arizona, it’s hard to argue (though the Supremes’ majority implies it)
that they were in any condition to establish fair terms given that their
choices were either to sign the treaty or slowly die off. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Gorsuch also points out that the Navajo lawsuit didn’t ask
for concrete actions by the U.S. government to meet their water needs but
merely a full accounting of what their water rights are, which has never been
determined despite the tribe’s many formal requests dating back decades. The majority’s
pearl-clutching that the Navajo might demand infrastructure improvements if the
Court were to rule in their favor is ironic given how much wealth Washington
has poured into the Hoover, Glen Canyon, and a dozen other dams to harness rivers
for the benefit of burgeoning settler populations throughout Arizona, Nevada,
Utah, and Colorado. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Gorsuch is an oddity on the ultra-conservative court with whose
other members he shares a wide range of views. He sat on a western circuit and
was known as a Native-friendly judge there, too. The fact that he has an
enlightened view of sensitive environmental issues affecting the tribes is
curious given the role his mother, Anne Gorsuch, played—as Ronald Reagan’s
first director of the Environmental Protection Agency—in making that agency a
bastion of corporate coziness and a flaccid defender of the selfsame
environment. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Incidentally, Ms. Gorsuch was the boss of the notorious Rita
Lavelle, whom Reagan appointed to head the Office of Toxic Waste, an
accidentally appropriate post for her. I observed Lavelle close-up as a
Washington reporter in 1981: she was the “lady who lunched” with every
corporate lobbyist who asked her out. Lavelle turned out to be too corrupt even
for the Reagan team and eventually got the boot. (She also was<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/10/us/rita-lavelle-gets-6-month-term-and-is-fined-10000-for-perjury.html"> convicted ofperjury</a> in “Sewergate” and did time.) But I digress.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Luckily, we are not responsible for our parents. Gorsuch’s
sympathy with Indian tribes is a welcome relief from the ideological moonscape
of the current court. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It would be easy for us to shake our liberal heads at the
increasingly despicable court, its slapdash arguments, and its partisan jiggering
of the law for predetermined ends. But when it comes to stealing water rights
of the defenseless, the entire U.S. political establishment is still at it.
Even the arguments marshaled in the 19th century—and quoted by Gorsuch—to justify
the destruction of the Navajos have a familiar ring. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here is Gorsuch waxing emphatic on the tactics used to
compel the Navajo to leave their homes. What are the chances that study of this
opinion would be allowed in a Florida classroom given how “divisive” it is? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[U.S. agent James Henry] Carleton picked the location
himself: an area hundreds of miles from the Navajo’s homeland commonly called
the Bosque Redondo. Warning signs flashed from the start. Officers tasked with
surveying the site cautioned that it was “remote from viable forage” and that building
material would have to come from a significant distance. Worse, they found that
the water supply was meager and contained “much unhealthy mineral matter.” Carleton
ignored these findings and charged ahead with his plan. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That left the not-so-small matter of securing the Navajo’s
compliance. To that end, the federal government unleashed a “maelstrom of
destruction” on the Tribe. Before all was said and done, “the Navajo had to be
literally starved into surrender. Thousands of U. S. troops roamed the Navajo
[Country] destroying everything the Navajo could use; every field, storehouse,
and hut was burned.” The campaign was “brief, blunt, and, when combined with a
particularly difficult winter,” effective. That period of violence led to “the
Long Walk.” In truth, it was not one walk but many—over 53 separate incidents,
according to some. In each case, federal officers rounded up tribal members, “herded
[them] into columns,” and marched them hundreds of miles from their home. “Many
died en route, some shot by the souldiers.” As one Navajo later recounted,
people were killed “on the spot if they said they were tired or sick or if they
stopped to help someone. Others fell victim to slavers with the full complicity
of the U. S. officials.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Details aside, the overall strategy is hardly a thing of the
past. How many similar stories do we read of these days, from the Buddhist
reactionaries <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/22/burma-end-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims">chasing Muslim Rohingya out of their homes</a> in Myanmar to the ongoing saga of Jewish supremacist settlers
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/17/how-israel-uses-water-to-control-west-bank-palestine ">exploiting Palestinian lands (and water)</a> for decades, destroying their crops, and attacking them with impunity? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s easy to lament past abuses, much harder to recognize
current ones. <o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-72121533244642487792023-06-22T08:56:00.001-07:002023-06-22T08:56:32.993-07:00 Why I Won’t Be Joining PRIDE This Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJioR83WHnYgLkchWIyu5DBJIKDZqiVpNd_TSnAlhi4-hivzgXJRCORouH2vHvaEeBrEs2Px7PUJXtW0OxzNC46sLSljd8USFyYfUMnt5HKP-Mb5M5FZ4CVdJTjieCoKPAMNppLKwHZuiYBaHXRlTJr1dBzWMLy6Tb7_4M2pWZTUViUB016CJo2NK8Xsm/s1250/pride%20colors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="1250" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJioR83WHnYgLkchWIyu5DBJIKDZqiVpNd_TSnAlhi4-hivzgXJRCORouH2vHvaEeBrEs2Px7PUJXtW0OxzNC46sLSljd8USFyYfUMnt5HKP-Mb5M5FZ4CVdJTjieCoKPAMNppLKwHZuiYBaHXRlTJr1dBzWMLy6Tb7_4M2pWZTUViUB016CJo2NK8Xsm/s320/pride%20colors.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>PRIDE is a nice weekend in New York City. The streets are
swarming with all sorts—I mean ALL sorts—of people who, perhaps more than any
other time of the year, feel welcome to express their quirky uniqueness.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sadly, I’m not feeling it this year, and it’s not for lack
of trying. Emancipation is always a fine thing, and I wish everyone well. But
the LGBTQ+ “community” (which incidentally may be more of a yearning than a
reality) is shooting itself in both kneecaps in a way I won’t be part of. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Historically, one of the worst things we had to combat was
the nefarious idea that adult Ls and Gs and whatevers were a danger to children
because of the historic association in the mind of straight society between
same-sex behavior and pedophilia. That was never true, and for the most part people
finally realized it. After the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision of 2015,
that old canard seem to be put permanently to bed, and the culture war about
whether to leave adults alone in their private behavior looked to be mostly
over. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now, it’s back with a vengeance. Reactionary forces are
eager to eliminate all aspects of rainbow-hood from libraries, schools, and
even some public spaces. And it’s all in the name of protecting minors. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The point of the lance is the LGBTQ+ insistence that
underage kids must be eased into gender transition with minimum obstacles and with
no further public debate. This is not about putting a ring through your lip or
even permanently inking your skin. Parents might not like those actions, but
teen rebellion has a long history among the human race and probably won’t go
away. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No, this is about permanent medical intervention based on
what a sometimes very young or even pre-pubescent individual has decided to do
with and to, er, themself. And sorry, gang, I think that at the very least we
need deep and sustained debate on the wisdom of this course—placing me outside
the bounds of permitted opinion in the LGBTQ+ “community.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Examples of the suppression of dissident views on the recent
explosion of gender questioning are legion. In the most recent case, a tenured
academic, Northwestern professor Michael Bailey, published a study of what he
termed “rapid onset gender dysphoria” among a non-random sample of hundreds of
concerned parents whose children had declared themselves non-binary or the
like. The study is a modest contribution to understanding this phenomenon, but
it was quickly shouted down in the modern style of vigilanteism, and the
journal retracted it (though it is<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36991212/"> still available online </a>with a big RETRACTED
stamp across its quite interesting pages). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We can discuss the details of that or many other studies and
commentaries, and I’d like to. But that’s not allowed any more because any
deviance from the official line on transgender issues is cause for expulsion
from polite LGBT+ society. (I don’t doubt someone will invite me to climb on an
ice floe upon reading this.) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s pointless to argue in advance that I have some credentials
in the area, but I will anyway. I led an AIDS prevention and advocacy group in
downtown Santiago, Chile, for seven years whose headquarters stood at the exact
intersection where trans prostitution was practiced for a city of 5 million. (They
had a lot of clients, especially married men.) We interacted with those women for
years, defended them, and learned much about their difficult lives.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">None of that will matter if my unease with the idea of
12-year-old girls independently deciding to get their breasts surgically
removed becomes widely known. I expect to be cast into the outer darkness and
told to keep quiet. Maybe I’ll even be expelled from the “community.” That’s
why I’m taking the initiative to say in advance that joining with others for
emancipation has meant a lot to me over the years. Also, I will be okay without
it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, that community is pushing forward to provide the most
hateful elements of an unenlightened society with a gold-embossed invitation to
resuscitate the worst historical fears of sexual minorities—that we are a
danger to children. Don’t be surprised if the advances and gains of recent
decades suddenly go into reverse, including, I dare to predict, marriage rights.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">America went into a war footing in Europe a year ago
convinced that an easy victory would follow. That was delusional, but the war-cheerers
aren’t alone. My LGBTQ+ friends are riding a similar wave of dangerous
overconfidence that will cause all of us to pay a devastating price. I’ll be
watching from the sidelines while they proceed and will not be waving the
rainbow flag. <o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-72636538460790766322023-05-09T07:13:00.000-07:002023-05-09T07:13:05.498-07:00May 9 is Russia's Victory (over the Nazis) Day. Maybe we should learn what they're thinking.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioCAPLulsP2ChVWRcp6D0PtCZWdhhwzQdalR4otKUSMnSv3O5haByZZX-EaocoL8Ax3mArLFnOWc9YNdGyzP8tFXuYoqNxUCWon7g4T34oD-PHKDD7IxkSnk4_bapBr0d8kzRz8YePEUE5lE6KEWi2NXCpfwx3iQP2Ro09L7Jl2VOcv4e2qKdkkTRMAA/s1060/Lavrov%20@%20UN.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="1060" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioCAPLulsP2ChVWRcp6D0PtCZWdhhwzQdalR4otKUSMnSv3O5haByZZX-EaocoL8Ax3mArLFnOWc9YNdGyzP8tFXuYoqNxUCWon7g4T34oD-PHKDD7IxkSnk4_bapBr0d8kzRz8YePEUE5lE6KEWi2NXCpfwx3iQP2Ro09L7Jl2VOcv4e2qKdkkTRMAA/s320/Lavrov%20@%20UN.webp"/></a></div>
Karl Rove told us long ago that he and his boys were in charge of reality. I think those days are over. <br><br>
Our guardians make sure we don’t hear much from the Russians except for the occasional phrase from Vladimir Putin that is promptly spun so for us that we don’t have to read it ourselves. It might be a healthy exercise to get out of the post-Rovian bubble and see what the Russians are thinking on the 78th anniversary of Victory Day, what we call V-E Day (and don’t celebrate).<br><br>
RF Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave an important <a href="https://mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/1865243/">speech to his UN Security Council colleagues</a> in late April, which got pretty much zero attention. It has some significant content.<br><br>
Lavrov’s first statement was a reference to the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany by the “decisive contribution of my country with allied support” and the subsequent foundation of “the postwar international order” based on the UN Charter. Right out of the gate, Lavrov signals not only that the Red Army beat the Nazis but also ties that victory to the creation of the UN system. He is saying that the USSR and its descendant, the Russian Federation, laid the groundwork for a world consensus on how to maintain international peace. He insists that the UN’s guiding documents—especially “universally recognized standards of international law”—must form the basis of world security.<br><br>
In contrast to the UN system that emerged from that war, Lavrov states, the US has devised a mysterious alternative called a “rules-based” order to replace international law. He complains that “Nobody has seen these rules. No one has discussed them.” Given that these “rules” have never been agreed to, it’s easy for the US and its allies to create them as they go along, which he says is exactly what they’re doing.<br><br>
Lavrov criticizes what he says is a recurrent practice by the US of convening an international meeting on a given topic, selecting who can attend, and then declaring that the policies articulated there represent an “international community position.” This undermines the UN system by creating parallel procedures that inevitably produce outcomes favorable to one side, he says.<br><br>
(Editorial insertion: The Russians are doing something similar through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the BRICS. One difference is that they don’t presume that these outfits represent some sort of “international community” aside from their member states.)<br><br>
Returning to the WW2 theme later in his speech, Lavrov accuses the Kiev regime of “introducing the theory and practice of Nazism in everyday life,” including “huge torchlight processions under the banners of SS divisions” while “the West kept silent and rubbed its hands together.” In Russian eyes, we might conclude, World War II isn’t over.<br><br>
Lavrov points out the irony of the sudden jettisoning of globalization by its erstwhile champions: globalization, he says, was “touted as a great benefit for humankind” for years. But now, through its punitive measures on trade and finance, the West is destroying globalization in favor of “sorting things out on the battlefield.”<br><br>
Lavrov notes that NATO always insists it is a defensive alliance, but look at their expansion to Asia where they now have “responsibilities” in the Indo-Pacific region. He reiterates Russia’s well-known beef with the eastward expansion of NATO in Europe.<br><br>
Lavrov made special hay out of the notorious comment by the EU’s top “diplomat” Joseph Borrell that Europe is a “garden” and the rest of the world a “jungle.” I’m sure that went down well in Africa. Count on the Russians to remind people of that offensive phrasing for a good while.<br><br>
Lavrov is on tricky ground when addressing the issue of the sovereignty of nation states. He makes a case for Russia’s action in Ukraine by arguing that the UN treats sovereignty as less than absolute, meaning that it is based on “representing the whole people belonging to the territory.” Since the peoples of eastern Ukraine did not accept the coup government in Kiev after 2014, which sparked the civil war, he implies that Ukraine does not fulfill these requirements.<br><br>
He then reminds listeners that the sovereignty principle is only important when the US says it is: there follow some whataboutisms re Kosovo (no referendum before secession); the bombing of Yugoslavia; Iraq 2003; Libya 2011. The Brits, says Lavrov, consider the Falkland Islands issue settled because the people who live there voted to remain British. And Crimea?<br><br>
Lavrov recalls the attempts to settle the Ukrainian civil war (he doesn’t call it that) embodied in the two Minsk agreements, which Kiev and the West “cynically admitted with a tinge of pride that they never planned to fulfil.” That is undeniably accurate.<br><br>
Lavrov denounced so-called “color revolutions” in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Belarus. He refuses to grant citizens of those nations agency for their own fates though he’s certainly not alone in that habit.<br><br>
Lavrov makes interestingly gloomy statements about the future of the UN, whose foundational instruments he calls “a threat to Washington’s global ambitions.” He adds later that even the Secretary-General’s own staff are no longer behaving in the spirit of neutrality and instead are acting like agents of the West. He says the UN’s role in maintaining international peace is “crumbling before our eyes” and calls for the Security Council to be expanded to include Global South countries to replace the “overrepresented West.” Lavrov doesn’t elaborate on what should or might happen if that does not occur.<br><br>
In short, Russia’s leadership sees today’s day of remembrance of their 27 million dead as a somber reminder of what the West is up to. Americans may see things differently, but I’m not sure how much that matters.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-23364713055405782452023-03-02T11:09:00.001-08:002023-05-09T08:03:34.282-07:00You’ll Need a Neck Brace To Prevent Narrative Whiplash<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDiLHeBvqawj1hUJtaE2VeJuTe7E44K-lKHk8BJWphOmgZ0pkTqNkGZGXDKnt1WWJ93liwHpZi2IE2BTILMTIoTNtIvoQs4zCuA4q6MOofrXt34QSdZkSnUG4O802W_TsMF_kl24yaVsgchZPPuHdSTCcym2rKfX4RLjGb8SD2cXomRprTrTT-yytf3Q/s743/lab%20Igor.png" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="455" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDiLHeBvqawj1hUJtaE2VeJuTe7E44K-lKHk8BJWphOmgZ0pkTqNkGZGXDKnt1WWJ93liwHpZi2IE2BTILMTIoTNtIvoQs4zCuA4q6MOofrXt34QSdZkSnUG4O802W_TsMF_kl24yaVsgchZPPuHdSTCcym2rKfX4RLjGb8SD2cXomRprTrTT-yytf3Q/s400/lab%20Igor.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
Remember when it was a “conspiracy theory” to question the natural origin of Covid-19, to dare to suggest that a lab leak might have started the epidemic that killed millions of people? You could get thrown out of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and your own family for promoting such a totally wacko, fat-redneck-knuckle-dragger theory.<br /><br />
Well, lo and behold! It’s now about to officially become <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/politics/biden-intel-review-covid-origins/index.html">Received Truth</a>, endorsed by government officials, scientists, the Great, the Good, and Reasonable People. The explanation is pretty simple:<br /><br />
When the lab leak idea suggested negligence and/or misconduct by Americans, it was a thoughtcrime.<br /><br />
When the lab leak idea can be pinned on the Chinese enemy, it’s definitely probably almost certainly true.<br /><br />
Here’s Christopher Wray, renowned expert in molecular biology moonlighting as FBI director, assuring us that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/politics/wray-fbi-covid-origins-lab-china/index.html">Now We Know</a>. “You’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, precisely what that capability was designed for.” What conviction, what clarity now that the Wuhan lab is “Chinese-controlled” and no longer swarming with Americans funded by the NIH!<br /><br />
We don’t do propaganda here, do we? That’s the purview of non-democracies run by dictators who hate freedom. Then again, how long will it take for this Chinese-coverup trope to penetrate our discourse and become the new conventional wisdom? I’d say about a week.<br /><br />
Since our attention span is approximately that of a single-celled organism, few will recall that the new theory was recently the subject of a concerted campaign to dismiss it by high-level scientists, led by the inestimable Dr Fauci. His <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/01/19/covid-origin-nih-emails/">emails with ex-NIH director Francis Collins</a> are revealing in that regard as they demonstrate a fevered scramble to get experts to pooh-pooh the lab leak notion. Back in 2021, our “intelligence” agencies promptly cooperated: they issued a reassuring statement that a lab leak was ever-so-unlikely. But that was then when U.S. scientists were deeply involved in the Wuhan lab performing the same gain-of-function research Fauci flatly <strike>denied</strike> compared to gambling in Casablanca.<br /><br />
How times have changed now that we have to gin up mass disgust with China and its leaders in preparation for Washington’s next war. Today, not only is lab-leak okay, it’s Essential Thinking. The new line is that evil empires are cooking up a dastardly plot to release deadly bugs onto the world. Who knows what will be next??!! I guess we’ll have to attack them right away. Before it’s too late! (Smoking gun, mushroom cloud, etc.)<br /><br />
Incidentally but perhaps not coincidentally, the Russians are <a href="https://telegra.ph/Briefing-by-the-Chief-of-Nuclear-Biological-and-Chemical-Protection-Troops-of-Russian-Armed-Forces-Lieutenant-General-Igor-Kiril-02-28">claiming</a> that the West is preparing “large-scale provocations involving toxic chemicals” to then blame Putin. Given the thin evidence for things like the alleged <a href="https://johnhelmer.net/four-years-later-the-skripal-case-is-weirder-than-ever/">2018 novichok poisoning</a> on the since-disappeared Skripal family and the <a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/in-douma-cover-up-opcws-new-smoking">unlikely Douma chlorine attack</a> in Syria, one can at least prepare to be skeptical. But so far, the zigzagging Beltway narrative has little competition in the public sphere.<br /><br />
Just for the record, here’s what the Russians said earlier this week:<br /><br />
<blockquote>On 22 February, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan made the statement, ‘Russian troops plan to use chemical weapons in the special military operation area.’ Russia regards this information as the intention of the United States itself and its accomplices to carry out a provocation in Ukraine using toxic chemicals. They expect that amid hostilities, the international community will be unable to organise an effective investigation with the result that the real organisers and executors may escape accountability and the blame is going to be placed on Russia. In our opinion, the preparations are in full swing.</blockquote><br />
Why would the winning side in a war resort to an action sure to bring worldwide condemnation? Maybe for the same reason the Russians blew up their own multi-billion-dollar pipeline. Choose your parallel reality: there are several on offer.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-27600016816880610992023-02-21T18:13:00.001-08:002023-02-22T04:06:59.559-08:00"It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder."
—erroneously attributed to Talleyrand, Napoleon, and others<br><br>
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In viewing the amoral world in which nations pursue their self-interests, we often adopt moral attitudes as well we should: sympathy with human suffering befits our better natures. But states don’t feel remorse, and their leaders are more often ruthless than humane. That said, while crimes are appalling, blunders are unforgivable because they expose not only that immoral acts were committed but that they were unnecessary.<br><br>
Even a casual observer of the run-up to Russia’s invasion a year ago would have noticed the enthusiasm of Biden’s foreign policy team at the prospect of war. Biden himself assured skeptical reporters that a Russian move into Ukraine was imminent. But rather than express alarm or rush to emergency negotiations to forestall it, Biden seemed eager for the confrontation.<br><br>
Biden’s neocons, Blinken, <strike>Winken, and Nod</strike> Sullivan, and Nuland, thought that a war would achieve the twin U.S. goals of crushing Russia and preparing the ground to confront China over Taiwan. They were convinced that unleashing an arsenal of economic punishments would cripple the Russian economy. They believed that the incomparable might of the NATO alliance would lead to triumph on the battlefield. In fact, they were probably helping Ukraine prepare a strike into the Donbass early last year knowing that Russia would be drawn in.<br><br>
They turned out to be wrong on all counts. They have achieved precisely the opposite of their aims. Russia’s economy is at least at resilient as ours and arguably more so. The Russian military-industrial complex not only survived the attack, but now produces much more useful war materiel than the American version that churns out expensive gewgaws but can’t keep an army supplied with ammunition.<br><br>
World condemnation of the Russian invasion is less uniform than our media pretend; here, we don’t dare say Biden’s neocon cabal had any role in starting the war, but plenty of studiously neutral countries around the world think it did. Not only that, a number of middlingly important countries are slowly edging out from under U.S. hegemony and looking east for their economic and perhaps eventually political alliances. Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, and plenty of others show early signs of what used to be called “non-alignment,” which should worry the Beltway Band.<br><br>
If the U.S. had practiced diplomacy—a lost art in Washington—Ukraine could have preserved its national boundaries by granting autonomy to its Russian-speaking minority as outlined in the two Minsk accords. (Those, it turns out, were just delaying exercises not meant to be taken seriously, as admitted by both Merkel and Hollande in recent weeks.) But peace has no place in the neocon hivemind.<br><br>
Now, Ukraine is near collapse and will end up a rump state west of the Dnieper River, having lost its industrial heartland, large portions of its territory and infrastructure, and tens of thousands of its young men. Even after the annexation of Crimea, a deal to avoid a battlefield confrontation was within reach, but as recently as last month the neocons were discussing how, victory in hand, they would proceed to break up the Russian Federation into various mini-states.<br><br>
As the scale of the debacle becomes clear, Biden’s incompetent dreamers will be temporarily set back and probably ousted from power. But they will learn nothing from this failure just as they learned nothing from their string of previous ones. They can be counted upon to get back to work cooking up the next war over Taiwanese “independence.” They’ll manage to lose that one, too, and we will find ourselves—little by little, then all at once—slipping into the status of just another country that once thought itself indispensable.<br><br>
When that happens, perhaps we can get a hearing on our leaders’ long string of blunders, costly to ourselves and catastrophic for others, that led to the deaths of millions in Vietnam, Iraq, and elsewhere. If these immoral acts had produced a measurable success, they would still be despicable. Because they solved nothing, they are worse than crimes.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-47102034639823760802022-12-20T11:03:00.011-08:002022-12-22T17:35:07.508-08:00Ironies of Overdevelopment<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQ7dfWeX21uIACZcdmJJkNKcV9btIzlHKrKtBIYGU1gTGrmzd6x5YN_8BLTdH_AnBJ7rGw219CQHPdw6cy6WBWxW7WcstG7Qxfvf8V-F9c_34oJYS8b9UxQUw5pl1u2C1Pgm7La8sNiaCeMSisa3ujWQ2zrU4gi5C3lUm-pFL0aWh_yBO3be8pv8zuA/s700/B-21.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQ7dfWeX21uIACZcdmJJkNKcV9btIzlHKrKtBIYGU1gTGrmzd6x5YN_8BLTdH_AnBJ7rGw219CQHPdw6cy6WBWxW7WcstG7Qxfvf8V-F9c_34oJYS8b9UxQUw5pl1u2C1Pgm7La8sNiaCeMSisa3ujWQ2zrU4gi5C3lUm-pFL0aWh_yBO3be8pv8zuA/s400/B-21.jpg"/></a></div>
A common explanation for the end of the Cold War was that the Soviet Union was forced into unsustainable competition with the U.S. through the arms race. <a href="https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/who-won-cold-war.htm">According to this theory</a>, the USSR’s demise occurred because a “flagging, state-owned economy simply couldn’t match the escalation in defense spending” initiated by Ronald Reagan, especially the hyper-expensive (for the time) Strategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. Star Wars, that was intended to militarize space.<br><br>
This explanation is convenient for proponents of ever-greater spending of our national treasure on arms and weapons. After all, if we felled the Soviet adversary by building up a vast arsenal of fear-inducing armaments, what new candidate for seriously rivalry to America could possibly arise as long as we keep up the flow of cash to Raytheon and Northrup Grumman?<br><br>
As a result, we have enthusiastic backing for fancy new weapons like the trillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet and the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, recently given a Hollywood/TopGun-style unveiling [above]. These big-ticket projects are lucrative sources of contracts certain to warm the hearts of elected officials standing by to welcome the jobs and economic stimulus to their districts, along with the loot needed for their next campaign. Given our system of legalized bribery, this arrangement is the classic self-licking ice cream cone.<br><br>
For example, the bat-winged B-21 Raider will cost $700 million each, and the plan is to build at least 100 of these babies at an estimated cost of $32 billion, including research and development, over the next 5 years. Earlier this month, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023 sailed through Congress authorizing $857 billion in “defense” spending, $45 billion more than Biden had requested. The measure included the establishment of a “multiyear, no-bid contract system” for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other weapons manufacturers to “expand their industrial base” and assure ongoing production of essential munitions.<br><br>
That sure makes it sound as though the U.S. has the wherewithal to put machinery and equipment on the battlefield at almost a moment’s notice, reminiscent of the enormous U.S. industrial mobilization that took place in the run-up to World War 2. In fact, the U.S. has rushed <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts">$20-some billion worth of weapons</a> to Ukraine in the last nine months.<br><br>
So why is Ukraine running out of ammo? Ukrainian president Zelensky recently announced his <a href="about:invalid#zSoyz">wish list</a> for replenishing his army’s supplies, including 300 new tanks, 600 to 700 new infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 new Howitzers, and, one assumes, the ammunition, spare parts, and technical assistance to make this ordnance usable.<br><br>
That sounds like a lot of hardware. But when comparing those figures to the amount of weaponry already lost, we get a slightly different view. Ukraine <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/amid-the-threat-of-a-russian-invasion-how-capable-is-ukraine-s-military-52442">started off the war</a> with 2430 tanks, ranked 13th in the world. Ukraine also had 11,435 armored vehicles and 2040 artillery batteries. Where did it all go? <br><br>
Without having a clue about military matters, I would hazard a wild guess that it’s mostly been blown up by the Russians, who must have even more, plus total dominance of the skies as the Ukrainian air force was destroyed in the first week of hostilities. Furthermore, despite regular announcements that the Russians are about to “run out” of this or that essential piece of weaponry, they miraculously seem to keep churning the stuff out.<br><br>
By contrast, NATO has completely <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/international/weapons-shortage-across-europe-could-force-hard-choices-for-ukraine-s-allies-news-231994">depleted its reserves</a> of useful materièl according to multiple reports. What about the back-up supplier, the US of A? Well, turns out the industrial capacity of the American powerhouse, unequaled in history, second to none, etc., etc., can’t crank out the supplies until, in some cases, the middle of next year.<br><br>
Don’t take my word for it: here are Bradley Bowman and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery (ret.) writing in <b>Defense News</b> this past October. Year after year, <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/10/12/americas-arsenal-is-in-need-of-life-support/">they write</a>,<br><br>
<blockquote>. . . budgets were proposed and approved that saw crucial munitions purchased at the lowest possible rate companies could sustain, hollowing out the industrial base. Now, Washington can no longer disregard a munitions production shortfall that endangers U.S. military readiness.</blockquote><br>
What we need to do now, they argue, is to fund “major production increases of key munitions, targeted measures to expand industrial capacity, and the provision of multiyear procurement authorities that incentivize private sector investment.”<br><br>
In other words, the U.S. has shot itself in the foot through its lean-and-mean (“just-in-time”) industrial policy in which companies were encouraged/permitted to locate production offshore and pocket the nice difference between what American factory workers used to get and the poverty wages they paid to virtual slaves in Honduras, Pakistan, or Cambodia. Turns out that’s actually not too smart when applied to tanks, trucks, and ammo IF you turn out to actually need them in a hurry.<br><br>
But the big bucks were always in the F-21s, nuclear weapons upgrades, and the like, so everyone in Washington could bask in the bright sunlight of the MICIMATT (the Military-Industrial-Counter-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex) and refill their poolside cocktails from the bountiful overflow of U.S. Treasury cash without worrying about actual preparedness. How ironic it will be if financialized late capitalism turns out to be incompetent at sustaining the military machine that made its global domination possible.<br><br>
Russia, on the other hand, seems to have developed an industrial/military policy that enables it to produce everything it needs for war at a fraction of the cost, perhaps because financiers and rentier capitalists have not been permitted to take over the Russian economy—which incidentally is doing just fine.<br><br>
Maybe the referee of the great Cold War World Cup has not yet blown his final whistle. Now that would be an own goal for the ages.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-27701320783534418142022-12-03T15:12:00.010-08:002022-12-04T07:50:03.152-08:00The political class reminds us of its [class] interests<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_ttqosQ_YCvQpl63cEYLcSanJSCH0C93rD1jUe_u6r0H7Lo31BT_FvBKKRtprEg8GEBdjNhCOd87KdEtLhnVE7mdTD7IyrdrG8dnO4BPW9N2TBXsIJ-XBuxEutyASe-giRGR8jEXfgWXkRz7GQ3FKSSTQtrF4Z1UQ7DLa2L0aMBulnUTHxp3kWZ49A/s942/duck%20dive.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="942" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_ttqosQ_YCvQpl63cEYLcSanJSCH0C93rD1jUe_u6r0H7Lo31BT_FvBKKRtprEg8GEBdjNhCOd87KdEtLhnVE7mdTD7IyrdrG8dnO4BPW9N2TBXsIJ-XBuxEutyASe-giRGR8jEXfgWXkRz7GQ3FKSSTQtrF4Z1UQ7DLa2L0aMBulnUTHxp3kWZ49A/s320/duck%20dive.webp"/></a></div><br><br>
The comfortably bipartisan display of disdain for the needs of a group of essential railroad workers—led by Lunch Bucket Joe of Scranton—is yet another reminder that the fibers that bind our multicolored rulers together are far more durable than the hues of their respective ribbons.<br><br>
It was truly a Bastille Day moment to see the assembled millionaires and beneficiaries of generous federal benefits, exhorted by “Labor” Secretary Walsh and Mayo Peter the transport minister (fresh from his multi-month paternity leave), smash rail workers’ fight for adequate sick leave in the wake of a HEALTH epidemic that killed off a million of us.<br><br>
Not that anyone is digging up cobblestones for an assault on the headquarters of Berkshire Hathaway where railway tycoon Warren Buffett can now add a few billions to his unspeakable fortune. We’re too busy hating on either the “libs” or the “fascists” to realize that the great 99% without control over our own lives have a lot in common: the fact that we’re being equally screwed by our insatiable neo-feudal elites powerless over their addiction to acquisition.<br><br>
Before this week’s tragicomically crude display of ruling class greed, we were living in a curiously insouciant time after the popcorn fart of the midterms when the Republican blowout did not occur. For a few days, the two factions, the reds and the blues, stared hatefully at each other in roughly matched hemispheres. It was easy to think that nothing much was going to change.<br><br>
Although the current temporary lull is unlikely to last, the treatment of the railroad workers was a bracing reminder of what a puppet show we’re getting from these folks. The barons of late financialized capitalism are accelerating their class war, and on that score they’re fully on board with each other and against us.<br><br>
Our inflamed national discourse, full of denunciation and alarm on either side, obscures the superficial nature of the political differences at the top. Do the two bands truly disagree about the country’s future course? If so, in what ways? Do they truly represent distinct social forces? If so, what are they?<br><br>
On the surface, public policy disagreements are expressed in increasingly hostile language, suggestive of profound and fundamental differences on all manner of issues, things like abortion access; crime control and policing; social benefits and their expansion (or reduction); lately, public health measures; perhaps the content of education and educational materials; the eternal blame for the cost of everyday necessities. But how much do the two teams really diverge in their proposed responses once we look past the rhetorical variants?<br><br>
Who represents the working classes in the face of economic turmoil and suffering? Republicans classically carry hod for big business, but the world of big finance has tilted toward Democrats in recent years. Both insist that long-standing elements of the New Deal are or soon will be on the chopping block as amply demonstrated this week. Workers are expendable, and the bosses have no problem shoving that fact in our faces because the much vaunted “resistance” promptly collapses when they do. (Some “progressive” email lists and FB sites leapt to the defense of Biden so quickly I had to be careful not to drink coffee while reading. The DSA camp, mercifully, is having none of it.)<br><br>
We shouldn’t be surprised. For years unions have backed Democrats and got very little in return while rural voters and angry blue-collar workers cheered Trump and got even less. Whichever party is in power, the beleaguered masses face impossible housing costs, medical bankruptcy, educational debt peonage, and only by accident a bit of economic relief via an accidentally favorable job market.<br><br>
Republicans beat the drums of crime and capitalize on people’s fears, steadily inflamed by tabloid-style coverage of the day’s horrors. For their part, Democrats go defensive and backtrack on any nuanced approaches to public safety and criminal justice—New York City is a prime example. They fall back on demagogy, call for more police, more jail time, and harsher conditions, so while the rhetoric shifts a tad this way or that, the end result is largely the same: violent crimes continue to plague us, and prisons bulge with ever more discarded lives.<br><br>
Which is the party of peace? Which is the party for reining in the military industrial complex, for seeking savings in our bloated military budget? Republicans denounce the Democrats in power as too stingy with cash for the Pentagons and the arms industries; Democrats in power now outdo them in shoveling money to new initiatives and break all records with multi-billion-dollar packages for their failing adventure in Ukraine.<br><br>
Which is the party defending our privacy from the intrusions of the security state and the snoops of Silicon Valley? Neither. Which is the party against regime change in foreign countries? Trump made noises against that idea, then hired a passel of neocons dedicated to keeping it up. Democrats openly claim America’s right as the shining guardian of virtue against foreign despots and criminals, conveniently defined to justify the next war, the next invasion, the next militarized hotspot.<br><br>
Which party promises to preserve our civil liberties and the rule of law, the party that established dungeons in Guantánamo where detainees languish without criminal charges for 20 years or the party that promised to abolish them and never did?<br><br>
Which is the party for fair terms of trade, for protecting American workers from foreign quasi-slave labor? Which party is prepared to face down the monopolies and cartels that are gobbling up the economy and turning us all into serfs?<br><br>
Which is the party for preserving Medicare benefits, for protecting Social Security? The party that encouraged deep invasions by private insurance to extract juicy profits from government reimbursed programs? Oh, that would be both.<br><br>
No doubt partisans of each camp will insist that they represent virtue, and the others, vice. They will point out areas where their side actively works in favor of one policy item or another that clearly distinguishes them from the others. Democrats could credibly argue that the antitrust awakening engineered by Biden appointees is a concrete break with decades of past practice. Republicans could claim they are the ones truly hostile to monopolies, especially those headed by Silicon Valley moguls who ban Trumpian speech on social media.<br><br>
But which of the parties will resist the mountains of cash available at the commanding heights of the finance sector, ready to rain down on the favored to crush the rebellious? Which will defy Northrup Grumman and Raytheon and dare to propose a modus vivendi with Russia and China in a world slipping from decades of U.S. domination?<br><br>
The cheers of World Cup fans at the entry of a spherical object into a net are comforting. The goals act as substitutes for the desire of our clannish biped race to plunge knives into hated foreigners, and as such I enjoy seeing their energies dissipate harmlessly. In the end, though, what do we celebrate when our team, in hockey, basketball, politics, or synchronized swimming, emerges with the gold or the trophy or the Senate seat? Those who live for “owning the libs” or crushing the Trumpian meatheads can expect only temporary relief from the gnawing doubt that our creaking, hyper-financialized, irrational economic system headed by experts in propaganda and not much else is capable of navigating the ship of state increasingly lost at sea.<br><br>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-19405123735927283022022-11-17T06:25:00.002-08:002022-11-18T07:27:05.432-08:00Red New York Bucks the Trend<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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OK, I was wrong. Here’s why.<br /><br />
The GOP did not take over, and the national red wave did not occur.<br /><br />
But in New York State, it did.<br /><br />
Had New York’s trends translated to the entire nation, the Republicans would
have swept both houses of Congress with a big majority.<br /><br />
As seen in the two maps above, Dem Senate candidate John Fetterman’s victory in
Pennsylvania was reflected all over the state where he consistently outperformed
Biden’s vote in 2020. His regular-guy persona, his active campaign in every
county, and his unapologetically sharp policy stances bore fruit. He overcame
what looked like a fatal health issue to send off Dr Oz by a surprisingly handy
margin.<br /><br />
Fetterman, however, was an anomaly. He campaigned as a left-leaning populist
against the Democratic machine, which universally backed his primary opponent,
one of those bland, Bob Forehead types that the corporate party so loves. As
Krystal Ball noted in her
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Kn1qbOQi3Mk">show</a>,
Fetterman was the most left-wing candidate in the entire national field and,
contra mainstream opinion, didn’t suffer for it. He cut down on the GOP’s rural
margins and won back some of the white working class, and his stroke-induced
struggles may even have made him look even more real. “Fallible humanity trumps
a silver tongue, celebrity, or fancy credentials” (Ball).<br /><br />
Fetterman refused to creep into the center in obeisance to the Beltway wisdom in
his primary or the general. He slammed corporate gouging and painted Oz as an
elitist dweeb. He also benefited from some re-shored jobs trickling back into
the old Rust Belt, suggesting that people may sometimes actually vote their
interests, despite the disdain of the punditocracy.<br /><br />
By stark contrast, New York Governor Kathy Hochul looks like, and is, a
cookie-cutter centrist party operative who stayed mum about Andrew Cuomo’s
failings during her years as his loyal lieutenant. She took over when he was
forced out and ran on being a nice lady who isn’t against you getting an
abortion.<br /><br />
Meanwhile, the city of New York is obsessed with crime and last year elected an
ex-cop as mayor who echoes GOP talking points. Given that there is virtually no
pushback on what to do about crime (get tougher, hire more cops, throw everyone
in jail and keep them there), the Republicans dominate the discussion. Turnout
was way down in the boroughs, and the usual Republican tilt upstate was
overwhelming.<br /><br />
Hochul isn’t personally all that much to blame. She’s just a product of a
sclerotic Democratic party that has as little as possible to do with small-d
democracy. Its notorious Brooklyn gang does a
<a href="https://bit.ly/3hLYcwa"
>great imitation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Party</a
>, crushing any attempt to actually organize Brooklynites while pinning medals on
its paid toadies and sycophants.<br /><br />
The national party’s bagman, sleazoid congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, is also
from New York. Maloney invaded a progressive’s district after redistricting and
elbowed him out because Maloney thought that seat was safer, then swanned around
Europe raising cash while getting his ass handed to him in the actual voting.
Bye, Sean!<br /><br />
Redistricting hurt the state Dems, for which they themselves are to blame
(though not solely). The state tried to stop the blatant gerrymandering that
benefits the party in power by assigning the task to an allegedly bipartisan
commission, but that didn’t work because the state’s politicians have no
interest in a fair fight. The districts got redrawn by a judge, which made them
surprisingly, and unusually, competitive. Since Democrats were unmotivated,
turnout tanked, and the Republicans cleaned up.<br /><br />
In short, New York State, despite a huge Democrat advantage in registration,
almost single-handedly shepherded the Republicans into control of the House by
allowing them to flip four seats. If anyone thinks accountability for this
debacle will follow, they don’t understand New York.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-81187017760185963602022-11-07T11:14:00.000-08:002022-11-07T11:14:52.388-08:00Empty plate<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj97gtWvsjtu1S9P7Q0BuLURtJMcN7Rcvm8MC9_S9YRF3OAzxjyeA_czA74DG5qSL8tE1qcAXC78ldO-1pd11yDWoqBLIar-ZebsvT_kR3fzw-3Nltg50-XKWlPaLEMDPMobT4iJrzK-H-yp_lPUJRSJ_dUUOfA-LWcn1XhsKOoZlCoy7jyqgj7pwkFGA/s1600/plate%204.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj97gtWvsjtu1S9P7Q0BuLURtJMcN7Rcvm8MC9_S9YRF3OAzxjyeA_czA74DG5qSL8tE1qcAXC78ldO-1pd11yDWoqBLIar-ZebsvT_kR3fzw-3Nltg50-XKWlPaLEMDPMobT4iJrzK-H-yp_lPUJRSJ_dUUOfA-LWcn1XhsKOoZlCoy7jyqgj7pwkFGA/s320/plate%204.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The torrent of political ads
flooding the airwaves in the last hours before Tuesday’s vote places in high
relief the issues that our political class thinks should decide the outcome.
Here in New York state, they boil down to very few:</span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: background: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: -.25in; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Crime, which is the fault of squishy liberals who hate the
police and love felons;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: -.25in; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Abortion, which male predators want to outlaw so that
women return to the kitchen barefoot and pregnant;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Gas, which is too damn high;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Trump, who is Evil and a dictator.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Missing
from this list:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: -.25in; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">The deaths of 800,000 people from Covid during the Biden
presidency: One doesn’t have to think it’s his fault to wonder why this actual
threat to our citizens’ wellbeing is a non-issue. Two murders on the subway
apparently scare people far more than several tens of thousands of cadavers in
ICUs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: -.25in; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">The prospect of a shooting war with a nuclear power even as U.S.
military personnel arrive in Ukraine to “monitor” arms deliveries, which have
been going on for months.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Old
dudes like me can remember the arrival of “advisors” to South Vietnam as a
precursor to the dispatch of a half million troops. Gingerly suggesting that a
door to negotiations be opened is so taboo that two dozen Democrats were beaten
into backtracking when they dared to breathe the word. Once again, we are
allowed to be afraid of a nutcase coming at us with a knife on the street but
not of ICBMs turning New York City into a smoldering parking lot.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">For
whom does one vote to express opposition to debtors’ prison? For whom does one
vote to endorse diplomacy over war? For whom does one vote to block the
consolidation of oligarchic control of our economy and the rule of money in
politics or the spreading of state-techno censorship? The “democracy” that our
neocon cabal insists on exporting throughout the world does not offer such
choices on the 2022 ballot. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="yiv1034986563msonormal" style="background: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Prediction is a mug’s game,
but let’s play anyway: a very solid GOP victory, sweeping them into power in
both houses of Congress along with some unexpected prizes that no one would
have expected a month ago (e.g., NY governorship). A delegation
visiting Sleepy Joe at the White House to discuss a retirement package before
year’s end—not meaning Social Security. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-35958872980948506212022-10-17T04:40:00.000-07:002022-10-17T04:40:52.491-07:00Chaotic British leadership shuffle reflects democratic disappearing act<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFFQHf14gFK9rse9GIPwIVbAf0p7Xtnw0Iy3Jj97PKayZKSgSM7NKzDE-QbEGY8yJ7Scp_TG263CgQR7XWC4K_ZS3E_iKNzUF0UhBlFAlSlkNQt4X2rl9DFNUK88CsvsKx2GLBKOTUGk_WWW60m9eb1ouUrAF7OwPUhvlvqAnK4bRpTEM4cKD-UfrIw/s1000/Truss.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFFQHf14gFK9rse9GIPwIVbAf0p7Xtnw0Iy3Jj97PKayZKSgSM7NKzDE-QbEGY8yJ7Scp_TG263CgQR7XWC4K_ZS3E_iKNzUF0UhBlFAlSlkNQt4X2rl9DFNUK88CsvsKx2GLBKOTUGk_WWW60m9eb1ouUrAF7OwPUhvlvqAnK4bRpTEM4cKD-UfrIw/s320/Truss.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The imminent defenestration of the hapless Liz Truss that
will end her flash premiership after mere weeks will result in the year’s
third U.K. prime minister who, unlike the previous two, will have not been
elected by anyone. Truss, for all her manifold faults, at least won a
legitimizing vote in her favor by the Tory party membership. Boris Johnson, preceding
her, was the beneficiary of a general election in which the country
resoundingly opted for his party’s continuation in power. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Truss was famously engraved in memory by being the last
person to appear publicly with the late Queen Elizabeth. But while QE edges
even closer to immortality than she did while alive, we will soon wonder if LT ever
existed at all. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, on our side of the Atlantic, we trudge grimly
toward an election whose results seem guaranteed to resolve nothing about who
should captain the ship of state. Election night returns, that core element of
democratic rule, will be challenged in courts throughout the land. Ostensible
winners will be promptly denied and discredited before the ballot inks are dry.
Some losers will say the vote totals were rigged; others that the computerized
voting systems are hackable, perhaps by foreign geniuses; and still others that
the voting arrangements were cynically calculated to deny hostile blocs access
to the urns. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even where numerical vote totals seem more or less
accurately to reflect voter choice, we will remain shadowed by hoary traditions
like the blatant gerrymander, the plague of the Electoral College, and the
ongoing usurpation by a Supreme Court determined to re-legislate the last 50
years, wielding a majority installed by a minority-vote president.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While we are rallied to support overseas war-making as a
defense of “democracy” versus some sort of oriental authoritarianism, citizens
of the collective West enjoy less of it than ever. If the Republicans retake
control of the Senate—which I anticipate—the filibuster (that Democrats insist
on treating as hallowed tradition) will be quickly jettisoned into the dustbin
of history, and a new GOP legislative-judicial dictatorship will show us how
the Will to Power really works. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why is democracy failing us so badly and broadly and not
just us but Europeans, too? They face a hungry and frigid winter but will be
treated only to bland phrases and non-solutions from the unelected EU pooh-bahs
who regularly overrule their presidents and prime ministers, increasingly reduced
to figureheads and placeholders. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I suggest that it is because the failures of late
financialized capitalism are now impossible to ignore and that “the will of the
people” cannot be satisfied under current conditions. Whatever voters may want
and manage to articulate in their voting choices, the political classes of the collective
West cannot provide it. There is no prosperity, no healthy growth, no essential
services, no social cohesion, no infrastructural modernization, no cooperative
mobilization (e.g., for climate change), and certainly no peace possible as
long as we continue to tolerate the dictatorship of concentrated wealth that
now marks our world. While we scrap over transgender bathrooms and mass
imprisonment, who is tougher on crime and who knows how to raise children, bloated
plutocrats steadily push us toward a neo-feudalism in which only the incalculably
rich retain any agency over their own lives. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bright side of this march cliff-ward is that our
capacity for belief is rapidly shrinking, and that is a very good thing. Undoubtedly,
this growing skepticism towards officialdom is accompanied by many “morbid
symptoms” as Gramsci warned are characteristic of an imploding system. We enjoy
marveling at the credulousness of the adversary but will gradually appreciate
where we ourselves have bought the shiny object and will discover fraud. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This weekend, I attended a fundraiser for the New York
Progressive Action Network, which grew out of the 2016 Bernie campaign. It
continues to advocate for popular (and populist) policies in health, education,
housing, labor, transportation, and the like. Unfortunately, the speeches were
almost exclusively from or about elected officials, and while speakers
occasionally warned that we would not “play along” with the establishment Democrats
forever, the focus of the event was to keep doing exactly that. We need a more
expansive vision.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As stated above, I fully expect next months’ midterms to
result in the Democrat wipe-out that some Pollyannas continue to think can yet
be avoided. A party with such a stellar record of failure cannot expect to
avoid total discredit; but the other one’s will follow in due course, and we
should lament neither. Those empty suits are mere hod-carriers to the real
elites, and we needn’t take them seriously. Their role is to inflame emotions
and distract us from the dysfunction at the core of our social arrangements.
The sooner we see through them, the faster we will begin to formulate
alternatives. <o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-50596317469090912642022-07-12T14:06:00.001-07:002022-07-12T14:06:44.063-07:00Pluto's Return<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNPVjOUJug3H8nVc8G0wq-b_BoJtPd00sJ0azmxYDf-3QtMTXetx-RR5sgli6X2JOXYThN6SYjIpsxiozc4Kj8EqfFHAZcVj95xUrRNwTOea4lSWto_fRokaIYXi78DW0E8UnekVg1VLq1TLG1Pvu_dMl_T_CTBqnU0VCGobmOlRzWmZIfZIyyhaKZvA/s898/solar%20system.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="898" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNPVjOUJug3H8nVc8G0wq-b_BoJtPd00sJ0azmxYDf-3QtMTXetx-RR5sgli6X2JOXYThN6SYjIpsxiozc4Kj8EqfFHAZcVj95xUrRNwTOea4lSWto_fRokaIYXi78DW0E8UnekVg1VLq1TLG1Pvu_dMl_T_CTBqnU0VCGobmOlRzWmZIfZIyyhaKZvA/s320/solar%20system.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Among the ancient gods, Pluto was both necessary and
unwelcome. Somebody had to rule the underworld, especially because of the
precious metals buried there. But having Gloomy Gus Pluto remain out of sight
was fine with everyone, including him. He took little interest in human
affairs, could only snag a wife through kidnapping, and kept company with things
humans preferred to suppress, all those distasteful, ugly, painful reminders
that we humans are sometimes, often, not very nice.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pluto was the god who ruled over death, transformation, and
rebirth, and he is associated with the discovery (un-earthing) of unconscious,
hidden elements—not the best portfolio for winning a popularity contest. Pluto
stands by as things are dug up, exposed, viewed, and acknowledged as real, whether
charming or repulsive. Today, Pluto would be the god of colonic irrigations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This year, 2022, the U.S. of A. celebrates its Pluto Return
because the dwarf planet takes 246 years to orbit the sun. It’s right back
where it sat in our sky in 1776, so no wonder every he or she or theyx is
thinking about the moment of our national creation and its associated myths.
The Supreme Court’s Catholic majority has one version; the 1619 Project
another; the neocons busily redrawing the map of Europe, theirs. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Fourth of July random massacre, then, as occurred in
Highland Park last week, is a fitting Pluto Return moment. Not only was the
holiday not exempt from our nation’s relentless compulsion to engage in random shoot-ups,
last week’s edition was a virtual sacralization of it—a mystical union between
the political entity on its own birthday and the method by which it brought
itself about. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We came into being through force, including the strategic use
of slaughter; we expanded through more of the same; and we have now come up
against the limits of our force capacity just in time for a returning Pluto to expose
the sordid underpinnings of how we possess this subcontinent and the reach of
our supposed suzerainty over the entire world. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Viewed most superficially, Pluto returns as a war unfolds in
Ukraine; layered atop it is another war, economic in nature; the two nestle in
the swaddling clothes of competing ideologies that stage their own gladiatorial
tournaments in the propaganda battles raging through cable channels, uploaded
videos, reportage (such as it is), and windy think thank articles. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Struck dumb and blind, our chosen authorities insist on
making all three wars worse: the longer the shooting war continues, the less
there will be left of Ukraine. The neutron bomb of sanctions has boomeranged and
landed explosively into the wobbling debt-o-sphere of our financialized western
economies; and even the propaganda war, so deftly conducted by our
division-strength phalanx of persuaders, will backfire when the depth of their
duplicity becomes impossible to ignore. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And yet, there are other buried aspects to be uncovered
about the moment of our national fertilization. At that instant when our
American zygote sprang forth from the wiggling fishies of the founding dads
implanted into the moist soils of the colonies, the populace dared to throw off
the shackles of monarchy. A republic, imperfect and hypocritical, was born,
with dubious possibilities for survival. And yet, it did. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, despite the nasty parts of our Pluto story, other, less
sanguinary impulses are also part of our founding DNA. We made a unique claim
of citizen equality—within limits, of course, but still. While the enslavement
and/or elimination of those not born into the privileged clans belied the
foundational principle, nonetheless it emerged in 1776, right here on this soil.
It resurfaced periodically as the polity absorbed, reluctantly and imperfectly,
some of those it had brutally excluded.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another foundational principle was quickly articulated by
the earliest Americans—to confine our bloody business to the New World and not
“go abroad to slay dragons [we] do not understand,” in the rarely remembered
words of John Quincy Adams. The wisdom of that sentiment has long been buried, and
no one is less interested in acknowledging it than the neocons ruling at
Washington, London, and Brussels, determined to do the exact opposite. Yet,
there it lies buried, ready to be exposed to the light of day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is often alleged that the neocon cabal that has seized
control of our foreign policy establishment originated in a core group of individuals inspired more by the ideas of Trotsky than those of Madison or
Franklin. Whether or not the Nulands and Sullivans and Kagans and Blinkens call
their ideology “permanent revolution” or "spreading democracy," they carry on their crusades with the unshakeable
faith of a self-appointed vanguard convinced that one more blow to the enemy
will transform the world. For them, no sacrifice is too great to
bring on the Millenium. The war in Ukraine not going so well? Start a new one
over Taiwan. Encourage the Israelis to launch an attack on Iran. Double down,
never admit error, never admit defeat, and escalate. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In their bubble world, failure can never result from their
playbook. Unlike Trotsky or indeed any rational being, they have no concept of strategic retreat. In the current case, the U.S. populace, shielded from dissenting views, accepts that the war is going
tolerably well and, at worst, will descend into a lengthy stalemate. But the rosy
predictions of our propagandists are more faithful to their fanciful ideals
than to stubborn factoids. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Sooner rather than later, IMNSHO, Russia will dictate
the terms of surrender in Ukraine, and the “rules-based international order”
(i.e., “we make the rules, and you follow the orders”) will implode. Back at
home, the Republican autocrats will blame it all on Biden and install
themselves more or less permanently in power as they rip up the rulebooks of
1776 and 1865. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are on the cusp of a major rearrangement of our world. Pluto’s
Return promises to be full of revelations—and perhaps death and rebirth as
well. <o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-88435549947195083412022-06-09T06:34:00.000-07:002022-06-09T06:34:16.101-07:00A Reckoning<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbPNB_sZIJU47-xXbkerdWrMd26y2QkC6F--ZwvfzYpk3dPq4ddyGTnO04UMrgQMeuQblTZthA2vIjdssuzjO8DQf6hm_gBeS6QJMCP_v3BgAIEvJurwb_nBKV_wJVCM7pwaLRPhNsc3MbKQiBy2uzAQ9ICDvIDatwxXOD4aocFekasUieLSN_nAX89A/s620/train%20off%20cliff.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="620" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbPNB_sZIJU47-xXbkerdWrMd26y2QkC6F--ZwvfzYpk3dPq4ddyGTnO04UMrgQMeuQblTZthA2vIjdssuzjO8DQf6hm_gBeS6QJMCP_v3BgAIEvJurwb_nBKV_wJVCM7pwaLRPhNsc3MbKQiBy2uzAQ9ICDvIDatwxXOD4aocFekasUieLSN_nAX89A/s320/train%20off%20cliff.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <a href="https://time.com/6176748/ukraine-war-economy/">debacle </a>the West has brought on itself over Ukraine is impossible
to ignore any longer. Of the three wars that began in February: the battlefield, the economic, and
the propaganda—only the last, the “softest” and least tangible, can be called a
victory of sorts though a Pyrrhic one at that. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Russian invasion prompted the U.S. and its western
allies to attempt to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-russia-ukraine-sanctions-economy/">crush Russia’s economy</a> in full confidence that the rickety old <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/456437/john-mccain-russia-gas-station-masquerading-country">“gas station masquerading as a country”</a> would quickly collapse and force Putin to beg for forgiveness. Bad Vlad would
be overthrown or marginalized, and Russia reopened for business just like in
the glory years of Yeltsin and the Harvard-boys, the neoliberal experts who <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how-shock-therapy-created-russian-oligarchs-and-paved-the-path-for-putin">auctioned off Russian resources to the oligarchs</a>. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Instead, the Russians turned out to be prepared for just
such an eventuality. They now preside over a<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/22/russia-war-economy-sanctions-ruble/"> stable domestic scene</a>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are selling <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/04/07/russia-ukraine-oil-gas-sales-deals-ruble-rebound-china-india/">all the oil and gas they wish</a>, and are in the process of launching a
radical reordering of a large chunk of world trade by <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-de-dollarisation-is-imminent-us-dollar-russia-7823308/">hiving itself off from U.S. control</a>. Russia has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-russia-alternative-swift-payment-cips-spfs-yuan-ruble-dollar-2022-4">its own bank clearing system</a> that smoothly took over after the Americans threw them out of SWIFT, uses its
own currency with its trading partners, is finding <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2022/04/eurasian-firms-see-russia-sanctions-as-big-biz-chance/ ">alternatives</a> for things it
used to import from the EU, and has kept <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/inflation-cpi">inflation at manageable levels</a>. (No, Joe, the ruble is not "rubble.") Somehow, it will survive the loss of
access to Louis Vuitton bags and Scotch whiskey, no doubt at great emotional
cost. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, the U.S. and Europe are frantically
trying to rein in double-digit inflation at home while at a loss for what to do
in case the recession-inducing interest rate hikes don’t work. Two EU/NATO governments
already have cracked, and more will surely follow. Estonia’s 22% inflation rate
<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/estonia-governing-coalition-collapses/a-62029367">knocked its coalition government</a>, led by the free-market-liberal Reform Party,
into a corner. Boris Johnson in the U.K. survived a no-confidence vote by such
a slim margin that he’s now <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-kingdom/boris-johnson-is-probably-cooked-and-finished/video/f6a89265275d31667ac4a2466e3d5659">dead meat</a> and currently standing by the door with his coat on. Face-saving commentators refuse to blame the Ukraine war for their losses and point instead to the economic messes directly caused by it. Okay, whatever. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Italian techno-government led by the eternal (though
not, thankfully, immortal) Mario Draghi is <a href="https://globalriskinsights.com/2021/05/italy-battles-continued-challenges-to-political-stability/">tottering</a>; Macron in France stands to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-07/macron-risks-losing-absolute-majority-in-parliament-vote-poll">lose his parliamentary majority</a>; and the German Social Democrats, never
strong since they took over just months ago, look set for an <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-elections-chancellor-olaf-scholz-green-party-fdp-cdu-spd/ ">historic drubbing</a>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And last and also least, our own dear Sleepy Joe has to be
wondering where did this ass he’s holding in his hands come from. <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/food-prices-up-10-8-percent-for-year-ended-april-2022-largest-12-month-increase-since-november-1980.htm">Food prices are shooting up</a>, housing costs are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/23/key-facts-about-housing-affordability-in-the-u-s/">galloping into the far distance</a> (trailer parks are being <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/us/mobile-home-park-ownership-costs.html">seized by private equity,</a> so that’s a disappearing option), and gas
is so dear that Americans may suddenly discover that they have feet. According
to Biden’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-plan-for-fighting-inflation-joe-biden-gas-prices-economy-unemployment-jobs-covid-11653940654">recent op-ed</a> in the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>,
everything is or soon will be just dandy, demonstrating that for our Democrat
leaders, the only real problem is an inadequate public relations strategy and whiny
citizens who don’t realize how great they’re doing. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of propaganda campaigns, casual observers deserve
our sympathy for believing that the Ukraine war is going well and that triumph
is near. Unfortunately, Mr Bernays had no real advertising suggestion for how
to spin the <a href="https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/06/07/sviatogorsk-last-major-milestone-towards-russian-southward-advance-on-slaviansk-abandoned-by-ukrainian-forces-huge-sea-change-in-last-24-hours-in-ukrainian-war-outlook-propaganda-mood/">destruction of one’s fighting forces</a> by an enemy invader. Ukraine is tottering on the verge of total defeat, notwithstanding the cheery dispatches from the hotels of Kiev
by a phalanx of loyal stenographers bottle-fed by western spook agencies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The US/European dominance of the informational spaces has
resulted, perversely, in a trap: given the relentless boosterism over every
imagined Ukrainian battlefield advance—whether technically true, practically
irrelevant, or completely made up—has left Biden, Johnson, and von der Leyen
with nowhere to go once they realize that the Russians are eating their
bountiful lunches. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With every passing day, Russia’s leadership has ever less
reason to negotiate anything. What once could have been face-saving compromises
(such as that outlined in the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-minsk-agreements-ukraine-conflict-2022-02-21/">Minsk agreements</a> that would have left the Donbass republics within Ukraine) are slowly
disappearing from the realm of possibility. In a few more weeks, the hated Mr
Putin will be dictating terms, and Russia will decide exactly how much of
the former Ukraine it will absorb into its territory permanently. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When we, the citizens of the western countries who brought
this about, realize that we’ve been fed a pack of lies, the reaction will be
something to behold. IMNSHO, the aftermath of this war will not be merely a
humiliating Afghanistan 2.0 but rather a cataclysm with existential
consequences. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NATO’s continued credibility as a defense/offense alliance
will be in serious doubt, and the much-ballyhooed entry of Sweden and Finland
looks likely to be <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/erdogan-continues-to-block-nato-bids-of-sweden-finland/6599469.html">vetoed by Turkey’s president</a>, who is highly attuned to the direction of the winds. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Europe, in the person of its undemocratic EU bureaucracy, remains
strangely committed to its own disintegration as it faithfully toes the failed American
neocon non-strategy of telling everyone what to do despite no longer having the
power to make them do it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">More immediately, the economic war launched by Washington,
which the Nulands and Sullivans and Blinkens were sure would bring about a
quick and glorious triumph, has turned into a giant boomerang headed right for
the necks of the Democrats facing the voters in a few months. The boycotts and
sanctions and thefts have caused oil and food prices to spike, and there is no
sign of relief from any quarter. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Failing to stave off recession and impoverishment while
losing a war is not an attractive record of accomplishments for the campaign
trail. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see the maniac Republicans
steamrolling to victory both now and in 2024, then finalizing its rigging of
the system to remain in power permanently. We will be lucky to avoid electoral
dictatorship with journalists imprisoned for sedition or ultra-right-wing biker
gangs and gun clubs enforcing ideological purity. Those who sat by passively
while Bush, Obama, and the courts <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/who-killed-habeas-corpus-bill-clinton-aedpa-states-rights">destroyed habeas corpus</a> may be shocked to see how precious that hoary old civil right actually is. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately for the increasingly deranged figures arising
from the Trumpian swamps, they also have no answers to the systemic weaknesses
of our current social and economic arrangements and will find themselves
equally discredited in the long run. What looked like a slow decline and
gradual political crisis with neither party able to mount a coherent response is
shifting into a much higher gear. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While the upheaval is not likely to be pretty, the
possibilities for a rethinking of very basic assumptions—about our country, our
habits, and in the end our very selves—increase proportionally. When the old
ways no longer work, painful changes <a name="Brazil_C"></a><a name="Northern_C"></a><a name="Western_C"></a><a name="Mexico_C"></a><a name="Region_C"></a><a name="Brazil"></a><a name="Northern"></a><a name="Western"></a><a name="Mexico"></a>ensue.
<o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-39455424915762503582022-05-29T09:08:00.000-07:002022-05-29T09:08:13.962-07:00All hat, no cattle<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvIoOUmjCFpE7F18LIBcSnNZmuujmZW8DM5Nk4iuIjRyHQK-4vHjF3dSu54ZDPiLv9T2-LoHT8az5G7d_d8aJ5va0wh95eHYQfbF6DMdFFxi12NeqTk7rxKmVxF3HYZnVyjP_Dq2JdcsyUSQOPv6Pl9OBMKh3HWsqD37wgjjKptPFSguE0UFLfYWeig/s840/cowboy%20hats.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="840" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvIoOUmjCFpE7F18LIBcSnNZmuujmZW8DM5Nk4iuIjRyHQK-4vHjF3dSu54ZDPiLv9T2-LoHT8az5G7d_d8aJ5va0wh95eHYQfbF6DMdFFxi12NeqTk7rxKmVxF3HYZnVyjP_Dq2JdcsyUSQOPv6Pl9OBMKh3HWsqD37wgjjKptPFSguE0UFLfYWeig/s320/cowboy%20hats.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">American police, equipped with untold quantities of
<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-1033-military-equipment-weapons/">military-grade hardware</a>, trained constantly, cheered endlessly, and almost
always protected from accountability when they commit abusive errors, are
expected to do one job with minimum dedication and skill: protect the innocent
from deranged attackers even when at risk of harm to themselves.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">It must come as a shock to many of our fellow citizens to see
how the Uvalde cops rolled up in an armored car, kitted out in all sorts of
weaponry, but couldn't stop a bumbling teenager from murdering children because
they came upon a locked door and <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2022/05/27/police-mistakenly-blocked-classroom-during-texas-school-shooting-dps-says/9959949002/">didn’t have the key</a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">That’s nothing compared to the cognitive dissonance that will
descend upon us shortly when we realize the same phenomenon is taking place in
Ukraine where US and NATO tough guys stand around in a variety of ethnic cowboy
hats, egging on other guys to keep getting chewed up by the Russian military
machine.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">The bipartisan Washington duopoly that pours $700 billion worth
of our resources annually into military preparedness lectures everyone on earth
about what they had better do—or else because standing behind the threats is a
vast array of high-tech weaponry. Oddly enough, that team is getting its ass
handed to it by <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/456437/john-mccain-russia-gas-station-masquerading-country">“a gas station masquerading as a country.”</a> Just as on the domestic
stage, we’re being told that all is well because our cops are lumbering through
the streets with hundreds of pounds of Robocop fetish gear.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">The latest breathless narrative is that <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3015463/m777-artillery-deliveries-should-help-ukraine-in-the-donbas-says-official/">M777 howitzers</a> or the
new batch of totally cool Javelin missiles or some other mystical sounding
piece of equipment will turn the tide, just like in the war-porn movies we
gobble up.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We’re promised that those trillion-dollar piles of weapons will
keep disobedient foreigners from getting ideas and threatening “democracy.” Turns
out even pesky sub-humans who haven’t discovered “freedom” and the “rules-based
international order” can acquire a bit of agency.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Uvalde cops and assorted Texas elected officials tried to
answer questions about the elementary school debacle by emitting <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/texas-shooting-uvalde-timeline-police-discrepancies.html">endlessstreams of word salad</a> about the “terrible tragedy” and the valiant efforts of
“officers on the scene” who “brought things under control.” They desperately
attempt to deflect attention away from the utter and ignominious failure of the
heroic cops to actually take a risk and stop the slaughter of children.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Similarly, Sullivan, Blinken, foggy Joe, the laughable Ursula
von der Leyen, Boris Johnson, Scholz, Stoltenberg, and their<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/sizing-up-media-coverage-of-russias-attack-on-ukraine"> clapping seals</a> in
the entire western media universe assume heroic poses on the battlements of
their respective capitals. They survey the landscape and decide never to
retreat an inch in the Donbass where some 10 thousand Ukrainian troops are
about to face the choice between annihilation or surrender.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">Victory is<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61457622"> just around the corner</a>, though, and the Zelenskiy
government will soon be pushing back against the paper Russian tiger, whose
demoralized troops are short of food, running out of ammo, and about to desert
for a nice job in Barcelona. (I actually heard David Frum predict this on a
webinar.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, the Uvalde cops will be storming the
child-assassin—as soon as they get snipers, armor, back-up, and their Starbucks
orders. Don’t try to interfere, or we’ll tase you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-54537988911754309442022-04-20T10:01:00.002-07:002022-04-20T12:36:14.335-07:00Bankruptcy<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPOosSQhZRKS0N8yP2O8sN9HI5QyD-5RLuPt1NMjc1f3q3sedPshECwbXEiFL70-9P0SHYHJjyuVSKxL-YGzlBK4jmNy7fPt_AWkQRpY8Y5cGzXtpS6Jz7lN8Xqztd9X_2wSUEvtp-enwq6MboKYZIxeWM35zKFvmHGb84FiP5xwg6lsg7elUrPoh9lQ/s1440/lockheed-martin-singapore-ss-img.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="1440" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPOosSQhZRKS0N8yP2O8sN9HI5QyD-5RLuPt1NMjc1f3q3sedPshECwbXEiFL70-9P0SHYHJjyuVSKxL-YGzlBK4jmNy7fPt_AWkQRpY8Y5cGzXtpS6Jz7lN8Xqztd9X_2wSUEvtp-enwq6MboKYZIxeWM35zKFvmHGb84FiP5xwg6lsg7elUrPoh9lQ/s320/lockheed-martin-singapore-ss-img.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Back at the time of the collapse of the USSR, some
commentators claimed that the West had driven the Soviets into bankruptcy by
escalating the arms race beyond their means while simultaneously making sure that
the Afghan war continued to drain them. All that unsustainable spending,
pundits insisted, had brought the rickety Soviet system crashing down into a
heap. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It may be time to ask whether the tables have been turned
upon us. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">President Biden has asked Congress for additional monies for
the DoD, the better to prepare ourselves for a stand-off with Russia in Europe.
Congress, never particularly reticent when it comes to military pork for
members’ districts, promptly insisted on giving him more than he asked for. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Biden’s proposed $813 billion Pentagon bill dwarfs all
previous budgets for arms and warfare, and Republicans promptly attacked it as
too little. While gummint programs often come in for the criticism that they simply
throw money at a problem, there is a sudden 180 pivot when the same approach is
used in this particular sphere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I remember attending a Pentagon briefing in 1981 when the
incoming Reagan Administration was boosting the budget numbers left behind by
Carter. The briefing book literally had the Carter numbers crossed out and new
percentage increases penciled in over each item, giving the strong impression that
the only thought in anyone’s mind when they got the checkbook out was, “More!” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The never-never question of, “How are we to pay for all
this?” remains off limits given that, by long-established custom, it is only
asked of programs that improve people’s lives such as Social Security or transportation
infrastructure. But under no circumstances must this query be put to those
demanding new funds for weaponry. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, it might be a relevant inquiry these days as we
witness inflation reach double-digits and our trade deficit with China (tomorrow’s
enemy!) explode. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Biden and his neocon war council seem confident that the
United States can stage confrontations with large and small rival powers such
as Russia, China, Iran (perhaps toss in India and Pakistan as well if need be),
wage economic war upon them, and emerge unscathed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Biden’s guys are happily ensconced in a virtual world dating
to about 1992 (or perhaps 1946) in which the U.S. rules the four winds and the
seven seas, dictates terms, and punishes renegades. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That world has come and gone, but if you believe that
perceptions matter more than reality, the Golden Age can be summoned back with
magical thinking and some good old Edward Bernays-style PR. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After all, Ronald Reagan made us “feel good about America”
after the hardships of the 60s and 70s, and for four decades that has stood us
in good stead. We recovered from the so-called Vietnam syndrome and returned to
our rightful place as the beacon of freedom and democracy around the world, as
witnessed by our efforts to promote both in Panama, El Salvador, Serbia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. As long as we feel good, everything will work out
fine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like Napoleon, we—or least Messrs. Blinken and Sullivan—believe
in the historical mission of advancing democracy and free-market capitalism on
the point of our nuclear-tipped lances. The neocons, true to their original Trotskyist
roots, have led an ideological battle inspired by their revolutionary beliefs
and backed up with the vast coercive resources of the world’s costliest
military machine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Whether it’s the best prepared or most competent remains to
be seen as the neocon zealots push us ever closer to open battle with Russia on
the European front. War ideas that were once far-fetched edge ever closer to
reality as the Biden leadership shows no signs of discovering a reverse gear
despite the evidence that Plan A hasn’t gone so well. We now face the prospect
of a direct face-off.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But notwithstanding their crushing triumph in the
information war, the U.S. and its western allies haven’t found a winning
formula to reverse Russian advances in the field. Meanwhile, the economic war launched
with vast confidence that the Russian economy (“a gas station masquerading as a
country”—John McCain) would promptly collapse and force Putin to his
septuagenarian knees has generated a boomerang effect that has only just begun
to be felt here at home. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Americans are currently enthusiastic about the nobility of
the Ukrainian cause and happy to display blue and yellow face-paint and donate
to the widows-and-orphans charities springing up. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, a couple of years back people were clapping out
their windows for the heroic nurses tending to Covid patients, the same nurses
who are now the object of hostile comments at the grocery store for their role
in the “fake” epidemic and its inconvenient restrictions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">How long will Ukraine solidarity survive in the face of
seven-dollar-a-gallon gas? Or apples suddenly costing $3 a pound instead of
$1.75? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No doubt all we’ll need is tighter restrictions on
“pro-Russian” propaganda on Twitter and YouTube to revive that fighting spirit
of sacrifice. After all, the defense of Ukrainian agency and the preservation
of its options for NATO membership are certainly worth canceling that family
vacation or moving into a two-room flat. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Given that the US of A is the greatest country on earth with
an awesome fighting force and the best of everything, we’ll be up to the
challenges facing us once they’re explained by credible leaders like Joe Biden,
Kamala Harris, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The American economy dwarfs most others and certainly will respond
with resilience even though its captains of industry long ago packed up the
nation’s factories and shipped them to Mexico, Bangladesh, and China. But we
have Facebook, Google, and many iProducts and dozens of billionaires each worth
ten times the net worth of ancient Mesopotamia. We are indestructible. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nothing can go wrong, and all will be well. <o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-49332883466939989642022-03-04T09:04:00.000-08:002022-03-04T09:04:30.083-08:00Three Wars<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVpI5dkufhzogz2NCQiqqyV1jIkPAIyXYN1SBUlk65Qw2carc7VE4r2aMofK-NDUhT0CT2CXIT-6s3isO7OUKPv3q-L1gFfYdO8ePVKo_JgyWFu__37HrHm-hS6WY2EKm18gMw3JXAGcbMJwb-FDqfyH_dPuXG6YKzDHDmauww9Mvu59W2DCTKlz5trQ=s1000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="797" data-original-width="1000" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVpI5dkufhzogz2NCQiqqyV1jIkPAIyXYN1SBUlk65Qw2carc7VE4r2aMofK-NDUhT0CT2CXIT-6s3isO7OUKPv3q-L1gFfYdO8ePVKo_JgyWFu__37HrHm-hS6WY2EKm18gMw3JXAGcbMJwb-FDqfyH_dPuXG6YKzDHDmauww9Mvu59W2DCTKlz5trQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">Three simultaneous wars are underway in Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The current score is: 1-1-1: one win, one loss, one stalemate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The information war</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The U.S. is winning the war for the narrative hands down. The
entire western hemisphere sees Russia as an unprovoked aggressor invading a weak,
sovereign neighbor and concurs that it is an outrageous act that jeopardizes world
peace. The crushing repudiation of the Russians at the United Nations this week
is an apt expression of that consensus. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is no accident that the country that essentially invented
advertising and public relations (the U.S.) should excel at shaping the terms
of public debate and public emotion. The Russians are rank amateurs and have
paid almost no attention to the art of convincing others of their case, probably
assuming that it was a lost cause. They must therefore fall back upon facts on
the ground. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The ground war</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which is exactly where everything is unfolding as Russia anticipated
with some minor surprises of the sort that are inevitable in war. Tales of
Ukrainian resistance and valor will be short-lived. The much-discussed delays
in the Russian advance are likely more to do with their decision to destroy as
little as possible of Ukraine so that the parts not to be absorbed into the
Russian sphere can recover rapidly. The optimistic tales emanating from the
informational apparatus [see above] are mostly wishful thinking. The Americans
predicted that the war would occur and announced that NATO would not be able to
stop it. They were right. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The economic war</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This one is a stalemate, and we should not start filling in
our scorecards for at least six months to a year. Russia is not Iran, which
could be (and was) kicked around and driven into penury by economic warfare,
boycotts, and direct and third-party sanctions. In this case, however, many tools
are available to Russia for retaliation. The extraordinary move to sanction the
Russian central bank and freeze (or seize) its assets will have consequences.
As long as there is a chance of ratcheting down the hostilities and limiting
the damage, Russia may hold off. On the other hand, if de-escalation is not on
the horizon, that war—unlike the bombs and mortar shells—may hit us directly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-73728189836958272092022-02-06T05:06:00.013-08:002022-02-06T05:08:38.358-08:00Calming Our Fears <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj126Gl7y50C20zoppsJpNlVzPT9FJAuZ8YEAL9ud78YyQAT7O-f6mOBDz3D0_ZPxq9UcMCHQxh7ChE4xMR2fYM4YV2zpxEz9Qqw0VCGikiKZEYgDG628yqJTtpq_yLFLLEnOLQk2OjuEBQqha5RptZY2tDHQKDH5xjQhRe3K1dMmNm6SRTaQOYIrRV8w=s1030" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="687" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj126Gl7y50C20zoppsJpNlVzPT9FJAuZ8YEAL9ud78YyQAT7O-f6mOBDz3D0_ZPxq9UcMCHQxh7ChE4xMR2fYM4YV2zpxEz9Qqw0VCGikiKZEYgDG628yqJTtpq_yLFLLEnOLQk2OjuEBQqha5RptZY2tDHQKDH5xjQhRe3K1dMmNm6SRTaQOYIrRV8w=s320" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Given our frailties as bipeds, we seek protection from harm. We go to considerable lengths to be reassured that we are secure in our persons, our streets, our homes. But as women generally know much better than men, the safety that we feel is based on a pretty big illusion, one that sets us up for psychological manipulation. Here’s what I mean:</span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I got mugged some years ago and sustained a rather harrowing injury. Once the initial shock had passed, my medical needs attended to, and the concerned friends sent away, I experienced a period of trauma that manifested as agoraphobia although no one called it that at the time. I could not leave home alone and was uncomfortable walking the half-block to my bus stop in the middle of the day. I could not stop thinking that around the next corner, there could be someone ready to come at me with a club.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I was right—there could. Yes, of course, there was no such person. I say “of course” because that’s the psychic contract we sign up to as participants in society during normal times—the comforting assumption that no one is out to get us. But it was precisely the “of course” that I could not grasp. I had seen through the veil of our consensual reality and understood that there is, in fact, nothing stopping our fellows from battering us to death and making off with our stuff. Nothing, that is, except the general agreement that we won’t. Cops exist to discourage aggression, but they arrive only after it has occurred in almost all cases and thus play a merely retributive and punitive role.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">What really keeps us safe is the deep, unconscious commitment to play nice with others that most of us mostly observe most of the time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">As women know, this agreement only goes so far, and they live with the permanent threat that the contract doesn’t fully cover them in the minds of too many large, aggressive bipeds. But I digress.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Notorious, alarming crimes undermine our sense that this protective social fabric remains intact. In our case here in New York City, nothing violates our confidence in the safety of our dense, urban environment like the sudden platform shove that puts someone in the path of a speeding subway train (as occurred January 18). We circulate constantly amidst thousands of fellow riders and pedestrians and shudder when standing near those terrifying engines to think that we are only inches away from its death-dealing irons. We’re right—we are.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The publicity attached to a rash of subway-related crimes, along with an uptick in deadly shootings, resulted in the installation of an ex-cop as our new mayor. Although a dissident during his time in uniform—especially over the topic of racism in the force—Mayor Adams so far has the very selective support of the NYPD as manifested in his role at the week-long memorials and funerals of the two officers killed on Jan. 21 when responding to a domestic violence call.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I have come to know a number of DV officers who have a difficult job and, clearly, a dangerous one. In the best of cases, they defuse potentially violent situations and mobilize resources to alleviate their underlying causes. One of the deceased, Jason Rivera, 22, joined the force after witnessing what he considered inappropriate police behavior applied to Hispanic youth like himself and thought he could do better, which makes his demise even more lamentable.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">That said, it is an irony and indeed a disrespect to his memory that many now use his death politically to clamor for an end to all criticism of the way policing is done in our city and country. Alvin Bragg, the new Manhattan borough district attorney, campaigned and got elected on the idea that the current bail system is overly punitive and locks people up because they’re poor. After the dual NYPD deaths, Bragg’s plans were immediately attacked by all and sundry, including the new governor, who waved the bloody shirt of the dead officers. The D.A., said one commentator, has to “march in lockstep” with the NYPD, a blatant call to eliminate what little civilian control now exists over our $6 billion-a-year police force.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Right-thinking liberals who find Trump appalling mostly concur with that line of thinking, the same way they forgot about the rule of law once the Twin Towers came tumbling down. When it comes to the plea to “keep us safe,” there is little daylight between the red and blue teams. Demagogues everywhere know this and rise to popularity with pledges to toss out the rulebook (Bolsonaro, Duterte). If their crime-fighting tactics include dropping bodies from helicopters, most of us, if frightened enough, won’t object.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">However, the get-tough approach doesn’t include everyone either, and that is another aspect of our inner totalitarian that gets ignored. Consider the case of Lauren Smith-Fields, 23, found dead in her Bridgeport, Connecticut, apartment on Dec. 12. She had been with a man met online who reported her dead; the autopsy reported fentanyl, alcohol, and other substances as the cause of death. But no one phoned or visited the next of kin to inform them that the young lady was deceased. They found out by calling her building superintendent after she failed to respond to messages.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Even stranger, the Bridgeport police did not interview the man who was with her when she died, nor did they collect forensic evidence from the site. Family members who later arrived found a used condom, a pill, and other evidence that no detective had bothered to retrieve.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Would it surprise us to know that Ms. Smith-Fields was African-American and that her date was white? Would it surprise us to know that the white man was a friend of the detective assigned to the case? Would it surprise us that <i>another</i> African-American female was also found dead in Bridgeport on the same day and that her family was also not notified?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Would police have proceeded in the same way if Ms. Smith-Fields were a 23-year-old white woman, like, says, Gaby Petito, and if her online date had been a black dude 15 years her senior?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The get-tough-on-crime meme doesn’t really have an answer to these questions because leaving enforcement entirely to those in uniform inevitably empowers all the prejudices that they bring to the job or develop over time. But even while recognizing injustices and the historical roots of the over-policing/ under-policing of minority communities that persist to this day, most New Yorkers will cheer Mayor Adams’ tired<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/eric-adams-blueprint-to-end-gun-violence-isnt-really-an-anti-violence-plan.html"> menu of get-tough policies</a>, which are almost guaranteed not to work—if indeed the goal is to reduce violent crime. They will work, however, to reassure people psychologically that they will be kept safe and that real tough guys are in charge.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">For example, Adams has proposed to add the category of “dangerousness” to the criteria for granting or refusing bail to detained suspects. That sounds reasonable until we examine the research evidence that judges routinely think black defendants are dangerous and white ones are not even when their records and pending charges are comparable.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes, an accused offender out on bail will commit a horrific crime, and the Murdoch yellow press immediately trumpets the tragedy as cause to lock up everyone within 5 miles just for good measure. Meanwhile, the contribution of our punitive prison system to maintaining the levels of violence in our society never gets a second look.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Adams also wants to remove Fifth Amendment protections from 16- and 17-year-olds arrested on gun charges to coerce them to rat out whoever provided them with the weapon. Aside from the irony that our gun-worshipping culture refuses to recognize the very real dangers that minority youth experience and punishes them severely for doing what white Texans brag about openly, Adams’s plan opens the door for new abuses like the case of the Central Park 5 in which innocent kids were browbeaten into false confessions and sent away for over a decade. But New Yorkers then wanted a resolution of the fear-inducing rape case, and not much has changed today.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/eric-adams-blueprint-to-end-gun-violence-isnt-really-an-anti-violence-plan.html">M. A. Kaishian writes in <i>Slate</i></a>:</p><blockquote>Adams’ focus on illegal guns comes as New York State—and New York City particularly—makes legal gun ownership nearly impossible. There are many reasons why people, including minors, choose to carry guns. In 2018 and 2019, the Center for Court Innovation interviewed 330 young people in New York City about guns, violence, and proposed solutions to violence. Eighty-eight percent had a family member or friend who had been shot and 81% had been shot or shot at.</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">We can send these young people off to long stints in upstate prisons, but violence and particularly gun violence will not be affected. But people will <i>feel</i> safer, which is what we want. Subway riders interviewed in the media repeatedly insist that we need more patrol officers on the trains. But six officers were assigned to the station where the fatal shoving incident occurred.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our public discourse around crime is emotionally charged and cannon fodder for politicians to swagger. But once fear get a grip on us, we are incapable of acting rationally or, as some would say, applying The Science™.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">While we succumb with depressing regularity to appeals to our anxiety about personal safety at home, the neocon establishment in Washington is eagerly drumming up the international version. Despite no real changes on the ground, we are suddenly assured (and not permitted to doubt) that the Russians are on the verge of staging an invasion of Ukraine and that they have massed the famous “100,000 troops on the border” in preparation for doing so. While one could question whether troop movements thousands of miles away from our national borders truly place us in danger, the assumptions of our Cold War upbringing kick in smoothly and convince us that, yes, intra-European disputes are our business.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Though our ideological enemies are long departed, Russia remains, in the collective brain, the land of dangerous autocrats. Therefore, NATO must march relentlessly eastward, and Poland, Romania, and Hungary must bristle with the latest weapons systems pointing at scary Moscow. Otherwise, Russians are likely to disembark into Sarah Palin’s back yard or, alternatively, take over Vermont’s power supply with Donald Trump’s collusion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The surreal madness at work in this latest round of propaganda would be amusing if it were not promptly swallowed by the thought leaders of the blue team and the bulk of the managerial-professional class who constitute the Democrat base. They continue to insist that Trump was a Kremlin stooge in the face of no evidence. (These are the same people eager to censor unofficial Covid statements from Spotify and elsewhere.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our fears have taken over; our emotions rule. We seek new scapegoats, depending on our colors, Trumpian meatheads for some, woke snowflakes for others. All join hands to “support our troops” and their commanding generals who now flail about in confusion trying to figure out what to do next.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It would take a social historian much cleverer than I to tease out what on earth is happening in our disturbed polity. But it is clear enough that we have real grounds for fears that go far beyond someone surprising us on the street with a bat. While we hate on Joe Rogan or books about the Holocaust or Vladimir Putin or the Chinese who may shellac American athletes in the Olympics, we pose no threat to those making our future dangerous as hell.</p><p class="MsoNormal">(If you wish to receive alerts of future posts here, write me at <tfrasca@yahoo.com>.)</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-48529234739956516942022-01-21T13:21:00.006-08:002022-01-21T13:21:52.312-08:00U.S. heading for its “Suez” moment<p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBxpNlLxZHDJxnYwUV13OsK3XCNeL0O_G9JRuFHuIpLlN6pUg0_2D03Qm4utcYTAlDBbu82Y0WPT5IK6RyDsB3Pv3IU17IsNR41M6vi9_T90JXqYXnNN0UToc9hEUjOYIU8aCKlTn8EQa7c_DqBYm6wk_50lEoIR3i-aKCzEl4xfydCXNfCMy48Hyh0Q=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1163" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBxpNlLxZHDJxnYwUV13OsK3XCNeL0O_G9JRuFHuIpLlN6pUg0_2D03Qm4utcYTAlDBbu82Y0WPT5IK6RyDsB3Pv3IU17IsNR41M6vi9_T90JXqYXnNN0UToc9hEUjOYIU8aCKlTn8EQa7c_DqBYm6wk_50lEoIR3i-aKCzEl4xfydCXNfCMy48Hyh0Q=w310-h320" width="310" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">— Both parties collude to drive the country into war(s) it cannot win. —</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">As we have learned nothing from the mass bamboozlement that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, everyone and her brothers are obediently mouthing the security state’s declarations that Russia wants to invade Ukraine. This faith in the mouthpieces of our armament industries’ monetary interests is touching; plus, the believers in this Revealed Truth from our masters can go to bed mocking the conspiracists and nutters of the [choose one] blue/red team, which no doubt is very calming.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our president and his national security team say that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine. What happens in a few weeks if no such invasion occurs? Will Biden et al. claim that they faced down the weak-kneed Russkies successfully by a vigorous combination of finger-wagging, solemn assurances, and threats to cut off Vladimir Putin’s allowance? Perhaps an emergency measure to send another $50 billion over to the Pentagon will get hustled through a suddenly unified Congress.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the Russians’ demand to revamp the security architecture in Europe, including a NATO retreat from its borders, goes unanswered. Perhaps that is the idea—distract with a non-existent threat and escape the pressure to get serious about negotiations.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">If so, it won’t do much but postpone the inevitable, which is straight for a “Suez moment.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The destruction unleashed by World War 2 ended European colonialism and the long primacy of Britain and France in world affairs. Their postwar decline became painfully clear to both the old bwana powers when Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Britain, France, and Israel thought they could march in and reverse Nasser’s decision to claim control over a piece of Egyptian territory. But Eisenhower, for a variety of reasons, told the invaders to go home and backed up his suggestion with threats of economic sanctions that none of the three could afford. They obeyed. It was a sign of who had emerged stronger from the war and which countries were barely intact.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Suez, as became clear later, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education1">“the last fling of the imperial dice,”</a> at least as far as Britain and France were concerned. (Israel, meanwhile, continues the tradition in a new form.) Britain’s prime minister Anthony Eden was forced out two months later as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. relegated the rest of the world to the role of chorus.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our current bosses are hurtling toward a similar rude awakening despite the array of shiny armaments at the disposal of our top-heavy military establishment. Aside from successful invasions of tiny Caribbean islands (Grenada) or devastating bombing runs over defenseless troops with no air cover (Iraq), it’s hard to identify any significant U.S. military success in decades with the possible exception of the smashing of the ISIS franchise in Iraq with the help of the hated Iranians and their local allies.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">No one doubts that Americans can destroy cities and reduce whole countries to rubble, but direct combat of the sort being contemplated is another animal entirely. The parade of failed generals now hibernating comfortably on defense-contractor corporate boards might attest to that.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Whether in Ukraine on the Taiwan Straits, U.S. policymakers are in the grips of delusion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Does anyone doubt that Russian troops fighting on their own frontiers would have a massive psychological motivation that might be lacking among NATO’s untested soldiers? Does anyone really mean to find out?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Should we doubt the nationalistic fervor that would drive however many millions of soldiers the Chinese might set to work on reclaiming Taiwan? Is it worth accumulating heroic war stories to learn the answer?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">We have lived for many years under the assumption that neither of those countries would dare to confront the United States given the arsenals of nukes that stand ready to rain down upon them. If one listens to the statements coming out of Beijing and Moscow, however, one gets quite a different impression: that the two powers feel directly threatened NOW and are willing to call the Americans’ bluff.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Does Washington’s policy elite really want to get into a nuclear showdown over an island 10,000 miles away or a failed state in the middle of Europe?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">(Incidentally, watch any mainstream news about Ukraine and ask yourself how often the Russians are quoted offering their views on what is happening, should happen, or how to defuse the situation. Of course, all U.S. news is fair and balanced—between Republican Americans and Democrat Americans.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">According to some of those, escalation up to and including World War III is just what we need. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker said in early December the U.S. <a href="https://www.mississippifreepress.org/18727/sen-wicker-dont-rule-out-attacking-russia-with-nukes-ground-troops/">should consider “first-use nuclear action” staged from the Black Sea</a>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In case we think such nutters are only found in the GOP, Wicker was joined by Evelyn N. Farkas, a Pentagon official during the Obama administration, who advocates<a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/01/14/the-farkas-effect-when-the-blob-mobilizes-for-war/ "> “readying military forces to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war.”</a> Minor issues like attempts to undermine the outcome of a presidential election fade into irrelevancy when the two sides link arms, cast their gaze toward foreign enemies, and rattle nuclear sabers.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">This is a dangerous game, and yet the assorted neocons that populate the U.S. foreign policy apparatus march in lockstep, confident that U.S. domination of the world over the last 75 years—and especially the last 30—is destined to continue indefinitely. They seem not to notice that our country is profoundly weakened by internal divisions, stripped of its industrial base, run by Sovietesque gerontocrats who rule a populace who believe in very little of what they say and even less of what they do.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Underlying the strategic myopia of what renegade CIA analyst Ray McGovern calls <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/08/ray-mcgovern-once-we-were-allies-then-came-micimatt/">the MICIMATT</a> (Military-Industrial-Counter-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank Complex), sometimes called “The Blob,” is a philosophical view of geopolitics and indeed of humanity itself that rejects any possibility of cooperative coexistence among the peoples of the world. The concept that China and Russia might be allowed to pursue their interests in relative peace and that a <i>modus vivendi</i> might be reached among all the heavily armed world powers to tackle other urgent global problems makes no appearance in the encyclopedic textbooks of their incestuous think tanks. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">No doubt such zero-sum thinking has been the norm for millenia of human history, the motivation for its endless destructive wars and periodic bouts of pitiless slaughter. Therefore, with such encouraging outcomes, we should keep doing the same thing?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">We, or at least they, seem to think that nothing has changed since ancient times when the Romans cast about constantly to see where the natives might be getting restless and sent out punitive patrols to rein them in, kill a few thousand, and restart the flow of tribute. They feared allowing their subjects any real independence or permitting encroachments into the empire’s far-flung territories by rivals. That’s how Washington thinks. They speak as if failure to dominate means being dominated as if the world were a vast international S&M dungeon with no room for “vanilla” behavior of any kind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">While rival blue and red camps brawl in Congress and soon will do so on the streets as well, a curious unanimity prevails between them when facing the prospect of disobedient foreign actors flexing their local muscles. Democrats and Republicans alike hasten to undermine presidents who fail to maintain a properly belligerent attitude toward our official enemies; this applies to both Trump and Biden and especially to the permanent foreign policy/ security apparatus that surrounds them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The only danger to our blobiferous MICIMATT parallel state is the frightening idea that peace may break out and obviate the need for more trillions deposited at the Pentagon for distribution among friendly industries and lobbyists.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The incapacity of our leadership to contemplate any approach other than intimidation and demands for obedience is not merely a function of narrowness of vision or Beltway groupthink, though these are real enough. It is also the expression on the world stage of our 40-year surrender to the neoliberal article of faith that markets, and markets alone, must determine our course of action in all spheres of life.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Such ideological enslavement gave cover to the titans of financial power and their friends in elite circles such that when they acted to make themselves immensely rich at the expense of most everyone else, they could convince themselves they were being smart. Did the greed come first or the ideas justifying it? Does it matter?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Did Bill Clinton really believe his own rhetoric that inviting China into the World Trade Organisation and enabling the Chinese Communist Party to set millions of wage slaves in competition with the American industrial heartland would convert China into a democratic capitalist imitation of ourselves? Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. The industrialists and financiers drooling over the profit opportunities offered by crushing U.S. workers were all too happy to pretend to believe it whether they did or not. No one paused to consider the long-term consequences because the quarterly profit statements were rosy, and that is enough because Markets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Do members of Congress really think the U.S. needs to escalate war fever against Russia and China, or do their role as recipients of legal bribes from the MICIMATT dictate their shared worldview? Northrup Grumman doesn’t care.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">We have gone so far down this road that the system is incapable of righting itself. Biden, the product of a lifetime of toadying to these corporate cowboys and parroting their justifications, is the perfect expression of our decadent and paralyzed state.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It is my belief that the U.S. will continue down the confrontational
precipice with its two rivals and, in one form or another, sooner or later, lose,
either little by little or all at once. I expect this process will take no more
than five to seven years and that we will wake up by the end of the decade as
no longer the world’s preeminent power. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The shock of taking our new place as the chastised victims
of our leaders’ hubristic overreach will be something to behold and to
experience. Once accomplished, a stimulating discussion about where we want to
go next will be possible for the first time in living memory. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">[Let me know if you would like email alerts of new posts.] <tfrasca@yahoo.com></p><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-23051578554777583052022-01-12T10:52:00.001-08:002022-01-12T10:52:31.645-08:00Kazakstan: Two (and a half) views<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The coverage of recent events in Kazakstan falls roughly into
two camps:<p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgl6BRZ7E1Rvk4h4fOPIVD5-2DRcQV-8g0Xvq09n9gLDP94eKRInNrhJoEnhVKxt7t5l5CnvfYISCytmKdBBzsaAUvaHUOX45uZos2oWShl2RVxI2nQ3BrndULAMe11Vg_SpI2Dgoj7pzqlDSifGKhRbFS6qRWYg5AQfRhXUru1urLr97OWL7a4ZAyCtQ=s1074" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1074" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgl6BRZ7E1Rvk4h4fOPIVD5-2DRcQV-8g0Xvq09n9gLDP94eKRInNrhJoEnhVKxt7t5l5CnvfYISCytmKdBBzsaAUvaHUOX45uZos2oWShl2RVxI2nQ3BrndULAMe11Vg_SpI2Dgoj7pzqlDSifGKhRbFS6qRWYg5AQfRhXUru1urLr97OWL7a4ZAyCtQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->People rose up against a dictatorial, corrupt
regime and were mowed down by the country’s brutal security forces, assisted
and backstopped by Russian troops. </li><li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Foreign intelligence services cooked up an
attempted “color revolution” to install a West-friendly regime in Kazakstan, threaten
Russia along a huge central Asian border, and simultaneously break up the
Chinese Belt & Road Initiative.</span></li></ul><!--[if !supportLists]--><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the risk of sounding like a Christian Democrat, I propose
that both are partly true, and therefore each is incomplete. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Having seen a bit of life in the post-Soviet republics up
close, I am immediately pre-disposed to think that demonstrations, riots,
street fighting, and even the seizure of government buildings reflect pent-up
anger and frustration among the populace at decades of blatant corruption among
the self-serving elites along with the elites’ failure to address basic issues
of survival and well-being for the majority, even in countries pulling in vast
amounts of ready cash (e.g., Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, both oil producers). In my experience,
these countries tend to operate on the assumption that state officeholders are nothing
more than members of an organized mafia whose sole purpose is mutual enrichment
and that no government function is to be performed in the absence of a bribe. </p><p class="MsoNormal">My
immediate apologies to long-suffering, honest bureaucrats in any of those
countries—I’m sure you exist, and it can’t be an easy life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If those are the terms, many citizens will patiently accede
to them given the unlikelihood of gaining anything by not doing so. However,
the implied exchange is that the state will function, keep a lid on the more
grotesque forms of lawlessness, and make it possible to live modestly day to
day if one has no particular ambitions beyond an adequate lunch. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Something like
a 100% increase in the price of fuel, then, <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/010522-kazakhstan-to-reintroduce-fuel-price-caps-after-protests-in-key-opec-producer">blasts this social contract apart</a>, and
it should hardly surprise us that spontaneous and even violent outbursts followed
when the Kazakstani authorities imposed it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In such a case, one would expect to see clashes with cops,
perhaps demonstrations that cannot be controlled, masses of people surrounding key
government buildings, and, depending on how many firearms are circulating, a
few potshots and casualties. Depending on how scared the regime is, deaths
might amount to a handful (as in Chile’s demonstrations in recent years or
several hundred (as in Myanmar, given the extreme unpopularity of the military coup-makers
there).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What one would <u>not</u> expect in this scenario is news of
armed bands attempting to seize the main airports, successfully in one case, especially
if they appear to be well prepared and well supplied with small arms, logistical
capabilities, and manpower. Nor would you expect the chief of national security,
Karim Massimov, to <a href="https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/kazakhstan-detains-ex-security-chief-091825168.html">order a pullback by airport defenders</a> just hours before the
assault takes place, as he is accused of doing. That is where the long-suffering-people-mowed-down-by-murderous-cops
scenario doesn’t provide an adequate explanation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is enough evidence, even at this early stage, to
suggest that popular unrest was utilized to unleash a deadly power struggle at
the top of the very top-heavy Kazak ruling class. According to some
knowledgeable observers, the two camps are, or were: a pro-Russian one
represented by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and a Kazakophile-but-West-friendly
tendency long dominated by former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, the erstwhile
power behind the Kazak throne, so to speak. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nazarbayev, while fulfilling all the clichés about Central
Asian autocrats from the personality-cultish naming of the new capital after
himself to his supposed plan to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kazakhstan-nazarbayev-resignation-1.5064042">have his daughter Nariga inherit the presidency</a>,
also tilted quite noticeably in the direction of western oil companies and the
governments that stand behind them. Nazarbayev, like Lukashenko in Belarus, attempted
to balance the two hostile camps to extract maximum concessions from each. In
our increasingly war-ready world, this turns out not to be a winning strategy. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many accusations are flying over what and who exactly were
involved in the two-day uprising, which probably put Tokayev’s life in danger
and could shorten those of others. There will be ample opportunity to sort
through the claims and accompanying evidence or lack of same. For now, we can
keep in mind that the U.S. and its spook allies in Britain, perhaps Turkey, are
entirely comfortable with utilizing all sorts of dubious and bloodthirsty
elements, including the same jihadis whom we are supposedly at “war” with, to
advance their immediate aims. We don’t know if they did, but we know that they would.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the same time, it would be nice to hear—from those
enthusiastic about the Russian role in suppressing the alleged coup—some occasional
acknowledgement of the legitimate grievances of the Kazakstani people who have
had no role in the governance of their country since the moment of its creation.
If the Kazak elites had provided even the slightest opportunity for a democratic
airing of grievances, they might have thought twice about ramming through a
policy that threatened people’s survival and about how the average Kazakstani
might react. A little democracy might have prevented the outbreak of deadly
power games costing dozens of lives. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[to receive alerts of future posts here, contact <tfrasca@yahoo.com></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-24423892199079252222022-01-01T10:05:00.002-08:002022-01-01T10:05:46.296-08:00Will Russia invade Ukraine? Yes, if they so choose.<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgoFajGj9wZoojt4-WYvZqFyiCph3M3gOi3GsN2P54PocN1t3gHBEGrnr5FPhne_kMIwaJXgcu9uM2-KpVR1nbgwZiE2bkKlRewK2DG9of3YiXFmyAc1Y2USgzkPo4IQ1Y7kJHkXYAmldBL0dMmujVrkNV2sqUXWg4HPmOtPegrNjNJeDBcX89nQsV4gA=s2420" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1691" data-original-width="2420" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgoFajGj9wZoojt4-WYvZqFyiCph3M3gOi3GsN2P54PocN1t3gHBEGrnr5FPhne_kMIwaJXgcu9uM2-KpVR1nbgwZiE2bkKlRewK2DG9of3YiXFmyAc1Y2USgzkPo4IQ1Y7kJHkXYAmldBL0dMmujVrkNV2sqUXWg4HPmOtPegrNjNJeDBcX89nQsV4gA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">After the collapse of the USSR, foreign policy senior wise man George Kennan warned against expanding NATO east toward the borders of Russia, calling it a “fateful error.” Kennan, who coined the term “containment,” which became the shorthand name for U.S. policy toward the USSR for decades, said that the crumbling of Soviet ideology could have led the new country in a positive direction. But providing its leaders with a new external enemy, he said, would “erode the nascent democracy.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Kennan’s writings and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html ">comments </a>in the late 1990s criticizing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO">expansion of NATO</a>—which occurred in eight stages over 70 years such that the military alliance now comprises 30 countries—are full of dire predictions. Let’s see how many have come true:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">NATO expansion, said Kennan, will:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">. . . “inflame nationalistic, anti-western, and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion.” Check.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">. . . “restore the atmosphere of cold war to east-west relations.” Check.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“. . . have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy.” Check.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“. . . impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.” Check.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In summary, said Kennan, “We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.” Check.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The last statement is the one looming large over the several meetings Biden and Putin have held in recent weeks, including a call just a couple of days ago. A look at the map above shows what a juicy prize Ukraine would be as a front-line NATO member given the long border it shares with the new Evil Empire. Which Brookings intern wrote the memo assuring his fellow neocons that Russia would be okay with this?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">If one squints one’s eyes and peers through the cloud of State Department/Pentagon/White House stenography emanating from our main news outlets, one can glimpse that poor old Joe is playing from a very weak hand. While issuing daily alarms over the Russkies’ nasty intentions toward Ukraine and warning it against taking military action, the U.S. can’t do anything much about a Russian attack were it to occur and has said as much.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Experts largely agree that the Ukrainian military would collapse within hours of a Russian attack and that the Ukraine as a country might cease to exist. Impoverished refugees flooding toward the prosperous states of Europe is not a welcome scenario for the NATO allies, none of whom have a whit of influence over what the two big guys eventually decide to do in any case.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Biden and his spokespeople wave the threat of further sanctions against Russia were such an attack to take place, such as banning Russian banks from using the SWIFT messaging service to process financial transactions. To which the Russian response has been a version of “Oo, eek, we’re so skeered!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">German and Dutch leaders trying to keep their citizens from freezing this winter, on the other hand, might well be spooked by the prospect of losing easy access to Russian natural gas. Russia has plenty of customers in Asia for its products, and the Americans’ simultaneous campaigns against both it and China have thrown those two giants together in what is increasingly looking like a long-term partnership if not a downright alliance.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">How did this come about? Are the Russians seeking to restore the czarist/Soviet empire and gobble up neighboring states? One would think so from the mainstream commentators showcased here.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Back to Kennan: “I think it is a tragic mistake,” he insisted in 1998. “There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">On the Senate debate that occurred before that august body endorsed NATO expansion, Kennan said it was "superficial and ill-informed" and that he was "particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove it.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Who were the authors of this colossal blunder? Bloodthirsty neocon warriors like those who gathered around Bush II? No, in fact it was Bill Clinton and William Cohen, Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, egged on by Trent Lott and Joe Lieberman. That is, the reliably right-wing nutcases of the Republican Party boosting the most reactionary tendencies among the most war-loving Democrats. And our nation’s arms manufacturers no doubt were standing by with the needed lobbying and think-tank millions to encourage this scheme, so profitable for themselves.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our media elites are incapable of injecting any balance into their reporting of the Ukrainian situation, which would at minimum include some nod to the Russians’ fear of encirclement by hostile military forces aiming nuclear weapons at their major cities with arrival times measured in the minutes. I recall a major international crisis of apocalyptic brinksmanship occurring in 1962 when the shoe was on the other foot.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Putin has made it clear in his public statements that the Russians are out of patience with NATO, with the U.S., and most particularly with the Ukrainians and are not in a forgiving mood. They have demanded written, legal guarantees not only that NATO will not expand further into Ukraine or anywhere else but to roll back the current status quo.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">What’s different about this set of demands at this time is that the Russians are in a position to impose them. After all the NATO-inspired talk of military threats against Ukraine, the western powers are faced with a prophecy about to be self-fulfilled. Putin laid out their conditions for not acting and is not interested in verbal assurances given that the U.S. has proven itself not agreement-capable repeatedly (the Iran nuclear deal, various arms control treaties, Libya). The Russians say they are willing to talk but not forever, and by all appearances they are deadly serious.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">There is a lot of speculation in the specialty press and blogosphere about what will happen, ranging from nothing to all-our war in Europe. All the scenarios are plausible, and nobody knows.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">What is not in doubt is that the whole sorry mess could have been avoided if our leaders had opted for a different course 30 years ago. But that was impossible. Our political system and economy are so enslaved to the war-making industrial complex that belligerence and fear-mongering had to continue to drive U.S. attitudes toward the world because without them, many trillions of dollars might not continue to flow into the right pockets. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Mr Kennan’s wise words never had a chance. Perhaps they will now that the chickens have come home to roost.</p><p class="MsoNormal">(If you would like alerts to future posts here, kindly email tfrasca@yahoo.com)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-30339341524400055632021-12-26T13:12:00.000-08:002021-12-26T13:12:13.160-08:00Chile vote augurs new possibilities<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJUn5n5j-98mUUNVqhLCLUmSlQkYffWgQ1TJNA8lYkArtSVAK_JEJAH1ITpVijEyk0eTcrf52khbh2t4WyB6p5WipG5tQJAebo-N9UmD3dZdawJUPmD7YT3LHZISNHOkzTRWf_oPWaWcwnFjxqiKgROHZRmjs4neCkVOi8NRggdcWJVLLEwbrRPodQ7g=s650" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="650" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJUn5n5j-98mUUNVqhLCLUmSlQkYffWgQ1TJNA8lYkArtSVAK_JEJAH1ITpVijEyk0eTcrf52khbh2t4WyB6p5WipG5tQJAebo-N9UmD3dZdawJUPmD7YT3LHZISNHOkzTRWf_oPWaWcwnFjxqiKgROHZRmjs4neCkVOi8NRggdcWJVLLEwbrRPodQ7g=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">[Three student leaders try to meet with the president of Chile, <span style="font-family: "Calisto MT", serif; text-align: left;">Sebastián
Piñera</span>, cerca 2012, and are turned away. No matter, the guy on the right is now the president.] </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The first thing</b> many of us noticed about the December 19
second round vote for president in Chile was how eerily closely it tracked the
1988 plebiscite in which the country voted on whether Pinochet should remain in
power for another eight years. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2021 results: President<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Gabriel Boric<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>55.87%
(Apruebo Dignidad-left)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">José Antonio Kast<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>44.13%
(Christian Social Front-right)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1988 results: Pinochet to remain as president <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>55.99%<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yes <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>44.01%<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pinochet lost under his own rules and had to prepare for competitive
elections a year later. Or, as the historic headline in the opposition
newspaper <i>Fortín Mapocho</i> put it, “He Ran Alone and Came in Second.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chile’s electoral system, which assures that the candidate
with the most votes wins—quite a foreign concept for some of us—allows anyone
to run in the first round, then puts the top two vote-getters into a runoff a
month later. (Several Latin American countries vote this way.) Kast, the fundamentalist
Catholic who openly admired the Pinochet years, came out on top in the first vote,
sending a good half of the country into a profound shock. After all the
mobilizations of the last few years, no one could quite fathom how so many
people were ready to back someone who didn’t even pretend to regret the horrors
of the 1973-1990 dictatorship. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One common feature of the two-step voting procedure, known
as ballotage, is that voter participation tends to drop off for the second
round. That didn’t happen in Chile, and my impression from this distance is
that people hit the streets in an all-out effort to convince their peers and
neighbors that this was not the moment for cynical indifference. The estimates
for second-round newcomers were something in the 300-400 thousand range, gives
the high stakes. In actual fact, 1.2 million new voters showed up. Instead of a
cliffhanger, Boric walked away with a crushing victory. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If anyone had funny business in mind to manipulate or
dispute the results, the size of the winning margin wrecked those plans.
(Something similar may have happened in Honduras, where the non-narco candidate
racked up solid margins. Stealing elections is a lot easier when the races are
close.) One dirty trick did seem to be playing out when people in many poorer
(pro-Boric) neighborhoods found that public transport was suddenly
non-existent. We’ll have to wait for more investigation of what happened, but many
are suspicious that it wasn’t an accident. In the end, none of it mattered. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Boric came to public attention during the student mobilizations
of 2011-13, one of a crop of very young activists who guided that movement
adeptly and scored considerable victories. Several of them, Boric included,
then parleyed their leadership into seats in the national legislature and have
accumulated important experience and credibility, despite active hostility from
the right-wing press (essentially all the major outlets). When the “penguin” revolt
of high school students erupted in 2018, they were well placed in their senatorial
tribunes to echo the popular demands. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m too far away from the country both physically and
temporally to know much granular detail about Boric’s programs or the
constellation of party and institutional forces that constitute his base. That
said, I am willing to predict that his presidency will not imitate the
disappointing Blair-ite, Third Way, all-hat-no-cattle, more-of-the-same-only-different
governments that usually arise after an interesting new political character
appears. Nor do I anticipate Venezuelan demagoguery with high-blown rhetoric masking
dysfunction and a personality cult. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite the parallel with the 1988 plebiscite, the two events
are far from equivalent. The NO vote 30-plus years ago was a NO to further
dictatorship, NO to the secret police, impunity, disappearances, systematic
torture, corruption, and rule by the rich. Beyond that, people were not of one
mind and still remained fairly traumatized by the chaotic end of Allende’s
Popular Unity government (1970-73), which had concluded in the bombing of La
Moneda and summary executions. The alternative at that time to more of Pinochet
and his regime was a return to the centrist parties, including those that had
supported the military takeover out of hostility to Allende. In fact, a major encourager
of the coup became the country’s first president after the democratic
restoration.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This time around, the choice was far more stark: back to the
Pinochet days or a clean break with all the parts of the Pinochet package, not
just political repression but more to the point, the economic variety. Boric
has promised that Chile, the birthplace of the neoliberal model, will also be
its tomb. Those are strong words, and an ample majority of the Chilean
population is ready for them to be fulfilled. Education, health, pensions,
housing—all the basic components of a decent life, are ripe for a thorough
overhaul because after three decades of glowing discourse about the Chilean “success”
story, plenty of citizens have seen the well-to-do elite continue to hoover up
most of the benefits of economic growth while their own lives fail to improve. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This should be easy for Americans not lost in the pointless
babble of our pundit class to grasp. Boric’s victory was a clear repudiation
not only of nostalgia for the dictatorship but also of the failure of the two
previously dominant political blocs to create conditions so that the majority
of Chile’s citizens can have a decent life. These blocs, roughly equivalent to
the Democrats and the Republicans here, are now deeply discredited by their
failure, and the country has opted for something new. Chile’s political system,
unlike our own, made it possible. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Boric comes to power just as the Constituent Assembly is due
to wrap up its formulation of a new constitution for the country to replace the
1981 version written under Pinochet’s guidance and designed to sustain an
ongoing dictatorship of the private sector, which it has done quite
successfully. The new version has the potential of loosening the minority
right-wing’s successful block of any threats to its outsized influence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chile has long been a social laboratory, and Boric’s
determination to bury neoliberalism should be taken seriously. Margaret
Thatcher famously noticed Pinochet’s adoption of the Chicago Boys/Friedmanite
school of capitalist restoration to reverse the postwar consensus, and Ronald
Reagan took a leaf from her book. We have lived with the result for 40 years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Things often bubble up from the global South, and we tend to
be too First World-centric to pay sufficient notice. Chile has deeply
entrenched social and economic inequalities, but the incoming team also has the
resources to experiment with a fairer system and to face down the inevitable
trench warfare that the privileged classes will now stage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chile also has the painful memory of the last go-round with
a left-wing experiment, and even though the Boric generation is too young to
remember it directly, the country as a whole, and especially its leftist
currents, has ample collective knowledge of how important it is for them to
play their cards just right. In a world sorely lacking in role models, we may
be permitted to hope for, to root for, great things. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[If you would like to receive alerts of future posts here, kindly email tfrasca@yahoo.com]</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-19337239099418081662021-12-10T08:31:00.003-08:002021-12-11T09:08:18.961-08:00Putin Wins, Americans Not Told<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jpg1k_VXMOg/YbN_DpAT8MI/AAAAAAAAJEc/uoTiXYSZTRIN3SFcvT_yxZUdQgkdM0wNgCNcBGAsYHQ/s876/video%2Bcall%2BPutin-Biden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="876" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jpg1k_VXMOg/YbN_DpAT8MI/AAAAAAAAJEc/uoTiXYSZTRIN3SFcvT_yxZUdQgkdM0wNgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/video%2Bcall%2BPutin-Biden.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Amid the blizzard of mis-, dis-, and un-information provided
to us by our dully conformist messengers in the news media, one could easily
miss the crucial outcome of the latest round of alarmism over Russia: Putin has
quietly won his principal demand. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For three decades, Russians have raised hell over NATO’s
eastward creep. Gorbachev insisted that the USSR would not oppose the
reunification of Germany as long as NATO did not expand, and Bush I <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/promises-made-promises-broken-what-yeltsin-was-told-about-nato-in-1993-and-why-it-matters-2/">promised him that</a>. West Germany duly swallowed up the East, and the hostile alliance promptly accrued
former Warsaw Pact states such as Poland and the Czech Republic and added them
to NATO’s forward military posture—an early example of the U.S. being “not
agreement-capable.” NATO spokespeople openly clamored for more. Georgia (the
country) was in NATO’s sights briefly until the Russians reacted. But the big
prize was always Ukraine with its enormous Black Sea coastline and the
strategically crucial Crimean Peninsula. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dotting Russia’s borders with military outposts, including
nuclear weapons systems that could reach major Russian cities in minutes, has
been a wet dream of neocon warriors since the Soviet Union’s collapse.
According to some commentators, Putin could have been ousted after the 2014
Ukrainian coup for failing to perceive the threat and prevent it. Apparently,
the Russians were shocked at the successful putsch that put a hyper-nationalist
pro-Western regime in power in Kiev, and Russia’s dual response—backing the
quasi-separatist Russian ethnics in eastern Ukraine and annexing Crimea—followed
swiftly. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That fighting was stopped by means of a truce and the <a href=" https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2020/646203/EPRS_ATA(2020)646203_EN.pdf">Minsk Protocol</a>
(and its 2015 follow-up, known as Minsk II), which we westerners rarely hear
about. That’s because the Ukrainian authorities signed them and then refused to
carry them out, no doubt encouraged in this posture by their western masters.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Putin and his patient foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have
been broken records on the subject of what must happen to bring the border
tensions to some sort of happy stasis—carry out the Minsk agreements via direct
talks between Kiev and its breakaway provinces, achieve some sort of federal
modus vivendi among the warring parties, including, crucially, a commitment NOT
to put hostile military forces in eastern Ukraine and NOT to contemplate
Ukrainian membership in NATO ever. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These Russians demands lie behind the periodic
<a href=" https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/europe/ukraine-naval-base-russian-tensions-intl-cmd/index.html">pearl-clutching</a> that our neocon-loyal news media cook up over a supposed
Russian scheme to march into the rest of Ukraine. Such a threat is a hallucination birthed in the steaming miasmas of the
Potomac, but it conveniently masks the source of hostilities: Washington’s
hysteria over losing its accustomed power to dictate terms. Russia’s red line
about NATO encirclement means that further NATO expansion will not occur, and
Russia is extremely well placed to carry out its threat to stop it should the
need arise. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Biden and his amateurish crew of bullies have realized this.
While we hear all sorts of dire posturing from Blinken, Sullivan, Biden
himself, and a gaggle of nutcases in the Senate (<a href=" https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-on-cnn-if-russia-does-decide-to-move-further-into-ukraine-it-would-be-a-mistake-of-historic-proportions-for-moscow">from both parties</a>), they simultaneously acknowledge that the U.S. is not ready to ratchet up to a
nuclear confrontation over a rickety, nearly failed state in central Europe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the idea that the Russians are plotting to seize
more Ukrainian territory assumes that Putin is eager to be saddled with a state
on the verge of internal collapse. On the contrary, the uneasy status quo
serves Russia perfectly well as they can simply hold out and wait for Kiev to
accept the new realities provoked by the errors of 2014—for which,
incidentally, the neocon grandees in DC bear a large measure of blame. If
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957">Victoria Nuland and her buddies</a> had not encouraged the overthrow of the corrupt
but legitimate (i.e., elected) president at that time, the U.S. would not be in the current no-win mess. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Americans continue to convince themselves that with just
a little more aggression, a little more weaponry, a few more ultimata, a bit
more butching up, standing tough, insults, and what have you, they will finally force
the hands of its adversaries of the moment. Historical lessons from Vietnam
through Iraq and Afghanistan leave no trace. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Biden’s video encounter with Putin this week was a
predictable dialogue of the deaf, but despite the loyal quotation on every
channel here of the script Biden managed to read, Putin came out with a solid
win. The U.S. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/08/russia-talks-of-rapid-ukraine-discussions-after-biden-putin-summit">admitted indirectly</a> that NATO will not come to Ukraine’s defense
and risk a nuclear confrontation. Our leaders have not yet completely lost
their minds—though they’re working hard at it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition, <a href=" https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/biden-putin-meeting-nato-ukraine/2021/12/06/71225812-5677-11ec-8396-5552bef55c3c_story.html">“further talks”</a> were endorsed, which seems
underwhelming until one considers what Putin set out as Russia’s goal: a treaty
in which NATO promises to back off. That won’t happen any time soon, if ever,
but the fact that the Americans didn’t immediately faint dead away and scotch
the idea is a sign of how weak Biden’s position is.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Russia is not worried about further U.S. economic sanctions—the
big threat emanating from DC—and is prepared for them in any case. If the
Ukrainians go crazy and mount an assault, they will be very sorry as will the
European countries facing a new horde of desperate refugees fleeing what’s left
of their erstwhile country. Unless some real lunatic gets Joe Biden’s ear, or—heaven
forbid—the clueless Kamala Harris gets pushed into a role she is unprepared for,
no one in Washington is going to bring on a new geopolitical defeat that would
far overshadow that Afghan debacle. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Americans refuse to grasp the end of the happy days of
imperial dictatorship that followed the demise of the USSR. Think-tank chicken
hawks must be so bedazzled by all that shiny hardware piled up all over the 800
U.S. military bases scattered around the world that they think its mere
existence gives them unchallenged powers. It does not. This week was a tiny
defeat for their galactic imperial arrogance: more will follow. The idea that
countries might come together to find ways to occupy their respective corners
of the globe for mutual benefit seems far beyond their intellectual and
imaginative capacities. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the citizenry is equally unprepared to face facts
given the vapid stenography practiced by the herd of “national security”
reporters echoing every unsupported assertion emanating from the parallel state
at the Pentagon and Langley. The shock of realization once these defeats become
impossible to ignore could be surprisingly destabilizing, both a danger and an
opportunity. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">If you would like alerts to further posts here, kindly email
me at <tfrasca@yahoo.com></span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944086822158381537.post-26631474363097689902021-10-31T12:57:00.001-07:002021-10-31T12:57:53.490-07:00Bipartisan Suicide<p></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C4-WNMS-KFU/YX7zN7bve-I/AAAAAAAAJBs/NyoGe04XSpY84hUrE8GVqzEyWXKOjDREACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/mushroom-cloud-1.jpg" style="font-family: "Calisto MT", serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1600" height="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C4-WNMS-KFU/YX7zN7bve-I/AAAAAAAAJBs/NyoGe04XSpY84hUrE8GVqzEyWXKOjDREACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/mushroom-cloud-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></p><p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT", serif;">These days, political discourse </span><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif;">consists mostly of barely intelligible strife, disputes over
arcane excuses to “own the libs” or to sneer at the dumb bubbas, respectively.
But on more important, even existential matters, our “leaders” are in full
agreement: life on earth is dull and should end. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The long-term means of
getting there—climate-based destruction—is now being shoved aside in favor of a
prompter and more straightforward alternative: war, either with China or,
failing that, with Russia, or perhaps—why not? —both. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">On this issue, Democrats, if
anything, are more insistent than the laggard Trumpians. Biden, his top
officials, and his party’s congressional barking dogs in the pro-war camp now
daily carry flammable liquids to the diplomatic table in eager expectation of
the appearance of matches, firmly believing that America’s pansy enemies will
immediately retreat shaking in fear at the sight of big, scary us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">Or perhaps they just want to
ramp up worldwide tensions so that no one will notice that our dwindling national
treasure is being eaten up by the war profiteers and their
Pentagon-congressional allies, in which case let’s hope they’re luckier than
most everyone else in human history and can calibrate their provocations short
of catastrophe. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The latest sticking point
chosen by the Biden team is Taiwan, the island whose status has been left
conveniently ambiguous for 50 years. It is part of China, all have agreed, and
yet operated for decades with considerable autonomy as long as no one uses the
I-word (“independence”) or claims that it is a “state” or a “nation.” Avoiding
that red line, all is well, or well enough, and things were allowed to muddle
along. Taiwanese businesses do a lot of trade with China, and getting rich kept
everyone modestly content. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">Biden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/biden-taiwan-defense-china.html">let the cat out of the bag </a>that this status quo was to be jettisoned on Oct. 22 by answering a
question at a CNN event that the U.S. would indeed come to the “defense” of
Taiwan. Not only did Biden say it would, but he added “Taiwan” to a list of
similarly defended nations, South Korea and Japan as if Taiwan was their
equivalent, i.e., an independent state. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The original Biden statement
was at first considered another one of the old duffer’s gaffes, quickly
corrected by his handlers. However, since then, a steady accumulation of unmistakably
policy-shifting statements by members of his team means Biden did not goof at
all but rather knew exactly what he was saying. It is now clear that the U.S.
has embarked on a new confrontational attitude toward China by threatening it
over the status of a piece of what it considers its national territory. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The final confirmation came
just days after Biden’s comments when the U.S. <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/10/26/United-States-backs-Taiwan-re-entering-United-Nations-system-50-years-expelled/3651635267320/">announced its support</a> for Taiwan’s
return to full membership in various UN bodies. While getting Taiwan a seat at,
say, the World Health Organization might be reasonable in other times, the current
push from Washington is all about poking the Chinese in the face and making
Taiwan look like an independent state. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The new belligerence has been
eagerly taken up by members of Congress, including plenty of Democrats, who
seem just as inclined to beat the war drums than Trump’s hyper-aggressive
foreign policy team. Elaine Luria, a member from the uniform-heavy Tidewater area
of Virginia, went so far as to propose that the president be given the <a href="https://bit.ly/2ZxMhJo">green light to launch military action</a> over Taiwan without prior congressional
approval. Luria endorsed the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which is a
Republican brainchild, proving that on the issue of suiting up for battle,
there is zero culture war in America today—everyone fer it, no one agin’ it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The practical consequences of
Luria’s idea are minimal as anyone not living under a rock can see that the
presidency is already far too empowered to go to any war its occupant fancies. The
point is to gin up bipartisan clamor for a more threatening posture against
China.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">No one seems terribly
bothered that this proposal encourages the president to launch hostilities with
a foreign nuclear power without so much as a brief stop by Congress to see if
it’s okay. The 330 million of us who might have other ideas are to be cut out
of that rather major decision entirely. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The GOP-Luria bill also calls for a
resumption of full U.S.-Taiwan military relations and military exercises with
the island’s forces, topped off with a presidential visit to Taiwan. None of
this is likely to happen, but it is a sign of the growing detachment from
reality that this sort of loose talk is popular in Washington. </span><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">Reading what passes for
analysis among the foreign policy Blob on Taiwan (and other issues—more below)
requires that one enter into a magical land of adult make-believe. (I hope to
post this on Hallowe’en, which, come to think of it, is perfect.) The Blobians
insist that the decision to throw over 50 years of a peaceable status quo and
put up the national dukes will work because the Chinese are sure to back down
once their bluff is called. Biden himself referred to the U.S.’s massive war
machine that will surely intimidate anyone paying attention. The possibility
that foreign nuclear powers might have their own red lines is dismissed as weak-kneed
groveling unworthy of Real Men. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, in Europe we have
even more demented displays of war-posturing glee. The outgoing German Defense
Minister recently <a href="https://bit.ly/31eDL2J">called for NATO</a> to get ready for “non-conventional warfare,
including <b>nuclear weapons</b>, cyber-attacks, and space military technology.
“‘This is the way of deterrence,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told a German
radio station, repeating her threat of first use of nukes in Europe in defense
of the Baltic states. “We must make it very clear to Russia that we are ready
to use such measures,” she insisted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">No doubt the geniuses behind
NATO are desperate to drum up some way to convince their populations that that
tottering entity still has a <i>raison d’etre</i> of some sort, but ratcheting
up talk of a nuclear weapons toss around Europe seems a bit over the top. Given
the tone of such statements, the Russian response has been admirably measured,
along the lines of “Perhaps you’ve forgotten how that ended last time around.
We haven’t.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">A lot of the commentary around all this war talk tends
toward reassurances based on the assumption that threat exaggeration is a
long-standing tactic of the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think-tank
(MICIMATT) complex [hat tip Ray McGovern], whose ultimate goal is merely more
cash for their boondoggles. As <a href="https://bit.ly/2Y30FsI">Gary Brecher puts it </a>in <i>The eXiled,</i></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">No one who matters in the
defense business wants total war with China. They just want to keep those trash
fires burning, hoping one of them will blaze up big, like a gender-reveal
wildfire. And even if none of them do, it’s good for business, because most war
scares are about funding. </span></blockquote><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;"></span><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">But history also has plenty
of examples of how provocatively wagging one’s missile at the enemy can lead to
an actual war. Pumping up the populace over real or imagined slights can let
loose uncontrollable social forces as the Argentine generals learned to their
dismay when they let the Falklands/Malvinas genie out of that bottle. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">On a deeper level, however, I
believe there is a moment of truth approaching about how our species has
handled its affairs for many thousands of years, namely, the ingrained
assumption that relations among polities is inevitably a zero-sum game in which
the mighty dictate and the subordinate obey. The corollary is that if one isn’t
<i>up</i>, then one is necessarily <i>down</i>. The idea of simply getting
along and working out differences as equals seems foreign to our human
consciousness, and it might just be time to evolve to something more
intelligent given that the capacity to blow ourselves up once and finally has
been in human hands for a while. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3akKppw">Daniel Larison</a> at <i>Antiwar.com</i> calls that attitude the “bankruptcy of Great
Power Competition,” and I believe he is on to something crucial about why and
how opposition to the madness could mobilize: </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The Cold War between the United
States and the Soviet Union split Europe down the middle, but it was in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America that massive bloodletting took place. During the
confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, huge numbers of people
were reduced to collateral damage, far away from famous First World flashpoints
such as Berlin, their deaths seen as acceptable, if not celebrated,” including genocides
in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Indonesia. </span></blockquote><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Once major powers have decided on a militaristic,
confrontational course, it becomes extremely easy for their political leaders
to justify any number of atrocities against innocent people in neutral or
contested countries in the name of preventing the rival from advancing.
[Therefore,] it is not surprising that almost all states in Southeast Asia want
nothing to do with the militarized anti-China coalition that the U.S. is trying
to assemble. The nations of Southeast Asia do not want to be forced to choose
sides or to become pawns in someone else’s struggle yet again.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif; font-size: medium;">The whole article is worth a read. It is a much-needed reminder
that the Democrats now in power will have to be completely discredited if the
human race is to stand a chance, followed by the complete discrediting of the
Republicans who will surely inherit the bipartisan mess. </span><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif;">*</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calisto MT",serif;">If you would like to receive an email alert to these posts, please contact <tfrasca@yahoo.com></span></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1