Moderating the Town Square in the Name of Comfort and Profit

Some woke twitterite writing in the UK Feminist Guardian pronounced that Elon Musk "doesn't understand free speech... at all."

"He has declared that Twitter is a 'town square' in which speech should be unfettered by concerns about the propriety or consequences of that speech," the author says, before going on to pronounce that "Twitter is in no way a 'town square.' Only town squares are town squares. They are public for a reason. And they are local. They have no rules of decorum. ...."

Actually, the United States Supreme Court thinks otherwise.

"A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more. The Court has sought to protect the right to speak in this spatial context. A basic rule, for example, is that a street or a park is a quintessential forum for the exercise of First Amendment rights. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 796, ... (1989). Even in the modern era, these places are still essential venues for public gatherings to celebrate some views, to protest others, or simply to learn and inquire.

"While in the past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views, today the answer is clear. It is cyberspace—the "vast democratic forums of the Internet" in general, Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 868, ... (1997), and social media in particular

"On Facebook, for example, users can debate religion and politics with their friends and neighbors or share vacation photos. On LinkedIn, users can look for work, advertise for employees, or review tips on entrepreneurship. And on Twitter, users can petition their elected representatives and otherwise engage with them in a direct manner. Indeed, Governors in all 50 States and almost every Member of Congress have set up accounts for this purpose.

“While we now may be coming to the realization that the Cyber Age is a revolution of historic proportions, we cannot appreciate yet its full dimensions and vast potential to alter how we think, express ourselves, ” -- Packingham v. North Carolina (2017) 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1735-1736

In short, the case in Packingham proceeded on the assumption that social media *were* town squares fulfilling the function of a public commmons. Town squares are not only town squares.

This is so typical of the ipse-dixit nature of the “reasoning” that infuses wokism. It is sufficient simply to pronounce with sufficient determination and outrage. So quess what? Another dismissive absolutist on the pages of the Guardian turns out to be wrong, at least if the highest legal authority in the land has any say in the matter.

It must be said that the issue in Packingham was fairly narrow and concerned whether the State could categorically prohibit, as a condition of probation, a convicted sex offender from accessing Facebook. The Court held that it could not, no more than it could prohibit him from going to public parks or shopping malls.

This did not mean, however, that no regulation or restriction could be made. Probation conditions for sex offenders that prohibit access to parks where children may be present are routinely upheld. But, given the First Amendment interests at stake, the State could not do precisely what the Woke Twitterites desire to do: completely ban someone on account of his (and it is usually a “his”) status as an undesireable person.

"Twitter, like every Starbucks, McDonalds, shopping center, and radio station," says our wokist twitterite, "has other obligations and interests. Those spaces must maintain order, decorum, cleanliness, and comfort to keep revenue flowing and customers or audiences happy. That’s why the US constitution protects us only from the censorious power of government, not the needs of private entities to restrict expression that might harm their core missions" which in Twitter's case, she reminds us, is to raise advertising revenue.

In saying that the U.S. Constitution protects Twitter (“us”) “only from ... not the needs of private entites to restrict expression...” the author evidently is trying to say that the Constitution does not limit the needs of private entities to limit free speech.

But this appeal to private property rights and decorum doesn't wash. In Board of Airport Comm'rs of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569, the Court struck down an ordinance prohibiting any "First Amendment activities" at Los Angeles International Airport, in the name of decorum, comfort and order.

In Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980), the Court held that a California rule protecting free speech in the "common areas" of private shopping centres did not constitute an impermissible "taking" of property under the Fifth Amendment.

Read together, what these three cases hold out is the proposition that social media web sites are analogous to public common spaces, whether privately or publicly owned; and that, blanket denial of access to or free speech in those spaces is impermissible.

The Guardian's columnist is patenty wrong to assert that publicly owned common spaces "have no interest in maintaining order to keep advertisers happy or their users comfortable." No publicly owned public spaces are free from usage rules. Anyone who has been to a beach or park knows that.

The author, acknowledges the free speech interests involved but she blandly asserts that Twitter's rules are "built to consider both the commercial and expressive desires of advertisers and users." And what are these "expressive desires"? The author doesn't say much except Twitter's content moderation seeks to protect users from,

"vast arrays of distracting, destructive, and dehumanizing expression able to flow freely to their targets. For years, women who have expressed themselves freely on Twitter have done so expecting and experiencing threats, the exposure of private information, and constant harassment. This phenomenon – one caused by the proliferation of expression – impedes the ability of millions of Twitter users to express themselves confidently and have their ideas taken seriously."

THAT is a word salad of vague, open ended, arbitarty and partial rules. Any law drafted in such terms would be struck down.

What are the "vast arrays" of distracting expressions? If I make a comment that someone thinks is irrelevant to the issue at hand, is that prohibited? Who determines what is "irrelvant"?

What is "destructive" speech? If I destroy a person's argument by pointing out its flaws, or by ridiculing its ultimate logical conclusions (a reductio ad absurdum) have I "dehumanized" the author?

The Guardian's expositor explains little except to say that” for years women on Twitter have experienced threats, exposure of private information and constant harassment.” But once again the devil (or the absence of him) is in the details. If Taylor Lorenz is any indicator, mere disagreement is deemed a threat. Aside from the sheer vagueness of what is allegedly involved, the problem with this sort of parade of horribles is that it avoids what Twitter and Facebook have actually used their "moderating" power to censor.

And indeed, despite all the back-handed insults directed at Musk's "juvenile" and "dorm-room" understanding of the law and his "mini-essay" on free speech, the woke twitterite gives away her game, stating that Twitter has an interest in keeping its "users comfortable" by which she evidently means keeping herself and think-alike clones "comfortable" and unassailed in anyway. "Free speech" in the cosmos of her cranium means the right to Bow, Bow to the Daughter in Law Elect.

Trump was not banned from Twitter because he disclosed some self-expressing woman's personal information. He was banned because Twitter did not like what he was saying and labelled it "misinformation" -- the woke liberal's term for what used to be called "heresy."

"Trolling is expression that crushes expression," says the author, "It undermines the ability of groups of people to think collectively and productively about serious issues. "

Ah soooo. The purpose of the First Amendment, and free expression, is to enable us to THINK COLLECTIVELY about issues that someone deems "serious" and in a manner that someone qualifies as "productive."

The insousciance with which our Woke Liberal Twitterite averts to a rule which would bring a smile to Xi Jinping's face is breath-taking.

I just can't wait to particpate in collective thought. It is what has been lacking from my life all these years.

Obviously the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule definitively on the core issue presented by cyber space, but if its past jurisprudence is any indicator, it will not be persuaded by the appeal to private ownership -- “My Facebook, my living room” --- where my decorum shall prevail. Nor does is it certain that the “needs of investors” to reap a profit by insuring inoffensive and inocuous content will decide the issue. The problem here is that internet operatives have decided to make money by providing a public square, and the question that arises whether the demands of profit limit the product or whether the demands of the product (a public square) limit the profit.

If Elon Musk opts for the latter that is (1) his choice and (2) nothing at all so a priori unreasonable as the Guardian's net decency guardian seems to assume. Musk's reference to the law of the land makes sense.

By and large, American courts have done a pretty decent job in mapping out the permissible regulations of free speech in the public sphere. Libel is allowed, but subject to legal action and, if proven, damages. Stalking or threats of physical harm by word and/or deed which are calculated to intimidate, coerce, or simply frighten are not allowed, although the alleged threats are objectively measured, and are not proved by the says-so of some passive aggressive neurotic or some overly sensitive soul. Incitement to action is allowed, as are expressions of hate, provided that neither directly and imminently trigger criminal acts (e.g., arson, rape, murder, insurrection).

Woke liberal despots consistently miss the point of these restrictions. They are not meant to be used as a spring-board for metaphors or stretched causalities (such as is clover-to-roll in for sociologists). They are meant to anchor and tether limitations to some actual imminent and concrete harm. In the case of verbal threats, the multiple pre-requisites of proof are designed to insure that mere hurt, humiliation, dismay, embarrassment, offense and anger are not used to stifle free speech.

The matter was summarized trenchently by Justice Brandeis in Whitney v. California 274 U.S. 357(1927)

"Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed. -- (Id. at p. 375.)

As is always the case with despots, the "dangers" of "false facts" and "misinformation" are raised as a spectre to justify "remedial"" and "prophylactic" measures. But this is nothing new and nothing peculiar to the recently invented internet. Thomas Jefferson had the answer for these would-be Torquemada's and Vishinksi's

"We have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasonings of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors and especially when the law stands ready to punish the first criminal act produced by the false reasonings; these are safer corrections than the conscience of the judge."

(Or some hyper sensitive woke moderator with a deeply held agenda).

Poking the Bear

And how does the U.S. intend to do that? Well... we could involve them in a long, protracted war in some place, bleeding them dry and leaving that place in ruins....

It is nice to see the New York Slime confirming our every diagnosis since this crisis began. It is also a delight that the Slime lays out so clearly how it lies to you, its unfortunate readers, peddling the equivalent of info-fentanyl.

“Emboldened by Ukraine's grit, the U.S. wants to see Russia weakened.”

Ah yes! Sitting on the sidelines, the U.S. was being its usual Appeasing Pussy self not wanting to provoke anyone or get involved in anyone's affairs until the sudden example of a Brave and Plucky Ukraine, fighting and holding the line against the Evil Goliath, bestirred Washington's conscience! And so

“the United States toughened its messaging...”

This is insanity. The “message” -- we are going to trash your military -- is very effectively a declaration of war. Not only is the intent hostile; the intent promises action. Poking a nuclear power; poking even a hypersonic power is overweening madness.

As we have pointed out, the United States toughened its message way back in 1992, when the Cheney-Wolfowitz Duo, drafted a Defense Planning Guide, which set out the goal of achieving exclusive U.S. global and economic supremacy by slapping down any “potential rival”

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.” “Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the reemergence of any potential future global competitor.”

The DPG banked on being able to exploit the political and economic collapse of the Soviet Union in order to rope Russia (and the Ukraine) into the free market system as subordinate players. The DPG also looked forward to the further disintegration of the Soviet military. However,

“Should there be a re-emergence of a threat from the Soviet Union's successor state, we should plan to defend against such a threat in Eastern Europe. ... [I]t is of fundamental importance to preserve NATO as the primary instrument of Western defense and security as well as the channel for U.S. influence ...

Like all such documents, the DPG was drafted in the flexible and insinuating language of military-bureaucratic babble. Although the talk was formulated as contingency planning, the contingency reflected the goal, and "defense" was code for a spectrum of proactive measures. Senator Edward M. Kennedy was not fooled. He labeled the DPG "a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept.”

In fact, even the New York Slime was not fooled. It's headline for the leaked release of the DPG was

 "WAYS TO THWART.....” And how, one might ask does one nation “thwart” another's military strength?

The matter did not end there. In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote his magum opus The Grand Chessboard in which he , argued that the vast Eurasian land mass (from Portugal to the Bering Straights) was the field on which America's supremacy would be ratified and challenged in the years to come. Central to his thesis was the premise that no Eurasian challenger (read Russia) should emerge to dominate Eurasia and thus also challenge U.S. global pre-eminence.

"[T]he U.S. policy goal must be unapologetically twofold: to perpetuate America's own dominant position...  It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.”

Again, in September 2000, the Raytheon-funded Project for a New American Century, published its now infamous "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (9/2000) calling for (among other adventures) "extending America's security perimeter eastward."

"The new opportunity for greater European stability offered by further NATO expansion will make demands first of all on Tomahawk cruise missiles that have been the Navy weapon of choice in recent strike operations. ground and land-based air forces. As the American security perimeter in Europe is removed eastward."

You have to love the babble. You know, as in 1941, Nazi Germany “removed its security perimeter eastward.”

Babble or not, there was nothing unclear or ambiguous about these position papers. As we have said, they were plainly and simply the Monroe Doctrine East.

Nor was it a matter left at planning. Every objective indicator proved that the U.S. was implementing its plan.

 The cheek with which the Anthony Blinken intones that the decision to join NATO or apply for EU membership is up to the Ukraine as a sole and “sovereign” actor is an insult to any person who is even moderately informed of the issues. Ukraine is and has been a pawn, not a sovereign actor. Blinken simply counts on people being kept barefoot and stupid by the New York Slime. So much for America's literate class.

Beginning around 2006, Vladimir Putin began to protest against “Western” (read the U.S.) expansion. His consistent theme was that “our partners in the West” were acting confrontationally not collaboratively. He repeatedly said that the world should be multi-polar, and that no nation (read the U.S.) should seek to be the Global Boss. In other words, Russia too, had regional and international interests that needed to be respected and accommodated. It was not an unreasonable position. In fact, it was so reasonable, that it was first announced by Woodrow Wilson back in 1901. The United States, he said, should be first among equals, not first over vassals, and to this end it had to pursue policies of international settlement and adjustment.

In other words, the United States could take, but it had to give. It could not have the whole cake for itself, but must let others have their own slices.

However, the Neocon monsters in control of Washington would have none of it. Their policy of BullyPolitik demanded unfettered, unilateral, preemptive, preeminence. They effectuated their policy by engineering “orange” revolutions and “removing” America's sphere of influence, so-called “zones of democratic peace,” eastward.

There was nothing ambiguous about the 5 billion dollars the U.S. spent trying to engineer the Ukraine into the EU orbit. Nor was there any ambiguity about the aproximately 2 billion dollars in military aid since 2014. There was nothing ambiguous about Trump's 2017 decision to supply the Ukraine with Javelin missiles.

Lastly, there was nothing ambiguous in the National Defense Strategy Doctrine of 2018 in which the U.S. reaffirmed all of its antecedent strategy papers since Dick Cheney's Defence Plannning Guide of 1993. Although the bureaucrateze was tweaked here and there, the goals remained the same.

“The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia....” etc.

But as has been reviewed, China and Russia were always in America's sights. Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard, in which Ukraine was “key” always had the break up of the “Eurasian Landmass” (i.e. Russia) as its primary goal. That's what the PNAC's “expanding the homeland's security perimeter (NATO) eastward” meant. How unambiguous can one get.

The only difference between 1993, 2003 and now is that in 2014 Russia began to push back.

To even remotely suggest that the United States has suddenly come to the realization that it has an opportunity and, indeed a need, to “weaken” Russia's military is a LIE. It is FAKE NEWS. It is MIS- and DIS- INFORMATION of the highest proof. So drink up.

The Slime prattles on... “Officials in Washington are now grappling with how much intelligence to give the Ukrainians about bases inside Russia, given that the Ukrainians have already made small helicopter raids on Russian fuel depots...”

So, in addition to being lying sons of bitches are they also out of their minds? They are certainly classifiably homicidal psychopaths.

When the raid was first announced on April 1, it was denied by the Ukrainians, and the Western media tried to imply that the raid was “unconfirmed” and possibly a Russian lie. Well evidently not...

So the debate along the Washington-Brussels Axis now is how much intelligence and weaponry to hand over to the Ukraine. How much lethality can we hand over to bleed Russia dry. How far inside we can play the provocation game without triggering a response we might regret. In other words how much can we escalate without escalating.

This is the chance to “put the screws to Russia,” cackles Witch Hillary. We can weaken their military cries the Secretary of War. These two statements illustrate how thin the tripwire is and how recklessly indifferent Washington war mongers are to the dangers. There is a “fine line” between degrading a country's military and degrading the country itself, between an incident at sea and act of war.

Is firing on a country's naval vessel an act of war? When the U.S.S. Cole was fired upon, the hotheads in the Capitol had no hesitation in sceaming that it was an act of war. In fact, when the U.S.S. Maine suffered an explosion of unknown origin, we actually went to war.

There is a spectrum that runs from genuine accidents, to setting the stage for an accident to happen, to creating conditions for the adversary to fall into, to de facto war, to declared war. In 1978, the United States funded the Taliban and created conditions in Afghanistan that ensnared the Soviet Union and, ultimately, gave its military a bloody nose. That politik was not an act of war anymore than the Soviet material support of North Vietnam was an act of war against us. But using a proxy to directly attack Russia's military, and to even do so on Russian soil, crosses into a different part of the spectrum. Even more so when the United States is standing right at the ear of that proxy -- a proxy that is giving signs of being his own puppet.

The role Zelinsky has played in these last months has been heroic and artful. The best PR firm in the world could not have done better. But of late, he has gone from being the noble defender to the near reckless aggressor. His escalating rhetoric, and that of other memebers of his govenment, has cast the crisis in apocalyptic, civilizational terms. He has called for more sophisticated weapons and for removing limits on their use. His foreign minister called for attacks inside Russia. A man with his limited responsibilties and vision is not the person to handle a game of nuclear poker....assuming that such a criminally reckless game should be played at all. Allowing a man like Zelinsky to push and poke at Putin at will is pure insanity. More so when we are at his ear; for, in that case, anything he does will be attributed to us.

Embroiled in their Russophobic psychosis and manical obsession with global supremacy, the lunatics in Washington and on Forty Second Street, seem to have forgotten the true nature of their adversary. Russia may be lumbering, the wielder of a mace not an epée. It may at times be brutish. But its very bearish qualities make it incredibly stolid and capable of enduring great suffering. During both invasions of its territory, Russia was willing to scorch its own motherland in order to defeat the enemy. It has risen from the ashes before, it will not shy from the worst for fear.

And not just Russia. China too has shown that she can accept losses that would collapse the United States. Throughout its long and charmed imperial history, the United States has not paid the price. Four hundred thousand here, two hundred thousand there, fifty thousand or ten.... they are all drops in the bucket of slaughter compared to what other nations have proved they can endure. If it comes to that, I am sure that Russia can out-bleed the United States any day. What is certain is that, at the end of the day, like other American “zones of democratic peace” the Ukraine will lie in ruins and do most of the bleeding.

The West has lost it's mind. While it was illegal and tactically stupid for Russia to launch a full scale invasion of the Ukraine, it was a crisis that was fully provoked by the US/EU and their policy of military-economic expansion eastward. In response to a state of affairs it created, the West has declared economic and now military war on Russia. It openly talks of “screwing” Russia and degrading it as a state actor on the world stage. At some point the incremental targetting of "capacities" becomes an attack on the country as such. What the West is doing goes beyond containment and is openly confrontational not just economically or diplomatically but on the battle ground. In short, the West is playing at war with a nuclear power it hopes to shrivel down into a corner. Good luck with that.

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©WCG,2022

Votez Non a La Macronette

In my opinion, the left should vote right; simply because it is necessary to smash the iron grip of trans-national neoliberalism that has been entrenched since 1994.

A vote for Le Pen is a vote for change and uncertainty. A vote for Macron is a vote for more of the same race to the bottom and cultural dissolution.

Needless to say, the global liberal establishment exhorts the electorate to vote Macron. The neoliberal managers of Germany, Spain and Portugal signed a joint declaration in Le Monde telling the French that the choice was between a man who will "defend our common values" and an "extreme right" candidate who is "attacking our liberty and democracy.”

Ah yes! The same ol' same ol' neoliberal dog whistle.

Let's be very clear: from the very start in the late 18th century, the world-roaming capitalist class has always tissued its free trade agenda in the happy talk of "liberal values," "the rule of law," "democracy" or some gushing humanitarian cause. But none of that is what they are about. They are about making money. They themselves actually tell you this. What are the “Four Freedoms” (or in French Les Quatre Conditionelles)? The free movement of goods, services, capital and labour. That's it. Nothing more than the basic ingredients of capitalism: production, consumption, money and labor to generate profit. Not a word about human values in the flesh.

In 1994 the OECD urged European countries to "dismantle" minimum wages, labor rights, social benefits and pensions in order to promote trade and economic efficiency. They have been doing exactly that ever since. Macron is simply the latest iteration. A vote for him is a vote to perpetuate the neo liberal long game.

When Macron and his apologists speak of improvement in the "economy" the question that should always be asked is whose economy. As Ferdinand Braudel pointed out in The Wheels of Commerce, at all times there have been three economies: top - middle - subterranean. The Covid pandemic made very clear that there is an economy for the upper 10% and the very rich; and another one for everyone else.

The economic crisis in 2008 and in Greece, the crises in Africa, the wars in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Libya, and now in the Ukraine were not caused by Le Pen but by the Washington-Brussels Axis of which Macron is the French representative.

Real democracy, real fraternité and egalité would promote economic enfranchisement and security not the austerity and wealth disparity we see growing day by day.

Le Pen's basic point is simple: a government exists to protect and benefit its own people, not some concept or invisible "three-passports class." That is hardly a novel or radical concept. It was once taken for granted.

Le Pen is against the present EU for the same reason Bernie Sanders was against the TPP. Like he, she is for extending and not cutting social protections and benefits. And like him she favours a multi-polar world as opposed to the imperium of one.

The “left” says it can't abide Le Pen's supposed anti-immigrant racism. In getting worked up over this the “left” simply falls for neo-liberal fear mongering. They are being duped.

Le Pen's basic point is one that has never been contested until of late: there have to be limits on immigration and immigrants who are allowed in should assimilate into the basic norms of their new country.

Le Pen does not say that Muslim immigrants should convert to Christianity. She does not say they cannot privately abide Halal. She says simply that immigrants should speak French and abide the concept of laicité. What is that concept? Nothing more than that in the eyes of the state, and in public intercourse, there are only citizens. It is this very concept that Napoleon used to emancipate the Jews.

However, these citizens are not mere ciphers. They are flesh and blood people each of whom embodies a shared historical experience and abides certain broadly accepted customs and usages. In other words, a “nation” is not a geometric construct but an organic entity that reflects a certain finesse.

Precisely because it is a matter of finesse, this chez nous, cannot be exposited with geometric precision. Those who attempt to do so only destroy the the underlying proposition. But it had never been difficult to grasp before.

After the Russian Revolution a whole class of emigrés came to France. They did not give up their Orthodox faith. They did not stop speaking Russian amongst themselves. They did not forget their slavic heritage. But they also adapted into and assumed the for them new heritage of France. They spoke French. They learned French manners and got into the game. In doing so, they enriched France and made Paris the vital place it was in the 1920's and 1930's. It is, ultimately, a question of temperance.

But who is the intemperate one here? Le Pen or the islamic fanatics that take over streets and kill people who say things they consider blasphemy? How would Voltaire fare at their hands I wonder?

None of this means anything to the global neo-liberal elites for whom man is simply homo-economicus. Their palaver about “multi-culturalism” is a canard that puts different, superficial costumes on what is essentially nothing more than a unit of production and consumption, as interchangeable with other units in whatever country.

The “left” ought to extremely wary of adopting a socio-cultural concept that was concocted in the cauldron of Robinsonnades and savage capitalism. It would be downright foolhardy to let the honeyed poison of a so-called “Open Society” lead it to vote against its own very tangible economic interests.

I do not know if Le Pen will be able to achieve her promises or if she will, instead, usher in a period of politial “fluidity.” I was put off by her talk of “law and order” and her somewhat vascillating stance on the Yellow Vests (whom I supported). I don't think she will be strong enough on the climate (although neither is Macron). But whatever reasons I might have for voting against her, I have greater reasons for voting against La Macronette. Stopping him and throwing a spanner into the geo-economic agenda he represents, would be for me an imperative.

Two Headlines

Two headlines illustrate the villainous insanity of the West:

Kyiv's Allies pledge more Weapons to help win War

"Weapons and ammunition are flowing in daily, said President Biden, "and we are seeing just how vital our alliances and partnerships are around the world."

World faces hunger 'catastrophe' from Invasion

The World Bank's David Malpass told the BBC that a "human catastrophe" of hunger is on the horizon Rising food prices are pushing millions into poverty and "lower nutrition."

So... the West, Inc. is shovelling arms into the Ukraine while a scarcity of wheat and fertilizer is shoving people into poverty and hunger.

The same two headlines also illustrate how the media distorts reality. "From invasion...." The shortage of wheat and fertilizer is not caused by the invasion. The invasion caused death, destruction and disruption in the Ukraine but it did not cause high gas prices or shortages of wheat. In fact, most of Ukraine's wheat is grown in the west of the country which has been left unaffected by combat. No. The scarcity of wheat and fertlizer is being caused by the response to the invasion; i.e. by West Inc.'s sanctions.

Of course the wail will go up: "what else could we have done? We had no choice but..." Nonsense. There are always alternatives. Instead of moving every available forklift, truck and C1 transport to dump arms on the Ukraine, Biden and his obedient allies ought to be doing all they can to facilitate a peaceful settlement. But that is not what they are about.

Duplicitous and despicable as she is, it is for precisely that reason that Hillary is a good barometer of the WashBorg's state of mind.

On 28 February, a week after Russia' invasion, Hillary got on her broom and took to the airwaves to cackle that the invasion gave us the opportunity to screw Russia

"We have to provide sufficient military armaments for the Ukraine military and volunteers. And we have to keep tightening the screws," she said. "Let`s keep ratcheting up the pressure. And everybody should ratchet the pressure. ...[by].. providing necessary to weapons to Ukraine."

Always look for the key word, which in this case is "keep." Russian troops first crossed into Ukraine on 24 February. Hillary is in flight four days later. In four days, the West was transferring weapons to the Ukraine? Well....

On February 28, Finland said it would deliver 2,500 assault rifles, ....

On Sunday, February 27, the European Union said it would "purchase and delivery" weapons to Ukraine.

On Saturday, February 26, Germany indicated it would send lethal military aid to Ukraine.

On Friday, February 25, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized $350 million in security assistance for Ukraine.

And...

On Wednesday, February 23, a second shipment of Canadian military aid was received in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, February 22, Latvia was scheduled to deliver Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine

On Monday, February 21, Defence Minister Matej Tonin revealed that Slovenia had delivered

On February 18, the Republic of Estonia delivered Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine.

On Monday, February 14, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that Canadian officials had authorized $7.8-million worth

On February 12 and 13, Lithuania delivered Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems and ammunition

On February 1, Poland approved the delivery of Piorun (Thunderbolt) short-range, man-portable air defense (MANPAD) systems and munition

On January 20, the United States State Department issued a revised factsheet on security assistance to Ukraine; as the United States also directly delivered military assistance to the country. This included some of a $200 million in Department of Defense stocks,

In December 2021, Lithuania sent its first delivery of military aid composed of bulletproof vests and ballistic belts to Ukraine since the beginning of the crisis.

In July 2021, U.S. Marines were training in the Ukraine (and in 2019 as well).

In 2017 Trump "began providing millions in lethal assistance, including Javelin anti-tank missiles –

Since 2014 the United States has provided $2.7 billion in "security assistance" to the Ukraine.

Gee... "keep" has a long pedigree. Well... I suppose they would call it a "pre-response" ...

The fact is that the Washington-Brussel Axis has been arming the Ukraine big time since 2014 and that was the MAJOR complaint Putin had.

West Inc., will deny any malicious intent and claim that its aid to Ukraine was only in "response" to Russia's annexation of the Crimea. But that too is a canard which depends on assuming that Ukrainian history began in February 2014. The facts are simple: Russia annexed the Ukraine because that is where its Southern Fleet is harboured under a treaty with Ukraine. Russia did so because the duly elected president of the Ukraine was overthrown in an armed coup, spearheaded by "ethno-nationalists" (cheered on by Under-secretary of State Virginia ("fuck Europe") Nuland) who made no secret of the fact that they wanted ethnic Russians out of the Donbas region and the Russian fleet out of the Crimea.

As we have reviewed elsewhere, the US has had a policy of extending NATO "eastward" in an effort to "roll back" Russia's influence and to make way for its own penetration of the Eurasian continent. This is not an opinion based on inferencea. It is a policy-fact evidenced in numerous publicly available documents and confirmed by the objective reality that since 1999 NATO and the EU have expanded eastward.

No one, certainly not me, can blame the Ukrainians for defending their homeland. It is a natural reaction to an invasion. Their heroic response can elicit nothing but praise. But they are brave dupes. They have been roped into a dynamic far beyond their horizons. That is the sorry fate of proxies in proxy wars.

This conflict is not about "liberal democracy" or "our values" (whatever they may be exactly) or even about defending the Ukraine. It is about geopolitics and economic hegemony; and, in particular about Russia's response to our own imperial designs.

With vicious irony the Witch from Westchester says that we need to "rally to support Ukraine in this struggle because it's also our struggle." Yes, only it's really our struggle in the cause of which the Ukraine will be sacrificed and handed over to death and destruction.

Hillary Clinton is simply the cackling voice of a whole gaggle of ghoulish neocons who, since 1992, have taken control of U.S. foreign and economic policy. With that in mind we can ask: What is Hillary's record in defence of our values and the rule of law? Libya? Somalia? Iraq? Syria? Afghanistan? Nothing but death and devastation.

To paraphrase what was said of the Romans "they created a desert and called it liberal democracy."

These monsters want to stick it to Russia pure and simple, no matter that they end up destroying the Ukraine, breaking the back of the Western middle classes, and casting millions in the third world into hunger and privation.

A pox, a pox, ein dreifachen Fluch on the lot of them and their spawn.

The Grim Prospect of Eternal Life

Over the weekend, an Anglican priestess, Tish Harrison Warren, wrote a pretty piece in the NYSlime entitled "Why it matters that Jesus really did rise from the Dead" in which she proclaims that the Resurrection was an actual, full bodied, physical fact and decidedly not a metaphor.

Dear Rev. Warren,

You say that the Resurrection was a palpable physical reality and that God should not be mocked with a metaphor.

But then you yourself end with a string of metaphors; from "eastering" in our hearts; to repaired relationships; to every ascent from despair, every joy after grief, every discovery of beauty, every found hope... all of which (I would point out) are merely like the resurrection of a body.

If the Resurrection was a palpable physical reaction to death then what all that means is that we, the faithful, shall ourselves resurrect, "amino acids and all" as you put it.

However, there is no guarantee that we will resurrect happier, hopier, improved or finally alive to the beauty of Wagner... We will simply resurrect with all our (remaining) amino acids. In fact, Jesus himself rose with his wounds still intact. So if we are blind in an eye, we will bounce back to life still blind in an eye; if without a bladder, still without a bladder. If wracked by cancer then still wracked by cancer.

And worst of all, seeing as most of us die wrinkled, thin skinned, bald or grey haired, suffering from innumerable creaks and groans, that is what we will "bounce" back as. The New Testament provides no hint of any assurance that we will resurrect as Apollo or Persephone. And for those who died young, since they mostly die in wars or follies, they will resurrect without a leg, with a missing jaw, with skin charred 90% and with a brain churned to liquid by a bullet or still pickled in alcohol inside a crushed skull.

I suppose that, compared to us resurrected humans, the angels will look pretty good; but they will be the only ones at all that will. Otherwise, the appearance of Heaven will be that of a vast human warehouse of wretched refuse from our teeming cities and vicious wars.

Worse yet where will all these resurrected bodies be put? There can hardly be room for them on Earth. And in fact, Jesus himself is certainly not here in the resurrected flesh, although I concede he could be hiding out somewhere in the Amazon jungle... We shall soon find out when all the cover is burned away.

But, until then, we have to ask: where did the physically resurrected Jesus go? Which is also to ask: where shall we go? Why, to Heaven, where he sitteth at the right hand of the Father!

But where is Heaven? "Above the starry sphere!" answers Beethoven. But how can that be? Everything that is physical is within (not above) the physical universe. It can't be beyond the physical universe because then it can no longer be physical; and (as per our starting point) the resurrection of the body is a physical bodily fact. So Heaven, Jesus and the Father must be somewhere in physical time and place, physically.

Perhaps, "at the right hand of the Father" is somewhere inside a black hole.

Yours in Christ... etc, etc.

Slaughter and Genocide

There have been a lot of claims and cross-claims that genocide is being committed in the Ukraine. Putin has accused “Neo Nazis” of committing genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbas region. Zelensky and the Neo Liberal peanut gallery in the West accuse the Russians of committing genocide in Bucha and elswhere. Perhaps it would serve to remember what genocide is under international law.

Very simply: genocide is a mass killing of people but not every mass killing of people is genocide. Genocide requires a motivation or intent to substantially erradicate an entire group based on that group's racial, ethnic or religious identity.

The term “genocide” was coined during the World War by Rafael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, who wrote a study of Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944). He derived the term from the Greek γένος (meaning genos, "race, people") and “cide” meaning to kill. Lemkin's study became the basis for the 1948 definition of genocide as adopted by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. As formulated, genocide requires the killing of a group's members or the imposition of conditions calculated to result in the group's physical destruction in whole or in part. The abduction of children or prevention of births within the group also qualify.

But howsoever accomplished, the acts must be motivated by an intent "to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." The phrase “in whole or in part” means a “substantial” number which is significant enough to have an impact on the group as a whole in absolute, relative and qualitative terms. For example, killing all the doctors within a group would qualify even if that number was relatively small, provided the intent was to bring about the biological demise of the group. Since 1948, sexual rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment have also been held to constitute genocide when committed with the requisite intent to eradicate the group in question.

It is clear that the distinguishing feature of genocide is not dead bodies (dramatic as these might appear in photographs and footage); it is the intent to liquidate a designated group, as such. Without that intent, every mass killing on the battlefield would be “genocide.” However, mass killing on the battlefield (or in bombings) is not genocide because the soldiers being killed are killed because they are enemy soldiers trying to kill you. Similarly, civilians killed in a bombing or an artillery barage is not genocide because the motive involved is (typically) the accomplishment of a military objective.

With these accepted definitions in mind, it is clear that President Biden and the chorus hysterics that surround him, might well keep their mouths shut when it comes to bandying about accusations of genocide. There is simply no evidence that Russia is seeking to liquidate as such that ethnic group known as Ukrainians. This does not mean that Russians have not committed atrocities or specific war crimes. For example, they may have slaughtered, without any just cause, a large number of people in Bucha. If so, that would be a war crime, but not genocide.

Far more plausible, was Putin's claim that the Ukrainians were committing genocide in the Donbas region. Russia has done a lousy job of making its case in the press, so I don't have sufficient detailed information on which to base a reasonable opinon. It is clear, though, that armed Neo Nazi groups wanted the ethnic Russians out of the Ukraine. They said so publicly. The intended displacement of an ethnic group (so-called “ethnic cleansing”) has been held to qualify as “genocide” if accomplished by violent or homicidal acts that further that intent.

Now it must be said, that Putin has made his own case worse by making statements to the effect that Ukraine never was a real country anyway and that they were always part of Russia. Such statements were historically inaccurate and colossally stupid. Whether or not they were at one point or another incorporated into Russia or into the Soviet Union, it is beyond dispute that Ukrainians are a separate and distinct ethnic group, with their own language and literature. Language has always been a key determinant in defining an ethnic or national group; as for example, differentiating between the Germans and the Dutch. Ukrainians may be part of the larger Slavic biogenome, as are the Poles and the Czechs, but that does not make them ethnic Russians. For Putin to imply that he was seeking to “absorb” Ukrainians into the larger mass of Russians qualified (in Lemkin's words) as seeking to bring about the “disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence” of that “national group” known as Ukrainians.

However, I do not believe that Putin actually intended to wage a genocidal war; that is a war designed to bring about the forced assimilation (and hence eradication) of Ukrainians as such. There is something of a fine line between conquering a people and diluting them out of existence.

The relations between the Ukraine and the Soviet Union are an example of the fine line. Prior to the Great War, ethnic Ukrainians were seeking independence from Tsarist Russia. After the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks actually assisted in creating a Ukrainian “sub-state” within the Soviet Union. Moscow pursued a policy of “Ukrainization” promoting the use and the social status of the Ukrainian language and the elevation of ethnic Ukrainians to leadership positions. This was in line with the general conception of the Soviet Union as a federation of distinct “people's republics.” Highlighting the ethno-cultural variety of the USSR was a key element of Soviet propaganda.

Great controversy attends Stalin's catastrophic policy of agricultural collectivization which resulted in anywhere from 3 to 10 million deaths by starvation. That Stalin's policies caused mass death is indisuputable. That it was intended to liquidate Ukrainians “as such” is far less certain. In 1984, an ad hoc commission of Ukrainian jurists and scholars examined the evidence and concluded that there was no clear evidence of an intent to “de-nationalise” the Ukraine or to commit genocide.

During and after the World War, Stalin pursued a policy of “russification” with respect to all of the peoples' republics in the Union. After Stalin died, Khrushchev reversed the policy once again fostering the image of the Soviet Union as a federation of different ethnic groups. It was at this time, that Khrushchev gave Crimea to the Ukrainian Republic. Khruschev's successor, Brezhnev, reversed the reversal and once again pursued a russification policy (across the board) only for Gorbachev to reverse course once again.

What I would suggest is that extending the concept of genocide so as to include cultural hegemony and political assimilation would be the extension that destroys the rule. At all times in history, nations and ethnic groups have exerted pressures on one another. Rome “romanized” the Mediterranean world; the Franks “frenchified” Gaul; Ghengis Khan, “mongolized” China... and so on. To classify these world historical events as genocide would mean that virtually all human history is genocidal, at which point the category of “genocide” simply dissolves. Stated another way, we should not forget the “-cide” in the word.

Fundamentally, genocide begins with killing by one means or another; and the killing must be aimed at eliminating a designated group as such for no other reason that that it is that group as such. What the Nazis did to the Jews was genocide. What they did to the Poles and the Russians is actually less clear, although some Nazis talked as if they wanted to commit genocide on those groups and wrote incriminating memos to that effect.

What all of this shows is that genocide is not an easy thing to define or to prove. The best definitions are narrow ones for the simple reason that the broader a de-finition gets the less -finite it gets. It is true that “killing” can be done indirectly by means such as impoverishment, starvation, overwork, neglect or by deprivating a group of the essential prerquisites for health and life. But the line between economic exploitation and social neglect, on the one hand, and exterminating people by indirect means short of an actual act of killing, on the other is difficult to draw. Was the Irish Potato Famine intended genocide or an act of outrageous, inhumane callousness, of the sort the British upper classes are trained in at English public schools? What about conditions such as obtained during the Industrial Revolution? What about America's treatment of its African American citizens? Perhas genos-abuse should be a separate category.

In my view, geo-political aims such as establishing political or economic hegemony over a country or region should not be classified as “genocide” under Lemkin's rubric of “disintegration.” The essence of genocide is killing and it must be a killing done with no other excuse, justification or cause such as would give rise to an inference that killing was motivated by none other than an intent to eliminate a defined group simply because it is that defined group.

That mass killings have occurred in the Ukraine; that these killings may be war crimes for which the perpetrators should be punished, does not raise an inference that Putin intends or is waging a genocidal war against Ukrainians. For politicians in the West to be running about raising a noisy spectre of genocide is both unfounded on the facts we presently know and certainly unhelpful to the effort that needs to be made; namely, not extending or prolonging the war, but seeking to bring it to a negotiated end.

BullyPolitik - Steinmeier's Missing Link.

German president Steinmeier gave an interview to the TransPond-NeoLiberal Spiegel, in which he discussed the “evolution” of Vladimir Putin.

Steinmeir began by noting that, in 2001, Putin gave a speech to the Bundestag, in Geman, “the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant.”

It always cracks me up when elevated personages like Steinmeir truck out hackneyed phrases like “the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant.” Has Steinmeir actually read Kant? German is hard enough without being extolled as the language of a man so obtuse that German philosophy students study English in order read translations that are passably intelligible.

Anyways, Steinmeir was trying to say something to the effect that Putin was actually able to speak the language of the highest sentiments.... whatever that had to do with anything. At least he was a far sight more accomplished than American “statesmen” who have trouble speaking their own language.

In any event, during that speech, Putin's “central message,” according to Steinmeir, was “that he wanted to join Germany and Europe on the path to freedom and democracy.”

Did Steinmeir mean to suggest that Germany and Europe had not actually attained “freedom and democracy” but were only on the path toward those noble goals?

Whatever Steinmeir had in mind, I rather doubt that Putin is susceptible to such exagerated sentimentality. But I do not doubt, what he said often enough in “the language of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Lenin!”, was that he wanted closer, cooperative relations with “the West” in terms of trade, investment, political stability and military security. In so saying Putin was not striking new ground, but rather was simply accepting an offer that had been made by that famous realpolitik duo, James Baker and GHW Bush.

Steinmeir continued his interview stating that in October 2017 “I met again with Putin. It was a frosty conversation. Animosity to the West, and especially to the U.S., had become his dominating ideology. That was an extremely bitter realization.”

Steinmeir rather cryptically did not specify to whom “that” was a “bitter realization.” Suffice it to say that the earlier Putin who was willing to join the pilgrimage toward freedom and democracy “has nothing in common with the Putin of 2022, who we are now experiencing as a brutal, entrenched warmonger.”

Imagine that! Putin just mysteriously flip-flopped, as if suddenly developing a mental disease! Who could possible figure out why!

Let us examine the “bitter realization.” Let us go back to early 1990, two months after the German People more or less reunited themselves de facto; and, just as importantly, a year after the Soviet Union decided to “liberalize” their economy. Two issues arose: (1) what to do with a reunited Germany and (2) how to incorporate Russia into the West's free market trade regime.

With respect to the first issue, Russia was afraid of the aggressive potential of a reunited Germany. Russia had mixed feelings over whether a united Germany should remain within NATO. Such a state of affairs would “push” NATO eastward, but at the same time it would tend to restrain any German unilateralism. In discussions with James Baker the Russians signaled that they would actually prefer that that U.S. keep its troops in Europe, as part of an overall “security architecture” that protected the interests of everyone on the continent. Noteworthy in this regard is what James Baker said to Gorbachev during their meetting in February 1990. As recounted in a memo to Bush, “Before saying a few words about the German issue, I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union. We had that policy before. But today we are interested in building a stable Europe, and doing it together with you.” (Unclassified Memorandum of Conversation on 9 February 1990.)

With respect to the second issue, during the same February 1990 meeting with Gorbachev, Baker volunteered economic advice on the order of steps to be taken by Russia in its switch from a comand to a market economy, while at the same time protecting the value of the ruble and providing a “social safety net... when a new pricing system is put in place.” Baker, apologized for offering free advice, but added “Please understand how much we want to see you succeed. As things move, if we are doing something we shouldn't be or we are not doing something we would be pleased if you picked up the phone and let us know.” (Unclassified Memorandum of Conversation on 9 February 1990.)

A more complete collection of documents can be found [ HERE ] but these two statements reflect the gist of the spirit of raprochment that prevailed at the time. Bush and Baker were not the types to speak the highest poetry in any language. They were hardnosed oil-men/politicians who had the interests of the United States foremost in their minds. However, they saw an opportunity to co-opt Russia into a new global, neo-liberal framework. Russia was willing.

In that first year of the last decade of the century, there was much talk about a “peace dividend.” Erecting a new global order involved myriad military, economic, geo-political and technical problems that would need to be worked out. But the overall gist of the matter was that the end of the Cold War meant that less money needed to be spent on defence and more money would be available for social and environmental causes.

One guess as to who did not like that kind of dividend. Within the U.S. Government, opposition arose to treating Russia like a friend. She was no longer an enemy, they said, but remained a potential enemy and it was necessary for the United States to be prepared to defend against this and any other adverse potential.

In March 1992, the New York Times obtained and leaked a collection of government memos which became known as Dick Cheney's “Defence Planning Guide.” The DPG was actually a draft that went through several iterations but it represented Neocon thinking within the Government.

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This ... requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.

“We must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. ...

“[We should] encourage the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems."

In plain English: The U.S. is top dog. It must continue to be top dog. It should slap down anyone who even aspires to anything more than a totally subordinate role, in a world otherwise dominated by American investment (“open economic system”).

Senator Edward M. Kennedy labeled the DPG "a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept.”

It is unclear whether Baker and Bush were being utterly duplicitous in their assurances to Russia or whether the DPG represented dynamic tension within the Bush administration. Whatever the case, it needs to be stressed that this Neocon doctrine of BullyPolitik has, with remarkable consistency, remained at the core of American policy for three decades, regardless of who was president. The differences between administrations were merely differences in rhetoric.

The objective reality is that after Baker assured Gorbachev that the U.S. would not move one inch eastward, after German reunifaction, it did precisely the opposite, extending both the EU and NATO into Eastern Europe, while at the same time opposing Russian economic initiatives. Simone de Beauvoir famously said that “When an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior.” Likewise, if a country is treated as an enemy it will become an enemy, which is precisely what the United States has contrived to do.

The “prescience” of the DPG is a wonder to behold. It warned against the “potential” of terrorism; against the “potential” hostility of Iraq; against the “potential” trouble n Afghanistan; against the “potential” re-emergence of a strong Russia... And somehow all these “potentials” managed to actualize themselves. They did so because no self-respecting country can agree to becoming a bootlick to the United States and so, the seeds of conflict are sown.

Throughout the last decade, Putin has expressed bafflement that “our partners” (as he put it) in the West were behaving the way they were. I at first thought it curious that he consistently referred to the West as “partners” until I realized that he was hearkening back to the assurances of Baker and Bush.

Now, it may be that capitalism is a deceiving siren. The allure presented is that of an open system of global free trade in which all players are friendly competitors -- a sort of financial kumbayah song fest cum American football game. But what happens when two countries are competing over the same thing, say for example, Russian versus American gas? As in any capitalist scenario, one man's gain is the other's loss.

“Why, my fellow citizens, is there any man here or any woman, let me say is there any child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?” (Woodrow Wilson, "The Ideals of America," ) [ The Atlantic (Dec 1902.) ]

Wilson, a man who “talked like Jesus Christ but acted like Lloyd George,” was no dreamer. “Making the world safe for democracy” meant making it safe for American investment; that is to say, economic penetration and hegemony. Wilson understood that, just as in sports, a friendly competition in business can often end up in a fight. Not being the sort to believe in universal socialism, Wilson's solution was to get nations to commit to binding arbitration.

From a practical perspective, it was not a bad idea. Once nations realized that the economic, physical and human devastations of war outweighed any disputed economic interest they would commit to loosing one dispute today in order to win another tomorrow. Fail safe? No. Better than the alternative? Yes. And in fact, although the first attempt ended in failure, post 1945 the international community has indeed put in place a plethora of international supervisory institutions and mechanisms for arbitation. Thus, it was not pie-in-the-sky, back in 1990 when people hoped for a peace dividend by brining Russia in from the cold.

But the American Neocons would have none of it. From Pentagon planning groups, to conservative think tanks, to national security advisors, the niebelungen of the military-industrial complex pushed for more military spending and more confrontation in identified “problem” areas around the world. The geopolitical goal was distilled by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his The Grand Chessboard.

"In brief," he writes, "the U.S. policy goal must be unapologetically twofold: to perpetuate America's own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still; and to create a geopolitical framework that can absorb the inevitable shocks and strains of social-political change .... Th[e] huge, oddly shaped Eurasian chessboard -- extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok -- provides the setting for 'the game,"

Far more sophisticated than the average Neocon Neanderthal, Brzezinski talked out of both times of his mouth. At times he sings the swan song of mutual cooperation with American being a sort of avuncular first among equals.

'If the middle space can be drawn increasingly into the expanding orbit of the West (where America preponderates), if the southern region is not subjected to domination by a single player, and if the East is not unified in a manner that prompts the expulsion of America from its offshore bases, America can then be said to prevail. But if the middle space rebuffs the West, becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor, then America's primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically.''

More often he is the hardnosed brutalist:

“"How America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions” and "It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.”

"Managing Eurasia" remains the lynchpin of American stragegy. As per the National Defense Strategy Doctrine of 2018:

“The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia....” etc.

There is no reason not to take these people at their word. They were not writing for the Ladies Book Club. They were writing to and for themselves as the managers of U.S. economic, political and military strategy. When they say that America has to be the top dog; that its zone's of influence should be “secured and extended,” that its “security perimeter” should be pushed “eastward.” They mean it. And when the geopolitical facts on the ground incrementally reflect those goals, then you know they are achieving them.

At all times in history, “crises” are presented to the public as suddenly arising emergencies. But they are not. Ukraine is a perfect example. To the American and Western public, Russia's invasion of the Ukraine is portrayed as arising ex nihilo... the acts of a “deranged” and “isolated” despot. And, of course, being so portrayed who cannot but support the brave Ukrainians defending their homeland? But studiously absent from “liberal democratic coverage” has been any serious or (for that matter) truthful reporting or discussion on the overthrow of president Yanukovich in 2014 after he turned down paltry Western enticements in favour of closer trade ties with Russia, or on the five billion spent on the Ukraine by the U.S. in the previous decade, or on the situation in the Donbas, or on Western military equipping, assistance and advising, and joint military exercises with the Ukraine on Ukrainian soil. Was all of this just a hobby, for lack of anything else to do? Or does it have something to do with Brzezinski's argument that NATO had to be expanded and that the Ukraine was critical to America's geopolitical strategy and goals?

Of course, I understand and naturally support the Ukrainians defending their homeland. But I also understand why they are having to. Yes, the immediate cause is the Russian invasion. But the root cause was America's policy of domination and expansion; its blue-print for “21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept.”

But of all this, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany is evidently utterly ignorant. Out of the blue, in 2017, Putin became “frosty.” Steinmeir has no idea why. All he can manage is that Putin has lost all rationality and what “we are now experiencing” is a “brutal, entrenched warmonger.”

What we are experiencing is a president as toady for the party line dictated from elsewhere.


©

Pourquoi voter pour Le Pen a du sens pour la gauche

Jean Luc Mélanchon, le primus inter pares de la gauche française, a exhorté ses partisans à ne pas voter pour Marine Le Pen; mais il a ostensiblement omis d'approuver a Emmanuel Macron. Cela me semble être une position trop complaisant. Autant que je puisse évaluer la répartition électorale, une abstention (pour part du gauche) équivaut à un vote pour Macron. La gauche ne devrait pas se ceder a des piétés électorales; il devrait se demander carrément si voter pour Le Pen ou pour Macron cerait le meilleur résultat net. À mon avis, un vote pour Le Pen represent le meilleur d'un mauvais choix.

Alors que Marie Le Pen représent certains points de vue qui sont inacceptables a la gauche, à tout le moins, son election lâchera une période de flexibilité politique qui représenterait une rupture avec le statu quo et placera en jeux des opportunités pour bouger le économie politique vers des directions différentes.

Un Marcon réélu ne servira qu'à enraciner davantage la règle transnationale des banques et des grandes entreprises, et retranchera dans le béton l'économie de Moloch, qui sacrifie tout autre bien social sur l'autel de les “Quatre Echanges.”

Un peu de recul historique s'impose. Dans un article du Le Monde Diplomatique intitulé Une Capitalisme Hors de Control -Les Chantiers de la Démolition Sociale l'auteur, Serge Halimi, notait que lors d'une réunion de l'OCDE, il avait été recommandé "repenser toute la gamme de politiques economiques et sociales pour favoriser l'adaption aux modes de production de d'echange qui se font jour." L'OCDE a demandé "le démantelement du salair minimum, une flexibilité généralisé du travial et la mise a l'encan du secteur publique.... Pour obtenir un ajustement donné des salaires, il faudra un niveau plus élevé de chomage conjoncturel..." etc. etc.

L'article a été publié en juillet 1994.

Ce que l'article prouve, c'est que le capitalisme hors de contrôle est très en contrôle et qu'il poursuivra sans relâche ses (soi-disant) Quatre Conditionelles jusqu'à la fin la plus amère et jusqu'à la destruction complète de tout concept humain du société. On ne doit pas laissez se tromper par l'attrayante façade du "multiculturalisme" et de l'ipod-hip. Les forces derrière l'économie mondiale s'en foutent complètement de tout cela. Toute cette bonne sensation(goodfeel) est simplement ce que les Marines américains ont appelé le pogey bait. ... des appâtages pour les enfants et putains.

Macron est tout simplement le dernier en ligne à travailler pour un programme conçu depuis longtemps et qui n'a jamais divergé d'un pouce. La seule différence entre 1994 et 2022 est que les « interfaces gouvernementales » (sub nom États-nations) se sont devenues beaucoup plus aptes et orwelliennes à manipuler l'opinion publique et à censurer les opinions contraires au nom de la vérité factuelle et des “valeurs libérales démocrates”.

Comme Halimi l'a écrit "Un reve comme celui-la, ça se prépare. ... C'est purtant cette stratégie défaitiste que les gouvernements occidentaux appellent à poursuivre... [et] que chacun doit appliquer sous peine d'être taxé de 'demagogie' ou de 'populisme'."

Ce système paumé qui est incité principalement par les États-Unis, nous a conduit au bord de la catastrophe. Ne vous méprenez pas, les Shadows derriere la façade officiel sont tout à fait disposés à détruire la classe ouvrière, afin de détruire la Russie, afin de reconstruire leur régime sauvage de libre-échange d'une manière encore plus répressive et incontournable.

Je reconnais que le programme de Le Pen fait cruellement défaut sur les questions environnementales. Aussi elle ne parle pas suffisamment avers les injustices d'exploitation en Afrique qui sont à l'origine de l'émigration a l'exterieur.  Néanmoins, un vote pour Macron est la pire choix que quiconque à gauche puisse souhaiter. Bien mieux un vote pour quelqu'un qui qui bouleversera le statu quo parce que n'importe quel cours est meilleur a celui que nous suivons.

Why Voting for Le Pen makes Sense for the Left

Jean Luc Mélanchon, the primus inter pares of the French Left, has urged his followers not to vote for Marine Le Pen; but he pointedly failed to endorse Emmanuel Macron. This strikes me as a self-indulgent stance. As best I can assess the electoral breakdown, an abstention (on the left) is tantamount to a vote for Macron. The left should not engage in electoral pieties; it should ask itself squarely whether, from its point of view, a vote for Le Pen or for Macron is the better net bottom line. In my view, a vote for Le Pen is the better of a bad choice.

While Marine Le Pen may stand for some points of view which are unacceptable to the Left her election, if nothing else, will usher in a period of political flexibility; and that, in itself, is a good thing because it is departure from the status quo and offers opportunities to bend things one way or another.

A re-elected Marcon will serve only to further entrench the trans-national rule of banks and corporations, further encasing in concrete the Economy of Moloch, which sacrifices all other social good on the altar of the Four Trades.

A little bit of hisotrical perspective is called for. An article in Le Monde Diplomatique entitled Une Capitalisme Hors de Control -Les Chantiers de la Démolition Sociale, Serge Halimi noted that, at a meeting of the OCDE, it was recomended "repenser toute la gamme de politiques economiques et sociales pour favoriser l'adaption aux modes de production de d'echange qui se font jour." [to rethink the whole range of economic and social policies in order to promote an adaptation to emerging modes of production and exchange.] OCDE called for "le démantelement du salair minimum, une flexibilité généralisé du travial et la mise a l'encan du secteur publique.... Pour obtenir un ajustement donné des salaires, il faudra un ninveau pluse élevé de chomage conjoncturel..." etc. etc. [the dismantling of the minimum wage, general labor flexibility and the auctioning off of the public sector.... To obtain a given wage adjustment, a higher level of cyclical unemployment will be needed..." etc., etc.].

The article was published in July 1994.

What the article proves is that the Capitalisme Hors de Control is very much in control and that it will relentlessly pursue its so-called Four Freedoms to the very bitter end and to the complete destruction of any humane concept of society. Don't be misled by the attractive "multi-cultural" ipod-hip façade. The Shadows behind the Global Economy don't give a rat's ass about any of that. All that goodfeel is simply what U.S. Marines called pogey bait. ... candy for children and whores.

Macron is simply the latest puppet to work for a program long since conceived and which has never diverged an inch. The only difference between 1994 and 2022 is that the "government interfaces" (sub nom “member nation states”) have become far more adept and Orwellian at manipulating public opinion and censoring contrary views in the name of Factual-Truth and “Liberal Democratic Values.”

As Halimi wrote "Un reve comme celui-la, ça se prépare. C'est purtant cette stratégie défaitiste que les gouvernments occidentau apellent a poursuivre ... [et] que chacun doit répéter sous peine d'etre taxé de 'demagogie' our de 'populisme'." [A dream like this requires preparation. It is this defeatist strategy that Western governments call for to pursue ... [and] that everyone must repeat or else be accused of 'demagogy' or 'populism'."]

Halimi deserved the prophet award for 1994

This god-forsaken system, pushed primarily by the United States, has led us to the brink of catastrophe. Make no mistake, The Shadows are quite willing to destroy the working class, in order to destroy Russia, in order to entrench their savage free trade regime in an even more repressive and inescapable way.

I acknowledge that Le Pen's programme is unacceptably weak on environmental issues. She also speaks insufficiently about economic injustice in Africa which is the root cause of emigration from that continent. Nevertheless, a vote for Macron is the worst thing anyone on the Left could wish for. Far better a vote for someone who will reverse or simply confuse course, because any course is better than the one we are on.

David Brooks and the Cucumber of Equality

In an article that is stunning for its breadth of depravity, idiot David Brooks opines that Economic Globalization has given way to Culture Wars. Brooks begins by telling us that

Globalization was about the integration of worldviews, products, ideas and culture. There would be a global convergence around a set of universal values — freedom, equality, personal dignity, pluralism, human rights.

No it wasn't. It was all about trade, and trade is all about money. The so-called "Four Freedoms" of the free flow of "goods, services, capital and labour" was nothing but an restatement of the dynamic elements of capitalism. Liberal cultural values was simply pogey bait and dross.

It was sometimes assumed that nations all around the world would admire the success of the Western democracies and seek to imitate us. ... They would become more bourgeois, consumerist, peaceful — just like us.

Peaceful just like us? Just like Gulf War, Bosnia & Kosovo, No Fly War, Afghanistan, Iraq War ... The United States is so peaceful that its defence spending is more than the whole rest of the world's military spending combined.

Ukraine’s brave fight against authoritarian aggression is an inspiration in the West,

No it isn't. It is a tragedy instigated by the West which refused to acknowledge Russia's legitimate security concerns. (We have discussed this elsewhere.) Instead of cajoling the parties into a peaceful settlement, the "West" is fueling arms to the fire which may "screw Russia" but can only result in more misery, death and destruction to the Ukraine.

Brooks then goes on to observe that All manner of antiglobalization movements have arisen and that geopolitics is definitively moving against globalization. True, but why?

Hazarding a guess, Brooks opines "we probably put too much emphasis on the power of material forces like economics and technology."

By the "power of material forces" he means the "power of money." In other words we (the gentrified elites to which Brooks belongs) put too much emphasis on profit and growing its investment portfolios.

In contrast to these "we", Brooks then informs us that ordinary "human beings are powerfully driven by what are known as the thymotic desires."

Ooooh. "Thymotic desires." Jam! Brooks has obviously been reading Robert Kagan, the Neocon who defined "thumos" as "“a spiritedness and ferocity in defence of clan, tribe, city, or state." Actually, "thumos" is Ancient Greek for "spirited" or "animated" and it refers non-appetitive, non material values that get us... well... that get us motivated and worked up. According to Brooks, these value are:

1. "Great swaths of people feel looked down upon and ignored,...Perceiv[ing] diminishment as injustice and respond[ing] with aggressive indignation."

2. "Most people have a strong loyalty to their place and to their nation."

3. "People are driven by moral longings — by their attachment to their own cultural values." People are driven by moral longings — by their attachment to their own cultural values,

What is interesting here is how Brooks has hidden a poison pill in a muddle of words. It is true that most people have had a loyalty to their place and nation. It begins, actually, with "Honour thy father and mother." It is known as patrio-tism to father-land, as in the Welsh hymn "Land of Our Fathers." And not just people. Lions have loyalty to their pride and wolves to their pack. The Romans called it mos maiorum, the ways of our fathers which leads to, point three, moral longings and attachment to familiar cultural values.

There was no need for Brooks to get all expository here. The word nation derives from natio- to be born of. "Nation" is more than a boundary in space, a border. Maybe for Brooks that is all it is, but for most people the family and friends to which one is born into of a father in a place and time is the flesh and blood organism known as nation. That is why Aristotle says that the basic unit of the polis is the family, and the polis itself is a larger family. Of course it includes "cultural values" ... our "customs and usages", and these custom and usages also include concepts of right, wrong, customary, praisworthiness and acceptability. It seems strange that this should have to be laid out in analytical seriatim as if examining a frog on a plate.

Well OK... Brooks is telling most of us what most of us feel and know. Alright. But within the tendentious but otherwise commonplace observations, Brooks slips in the "thumos" of perceiving diminishment as injustice.

Perceiving? It is just a matter of subjective perceiving? You know the lowly folk getting all uppity in their aspirations and "responding with aggressive indignation." As perhaps in...

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel:

As he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

For a Christian, which Brooks most decidedly is not, diminishment of human beings IS injustice. Not subjectively, but objectively. That is why the Church's social doctrine is based on the Preferential Option of the Poor, which calls on us to UNdiminish our brother. And not just the Church, but capuchin monkeys as well. :)

Several years ago a study was done in which a group of capuchin monkeys were each paid a cucumber to do a task. One day without notice, at the end of the "work day" only half the monkeys got paid a cucumber. The other half got none. ALL MONKEYS -- paid and unpaid -- went nuts, threw the cucumbers at the humans and refused to work. It would seem that the perception of objective injustice is a thumotic desire that is deeply ingrained and not a "cultural artifact."

The point here is that within a contrived "anthropological" exposition of rather obvious human emotions and motivations, Brooks insinuates a nasty desparagement of the poor... whom he references as those who "perceive" that they are being diminished and respond like angry apes. When in fact the response of angry simians reflects an innate axiomatic moral principle.

Okay... so, apart from disparaging the "resentful poor," Brooks tells us that most people the world over are loyal to father, family and fatherland and feel at home with the familiar. He is perfectly right. It is the stuff of all noble sentiment.

I vow to Thee my country, all earthly things above
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

But... Brooks then assures us: "we in the West are complete cultural outliers, highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist and analytical. We focus on ourselves — our attributes, accomplishments and aspirations — over our relationships and social roles.”

In other words "we" in the West are self-absorbed, selfish pricks, who don't give a shit about relationships and who (not being the resentful poor) "probably put too much emphasis on the power of material forces" of money.

It's priceless. One of doyens of the Slime is telling his gaping and credulous gentrified readership that "We in the West" have no use for those "thymotic desires" of love of father, loyalty to fatherland, defence of family and service to God and Country, of longing to commit to something greater than ourselves, that in turn both shapes and reflects who we are.

No, no, no, no... Brooks proudly declares himself to be a stateless person. We in the West (or at least on the Upper West Side) want none of that. GIVE US OUR POLO PONIES!!!! (Or least our yachts and share rentals in the latest trendy vacation spots.)

It is from the heights of this weltanschauung that Brooks then mentions -- almost casually -- that "Global politics over the past few decades functioned as a massive social inequality machine. In country after country, groups of highly educated urban elites have arisen to dominate media, universities, culture and often political power. Great swaths of people feel looked down upon and ignored."

Well gee whiz. You don't say. Only they dont just "feel looked down upon" they ARE affirmatively oppressed, by those elites who dominate the tax code, manage the economy and daily and by the minute reap their asset appreciation off the backs of the working class. Great masses of people HATE you David Brooks, they really do. And what they hate most is that you are so debased and alienated from normal "thymotic" aspirations that you don't even perceive your aliented sin.

No. Instead, Brooks concludes, stating "what haunts me most is that this rejection of Western liberalism, individualism, pluralism, gender equality and all the rest is not only happening between nations but also within nations."

Does "economic equality" figure in with "all the rest"? Obviously not. What's important to Brooks is gender equality; not that equality which would tax his ass so that someone else might have affordable housing, free education, health care as a right, a living wage and a secure livable pension. No. That kind of Cucumber Equality is irrelevant to Mr. Brooks. Not once does the need for economic equality get mentioned except to say that we in the Upper "West" Side have rejected all that social solidarity stuff and to disparage those who go without as being resentful and angry. The feel-good mantra of "liberalism, individualism, pluralism" is simply the fig-leaf for a "massive social inequality machine." Brooks just told you that; and, worse yet, he regrets that people are rejecting the machine.

I don't know if that day will ever come, but when it does, there will be a place reserved for David Brooks on the Place de la Concorde.

©

Ah yes! Those Liberal Values ....

The New York Slime Confesses.

Back in 2017, the Flawless One decided to meddle in French politics by endorsing the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron. Saith Obama,

“And he is committed to a better future for the French people,” Obama added. “He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears,

"He has stood up for liberal values, he put forward a vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world. And he is committed to a better future for the French people. He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears.”

Ah yes... Liberal Values. That resounding gong and clanging cymbal of global corporatism, ever appealing to hope but never providing help.

So here we are five years later, and what does the New York Slime have to say about Macron's "better future"?

"Once elected, however, he quickly revealed what that meant in practice. Cutting taxes for the wealthy, shrinking the welfare state and hollowing out democracy, Mr. Macron drifted rightward, to the point of shocking some members of La République En Marche!, his party.

"Among Mr. Macron’s first decisions in office was the abolition of the wealth tax and a flat tax on capital income, which benefited the rich. At the same time he pursued a reduction in the housing allowance for the poor and a reduction in pensions for retirees. Halfway through his first year in power, he had become the “president of the rich.” The image stuck, burnished by his reform of labor law, which limited workers’ rights and weakened representative organizations, curtailment of unemployment benefits and diminution of employers’ social security contributions.

"Mr. Macron’s first term tended unmistakably to widen inequalities, as shown in surveys.

"Mr. Macron’s combination of neoliberalism and authoritarianism has deepened inequality, diminished the welfare state, weakened democracy and aggravated the mistrust of politics."

This is the same Forty Second Street Oracle that bitches about the "authoritarianism" of Orban, Erdogan or, for that matter, Putin. They are not capitalists?

As usual the Slime pulls a fast one. It would have you believe that it is the combination of authoritarianism with liberalism that deepens inequality. Absolutely not. You've been had. What deepens economic inequality, what weakens the welfare state is neoliberalism. Why? Because in the end that is what capitalism does. There are plenty of authoritarian regimes that have actually increased welfare and diminished economic inequality, although they might be politically repressive. The Slime just served you a glass of applange juice. Ugh.

The mish-mash is germane today not only with respect to the French election but also in light of the endless and treacly refrains we have heard in the past month on defending "liberal democracy" and about how Liberal Democracies are stepping up to the plate defending humanité etc. etc.

It is the cunning canard of liberalism that it has always wrapped itself in the most appealing verbiage. How can one complain about fraternité or pursuit of happiness or "the bell of freedom... the song of love between our brothers and our sisters a-a-all over this land" ?

It is impossible. At face value those values are wonderful and enticing things. But in the end, all the noble causes (and equally noble multi-cultural values) boil down to one thing: the pursuit of profit by the few.

The European Union has taken the cannard to its heights. It's resounding Four Freedoms -- the free movement of goods, services, capital and "people" (i.e. labor) -- is nothing more that the Rx for "free" (i.e. unrestrained) trade.

Of course prim puppets like von der Leyen dress up free movement of "people" as part of an Open Society without Borders or Prejudice where we all hug one another in the domicile of our choice according to affectional orientations of choice. But what "people" really refers to is simply a fungible labor pool. To make goods and service you need capital and labor. That is the fundamental recipe of capitalism, and capital is the pursuit of more capital; i.e. profit. And to make a profit you have to diminish costs; i.e. the value paid to labor.

And, wonderful to behold, Beethoven's magnificent Ninth Symphony chorale gets prostituted as the anthem of this this sordid agenda of trans-national money making

Ah yes!. Alle menschen werden Bruder...where the joy of profit abides!

Let me be clear. I believe in freedom. But I believe that liberté is tethered to fraternité ..not "in spirit" but in the flesh, and in terms of producing a common good for all. If the two goods are coupled, Liberté simply cannot mean the freedom to act to the detriment of your brother. An operative looking out for his own private good is not acting in a brotherly (i.e. social) fashion.

It is precisely the "absolutizing" of freedom as the highest good to which all other values are subordinated that the Four Freedoms proclaims. Nothing in the "free movement" of goods, services, capital and labor guarantees equality or economic security or any sense of community. The program only guarantees free trade, as such, as the highest good. Why? Because.

And then, to make up for this sterile commodification of human society the mavens of global corporatism, fill the void with the appealing but tangibly empty sounds of brotherhood.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding; and today the Slime just told you what was in the pudding of our "shared liberal values." They are not just reporting on the emptiness of Macron's promises; they are confessing the deceptive emptiness of their own gentrified liberal agenda.