We're Not Going To Get The Hang Of This Thing Before NHI Correct Our Overshoot

caityjohnstone |  We could have been so much more. We have the ability to create a healthy and harmonious world and collaborate to give everyone on earth everything they need, and instead we’re killing the biosphere while arguing about whether or not it’s anti-semitic to oppose an active genocide.

We could have peace on earth and move from competition-based systems to collaboration-based ones to maximize our creative and innovative potential and spend our existence exploring the outer universe and the universes within ourselves, and instead we’re ramping up brinkmanship between nuclear-armed states and arguing about whether or not it’s ethical to rain military explosives on a giant concentration camp full of children.

We have the technology to let every scientist on earth share ideas and information with each other around the world in real time in any language, and instead we’ve fractured scientific development into atomized little echo chambers of closely-guarded secrets in the name of profit generation and “national security”.

How did we get here? How were we duped into trading paradise on earth for this lunatic dystopia? How did we allow ourselves to give up everything our species has the capability to be in exchange for this nightmarish paradigm of endless ecocide and exploitation and oppression and war and militarism?

Near as I can tell, it’s ultimately because our species evolved these massive brains very quickly which we still haven’t learned how to use in a mature way, like a kid learning to ride a bicycle right after the training wheels have been removed. This has allowed us to dominate the planet while still ourselves being dominated by primitive fear-based impulses which were much better suited for our early evolutionary ancestors as they strived to survive the dangerous plains of Africa as small prey animals.

We develop egos in early childhood to help us feel safe and secure in a confusing world full of giants, which most of us go on to use in highly maladaptive ways throughout the remainder of our lives. Our psychology is riddled with cognitive biases, which the clever manipulators among us can use to dupe us into mass-scale behavior which benefits them rather than behaving in a way which benefits each other and our ecosystem.

The most clever of these manipulators are able to use their cleverness to rise to the top of our political, governmental, commercial and financial systems around the world, and they use increasingly sophisticated methods of propaganda to dupe the rest of us into moving in alignment with their will. And their will is not wise or intelligent; it’s driven by the same primitive fear-based impulses that the rest of the humans trapped in egoic consciousness are driven by.

So here we are. That’s why we now find ourselves in this profoundly dysfunctional civilization where the biosphere is treated like an enemy and human beings are treated like fuel and minds are being marinated in an increasingly vapid mainstream culture where everything is fake and stupid. That’s why we don’t have paradise on earth, and that’s why the bombs are falling on Gaza today.

But it is just a phase. A kid who’s learning to ride a bike doesn’t remain on wobbly wheels forever. Eventually we’ll get the hang of this thing. Eventually we’ll grow into these giant new brains of ours and become a conscious species.

Assuming we don’t wipe ourselves out first, of course.

The Empire Strikes Back!

thecradle  |  The catastrophic debacle of Project Ukraine and the revival of an intractable West Asian war are deeply intertwined. 

Beyond the fog of Washington's “worry” about Tel Aviv’s genocidal rampage, the crucial fact is that we are right in the thick of a war against BRICS 11.      

The Empire does not do strategy; at best, it does tactical business plans on the fly. There are two immediate tactics in play: a US Armada deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean – in a failed effort to intimidate Resistance Axis behemoths Iran and Hezbollah - and a possible Milei election in Argentina tied to his avowed promise to break Brazil-Argentina relations. 

So this is a simultaneous attack on BRICS 11 on two fronts: West Asia and South America. There will be no American efforts spared to prevent BRICS 11 from getting close to OPEC+. A key aim is to instill fear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as confirmed by Persian Gulf business sources.  

Even vassal leaders at the OIC show would have been aware that we are now deep into The Empire Strikes Back. That also largely explains their cowardice. 

They know that for the Hegemon, multipolarity equals “chaos,” unipolarity equals “order,” and malign actors equal   “autocrats” - such as the new Russian-Chinese-Iranian “Axis of Evil” and anyone, especially vassals, that opposes the “rules-based international order.” 

And that brings us to a tale of two ceasefires. Tens of millions across the Global Majority are asking why the Hegemon is desperate for a ceasefire in Ukraine while flatly refusing a ceasefire in Palestine. 

Freezing Project Ukraine preserves the Ghost of Hegemony just a little bit longer. Let's assume Moscow would take the bait (it won’t). But to freeze Ukraine in Europe, the Hegemon will need an Israeli win in Gaza - perhaps at any and all costs - to maintain even a vestige of its former glory. 

But can Israel achieve victory any more than Ukraine can? Tel Aviv may have already lost the war on 7 October as it can never regain its facade of invincibility. And if this transforms into a regional war that Israel loses, the US will lose its Arab vassals overnight, who today have a Chinese and Russian option waiting in the wings. 

The Roar of the Street is getting louder - demanding that the Biden administration, now seen as complicit with Tel Aviv, halt the Israeli genocide that may lead to a World War. But Washington will not comply. Wars in Europe and West Asia may be its last chance (it will lose) to subvert the emergence of a prosperous, connected, peaceful Eurasia Century.

The catastrophic debacle of Project Ukraine and the revival of an intractable West Asian war are deeply intertwined. 

Beyond the fog of Washington's “worry” about Tel Aviv’s genocidal rampage, the crucial fact is that we are right in the thick of a war against BRICS 11.      

The Empire does not do strategy; at best, it does tactical business plans on the fly. There are two immediate tactics in play: a US Armada deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean – in a failed effort to intimidate Resistance Axis behemoths Iran and Hezbollah - and a possible Milei election in Argentina tied to his avowed promise to break Brazil-Argentina relations. 

So this is a simultaneous attack on BRICS 11 on two fronts: West Asia and South America. There will be no American efforts spared to prevent BRICS 11 from getting close to OPEC+. A key aim is to instill fear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as confirmed by Persian Gulf business sources.  

Even vassal leaders at the OIC show would have been aware that we are now deep into The Empire Strikes Back. That also largely explains their cowardice. 

They know that for the Hegemon, multipolarity equals “chaos,” unipolarity equals “order,” and malign actors equal   “autocrats” - such as the new Russian-Chinese-Iranian “Axis of Evil” and anyone, especially vassals, that opposes the “rules-based international order.” 

And that brings us to a tale of two ceasefires. Tens of millions across the Global Majority are asking why the Hegemon is desperate for a ceasefire in Ukraine while flatly refusing a ceasefire in Palestine. 

Freezing Project Ukraine preserves the Ghost of Hegemony just a little bit longer. Let's assume Moscow would take the bait (it won’t). But to freeze Ukraine in Europe, the Hegemon will need an Israeli win in Gaza - perhaps at any and all costs - to maintain even a vestige of its former glory. 

But can Israel achieve victory any more than Ukraine can? Tel Aviv may have already lost the war on 7 October as it can never regain its facade of invincibility. And if this transforms into a regional war that Israel loses, the US will lose its Arab vassals overnight, who today have a Chinese and Russian option waiting in the wings. 

The Roar of the Street is getting louder - demanding that the Biden administration, now seen as complicit with Tel Aviv, halt the Israeli genocide that may lead to a World War. But Washington will not comply. Wars in Europe and West Asia may be its last chance (it will lose) to subvert the emergence of a prosperous, connected, peaceful Eurasia Century.

Wernher Von Braun's Assistant Dr. Carol Rosin Burst My Whole And Complete UAP Disclosure Bubble...,

sourcewatch  |  "The Founder for the Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space, ISCOS. World Peace Ambassador, International Association of Educators for World Peace, IAEWP (NGO, UN-ECOSOC)

"An educator, international speaker, author, consultant to Space Age technology development projects, a space and missile defense consultant, future manufacturing technology forecasting consultant for sustainable living on earth and in space, Dr. Rosin advises decision makers and others about applications of technology and information services for human needs, environment, new energy, and peace and security, health and prosperity for all on earth and in space.

"Co-authored the Outer Space Security and Development Treaty draft with distinguished colleagues: Apollo Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell; Commander Will Miller, US Navy (Ret.); Dr, Abe Krieger, 37 year Boeing executive; Dr. C.B. Scott Jones, military/intelligence and Senior Advisor to Sen. Claiborne Pell; supported by the Hon. Paul Hellyer, former Minister of Defense of Canada. This Treaty is posted in several languages with bios on http://www.peaceinspace.com Dr. Rosin is Consultant to the Treaty Project that is A Project of P.E.A.C.E. Inc., the Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth, a 501-C-3 founded by Dr. C.B. Scott Jones. Currently working to get this Treaty signed and ratified into law.

• First woman executive in an aerospace company, Corporate Manager of Fairchild Industries
• With the late Dr. Wernher von Braun, visionary and “father of rocketry,” founded the national award-winning “It’s Your Turn…” program...
• Spokesperson for the late rocket scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun, presenting his peace on earth and in space vision for local through global uses and applications of space age technology and information applied directly to solving urgent and potential challenges of human needs, the environment, and energy as humans evolve and learn from living, working, touring and traveling in space (without space-based weapons). First speech for von Braun was to 18,000 people at a National Education Association conference in 1974 demonstrating LIVE how satellites can be used as teaching tools worldwide
• Founder, Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space, ISCOS, 1983-Present. The original Board included Honorary Chairman, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Dr. Issac Assimov, Dr. Buckminister (Bucky) Fuller, Attorney Daniel Sheehan, the late Dr. Rashmi Mayur, Advisory Board Chairman, Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell (sixth man on the moon), and many other respected experts. Brought over 100 people to the UN Second Special Session on the Peaceful Uses and Exploration of Outer Space in 1982 to stand for no space-based weapons. Started the movement to “Stop Star Wars,” the “Leaky Umbrella Campaign,” the “Save Outer Space, SOS Campaign,” involving approximately 50 million people
• Advisor to the New Energy Movement to encourage the research and development of new clean and safe alternative energy sources via project development and management in various countries
• Official Advisor to the Peoples Republic of China on alternatives to missile defense and on applications of space technology in China. China and Russia have proposed a ban on all space-based weapons
• Witness in the Disclosure Project at the National Press Club, May, 2001. Advisor to the Exopolitics Institute
• Started the global movement to prevent the weaponizaton of space, the Stop Star Wars, Leaky Umbrella Campaign, Campaign to Save Outer Space (SOS Campaign), which some estimate to have involved over 50 million people. Appeared on numerous speaking platforms and media productions with members of the military industrial complex discussing feasible alternative technology programs that can replace dangerous, too costly, polluting, destabilizing weapons programs including a new form of missile defense based on cooperative information and technology application sharing for sustainable healthy living on earth as humans evolve into the universes
• Initiated the first USSR-USA military-to-military meeting. Initiated the trip of the first NINE US Senators to the USSR
• Consultant and/or speaker to numerous organizations, industries and military and government agencies including TRW on the Time Management Money system for the Space Shuttle, MX missile and weather satellites, IBM Europe, Walt Disney Productions on the creation of Space and Future Worlds at Disneyworld, General Electric, World Future Society, National Space Institute, Central Intelligence Agency, the US Space Foundation, the US Space Command and many international audiences.
• Space and Conversion Advisor to Presidential Candidate Reverend Jesse Jackson who introduced Rosin’s Space Development Initiative, SDI, to replace the Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI. Advised and briefed other presidential candidates, members of Congress, and other international dignitaries
• Initiated the first legislation to stop anti-satellite (ASAT) testing with Congressman Les AuCoin, created the first legislation to ban all space-based weapons with Congressman Joe Moakley and Sen. Tom Harkin, and initiated the first bill that had a companion Treaty to ban space-based weapons with Congressman Dennis Kucinich and the Hon. Paul Hellyer, former Minister of Defense, in Canada
• Founder of the original World Entrepreneur Association to encourage integrity based new entrepreneurial businesses and training programs. Consults to businesses, government representatives, students, leaders and community organizations about possible new jobs and profits, products and services, technologies and information applied to better life in sustainable communities and regions
• Miscellaneous: Space Consultant to Buckminister Fuller’s World Game, entertainment producer for LeCarpentier Stuart Productions, General in the First Earth Battalion, ski instructor, skating champion
• As an example of a non-space-based weapons business in space, organized the launch into space of Dr. Leary’s cremated remains that flew from US Vandenberg Air Force Base to Madrid then to the Canary Islands, Spain to be launched into space by Celestis, Inc,, (with the ashes of friends: rocket scientist Dr. Kraft Ericke; space physicist Dr. Gerard O'Neill; founder of the International Space University Todd Hawley, and with cremated remains of Star Trek TV series creator Gene Roddenberry ^[1]

Sergei Lavrov Said U.S. And NATO Seeking A Russian "Final Solution"

mid.ru  |   I will not speak now about the West’s actions in other geopolitical areas. Today we regard the policies of the US and the West as a whole as the main problem creating difficulties in all areas. In short, this is what it means. Washington’s policy of dictate in international affairs means precisely that the Americans can do anything anywhere they want, even at the other end of the Earth.  They do what they think is necessary. All other countries cannot do anything without the US’s approval, even in response to direct security threats the US creates on their borders.

Like Napoleon, who mobilised nearly all of Europe against the Russian Empire, and Hitler, who occupied the majority of European countries and hurled them at the Soviet Union, the United States has created a coalition of nearly all European member states of NATO and the EU and is using Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia with the old aim of finally solving the “Russian question,” like Hitler, who sought a final solution to the “Jewish question.”

Western politicians – not only from the Baltics and Poland but also from more reasonable countries – say that Russia must be dealt a strategic defeat. Some political analysts write about decolonising Russia, that our country is too big and “gets in the way.” The other day I read an item in The Telegraph that called for liberating Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, while leaving Karelia, Koenigsberg and the Kuril Islands for negotiations. Of course, it is a tabloid, but we have to read yellow sheets because they sometimes make headline news.

Quite a few such statements have been made, including in our non-system opposition. No Western politician has refuted them. President of France Emmanuel Macron, who proposed creating a European Political Community as a format which all European countries apart from Russia and Belarus will be invited to join, has also suggested convening a conference of European states. He suggested that it should be open for the EU member states, Eastern Partnership countries (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), as well as Moldova and Ukraine. I doubt that Belarus will be invited. The potential participants as the EU states and Eastern Partnership countries, plus – note this - politically active emigres from Russia. It has been said (not in Macron’s presentation but in subsequent comments) that some Russian regions, which are trying to maintain ties with Europe, could be invited as well. I believe that everything is clear. It is not a black-and-white situation, contrary to what our Western colleagues claim; it reflects their strategy of global domination and unconditional suppression of all countries on pain of punishment.

The Western politicians are talking only about sanctions. Ursula von der Leyen has recently said in Davos that new sanctions will be imposed on Russia and Belarus, that they know which sanctions to adopt to strangle the Russian economy and cause it decades of regression. This is what they want. They have shown their true colours. For many years, UN Security Council members discussed sanctions against countries that violated international law or their obligations. And every time the Western countries that initiated such measures promised that the sanctions would not harm the people but would be targeted at the “regime.” What became of their promises?

They openly say that sanctions against Russia are designed to incite the people to rise in a revolution to overthrow the current leaders. Nobody is observing or intends to observe proprieties any longer. But their reaction and frenzied attempts to ensure, by hook or by crook, by any foul means possible, the domination of the US and the West, which Washington has already brought to heel, is proof that, historically, they are acting contrary to the objective course of events by trying to stop the rise of a multipolar world. Such change does not happen on orders from the high offices on the Potomac or in any other capital, but for natural reasons.

European People vs. European Politicians On Russia - Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

German FM: I will put Ukraine first “no matter what my German voters think” or how hard their life gets. pic.twitter.com/GwAqIZ2jL7

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) August 31, 2022

Telegraph  |  Britain is now in grave danger of falling into Vladimir Putin’s trap. His kamikaze economic war on the West will eventually take down his disgusting coterie of war criminals, but in the meantime it is beginning to inflict immense, permanent damage on the Western way of life, to the great delight of Moscow’s siloviki hard men.

We risk ending up with calamitous poverty, civil disobedience, a new socialist government by next year, a break-up of the UK, nationalisations, price and incomes policies, punitive wealth taxes and eventually a complete economic and financial meltdown and IMF bailout. The situation in the EU is, if anything, worse.

This is not a plea for pacifism, for looking away when Ukraine is being illegally invaded by a savage regime. Britain was – and remains – morally right to back Ukraine in a carefully calibrated way. Instead, this is a plea for an economic counter-offensive, for Liz Truss, the next PM, to tackle Putin’s economic and energy war head-on.

Mass, immediate intervention is inevitable, but must be designed to avoid hastening Britain’s shift into demagoguery, welfarism and socialist central planning, all steps down Hayek’s “road to serfdom” that the Leftist and green elites are longing us to take. The wrong response – because too little is done, or because the wrong solutions are chosen – would merely advance Putin’s masterplan to cripple the West.

Cheap and plentiful energy is essential to our consumerist societies. We cannot be delusional about the scale of the developing catastrophe. Household energy and vehicle fuel costs will jump from 4.5 per cent of household spending in early 2021 to some 13.4 per cent by April next year, much higher than at any time during the past 50 years, including the 1970s, according to Carbon Brief. Households may face a rise in energy costs of £167 billion, or 7 per cent of GDP, taking total expenditure to £231 billion, more than government spending on health, and that is before the hit to business is accounted for. The rise for consumers alone is more than the combined defence and education budgets.

This is equivalent to a Depression-style shock. Pay rises will protect some workers at the expense of investors, but – until and unless energy prices fall again – our national living standards will slump massively. The nation is sending tens of billions more abroad to pay for energy imports.

The state can borrow to cushion the blow, reducing future consumption to prop up current living standards, but our impoverishment cannot be magicked away. Coming after years of QE, there is a real danger of excess borrowing triggering even higher inflation, rocketing interest rates, mass repossessions and a banking crisis, so caution is imperative.

There was little the West could do other than rely on hostile Opec nations in the 1970s, the last time an energy war almost destroyed us; but it was an unforgivable error for Europe to become so reliant on Russian supplies, and to fail so miserably to increase domestic energy production. The French even allowed their nuclear plants to break down.

Putin struck at the right time: the zombified Western economy was in the doldrums. Covid was a disaster of unpreparedness and errors, increasing national debts and inflation and entrenching a dependency culture. But the Russian tyrant’s canniest move was to understand just how suicidal our energy policy had become. A toxic brew of net zero ideology, deep hypocrisy about decarbonising without making the nuclear effort, endemic nimbyism, short-termism and state incompetence had radically weakened the West.

Globo-Fascist Neo-Nazis Strongly Disapprove Of The Old-Fashioned Nationalist Kind...,

FP  |   Modi’s BJP government is also undercutting India’s institutions in unprecedented ways. It has made a mockery of India’s rich tradition of civil liberties by charging activists and dissidents with crimes under colonial-era laws. One egregious example is the case of left-wing activists detained under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for alleged links to Maoist groups and allegedly fomenting riots. One of the accused, lifelong Jesuit activist Rev. Stan Swamy, died in custody last year. Furthermore, Modi and the BJP have co-opted much of the media and important private sector actors. Journalists have faced intimidation and harassment; prominent nongovernmental organizations have been cut off from foreign funding while others can receive overseas money only into accounts with a government-owned bank.

Unfortunately, the most important lessons from the independence movement seem to be lost on India’s contemporary leaders, as shown by their approach to religious pluralism and democratic institutions. Although India’s leading revolutionaries were committed to nonviolence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims marred the independence movement. These tensions pulled the British Raj apart, and two new countries emerged in its place: India and Pakistan. This week also marks the anniversary of the Partition of India, which triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters as Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were forced to flee in different directions across the new border. A few months later, India and Pakistan went to war over the status of Jammu and Kashmir—a disagreement that still plagues the subcontinent.

In the face of these tensions, India and Pakistan’s leaders charted opposing courses. India’s leaders advanced a progressive and modern vision for their new country, eschewing a national Hindu religion in favor of a secular identity. They worked hard to minimize religious tensions by speaking against communal strife and promoting religious protections. When Gandhi was assassinated in 1948—for supposedly being a supplicant to the Muslim community—his political heirs continued to push for a liberal vision of India. Working with the opposition, they produced a constitution that enshrined a liberal and secular democracy that remains in force today.

On the other hand, Pakistan struggled. The country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, led the Muslim League that split from the Indian National Congress. But he was rarely clear in his vision for Pakistan: There is some evidence that he wanted a secular state, but he also called for an Islamic republic. When Jinnah died in 1948, he left behind a political mess. Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister, rejected amendments offered by the opposition in his own founding document, which became a precursor to the country’s 1956 constitution that gave Islam its pride of place in the project of Pakistan. By turning to communalism, Pakistan has suffered as political actors stir religious tensions to benefit their own ends. Without credible institutions or norms that allow political differences to be resolved, the country has not been able to maintain political order.

Modi’s speech reflects how he and the BJP appear to embrace some of these traits. By lionizing fringe actors from the independence movement—including those who exacerbated religious tensions—they are rewriting history to suit their own political agenda. They have undermined civil liberties and shown basic disregard for political opposition. Taking a page from Jinnah’s book, Modi has ensured that any substantive decision must come through him. Such a system may work in the short term, but what happens when Modi is no longer prime minister?

The contrast with then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s epic “A Tryst With Destiny” speech, delivered on Aug. 14, 1947, couldn’t be starker. Nehru said he sought to “bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic, and progressive nation.” Most poignantly, he highlighted that India’s religious pluralism was integral to the newly founded country: “All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India, with equal rights, privileges, and obligations.”

India’s Independence Day has traditionally provided an opportunity to reflect on the horrors of colonialism and the dangers of religious discord while also celebrating the vibrance of the country’s democracy. Modi’s speech this week reflects the departure that India’s contemporary leaders have made from these foundational values.

WW-II Never Ended - But Its Historical Narrative Is Controlled By The "Victor(s)"....,

gilbertdoctorow  |  To be sure, the demand that all Russians be barred from Europe as punishment for their war on Ukraine has not met with universal approval within the EU. Even Germany came out against the initiative, with Scholz saying that exceptions must be made for humanitarian reasons. Others have debated the legality under EU law of such generalized prohibitions directed at an entire population.  But the debate rages on.

Finally, a statement made yesterday by Latvian President Egils Levits got the full attention of Moscow. He said that Russian-speaking residents of Latvia should be ‘isolated from society’ if they oppose his government’s policies with respect to the war in Ukraine.  Just what is meant by “isolate” is not clear. Does Levits intend to intern them in concentration camps?  Given the absolute failure of Latvia to respect EU human rights norms going back from the first days of the country’s independence from the USSR in 1991, such an atrocity would not be out of character.

I have dealt with precisely this issue in essays going back to 2014 which were included in my collection Does Russia Have a Future?:  see chapter 22 “Latvia’s 300,000 Non-Citizens and the Ukrainian Crisis Today” and chapter 33 “Latvia’s failed U.S. inspired policies towards Russia and Russians.” I further explored these issues in my 2019 book A Belgian Perspective on International Relations, chapter38 “Republic of Latvia, Apartheid State Within the EU.” 

The point is that upon achieving independence thanks to the active support of many of its Russian-speaking citizenry, the government of Latvia turned around and stripped 400,000 of them of their citizenship, close to 40% of the total population at the time, and offered them a path to regain passports that only a tiny fraction of them could follow.  When President Levits speaks today of Russian-speaking “residents” of Latvia, he has in mind those who were deprived of civil rights including passports and remain stateless up to the present time.  Everything that Latvia did to its Russian-speaking population going back 30 years set the precedents for Kiev’s repressive policies towards its own 40% who are Russian speakers after the nationalists from Lvov came to power in 2014.

These various developments were the main topic for discussion in yesterday’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov political talk show, which stood out as especially valuable.  Although I have made reference to this particular talk show frequently over the years as a good source of information about what Russia’s political and social elites are thinking, I freely acknowledge that the presenter cannot and does not fill every program with material and panelists worth listening to.  Indeed, there is a lot of sludge on air between the gems. By ‘sludge’ I mean the kind of ‘kitchen talk’ in which expert panelists talk the same non-facts-based drivel that ordinary Russians will engage in when they follow the principle of socializing described by Chekhov in Act Two of The Three Sisters:  “They are not serving us tea, so let’s philosophize.”

In any case, last night’s Solovyov was definitely worth listening to. The question of neo-Nazism in Europe was the glue binding together different elements of the discussion, ranging from Levits’ obnoxious declaration of the same day to the fate of ordinary Russians in Kazakhstan and Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and what to do about all of these challenges to the Russian World.

The overriding point was that the Russophobia and ‘cancel Russian culture’ movements that have swept Europe during 2022 mean that Russians are the Jews of today. They are what the Hitlerites called Untermenschen, against whom all manner of rights violations if not outright murder can be practiced. This arises in its worst form in Ukraine, where Russians as a people are systematically dehumanized in statements from the top leadership of the country.  In Ukraine, the ultra-nationalists call Russians “Colorado,” a reference to the bugs that infest potato crops. These insects carry the orange and black colors of the St George’s ribbons that patriotic Russians wear. This is the same logic that made possible the biological weapons attack on Russian soldiers in the Zaporozhie that was carried out last week by Ukrainian forces, sending the victims to intensive care treatment for botulism poisoning. That development probably did not get coverage in your daily newspaper.

The conversation on Solovyov was particularly interesting in the ‘what is to be done’ segment. Acknowledging that a ‘special military operation’ against Latvia is not practicable yet given Latvia’s membership in NATO, a panelist who heads the State Duma committee on relations with the Former Soviet Union states, said that those Russians who profited from the transit business between Russia and Latvia for decades should now pay up and contribute financially to relocating the Russian speakers in Riga to the Russian Federation, meaning providing good housing and jobs that till now were never on offer to incentivize immigration. A fellow panelist broadened the proposed assistance to suggest a government program of resettlement modeled on what Israel did some decades ago to facilitate the relocation of certain Black African Jews from their country of persecution to the State of Israel.  And it was suggested that similar relocation offers should be extended to Russian speakers in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries where they have all been second class citizens since these countries became independent of the USSR.

The Dutch Farmers Revolt Is About Failed Ukrainian Skullduggery - Not Climate Goals

John Helmer has an excellent article on the MH 17 "trial" in Holland and the Dutch farmers' revolt. He traces the latter to the failure of Dutch agribusiness plans to colonise ukraine and export its production, employing cheap Ukrainian labour. And, of course, being given the land cheaply.

"...Dutch analysts accuse Rutte of a Ukrainian boomerang: the calculation was for Dutch agroindustries to invest in Ukrainian farmland and crops with cheap labour and weak environmental controls, with the dividends to flow back to The Netherlands in cash. The Russian special military operation has killed that plan; instead, the Dutch died in MH17 and Ukrainian migrants are now moving into the country to take up state money and drive the farmers off their land..."

The real beneficiaries of the Russian special military operation are going to be the people of Ukraine whose government is intent on selling the nation's birthright for a few billion delivered to offshore accounts.  ...here's the link:

 

Musical Chairs On The Deck Of The Titanic BEEN Underway For A Minute Now...,

theintercept | Before he walked into the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, on a mission to murder as many innocent Black shoppers as he could, 18-year-old Payton Gendron posted a rambling manifesto online outlining his motives.

His reasoning was familiar from other far-right shooters: This country isn’t going to be resource-rich enough for everyone in the future, so a race war over what is left is necessary today. However heinous, this vision of a bleak, impoverished future, in which there is not enough wealth to go around and the environment is near collapse, is motivating an ever-growing number of young men like him to carry out racist massacres across the West.

People who commit acts of terrorism tend to act for more than one reason. The racist hatred of Gendron toward Black Americans, Jews, and immigrants was ultimately what made his murders possible. For that, many are to blame, including far-right politicians and talking heads who have continued to wink at the “great replacement” as being the true source of white Westerners’ troubles.

Addressing this violence, though, also requires considering the role of scarcity — not a conspiracy theory, but a very real system of extreme inequality and ecological destruction. It is a system in which the most wealthy and powerful continue to see their wealth and power grow — at the expense of the masses. Faced with actual strained resources and environmental calamity, some of these forsaken people are turning to dark fantasies like the “great replacement theory” to make sense of it all.

This is not just about a toxic media ecosystem, but the larger way we have organized our lives in the West. This organizational structure could go by many names — neoliberalism, consumer capitalism, exploitation — but there can be little doubt that the pessimism it engenders is leading many young people into nihilism.

Kathy Hochul's Ruinous Economic Policies More To Blame For Buffalo Shooting Than Social Media

NYPost |  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul slammed social media platforms in the wake of the livestreamed mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday.

Payton Gendron, 18, allegedly was recording with a camera affixed to his helmet and broadcasting to Twitch when he killed 10 people in a racially-motivated attack at a Tops Friendly Market, police and reports said.

Hochul said social media outlets need to crack down on content concerning white supremacy and other dangerous ideologies and found it inexcusable that Gendron’s graphic stream wasn’t taken down “within a second.”

“These outlets must be more vigilant in monitoring social media content. And certainly, the fact that this act of barbarism, this execution of innocent human beings could be livestreamed on social media platforms and not taken down within a second, says to me that there is a responsibility out there,” Hochul, a Buffalo native, told reporters at a press conference Saturday night.

“And we’re going to continue to work on this and make sure that those who provide these platforms have a moral and ethical, and I hope to have a legal responsibility to ensure that such hate cannot populate these sites, because this is the result,” she said.

Law enforcement officials said that Gendron drove three and a half hours from his home in Conklin in Broome County to the Buffalo supermarket — which is located in a predominantly black neighborhood.

Reportedly armed with multiple weapons and tactical body armor, Gendron opened fire in the grocery store parking lot before shooting more victims inside. Of the 13 people he shot, 11 were black and two were white.

A Twitch spokesperson told The Post the streaming service “has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents.”

When The State Decides You Are The Enemy They Can Do Whatever They Want To You

ianwelsh |   Everyone remember the Panama papers? A leak of bank records showing that the ultra-rich are hiding massive wealth, tax-free and often breaking the law to do so?

A rather weak set of laws designed to allow tax avoidance by rich people, at that.

Found out the other day that the reporter who broke the Panama Papers story was killed by a car bomb.

Coincidence, no doubt.

You may recall the Ferguson protests, started after another black man was killed by a cop. They were a big deal.

Since then six of the Ferguson protest leaders have died: two inside burnt cars, three by suicide, one an overdose.

Coincidence, no doubt.

Then there was a high ranked pimp, who flew important men like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and Prince Andrew in his private jet and provided under-age women for sex. The first time he was indicted he was let off because the prosecutor was told to back off, as he belonged to intelligence. The second time, influence not having worked, he “committed suicide” in prison.

I used to work in life insurance. There’s an adage, backed up by lots of studies, that people who are worth more dead than alive tend to die a lot more than the actuarial tables would suggest for someone of their age and health.

Coincidence, no doubt.

The simplest fact of modern life is elites kill and impoverish other people in order to make money and secure their power. You are seeing it in the pandemic, where Billionaire wealth has spiked 60% and vaccine companies refuse to share their “intellectual property” while planning to sell Covid booster shots in perpetuity. Actually wiping out Covid would close pharma money, but if it stays around, it’s golden.

Meanwhile, all the small and medium businesses closing has lead to a vast buying opportunity for those with lots of money, and private equity is moving big into buying up distressed homes.

It’s just business, baby. Your death, or homelessness, well, it’s someone else’s profit opportunity.

Once The Shine Of Trust Is Off Authoriteh - Its Mob Tactics Become Plain For All To See

 LATimes |  On paper, the deputies are scattered around the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in various assignments. One is supposed to be working patrol in Lancaster, another in West Hollywood. A third is assigned to a gang crime unit.

In reality, though, the group of nine men and women make up a little-known team of investigators formed by Sheriff Alex Villanueva and other top sheriff’s officials.

Much of what they do, by design, is a mystery to the public and even to most within the department. But as some of the investigations handled by the team have come to light, a common thread has emerged: Their targets are outspoken critics of Villanueva or the department.

The unit, named the Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail, has pursued a long-running investigation into one of Villanueva’s most vocal critics, L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman, and others despite sheriff’s officials being told by the FBI and state law enforcement officials that it appeared no crimes had been committed, a senior sheriff’s official said.

The team also has an open criminal inquiry into a nonprofit that is run by a member of a county board that oversees the sheriff and is associated with county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, both of whom have clashed fiercely with Villanueva and called for his resignation.

Concern over the team has caused consternation both inside and outside the department. Even the union representing rank-and-file deputies put out a warning that a member of the detail was using “unconventional tactics” to question deputies. 

George Gascón, the county’s district attorney, decided he wanted nothing to do with the unit after sheriff’s officials proposed the two agencies create a task force to collaborate on public corruption investigations.

“He’s only targeting political enemies,” Gascón told The Times about Villanueva. “It was obvious that was not the kind of work I wanted to engage in, so we declined.”

Shortly after Gascón refused to partner with the Sheriff’s Department, Villanueva came out as a strong supporter of a recall campaign to kick the district attorney out of office.

The unit has spurred a bitter confrontation between Villanueva and the Civilian Oversight Commission, which oversees the sheriff and his agency. Commission members say they fear the sheriff is using it to intimidate people who challenge him and to score points in personal vendettas, not conduct legitimate inquiries into possible crimes.

Tribal Animosity Fuels The Insatiable Social Media Dopamine Buzz....,

pnas |  There has been growing concern about the role social media plays in political polarization. We investigated whether out-group animosity was particularly successful at generating engagement on two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter. Analyzing posts from news media accounts and US congressional members (n = 2,730,215), we found that posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language—both established predictors of social media engagement. Language about the out-group was a very strong predictor of “angry” reactions (the most popular reactions across all datasets), and language about the in-group was a strong predictor of “love” reactions, reflecting in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. This out-group effect was not moderated by political orientation or social media platform, but stronger effects were found among political leaders than among news media accounts. In sum, out-group language is the strongest predictor of social media engagement across all relevant predictors measured, suggesting that social media may be creating perverse incentives for content expressing out-group animosity.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, a Facebook research team warned the company in 2018 that their “algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.” This research was allegedly shut down by Facebook executives, and Facebook declined to implement changes proposed by the research team to make the platform less divisive (1). This article is consistent with concerns that social media might be incentivizing the spread of polarizing content. For instance, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has expressed concern about the popularity of “dunking” (i.e., mocking or denigrating one’s enemies) on the platform (2). These concerns have become particularly relevant as social media rhetoric appears to have incited real-world violence, such as the recent storming of the US Capital (3). We sought to investigate whether out-group animosity was associated with increased virality on two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter.

A growing body research has examined the potential role of social media in exacerbating political polarization (4, 5). A large portion of this work has centered on the position that social media sorts us into “echo chambers” or “filter bubbles” that selectively expose people to content that aligns with their preexisting beliefs (6⇓⇓⇓⇓–11). However, some recent scholarship questions whether the “echo chamber” narrative has been exaggerated (12, 13). Some experiments suggest that social media can indeed increase polarization. For example, temporarily deactivating Facebook can reduce polarization on policy issues (14). However, other work suggests that polarization has grown the most among older demographic groups, who are the least likely to use social media (15), albeit the most likely to vote. As such, there is an open debate about the role of social media in political polarization and intergroup conflict.

Other research has examined the features of social media posts that predict “virality” online. Much of the literature focuses on the role of emotion in social media sharing. High-arousal emotions, whether they are positive (e.g., awe) or negative (e.g., anger or outrage), contribute to the sharing of content online (16⇓⇓⇓–20). Tweets expressing moral and emotional content are more likely to be retweeted within online political conversations, especially by members of one’s political in-group (21, 22). On Facebook, posts by politicians that express “indignant disagreement” receive more likes and shares (23), and negative news tends to spread farther on Twitter (24). Moreover, false rumors spread farther and faster on Twitter than true ones, especially in the domain of politics, possibly because they are more likely to express emotions such as surprise and fear (25).

Yet, to our knowledge, little research has investigated how social identity motives contribute to online virality. Group identities are hypersalient on social media, especially in the context of online political or moral discussions (26). For example, an analysis of Twitter accounts found that people are increasingly categorizing themselves by their political identities in their Twitter bios over time, providing a public signal of their social identity (27). Additionally, since sharing behavior is public, it can reflect self-conscious identity presentation (28, 29). According to social identity theory (30) and self-categorization theory (31), when group identities are highly salient, this can lead individuals to align themselves more with their fellow in-group members, facilitating in-group favoritism and out-group derogation in order to maintain a positive sense of group distinctiveness (32). Thus, messages that fulfill group-based identity motives may receive more engagement online.

 

The People Who Control "AI" Are The Worst Humans Alive

caitlinjohnstone |   Learn enough about what’s happening in the world and you realize that most people in your society have worldviews that are completely and utterly wrong. This can seem bold, perhaps even arrogant, but if most people weren’t deluded about the world, the world wouldn’t be so fucked.

And it’s not that people are dumb; intelligence has little to do with it. Some of the most intelligent people on earth promote the same deluded worldviews as everyone else. The problem isn’t intellect, it’s manipulation, and anyone can be manipulated no matter how smart they are. This mass-scale manipulation is the result of wealthy people buying up narrative influence in the form of media, political influence, think tanks, lobbying, NGOs, etc, in conjunction with the mass-scale manipulations of the powerful government agencies which are allied with them.

The powerful work to manipulate the way the general public thinks, acts and votes to ensure that they remain in power. They pay special attention to who the most influential people in our society are, which is why the most prominent voices are so often the most delusional. There are filters in place designed to keep anyone from rising to positions of influence if they don’t support the consensus worldview promoted by the oligarchic empire, and once they do rise to influence they are actively herded into echo chambers which reinforce that worldview.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that the most influential voices in a virulently capitalist society will be those who have profited and benefited from the status quo. Of course they’re going to believe the system is working fine; it treats them like royalty.

This is why you can’t defer to recognized authorities when it comes to understanding your world; the system which selects and installs those authorities is designed to serve the powerful, not to tell the truth. The responsibility for understanding your world is yours, and yours alone.

Killer-Ape Shenanigans Bubbling Just Beneath The Surface Of Consensus Reality...,

hopenothate |  The Order of Nine Angles is a Nazi-Satanist “group” (or Nazi Occult as they prefer to describe themselves) that promotes a supernatural, hateful system of thought which condemns liberal, Judeo-Christian society and longs for a new imperial age created by a ludicrous sub-Nietzschean superman figure called ‘Vindex.’ Ultimately, the O9A elite aspires to colonise the solar system.

The racist order deifies Hitler and the Third Reich, which are regarded as having attempted to create a “Satanic empire” in order to achieve the destiny of the western world.

Much of the O9A writings and activities appear on the surface quite comical. The chanting, the dressing up, the rituals. 

The Mass of Heresy, contained within the ONA’s Black Book of Satan, is performed before an altar adorned with a swastika banner, a framed photograph of Hitler and a copy of Mein Kampf. With black candles and incense of Mars burning, the congregation, dressed in black robes, chant:

We believe Adolf Hitler was sent by our gods To guide us to greatness.
 We believe in the inequality of the races

And in the right of the Aryans to live According to the laws of the folk.

In The Ceremony of Recalling, the Preistess blindfolds the Priest and takes him to each member of the congregation who kiss him. After being lifted on an alter containing “red candles and quartz tetrahedron”, the Priest has his robe removed by the Priestess as the others walk around him. After performing a sexual act on the Priest, the Priestess removes the robes of the congregation. Meanwhile, the Mistress, dressed in a white robe, “takes the person she has chosen and indulges herself according to her desire. The congregation consume the consecrated cakes [made from wheat, water, egg, honey, animal fat and marijuana] and wine and take their own pleasures according to their desires.” The ceremony ends with the killing of a chosen one; in a symbolic sacrifice, an animal replaces a person. On the next new moon, the congregation consume cakes containing the sacrificial victim’s blood.

But behind the fantasy and roleplay lies a very sinister organisation which has the potential to inspire their followers to commit extreme acts of violence. 

The O9A believes civilisation must be undermined and destroyed from within, so adherents are encouraged to be as grubby and horrible as they like – committing crimes, random acts of violence, sexual assaults, and even the “culling” of human victims.

The three volumes of The Black Book of Satan are considered so extreme that they are kept is a special section of the British Library and not available to the general public. There is repeated talk of “culling”, committing acts of violence and destabilisation and even terrorism. In the The Dreccian Way, an O9A training manual written by leader Richard Moult, followers are encouraged not just to commit crime, but to “spread it, encourage it, incite it, support it”.

O9A literature regularly advocates ritualised rape, random attacks on innocent victims and “human culling”. The Black Book of Satan volume 3 describes how the Spring Equinox should be celebrated by a human sacrifice of somebody who volunteers for the role by their bad deeds, which, it suggests, could be “a Nazarene, such as an interfering investigative journalist.” 

“Culling is natural and necessary,” wrote Moult in The Dreccian Way. “To cull humans is to be the ONA. To cull – according to our guildlines and tests – is what makes us ONA.”

Squatters With Brooklyn Accents - Or - Why We NEVER See The Real Criminal Truth!!!

al-jazeera  |  “If I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it,” was the answer given by an Israeli settler to Mona al-Kurd, a young Palestinian woman who accused him of stealing her home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in the occupied East Jerusalem.

The dialogue, captured on video by Palestinian activist Tamer Maqalda on Saturday, shows 22-year-old al-Kurd confronting the settler in the garden of her family home.

In the video, al-Kurd is heard telling the settler in English: “Jacob, you know that this is not your home.”

The settler replies in a thick US accent: “Yes, but if I go, you don’t go back, so what’s the problem? Why are you yelling at me?”

The response provoked al-Kurd, who told him “You are stealing my house!”

“If I don’t steal it, someone else will steal it,” Jacob answers. “So why are you yelling at me?”

“No one is allowed to steal my home!” al-Kurd shouts.

Jacob then says in Hebrew: “This is not mine in order to return it.”

My baby cousin entered the Israeli army today 😭 pic.twitter.com/yDtMtbjPQ6

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) October 26, 2016

In recent months, the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood saw a series of sit-ins by Palestinians to protest against Israeli orders for them to vacate their homes, which they have described as a continuation of the ethnic cleansing that began with the Nakba in 1948.

On Monday night, dozens of Israeli forces stormed the neighbourhood and assaulted Palestinian families by beating and shooting tear gas and sound bombs at them. According to local Palestinian media, 20 people were injured, and at least four Palestinian men and one girl were arrested, with two being released on Tuesday.

Half of the al-Kurd family home was taken over by Israeli settlers in 2009. Al-Kurd’s twin brother Mohammed previously told Al Jazeera that sharing their home with “squatters with Brooklyn accents” was “insufferable, intolerable [and] terrible”.

“They are just sitting in our home, tormenting us, harassing us, doing everything they can to not only force us to leave the second half of our home but also harassing our neighbours into leaving their homes as part of an effort to completely annihilate the presence of Palestinians from Jerusalem,” Mohammed said, who was 11 years old when the settlers forced their way in.

Last March, the Israeli district court in occupied East Jerusalem ratified orders for six Palestinian families – the al-Kurds included – in Sheikh Jarrah to vacate their homes in order to make way for the settlers. The same court also ruled that another seven families should leave their homes by August 1.

Canceling Is A Feminine Strategy For Playing Musical Chairs On The Deck Of The Titanic

greenwald  |  A new and rapidly growing journalistic “beat” has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance. It is half adolescent and half malevolent. Its primary objectives are control, censorship, and the destruction of reputations for fun and power. Though its epicenter is the largest corporate media outlets, it is the very antithesis of journalism.

I’ve written before about one particularly toxic strain of this authoritarian “reporting.”

This is a point I've made over & over again: "go woke, go broke" has it exactly backwards. The revenue crunch is the /cause/ of the ideological monoculture, purity tests, & witch hunts -- not the reverse.

Fix the revenue model, & you fix the newsroom culture. https://t.co/z1sEYLAxII

— jonstokes.com (@jonst0kes) February 7, 2021

Teams of journalists at three of the most influential corporate media outlets — CNN’s “media reporters” (Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy), NBC’s “disinformation space unit” (Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny), and the tech reporters of The New York Times (Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose, Sheera Frenkel) — devote the bulk of their “journalism” to searching for online spaces where they believe speech and conduct rules are being violated, flagging them, and then pleading that punitive action be taken (banning, censorship, content regulation, after-school detention). These hall-monitor reporters are a major factor explaining why tech monopolies, which (for reasons of self-interest and ideology) never wanted the responsibility to censor, now do so with abandon and seemingly arbitrary blunt force: they are shamed by the world’s loudest media companies when they do not.

Just as the NSA is obsessed with ensuring there be no place on earth where humans can communicate free of their spying eyes and ears, these journalistic hall monitors cannot abide the idea that there can be any place on the internet where people are free to speak in ways they do not approve. Like some creepy informant for a state security apparatus, they spend their days trolling the depths of chat rooms and 4Chan bulletin boards and sub-Reddit threads and private communications apps to find anyone — influential or obscure — who is saying something they believe should be forbidden, and then use the corporate megaphones they did not build and could not have built but have been handed in order to silence and destroy anyone who dissents from the orthodoxies of their corporate managers or challenges their information hegemony.

"Those of us in journalism have to come to terms with the fact that free speech, a principle that we hold sacred, is being weaponized against the principles of journalism," complained Ultimate Establishment Journalism Maven Steve Coll, the Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a Staff Writer at The New Yorker. A New Yorker and Vox contributor who runs a major journalistic listserv appropriately called “Study Hall,” Kyle Chayka, has already begun shaming Substack for hosting writers he regards as unacceptable (Jesse Singal, Andrew Sullivan, Bari Weiss). A recent Guardian article warned that podcasts was one remaining area still insufficiently policed. ProPublica on Sunday did the same about Apple, and last month one of its reporters appeared on MSNBC to demand that Apple censor its podcast content as aggressively as Google’s YouTube now censors its video content.

Thus do we have the unimaginably warped dynamic in which U.S. journalists are not the defenders of free speech values but the primary crusaders to destroy them. They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous “disinformation.” And they do it from petty vindictiveness: they clearly get aroused — find otherwise-elusive purpose — by destroying people’s reputations and lives, no matter how powerless. Whatever the motive, corporate media employees whose company title is “journalist” are the primary activists against a free and open internet and the core values of free thought.

China Stopped The Ant IPO To Quarantine A Western Financialization And Securitization Pandemic

nakedcapitalism |  The Financial Times comment section confirmed this take and criticized the pink paper’s account, which mentioned but didn’t tease out the significance of Ma criticizing the government for being leery of unsecured personal lending:

At the end of October, Mr Ma criticised China’s state-owned banks at a financial summit in Shanghai. He suggested the big lenders had a “pawnshop mentality” and that Ant was playing an important role in extending credit to innovative but collateral-poor companies and individuals.

From the Financial Times’ peanut gallery:

Hater of Simpletons

For those who didn’t know what happened : check the new regulation which limits Ant’s leverage and enhances consumer protection, which also limits Ant’s valuation as a “tech” company. That was the main reason Jack fired at regulators in his speech [at the end of October] – and to be honest, there was no way he didn’t know the regulation long before the listing date and the speech (gov spent months on a policy, if not longer and would consult industry leaders)! If the IPO were not halted, investors would have suffered from major losses, not to mention the high leverage (60x+) and ABS put Ant’s customers at risk. Jack fired the speech to evade regulation and made sure HE made enough money from the listing. Not investors, not Ant users. Being sarcastic is easy. Try to get clear of what REALLY happened.

Now to the substance of the dispute, which led to the halt of the IPO and will require Ant to substantially restructure its business. Ant originates personal and small business loans to parties with little in the way of assets. These loans command higher interest rates than more conventional loans and from what we infer, “higher’ can mean “pretty high”.

As we have written, China hasn’t been shy about using leverage to boost growth, even though as we and others have written, over time, the incremental lending has produced less and less in the way of GDP lift. China has also had multiple mini-financial crises involving its “wealth management products.” These are typically uninsured investments that provide a fixed interest rate for a set period of time, typically five years. They have often provided funding for state-level real estate investments. Nevertheless, even if you allow for Michael Hudson’s view that land should be taxed aggressively to limit real estate rentierism, economists have found that borrowing to make productive investments in businesses, equipment, and buildings adds to growth, while increases in personal borrowing are a brake.

Another reason for China to take a dim view of personal borrowing is that the government prioritizes wage growth and improving living standards as its basis for legitimacy. There’s no reason, as in the US, to use consumer borrowing to mask stagnant worker wages. And the Chinese may even have recognized that overly financialized economies have lower rates of growth than ones at a more modest level of financial “deepening”. The IMF found that Poland was at the optimum level, but argued that more finance might not create a drag if the sector was well-regulated.

Mind you, we aren’t saying that China is a paragon of regulatory virtue. They still allow for stunning amounts of margin lending against stocks. And they’ve also sat pat as ghost cities, too often shoddily built, continue to rise, a textbook case of trading sardines.¹ But they appear to want to avoid having a finance-driven economy, and also appear to have learned from some of our mistakes.

Now to the specifics of why Chinese officials came down on Ant. First, from the Wall Street Journal:

Some of the writing was on the wall earlier. While Ant was gearing up to launch its IPO, regulators had begun taking aim at the company’s fast-growing microloan business, which provides short-term credit to hundreds of millions of individuals and scores of small businesses.

On Sept. 14, China’s banking and insurance regulator issued a private notice to some commercial banks warning them about the risks of making loans in partnership with third-party institutions, according to a copy of the notice seen by The Wall Street Journal. It said banks should not be outsourcing their loan underwriting and risk controls.

When Ant partners with banks to make loans, the lenders provide the funding and bear the risk of defaults, while Ant collects fees for facilitating the transactions.

Two days later, the regulator published a guideline that placed caps on the volume of asset-backed securities that could be issued by microlenders. Two subsidiaries of Ant have bundled many loans into securities and sold them to raise funds for lending operations.

In other words, Chinese officials tried halting Ant’s practice of originating risky individual/small business loans and selling them to banks, both on the bank and Ant ends of the pipeline. That apparently didn’t lead to a change of course at Ant or its allied banks or lead to any change in appetite for its IPO.

The Ruling Elite, Money, And The Illusion Of Progress...,

theamericanconservative  |  “It was part of a strategy to signal that Republicans intended to seriously contest the South for the first time in over a century,” he writes. “[Ronald] Reagan was fetched at the airport in Meridian by his state chairman, Congressman Trent Lott. Lott had been president of the fraternity that stockpiled a cache of weapons used to riot against the federal marshals protecting a black student seeking to enter the University of Mississippi.” Perlstein reports that it was Lott who urged the president: “If Reagan really wanted to win this crowd over, he need only fold a certain two-word phrase into his speech: states’ rights.”

Perlstein was once dismissively dubbed the “gonzo historian” by former New York Times book review editor and rival chronicler of conservatives Sam Tanenhaus. Indeed, Perlstein recalls the notorious Neshoba County Fair “states’ rights” speech and countless other anecdotes in his 1,100-page opus, Reaganland, in downright Thompsonian fashion. It is his fourth installment of mid-century, American conservative history and it is his best, besting the magisterial Nixonland. Perlstein, a hard lefty journo, might indeed take himself too seriously, but at least he usually affords the same treatment to the subjects of his histories.

Rather than a conventional denunciation of the medial event in Reagan’s use of “the Southern Strategy,” Perlstein actually does reporting. Perlstein reveals Reagan didn’t really believe in what he was saying. “The way he carried out Trent Lott’s suggestion doused the enthusiasm of a previously energetic crowd,” Perlstein says. “And it was hardly worth it. The backlash was immediate and caustic.”

But what did Reagan actually say? “I still believe the answer to any problem lies with the people,” Reagan told the crowd. “I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level, and I believe we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.” And Reagan said: “I believe in states’ rights.” It was considered by his critics as tantamount to Morse code to white supremacists. Perlstein dresses up the story pages before with paragraphs of dispatches on the dominance of racial vigilantism in the region in the years before Reagan’s speech. 

But after his address, in the inferno of an August afternoon in central Mississippi, Reagan won. Though reasonable points about black voter suppression can be raised, in November, Reagan won Neshoba County, he won Mississippi, and he won the United States Electoral College. And he did so against a Deep Southern, Democratic incumbent president, which was previously unthinkable. And the GOP hasn’t relinquished Mississippi since—not even when neighboring Arkansan Bill Clinton and Tennessean Al Gore dominated the Nineties.

Perlstein’s chronicle is about the 40th president but, of course, can’t escape the shadow of the 45th. Perlstein has called Donald Trump an heir to Reagan, only stripped of the sunny optimism. A generation of global leaders, usually liberal, championed democracy, only to see Palestine elect Hamas, Egypt elect the Muslim Brotherhood, Mississippi go to Reagan, Britain secede from Europe, and America annoit Trump.