Translation:MOSCOW, May 24 - RIA Novosti.The
Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia confirmed its
intention to withdraw from the Bologna process and give priority to the
creation of its own education system, the ministry's press service said.
Here is the key point:
Болонская система предполагает двухуровневую систему образования:
бакалавриат и магистратура. Российская система образования кроме этих
уровней включает подготовку кадров по уровню специалитета с нормативным
сроком освоения образовательных программ в течение пяти-шести лет.
Translation:The Bologna system involves a two-level education system: undergraduate and graduate.The
Russian education system, in addition to these levels, includes
training at the specialist level with a standard term for mastering
educational programs for five to six years.
Read
the whole piece (use Google to translate) and this "specialist" degree
is what makes real professionals. It was always the basis of a superb
Russian/Soviet education which was also program of study-rigid in
providing both an extremely advanced foundation in general science
(Math, Physics, Chemistry, Language etc.) while giving a professional
training of the highest level. Return to classic Russian/Soviet system
is yet another step in breaking the hold of many poor, if not damaging,
Western ideas on Russia's life and this one is huge. You want some
"elective" courses in dancing or acting while studying for engineer?
Good, only on your own expense and time, otherwise, go and take entrance
exams to profile colleges. It is also remarkable that it was Nikolai
Patrushev who took an active role in removing this system.
The consequence of all that will be the return to what Admiral Hyman Rickover was afraid of in 1959:
We
all can observe today a collapse of the Western system of education
through a sheer incompetence, stupidity and malice of contemporary
Western "elites". We also see a precipitous decline in what was always
thought as a strong point of Western education--STEM. Enough to take a
look at Boeing-737 Max and at the killing of the energy sector in EU and
the US. As Buzz Aldrin (I believe) said: in 1969 we thought that we
would be flying to Mars in 2020, instead we have got Facebook. I may add
B-737 Max, LCS and F-35.
So,
I decided to give you all heads-up on this extremely important issue.
And the sigh of relief in Russia, that finally the killing of Russian
educational school is over. Consequences of that will be massive.
kremlin.ru |Vladimir Putin: Sergey Alexandrovich, the company started operating in its original form in 2007. During
this time, 150, in my opinion, enterprises have been created, several
tens of thousands of jobs - somewhere under 40 thousand.
Let's talk about the results of the work in general.
Sergei Kulikov: Mr President, this is indeed true.
You,
as the founder and ideologist of this program, know better than anyone
else that this is not just a state corporation, not just a joint-stock
company, and not even just a development institution – it is a symbol of
investing in science, technology, and the future.
I will try to focus my report on three aspects: technology, science and education, and money.
Indeed, 150 enterprises have been created, and nanotechnologies have taken root in six technological clusters. This is electronics, these are the actual materials, this is optronics, this is the disposal of even municipal solid waste. In terms of science, 53 billion rubles were spent on R&D. One and a half thousand students graduate annually from nanotechnology departments in 28 universities in the countries.
As
we said in December, we have not yet launched a program, but an
initiative for mathematical modeling of materials, and it has already
begun to show results in prototypes. We
didn’t just start, for example, in the MISiS laboratory, we increased
the properties of thermoelectrics by 30–40 percent due to mathematical
modeling, and today we have already launched the next cycle this year –
with major players who are now beginning to understand that everything
starts with materials .
Finance: we pay off debts, last year we paid off the first 20 billion. For those with whom we agree on a discount, we, of course, meet halfway, but the interest accumulates. I have prepared several proposals, I will report to you.
The
good news is that, given that 233 billion rubles were invested in
Rusnano over the years you mentioned, by 2020, 155 billion rubles were
received from exits from the portfolio, from assets. We
added another 50 billion rubles to this piggy bank last year, thus, we
have overcome the psychological barrier of 200 billion rubles, equaling
the investment costs, which, we think, confirms the overall
profitability of our activities.
Returning
to the fact that after all this is a symbol, and not just a joint-stock
company, I would like to emphasize that over these ten years it has
been proven that nanotechnology is necessary, that it is achievable and
that a competitive product cannot be obtained today without immersion in
the morphology of the material. And this is probably really worth investing in - it's time to invest in it right now.
How rich are we today? First, there are three professions.
Nanotechnologist. To
be honest, I myself tried to master it externally, but I realized that
it was better to do my own thing, create conditions for replenishing the
army of process engineers and nanotechnologists.
The second important profession is the technology entrepreneur. And
we have already launched one startup studio at ITMO [National Research
University] as part of the University Technological Entrepreneurship
program under the auspices of the Ministry of Education – it has already
begun to give interesting results, and we have 14 [startup studios] in
our plan this year. Just the task is to get from idea to product much faster.
And the third profession is an investor in science and technology, I would say so. This
is a translator between business and science, who knows what money is
being collected for today, and sets such a task for scientists and, on
the contrary, looks for what scientists invent, and collects money for
this.
As for the portfolio: we have 51 assets left today, of which 18 are in varying degrees of problem. As an example, the Novosibirsk Liotech is a manufacturer of accumulators and batteries. An
old, “bearded” story: the enterprise went bankrupt several times, we
tried to restart it, but in the end we save, first of all, the team,
intellectual property. We
have found a use for them: together with Rosseti - Rosseti Center - in
eleven regions we operate system storage devices, we have successfully
overcome the autumn-winter period in small towns with virtually no
accidents. Today we are already developing the next generation of these solutions.
We
have postponed sales plans for 13 companies until 2023-2024 because the
need for them today to maintain critical infrastructure has become
apparent. I will give examples.
For example, the Perm Novomet is an excellent company that produces submersible sediments for the oil industry. In
general, we expect that if we present them as an assembly point, we
will be able to collect such competencies in order to become an
alternative supplier in principle or replace those who today decide to
change the market.
“Russian
membranes” in Vladimir are, one might say, the heart and basis of water
treatment in general, not only desalination, which is used in the
countries of the [Persian] Gulf, we are actively working with them, but
also water purification, which is especially important today. You know perfectly well that we have agreed with the two governors, and now we are piloting these decisions.
Optovolokno
is a Saransk enterprise in Mordovia, the governor, the Ministry of
Industry and Trade and I agreed to develop it to ...
Vladimir Putin: We need source materials.
Sergei Kulikov: Of course. We will now finish building another redistribution in order to ensure sustainability.
And
of course, today three American and Japanese suppliers have left the
market, and we are now competing only with the Chinese, which is
difficult, for a place in the energy cable and telecom cable. But it is also a very interesting task, you can grow it well.
We
have, as it were, pushed these assets aside, but we will still go into
the strategy so that a private investor joins this task.
Vladimir Putin: Is this realistic? Do you think you will do it?
Sergei Kulikov: We have no choice. How not to? Especially in today's environment: people need to communicate, networks need to be managed. There is no choice, it must be done by any means. And, even if we can’t deliver something, then it will be necessary to look for ways to produce it.
We prepared 20 assets for sale, including foreign ones. For example, assets known to you in the field of alternative energy. We are leaving them and reconfiguring the teams for new tasks. That
is, for example, our power engineers will be engaged in small-scale
generation, the same system drives, that is, some kind of hybrid
solutions that can be applied today.
We left two waste incinerators, and we began to apply this competence, we began to look for new technologies. We
discovered a wonderful solution for ash-free disposal: we built two
reactors, now Rosprirodnadzor does not get out of there and is
surprised, but still looking for there to be no mistake. That is, we do not have emissions, because there is no combustion, and I will also show you this solution after the report.
Manufacturer of nanotubes - you know about it. In general, he went all the way from a startup - the first four stages of technology maturation - to an IPO. This,
in fact, illustrates the general function of Rosnano, when we pick up
from the first to the fourth stage, from the fourth to the eighth, and
then bring it to the market or become a strategic partner.
We
joined forces with the founders and this year brought the nanotube to
use in the automotive components of electric vehicles and are now
piloting it on the road surface. For
example, on the [highway] Moscow-Don, a nanotube was added to the
asphalt material and we are surprised that at plus 50 degrees a rut is
not formed. It seems to me
that this generally deserves a separate development, perhaps on some
more than a ten-year program, in order to see how our roads can be
effectively used.
All
this led to a total - like word of mouth, investors began to come to
us, and we grew in the portfolio by 30 percent over the past year. For the entire period of work of Rosnano - until 2020 - 65 billion rubles of extra-budgetary funds were attracted. We raised 68 [billion] in projects last year, of which only four are our own funds, the rest is external financing.
It
seems to me, if we talk about further reincarnation, that Rosnano, if
you remember, went from a state corporation to a joint-stock company,
that is, it is probably time to think about a public-private
partnership. That is, in newly created funds, we can, in principle, already increase the share of a private investor. We
have such an ambition in the strategy that we will attract in the first
half of its implementation in the proportion of one to four, that is,
for one ruble state or quasi-state four foreign, and by the end of the
implementation period - one to eight.
The team was rebooted, with respect to the founders, in fact, we are even forming the club of the university "Rosnano". We
attracted a lot of young colleagues, added competencies that we lacked,
and based on the previously created groundwork and the groundwork that
we have already formed today, we are looking at projects in the field of
ecology, healthcare, mobility, energy and security, of course.
Vladimir Putin:
But you and I understand that in this regard, one of the key tasks is
to take further steps to improve the financial situation.
sonar21 | Until Joe Biden took office I thought that George W Bush had dibs on the “stupidest foreign policy blunder in history” award. His decision to invade Iraq rather than eliminate Al Qaeda hurt the United States and fueled international terrorism. But leave it to Joe Biden to one-up W by imposing sanctions on Russia that are inflicting an economic holocaust on the United States and Europe. Heck of a job, Joe.
The ostensible reason for “punishing” Russia with sanctions that actually pummel the west was Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now we all know that Ukraine was/is the poorest nation in Europe. Right?
Ukraine is one of the worst off countries after the collapse of the USSR. It is the poorest country in Europe despite having a huge aerospace industry, natural resources and some of the most fertile land for agriculture. During the communist era, Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Despite all this, Ukrainians have experienced terrible famines such as the Stalinist Holodomor.
Today, the situation is not much better. Apart from enduring a war with Russia, its political system is particularly corrupt. Almost the entire economy is in the hands of big oligarchs: millionaires who amass fortunes thanks to their connections with political power.
Let me share with you some critical facts about Ukraine and its economic potential. When you consider these facts you will likely wonder why Ukraine is not one of the richest nations in Europe.
UKRAINE IS:
1st in Europe in proven recoverable uranium ore reserves; 2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in titanium ore reserves; 2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of world reserves); The 2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons); 2nd place in Europe in mercury ore reserves; 3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in terms of shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters) 4th place in the world in terms of the total value of natural resources; 7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)
Ukraine is an important agricultural country: 1st in Europe in terms of arable land area; 3rd place in the world by the area of chernozem (25% of the world volume); 1st place in the world in the export of sunflower and sunflower oil; 2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley export; 3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world; The 4th largest potato producer in the world; The 5th largest rye producer in the world; 5th place in the world for honey production (75,000 tons); 8th place in the world in wheat exports; 9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs; 16th place in the world in cheese exports.
Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.
telesurenglish | Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law ratifying four protocols
to the Russian-Cuban intergovernmental loan agreements granting Havana a
deferral of payments, the legal information portal published today.
The document was ratified on June 8 by the Russian Federation Council
(Senate) and on May 24 by the State Duma (Lower House of Parliament).
During the exchange
of views on the issue in the upper house, the senators stressed that the
extension of these agreements will make it possible to provide
assistance to Cuba in financing oil supplies and will contribute to
strengthening Russia's positions in Latin America.
The International
Affairs Committee of the Federation Council noted that cooperation
between Cuba and Russia is of special importance for the country.
"Providing assistance to the friendly Republic of Cuba in the area of
financing the procurement of oil and its derivatives will contribute to
strengthening the political positions of the Russian Federation in
Latin America," that committee stressed.
One of the protocols
amends the bilateral agreement on the granting of a state loan, dated
January 30, 2009, and another on the approval of a credit to finance the
supply of oil and its derivatives to Cuba, initialed on March 20, 2017.
Two others extend the
respective agreements between Moscow and Havana on the provision of
loans to finance supplies of oil and its derivatives to the Caribbean
island, signed on December 13, 2017 and July 19, 2019.
Between 2006 and
2019, Russia provided Cuba with state export loans in an amount
equivalent to two billion three hundred million dollars, the explanatory
note on the new law indicated.
The funds were
granted to the Antillean nation to finance projects in the fields of
energy, metallurgy, transport infrastructure and the supply of products
to develop and support its economy.
Due to the country's
difficult situation, caused by the tightening of the U.S. blockade and
the impact of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Cuba stopped
repaying the state loans provided by Russia since the beginning of 2020
and in September requested restructuring.
sonar21 |Yaacov Apelbaum wrote
an amazing investigative piece in September 2019 that is more relevant
and timely now. He provides photographic and video proof of how a
certain segment in Ukraine has penetrated the U.S. political system. Did
you know the following:
Igor Pasternak is tied directly to Nancy Pelosi and Ukraine’s network in the United States.
Pasternak’s company, Aeros, partnered with the Government of Ukraine in 2015–The
Government of Ukraine and Aeroscraft Corporation (Aeros) held a press
conference today in Los Angeles, revealing further details about the
cooperative partnership to strengthen the border protection agency of
Ukraine with additional wide area situational awareness capabilities.
The partnership with Ukraine, Aeros, and UkoBoronProm first announced in
Kiev earlier this month will see the Ukraine-Russian border protected
by a series of Aeros made Elevated Early Warning Systems (EEWS). Senior
Ukrainian officials were joined for the conference today by Aeros’ CEO
Igor Pasternak and CA State Assemblyman, Matt Dababneh (45th District).
Notes
from the desk of Yaroslav Brisiuck’s the Ukrainain Chargé d’affaires in
Washington DC suggest that Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa could
be a long term Ukrainian intelligence asset
Alexandra Chalupe
was involved actively with a Michael Avantti, Linda Sarsour, FBI Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe, and the August 2020 effort to impeach president
Trump.
Alexandra Chalupa’s Ukrainian handler was Okana Shulyar.
Chalupa held multiple intelligence briefing and debriefing sessions
regarding president Trump with her handler Okana Shulyar .
The
Atlantic Council is tied closely to Ukraine and Adam Schiff is engaging
in intelligence collection and political patronage in Ukraine with his
collaborator Geysha Gonzalez (who paid for Schiff’s aid trip), an expert
on disinformation, misinformation, and false information, and the
Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.
These are not manufactured linkages. Yaacov’s research and evidence
pull the curtain back on the Ukrainian corruption that infects
Washington, DC.
dissidentvoice | A military funded academic, working at a school launched by
Condoleezza Rice, claims leftist and anti-war journalists engage in
Russian disinformation. His report doesn’t provide any evidence or
refute anyone’s argument, but the legacy media laps it up.
On Thursday the University of Calgary School of Public Policy released “Disinformation and Russia-Ukrainian war on Canadian social media”. With the exception of a blog by Dimitri Lascaris that dismantled
its absurd ideological premises, coverage of the report was almost
entirely uncritical. Headlines included: “Canada target of Russian
disinformation, with tweets linked to foreign powers” (Globe and Mail),
“Why is Canada the target of a Russian disinformation campaign?” (CJAD
Montréal) and “Canada is target of Russian disinformation, with millions
of tweets linked to Kremlin” (City News Toronto). The report’s
lead author Jean-Christophe Boucher was a guest on multiple TV and
radio outlets, labeling those who question the role of NATO expansion,
the far Right and 2014 coup against an elected president in
understanding the war in Ukraine “useful idiots” of Vladimir Putin.
Boucher and his co-researchers claim to have mapped over six million
tweets in Canada about the conflict in Ukraine. They claim over a
quarter of the tweets fall into five categories they label “pro-Russian
narratives”. But they don’t even attempt to justify the five categories.
Instead, they simply list the most prominent commentators and political
figures promoting these ideas under the rubric of “Top
Russian-influenced Accounts”. The list includes leftist journalists
Aaron Maté, Benjamin Norton, Max Blumenthal, Richard Medhurst and John
Pilger. But no evidence is offered to connect these individuals to
Russia.
While “Disinformation and Russia-Ukrainian war on Canadian social
media” reveals little, it has served its political purpose. It will
further insulate Canadian officials from criticism of their policies by
suggesting anyone questioning Ottawa’s Ukraine/NATO policies are part of
a Russian disinformation campaign.
Boucher is a product of the Canadian military’s vast publicly financed ideological apparatus, which I detail in A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation.
He has been a fellow at the military and arms industry funded Canadian
Global Affairs Institute and Dalhousie Centre for the Study of Security
and Development. He advocates theories amenable to the military’s
interests, including “strategic retrenchment:
falling back on the people you can really trust”, which is a
sophisticated way of saying Canada should deepen its alliance with the
US empire. His academic profile says Boucher “is a co-lead
of the Canadian Network on Information and Security, funded by the
Department of National Defence” while his Canadian Global Affairs
Institute bio notes that “he is currently responsible for more than $2.4M of funding from the Department of National Defence (DND) to study information operations.”
cnbc | More than 360,000 people left California in 2021, in what some are calling “The California Exodus” — many leaving for states like Texas, Arizona and Washington.
And
a rising number of former Californians are migrating out of the country
altogether and are instead heading south of the border. Many are
seeking a more relaxed and affordable lifestyle in Mexico.
California
continuously ranks high as one of the country’s most expensive states
to live in. The median asking price for a home in California is about
$797,470 — only 25% of the state’s households could afford that in the
fourth quarter of 2021.
California’s population growth has been declining for more than 30 years now. But thanks to the rise in remote work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, those trends have accelerated. The ability to work anywhere has 62% of Americans considering moving to a new country.
However,
there are some setbacks. Many critics argue that Americans are driving
up the cost of housing for locals and pricing them out of the market.
ticotimes | Daniel Ortega’s regime invited the Kremlin forces to enter the
Central American country for “law enforcement, humanitarian aid, rescue
and search missions in emergencies or natural disasters.”
“he most unpleasant icing on the cake for the United States was the
sensational announcement by Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua. He
allowed Russian troops, ships and planes into Nicaragua. Of course, only
for humanitarian purposes, Russian troops can enter Nicaragua in the
second half of 2022,” said state television presenter Olga Skabeeva.
“If U.S. missile systems can almost reach Moscow from Ukrainian
territory, it is time for Russia to deploy something powerful closer to
U.S. cities,” the journalist added.
The Nicaraguan government also authorized the presence of Russian troops for “exchange of experiences and training.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, spoke to
Russian media and mentioned: “We are talking about a routine procedure
for the adoption of a Nicaraguan law on the temporary admission of
foreign military personnel to its territory in order to develop
cooperation in various areas, including humanitarian and emergency
responses, combatting organized crime and drug trafficking.”
The Ortega regime stated that the exchange between the military forces will be of “mutual benefit in case of emergency situations” among both nations.
According to the Nicaraguan press, the entry of the Russian forces
was previously planned and coordinated with the Nicaraguan Army.
On March 31, Kerri Hannan, an official of the US State Department,
warned that Russia threatens to export the conflict in Ukraine to Latin
America through military cooperation with Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
“Russia maintains an unsettling attitude in Nicaragua and they could
affect the stability of the region,” said Admiral Kurt Tidd, when he was
head of the U.S. Southern Command.
Daniel Ortega has always been an ally and supporter of Russia, as evidenced by the relations between the two countries.
The closeness to Russia has been political and personal. Members of
the Ortega Murillo family frequently travel to Russia on government
delegations, and Nicaragua is one of the seven countries in the world to
recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two regions
of Georgia that declared themselves independent under the patronage of
Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Ortega’s regime has sent thousands of Nicaraguans into exile, shut down media outlets, forced the withdrawal of NGOs, imprisoned political opponents and threatened anyone who opposes or criticizes his administration.
apnews | President Joe Biden,
speaking to donors at a Democratic fundraiser here, said Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “didn’t want to hear it” when U.S.
intelligence gathered information that Russia was preparing to invade.
The
remarks came as Biden was talking about his work to rally and solidify
support for Ukraine as the war continues into its fourth month.
“Nothing
like this has happened since World War II. I know a lot of people
thought I was maybe exaggerating. But I knew we had data to sustain he” —
meaning Russian President Vladimir Putin — “was going to go in, off the
border.”
“There was no doubt,” Biden said. “And Zelenskyy didn’t want to hear it.”
Although
Zelenskyy has inspired people with his leadership during the war, his
preparation for the invasion — or lack thereof — has remained a
controversial issue.
In
the weeks before the war began on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy publicly bristled
as Biden administration officials repeatedly warned that a Russian
invasion was highly likely.
moa | The New York Times, here via Yahoo, has some rather weird piece over alleged lack of intelligence on Ukrainian warplanes:
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has provided
near-daily updates of Russia’s invasion on social media; viral video
posts have shown the effectiveness of Western weapons in the hands of
Ukrainian forces; and the Pentagon has regularly held briefings on
developments in the war.
But despite the flow of all this news to the public, U.S. intelligence agencies have less information than they would like about Ukraine’s operations and possess a far better picture of Russia’s military, its planned operations and its successes and failures, according to current and former officials.
Governments often withhold information from the public for
operational security. But these information gaps within the U.S.
government could make it more difficult for the Biden administration to
decide how to target military aid as it sends billions of dollars in
weapons to Ukraine. ... Avril D. Haines, the director of national
intelligence, testified at a Senate hearing last month that “it was
very hard to tell” how much additional aid Ukraine could absorb.
She added: “We have, in fact, more insight, probably, on the Russian side than we do on the Ukrainian side.”
One key question is what measures Zelenskyy intends to call for in
Donbas. Ukraine faces a strategic choice there: withdraw its forces or
risk having them encircled by Russia.
Well, NYT decided to start steering clear of this whole
Russia "lost in Ukraine" BS it promoted together with neocon crazies,
and begins this ever familiar tune of the "intel failure". Right.
U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine's War Strategy, Officials Say
Hm, how about I put it bluntly--the U.S. never had clear picture on
anything, especially on Russia, or, as a private case, [the Special
Military Operation] and completely bought into Ukie propaganda, which
shows a complete incompetence of the "intel" in the US. ... The
narrative on [the Special Military Operation], in reality, is dead and
the failure is not being set, it already happened. It is a fait accompli
no matter how one wants to put a lipstick on the pig.
Larry Johnson thinks there is another another motive behind the story:
Frankly, I find it hard to believe that there are not solid
analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency who know the answers to all
these questions. The real problem may not be a lack of intelligence.
Nope. It is the fear of telling the politicians hard truths they do not want to hear.
Given the billions of dollars the United States is spending on
“intelligence” collection systems, it is time for the Congress and the
American public to demand that the intelligence services do their damn
job.
I do not believe for one moment that U.S. intelligence services do
not know what is going on in Ukraine and in Kiev. They know that the
Ukraine has lost the war and will have to sue for peace as soon as
possible.
They also have told the White House that this is a case and that the
whole idea of setting up the Ukraine to tickle the Russian bear was
idiotic from the get go. The question now is who will take the blame for
the outcome. Who can the buck be passed to?
responsiblestatecraft | Biden’s problem is that the United States no longer enjoys the political
or economic dominance that enabled it to dictate the terms of
hemispheric relations, and Latin Americans are no longer willing to
simply accept Washington’s priorities as their own. Rebuilding U.S.
leadership in the Hemisphere will require that Washington confer with
its neighbors and genuinely listen to them rather than dictating to
them. Occasionally, it will require Washington to take the unfamiliar
and uncomfortable step of deferring to them.
The Ninth Summit of the Americas, hosted by President Biden last week
in Los Angeles, was in trouble even before it convened. Planning for it
was erratic, with no clear theme or agenda in place until the last
minute. Invitations
went out just a few weeks before the event, delayed because of a very
public controversy over whether Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela would be
included. In the end, they were not.
Senior U.S. officials hinted
early on that the Summit would be restricted to “democratically elected
leaders.” That prompted pushback from a number of Latin Americans,
foremost among them Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Although the host nation sends out the Summit invitations, some Latin
Americans regarded the decision to exclude the three governments as an
abuse of the host’s prerogatives.
To mollify López Obrador and others who voiced similar concerns, the White House toyed with the idea
of inviting Cuba to send a lower level official, or participate as an
observer. Not surprisingly, Cuba rejected this second-class citizenship
even before it was offered. López-Obrador politely declined to attend
the Summit, sending his foreign minister instead. The presidents of
Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador declined as well. At the Summit,
other heads of state openly criticized Washington for not inviting all the nations of the Americas.
Irregular migration was a main focus of the Summit, but between them,
the countries excluded and those whose presidents stayed home accounted
for 69 percent of the migrants encountered
by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in April — nearly 180,000 people.
Trying to formulate a strategy to stem irregular migration without
engaging the governments of the migrants’ home countries is a recipe for
failure.
caitlinjohnstone | The
empire has had mixed feelings about the internet since its creation. On
one hand it allows for unprecedented surveillance and information
gathering and the rapid distribution of propaganda, which it likes, but
on the other it allows for the unprecedented democratization of
information, which it doesn’t like.
Its
answer to this quandary has been to come up with “fact checking”
services and Silicon Valley censorship protocols for restricting
“misinformation” (with “facts” and “information” defined as “whatever
advances imperial interests”). That’s all we’re seeing with continually
expanding online censorship policies, and with government-tied
oligarchic narrative management operations like NewsGuard.
Twitter has imposed a weeklong suspension on the account of writer and political activist Danny Haiphong for a thread he made on the platform disputing the mainstream Tiananmen Square massacre narrative.
The
notification Haiphong received informed him that Twitter had locked his
account for “Violating our rules against abuse and harassment,”
presumably in reference to a rule the platform put in place a year ago
which prohibits “content that denies that mass murder or other mass
casualty events took place, where we can verify that the event occured,
and when the content is shared with abusive intent.”
“This may include references to such an event as a ‘hoax’ or claims that victims or survivors are fake or ‘actors,’” Twitter said
of the new rule. “It includes, but is not limited to, events like the
Holocaust, school shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.”
That
we are now seeing this rule applied to protect narratives which support
the geostrategic interests of the US-centralized empire is not in the
least bit surprising.
Haiphong is far from the first
to dispute the mainstream western narrative about exactly what happened
around Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 as the Soviet Union was
crumbling and Washington’s temporary Cold War alignment with Beijing was
losing its strategic usefulness.
But we can expect more acts of online censorship like this as Silicon
Valley continues to expand into its role as guardian of imperial
historic records.
This
idea that government-tied Silicon Valley institutions should act as
arbiters of history on behalf of the public consumer is gaining steadily
increasing acceptance in the artificially manufactured echo chamber of
mainstream public opinion. We saw another example of this recently in
Joe Lauria’s excellent refutation of accusations against Consortium News of historic inaccuracy by the imperial narrative management firm NewsGuard.
As journalists like Whitney Webb and Mnar Adley
noted years ago, NewsGuard markets itself as a “news rating agency”
designed to help people sort out good from bad sources of information
online, but in reality functions as an empire-backed weapon against
media who question imperial narratives about what’s happening in the
world. The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal outlined the company’s many partnerships with imperial swamp monsters like former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and “chief propagandist”
Richard Stengel as well as “imperialist cutouts like the German
Marshall Fund” when its operatives contacted his outlet for comment on
their accusations.
freakonomics | We like to think that we make up our own minds. That we make our own
choices — about how we spend our time and money; what we watch and wear;
how we think about the issues of the day. But the truth is, we’re
influenced into these choices. In ways large and small — and often
invisible. Some of this influence may be harmless, even fun; and some of
it is not harmless at all.
Robert CIALDINI: That’s right.
Stephen DUBNER: You make a really provocative but resonant
argument that a lot of behaviors are copycat behaviors, including
workplace or school shootings, terrorist attacks, product tampering.
What should media outlets do about those events? You may say their
coverage is dangerous. They say it’s their duty to cover it intensely.
Why are you more right than they are?
CIALDINI: Because of that last word, “intensely.” They give us
the news. They’re invaluable for that. The problem is when they
sensationalize it for ratings. That bothers me because the actions
described are contagious. We’re seeing it right now with shootings, just
a cluster of them. One after another after another, because people are
learning from the news what other disturbed people do to resolve their
issues.
Our guest today is among the world’s experts on the power of influence.
CIALDINI: My name is Robert Cialdini, I’m a behavioral scientist with a specialty in persuasion science.
Cialdini spent decades as a professor at Arizona State University, where he now enjoys an emeritus standing.
CIALDINI: I have become just as busy as I ever was.
My wife says, how do you know that Cialdini has retired? He doesn’t have
to deal with those pesky paychecks any longer.
Years and years and years ago, Cialdini realized that he was — as he
puts it — “a patsy.” “For as long as I can recall,” he once wrote, “I’d
been an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers, fundraisers, and
operators of one sort or another.” And so, in the early 1980s, he
embarked on a research project. He decided to learn the tricks of these
salespeople and other influencers. Cialdini was already a professor by
then, and this new research would certainly have academic value. But his
primary goal was to help the rest of us — consumers, voters, regular
tax-paying laypeople.
CIALDINI: Because through their taxes and
contributions to universities, they had paid for me to do that research.
I had found some things out, but I wasn’t communicating it to them. I
always say that if experimental social psychology had been a business,
it would have been famous for great research-and-development units. But
it would not have had a shipping department.
But in this case, Cialdini did ship, in the form of a book he wrote about this research. It was called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.It was published in 1984; it sold only a few thousand copies. But word-of-mouth grew. After three years, it became a New York Times best-seller.
And then it kept selling and kept selling and kept selling — compound
influence. As of today: it’s sold roughly 5 million copies in 44
languages. Just last year, Cialdini says, the book sold nearly 300,000
copies. There is a good chance you have read Influence; if not,
there’s a good chance you should. Among the readers are many regular
people — consumers like Cialdini himself, who no longer want to be
exploited. But the book also became a blueprint for profiteers and
others who wish to exploit the powerful psychological effects he
identified. Cialdini, like a character in some ancient fairy tale, has
found himself advising both sides of the bargaining table. Now, he has
released a new and aggressively expanded edition of his book. Here he is reading an excerpt:
CIALDINI: There are some people who
know very well where the levers of automatic influence lie and who
employ them regularly and expertly to get what they want. The secret to
their effectiveness lies in the way they structure their requests, the
way they arm themselves with one or another of the levers of influence
that exist in the social environment. To do so may take no more than one
correctly chosen word that engages a strong psychological principle and
launches one of our automatic behavior programs.
* * *
DUBNER: I’m curious whether this edition is, to some degree, a
mea culpa for having given unscrupulous users a bible to become even
more unscrupulous.
CIALDINI: I wouldn’t use “mea culpa.” All information can be used
for good or ill, but if I were to limit myself only to the information
that could not be used properly, there would be no information.
DUBNER: One of the creators of the atomic bomb, Robert
Oppenheimer, was apparently tortured for most of his life about that
ethical conundrum of needing to help invent this instrument of war to
end World War II, while creating a new instrument of war that we are
obviously still dealing with. My sense is, that’s not a good parallel to
you, correct?
CIALDINI: It’s a different level of unfortunate circumstances.
DUBNER: We shouldn’t downgrade the level of influence that your
book has had. I could imagine many despots and dictators have read it.
CIALDINI: So what I try to do is emphasize the ethical uses to make it difficult for people to try to use it in untoward ways.
The new edition of Influence does indeed emphasize the
ethics of persuasion. It’s also 200 pages longer than the original, and
includes a slew of recent findings from behavioral and social
psychology. The original book explained what Cialdini called the six
levers of influence — for instance, “social proof,” the idea that if you
simply see a lot of people like yourself doing something, you’re more
likely to do it too. That’s the idea we were discussing earlier, about
the contagion of mass shootings; social proof may also dictate whether
you’ll wear a face-mask, or listen to a given podcast. The new edition
of Influence adds a seventh lever, which Cialdini calls unity.
This idea is especially interesting at a moment in which the U.S., at
least, seems less unified than it has in a long time. Meanwhile, the
allegedly retired Cialdini still runs a consulting firm whose clients include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer. And so today, on this edition of TheFreakonomics Radio Book Club, we are getting our own consultation, free of charge.
mashable | In the last few years, corporations have been trying to capitalize on
Pride month — usually by adorning rainbow logos and releasing rainbow merchandise. This year, however, Pride campaigns are cranking up the sexual innuendo (all while conservatives are calling us "groomers," but I digress). Burger King Austria, for example, released their "Pride Whopper" featuring burgers with either two "top" buns or two "bottom" buns.
How did we go from delivering dinner to anal sex??
Postmates partnered with anal surgeon and sexual health and wellness
expert Dr. Evan Goldstein to develop a menu for those who want to be
penetrated during anal sex without mess.
"If you're a top, it
seems like you can eat whatever you want," says the ad narrator,
comedian Rob Anderson. "But if you're a bottom, you're expected to
starve? Not this Pride!" The tops are portrayed as eggplants and bottoms
as peaches, of course.
The ad goes on to list some foods that a
bottom should avoid in the day before sex — like whole grains,
cauliflower, and legumes — that contain insoluble fiber. This means they
can't dissolve in water, and are harder to flush out...if you catch my
drift. Instead, Postmates and Dr. Goldstein recommend foods with soluble
fiber and protein, such as white rice, citrus, and fish, as these
digest easily and slowly. The menu will offer "bottom-friendly" dishes
from restaurants in New York and Los Angeles.
WaPo | Felicia Sonmez, a reporter on the national staff at The Washington Post whose criticism of colleagues and the newspaper on social media in recent days drew widespread attention, was dismissed by the paper Thursday, according to a termination letter.
Kris
Coratti Kelly, a Post spokesperson, declined to comment, saying, “We do
not discuss personnel matters.” Executive Editor Sally Buzbee also
declined to comment on the termination, which was first reported by the Daily Beast.
Reached by phone, Sonmez said, “I have no comment at this time.”
Sonmez,
who worked for The Post from 2010 to 2013 before rejoining the
newspaper in 2018, was scheduled to play a key role Thursday night in
reporting on the House select committee’s televised hearing on the Jan.
6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a Post editor involved
with the coverage.
But in a Thursday afternoon termination letter first reported by the New York Times
and viewed by a Post reporter, The Post told Sonmez that she was fired
“for misconduct that includes insubordination, maligning your co-workers
online and violating The Post’s standards on workplace collegiality and
inclusivity.”
Sonmez on Friday used her Twitter account to call attention to a colleague, David Weigel, for retweeting a sexist joke.
“Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!” Sonmez tweeted in response.
She also complained about Weigel’s retweet on an internal message board.
Weigel
apologized for the retweet and deleted it from his account. The Post
subsequently suspended him without pay for a month for violating its
social media policies. (The Post did not confirm Weigel’s suspension,
citing the privacy applied to personnel decisions.) In the ensuing days,
Sonmez continued to use her Twitter account to focus on the incident,
retweeting criticism of Weigel and contending that Post management
enforces social media policies inequitably.
Over
the weekend, Jose A. Del Real, another Post reporter, asked Sonmez to
cease her criticisms, tweeting, “Felicia, we all mess up from time to
time. Engaging in repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague
is neither a good look nor is it particularly effective. It turns the
language of inclusivity into clout chasing and bullying.”
vanityfair | The Post’s
guild responded Tuesday to the disputes playing out online. “Guild
leadership has tried hard to run our union in a way that centers
kindness, respect, fairness, and empathy while holding people and
institutions we care about accountable. It’s our hope that all Washington Post employees keep that in mind when one of us makes a mistake and we are tasked with being part of the accountability process,” Katie Mettler,
who has been cochair of the Post Guild for more than three years, told
me. “In the last few years, hundreds of guild members—often led by women
and people of color—have worked relentlessly and thoughtfully together
to advocate for more fair and inclusive systems at the Post.”
She added, “We are doing the work to hold all our institutions and
ourselves to a high standard, and we will keep doing that work in ways
big and small, public and private.”
In the past, Sonmez has had widespread support in the newsroom; hundreds of colleagues signed a letter
on her behalf in 2020, after Baron suspended her for tweeting an
article detailing a rape allegation against NBA legend Kobe Bryant
shortly after his death. (A “newsroom revolt”
is how this publication described it at the time.) Soon after the
paper’s guild sent that letter to management, she was reinstated. But
since then, there have been multipleinstances of Sonmez calling out the paper publicly—and she has done so internally in response to a staff email as well.
About
two weeks ago, Gold, the National editor, sent out an email urging
colleagues to “take time to assess how you are doing” and “seek help if
you need to talk to someone” in the wake of the mass shootings in
Buffalo and Uvalde and the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. “Just a
reminder that I was punished after I told an editor that I had to take a
walk around the block after reading a difficult story,” Sonmez
replied—to the entire National staff—according to emails reviewed by Vanity Fair. One reporter noted that Sonmez has said both publicly and privately that she’s still at the Post because she wants to help fix things. “Discouraging reporters at the Post
from seeking help they need—that’s actively being part of the problem,”
they told me. “This idea that she’s fighting for sexism and gender,
while that might have felt true at some point, now just rings
disingenuous, even for people who want to give her the benefit of the
doubt.”
On Thursday, after the initial publication of this article, Sonmez respondedonTwitter:
“I stand by what I wrote in that email. In 2018, I was punished after I
told my editors I needed to take a walk around the block after reading a
difficult story. Other colleagues have been punished for their trauma
far more recently, but their stories aren’t mine to tell. I’m not
‘discouraging reporters at the Post from seeking help they need.’ Far from it. The Washington Post’s
own actions are doing that. I care deeply about my colleagues, and I
want this institution to provide support for all employees. Right now,
the Post is a place where many of us fear our trauma will be used against us, based on the company’s past actions.”
The thrust of Sonmez’s critique over the past few days has been about how the Post holds different journalists to different standards, and what message that sends about the Post’s values. Sonmez tweeted
Sunday that Del Real had “publicly attacked” her for highlighting
Weigel’s sexist retweet, writing, “When women stand up for themselves,
some people respond with even more vitriol.” In another tweet in the
thread, she dismissed the idea that objecting to sexism was “clout
chasing”—Del Real’s words—and tagged
Buzbee and Gold to ask if the paper agreed with her. On Monday and
Tuesday, she was once again urging management, via Twitter, to
intervene.
“Working at a huge news organization—the Post,The New York Times,
CNN—is like living in a big city where there are always emergencies,”
one staffer said. An embarrassing correction for the Styles desk might
be a fire; a story the Times beats the Post on, a
flood. “As a colleague, you probably should be trying to help fund the
fire department or city services and make it a better place to live; at
worst, you’re not paying your taxes,” they continued. “And then you have
Felicia, who is essentially pouring gasoline on every fire and inviting
people to watch.”
Sonmez respondedThursday
on Twitter: “To borrow an analogy, working at a big news organization
is like living in a big city. Emergencies like corrections come up every
day. That’s normal. Are sexist or racist tweets ‘normal’ emergencies?
Is the denigration of a class of people a ‘normal’ emergency? Or are
those things a sign of deeper problems within a newsroom rife with
unequal treatment?”
neuburger | But note in the first quote above the even larger problem Hudson
identifies: How can the West maintain living standards while also
de-industrializing and impoverishing the 99%?
He
answers it, indirectly, by talking about how the inflow of money from
Europe and other U.S.-dominated countries like Japan keeps the rich in
cash:
European economic shortages are a huge benefit
to the United States, which is making enormous profits on more expensive
oil (which is controlled largely by U.S. companies, followed by British
and French oil companies). Europe’s replenishment of the arms that it
donated to Ukraine also is a boon to the U.S. military-industrial
complex, whose profits are soaring.
But the United States is not recycling these economic gains to Europe, which is looking like the big loser.
None
of those profits is going to the people. Only the living standards of
the “One Percent” are propped up. (By “One Percent” I mean the upper
10%, a group that comprises our actual oligarchs, plus all those
well-paid souls who keep that ship afloat and its engines running.)
Which
leaves us with the original question: How will our wealthy keep control
if they keep impoverish voters? Hudson’s answer, implicit in a piece written earlier is stark:
“The
alternative to democracy is oligarchy. As Aristotle noted already in
the 4th century BC, oligarchies turn themselves into hereditary
aristocracies. This is the path to serfdom.”
In the same piece he adds, “All this sounds like Rome at the end of the Republic in the 1st century BC.”
People
make facile comparisons of modern America to the end of the Roman
Republic — without fully realizing that at the end of the Roman
Republic, the Republic did end.
So how will our oligarchs do it —
maintain control while impoverishing the governed? There’s really only
one answer — by ending the republic, both its fact and pretense.
There may be other ways, but I can’t think of them.
thecradle | It appears that the US has effectively lost most of the Gulf states
(with the exception of Qatar) in favor of the new, more wily Russian
ally. This loss was reflected in the recent decision of OPEC to increase
oil production by only 200,000 barrels per day, significantly below the
one million barrels per day. the US has sought.
Will the US administration accept this defeat easily and raise a
white flag? The answer is ‘no,’ as Biden will cleave to long-established
Beltway policy for West Asia, the most important aspect of which is the
US military bases in the Persian Gulf.
Contrary to what local populations are encouraged to think, the US
military bases were not established to protect the host states, but
rather to ensure – even force – their government commitment to US
interests and to submit to Washington’s diktats.
With regards to the current US pre-occupation with Ukraine, the war
is tilting in Russia’s favor, both in the military and economic realms,
with an almost complete failure of western-imposed economic sanctions.
The longer Biden delays his West Asia tour because of ‘non-ideal
conditions’ in the host countries, the more those conditions are likely
to evolve against US interests. Neither Saudi Arabia nor what’s left of
the Israeli coalition government are waiting around for Biden –
especially when nothing is delaying frequent trips by the Russians,
Chinese, and other multipolar actors from filling that American gap.
reuters | Brazilian
President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday cast doubt on the 2020 election
victory of U.S. President Joe Biden, just two days before they are due
to meet for the first time during the Summit of the Americas.
Bolsonaro,
an outspoken admirer of former President Donald Trump, said in a TV
interview that he still harbors suspicions about Biden's victory and he
again praised Trump's government.
In
2020, the Brazilian leader voiced allegations of U.S. election fraud as
he backed Trump. Bolsonaro was also one of the last world leaders to
recognize Biden's win.
"The
American people are the ones who talk about it (election fraud). I will
not discuss the sovereignty of another country. But Trump was doing
really well," Bolsonaro said.
"We don't want that to happen in Brazil," he added.
Bolsonaro,
who currently trails former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
in opinion polls ahead of an election in October, has frequently
questioned the legitimacy of Brazil's electronic voting system.
The right wing leader is scheduled to meet Biden on Thursday at the U.S.-hosted summit in Los Angeles.
According
to the White House, their first formal talks will cover a range of
issues, including food insecurity, climate change and COVID-19 pandemic
recovery. read more
Bolsonaro
said in the interview he does not believe that Biden will try to
"impose anything" on what he should do to reduce deforestation in the
Amazon rainforest, which has increased during his tenure.
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