Open Thread IQ Test - What Are Your Thoughts On This?

Fist tap Dale

The "Intelligence" Community's Evidence-Free Report About RT and the Election

U.S. "intelligence" report accusing Putin

Life Changing Adjustment..., (REDUX Originally Posted 1/21/16)

BAMB |  People with proper body control do, in fact, carry themselves in such a way that no preliminary adjustment or movement is necessary to pass from standing to walking or from walking to running. They can also reverse any undertaken movement at any time more easily than other people. All directions are acces!ible to their inspection while in locomotion without an intermediate preliminary adjustment. 

These requirements for proper carriage are justified by the anatomy and mechanics of the body and they are valid for translation as well as rotation of the body.

The terms and form of our analysis may be novel; not so the substance. The culture of the hip joints and posture of the pelvis have always been the central point of all esoteric teachings concerned with increasing potency, sexual and otherwise.

In all oriental languages, reduction of the exaggerated lumbar. hyperextension is synonymous with manhood. "Gird up your loins" is the Biblical expression for "get ready for a manly effort." "Sprung from one's loins" denotes fatherhood. The Yogi, the Japanese wrestler, and in fact all Orientals have always ascribed power and potency to the lumbar·sacral region.

The dependence of proper breathing on the correct holding of the pelvis was also recognised by the Yogi long ago. Many of the prescriptions for correct Asanas, when stripped of the cloud of vague and mystic symbolism surrounding them, are basically sounder than many modern schools of physical education, misusing relaxation, tonus and posture. Even keener understanding ofthe functions of the body is shown by Judo experts in teaching the Jigotai or defensive states and the Shizentai or the balanced upright state, synonymous with mental and physical potency.

Unfortunately, only the example of the masters can convey the proper instruction, for their theory is based on and shrouded in a cloud of mystic symbolism as is all the knowledge of the Orient.

The Shizentai is essentially the potent state we have described. The graceful, precise and efficient movements executed effortlessly and without delay in any position and at any instant are made possible by maintaining the centre of gravity at the highest potential energy level possible.

The higher exponents of Judo show such great skill and perfection in the control of the head and especially the hips and lower abdomen (Saika- Tanden) that their performances seem to defy all laws of gravity.

Unless the pelvis and the head are carried properly, no athletic perfection can be achieved with ease, and some performances are quite impossible without these two requisites; a fact well known to all specialists and yet generally little appreciated.

All people with well matured mind and body functions carry themselves in the potent state. Marked deviations are found together with marked immaturity of other functions. The all-round matured individual is recognisable by his outstanding capacity for recovery from unexpected shocks or disturbances, mental, emotional or mechanical. Faulty recovery is never found on one of these planes of activity alone. This is a very important point to which we will return.

Outwardly, the potent state is observable by certain features common to all acts performed by the person. They are simple and direct. No effort is apparent no matter how difficult the exertion, nor how great the work may be. All the faculties and previous experience are smoothly co-ordinated to bear on the present circumstance, no matter how unexpected and violent the demand may be. When the emergency is over, deliberate reflection only corroborates the adequacy of the spontaneous response. The musculature shows no useless contraction in any part of the body.

All the articulations participate in every act. None is held rigidly in any particular configuration not dictated by the immediate task being performed. In motion, none of the articulations retains any useless, habitually preferred configuration. In short, the whole system is integrated on the present circumstance with perfection and poise, preparing the body and mind for future acts. The instances where the frame is carried on by inertia are as short as possible and any performance can be reversed, or stopped, if the circumstance demands. Such an ideal behaviour is within the capacity of every frame in which all functions have full maturity, an extremely rare circumstance.

Perfect maturity of the antigravity function is recognisable by the narrowness of gait. The traces left by the feet when advancing fit between two parallel lines, about two-thirds of the width of both feet, apart. The two heels never touch the ground simultaneously.

Prints of the bare feet on the ground would be so spaced that following points would be on one straight line the middle of each heel and the edge of the second toe facing the big toe. The legs move simply, i.e., they do not do anything else but the movement strictly necessary for the purpose. So does the whole body. The trajectories described by each part in motion are therefore smooth curves. There are no jerky, angular movements whatsoever, except in sharp accidental righting.

The following chapters deal with the reasons of failure to achieve the perfection which should, ideally, be the average normal for all anatomically intact persons. Means whereby reeducation of faulty response may be efficiently achieved are also suggested. To understand the reason and judge the soundness of these suggestions it is necessary to inquire into the relation of the vestibular apparatus and spatial representation and particularly into an antigravity attitude and its connection with anxiety.

The Indispensable Moving Meditation

tomikiaikido |  Walking Kata Points

This was taken from a Tai Chi website. I think it applies to the Tomiki Lineage Unsoku and Tegatana practice of the Walking Kata. Besides this applying to the walk, it of course applies to technique and application of principle. Remember no martial art has a monopoly on truth. Efficient motion is the goal!

1.Straightening the head.
Stand straight, relax your neck and suspend the head naturally erect from the crown point without strain or tension. The image to model is "hanging by a string from the top of one's head" such that the head and neck align by the force of gravity alone.

2. Correct position of chest and back.
The chest is kept slightly depressed inward which helps enables one's breath to sink to the lower belly. The upper back is slightly bowed outward while the pelvis is tucked under.

3. Remain relaxed with no tension.
Relax and loosen all the joints, particularly the shoulders and elbows, and sink them so that they are flexible, connected and are able to integrate into proper structure. Relaxed does not mean limp. Proper structure is held with a minimum of muscular exertion with gravity providing the downward stacking, providing power from the root into the ground. Tai Chi transfers energy in the form of a vibration much like a whip which has no tension. When the musculature and joints are relaxed, aligned, and connected the wave or pulse of the movement is conducted through them with no retained tension.

4. All movement comes from the center.
The waist is the "ruler." All movement comes from the waist, whether it is a hand movement or a step. Make the waist cause each movement . The waist as the "ruler" must be relaxed, initiating, controlling, guiding and distributing the direction and amount of energy transmitted.

5. Harmonize the upper and lower parts of the body.
The vibration of any Tai Chi movement roots at the feet, releases from the legs, is controlled by the waist, moving eventually through the back and arms and finally is expressed by the fingers. To achieve this coordinated path first requires that the feet are at all times firmly attached to the ground like big roots of a tree. The knees must remain slightly flexed. Finally, the upper and lower body must move harmoniously so that all parts of the body are strung together without the slightest break.

6. The entire body moves as a single unit.
The entire body should move as one complete unit, not just a hand, leg or arm. Once one part of your body moves, every other part of your body should also be in motion; when you are still, everything should be in stillness. "Be still as a mountain...move like a great river."

7. All movements are performed in a smooth manner, with no unevenness, and continuous, allowing no interruptions.
All Tai Chi movements are performed smoothly and evenly. This means that the movements in training never speed up and then slow down. There is never a detectable start and finish from one form to the next. A common image used is that of reeling silk thread from a cocoon. Reeling too fast or suddenly will break the silk while reeling too slow or in the wrong direction may tangle it.

8. Maintain the clear distinction between substantial and insubstantial.
Agility is the result of non-double weighting. This means that one's weight is never maintained equally over both legs. One leg is always heavy and one leg is light. By only maintaining one point of substantial contact with the ground you gain the ability to move quickly, much like a ball which moves easily across the ground because it only has one point of contact with it.

9. Breath deeply from your lower belly and in harmony with the movements.
The breath is deep and full, filling oneself from Tan tien (2-3 inches below your navel.) Each movement is linked precisely with the breath, so that as one expands the body, there is an exhale, and when one contracts the body, there is a inhale. Since the breath is linked to very slow movements, your breathing will also be very slow.

10. The mind leads the body.
In Tai Chi, one focuses the attention on the mind, instead of on force. Therefore, use your mind to direct your movements, and let the body follow. Keep the mind fully conscious, aware, and with intent along each and every tiny point along the path of the movement and each point of the body. The mind and breath are king and queen and the bones and muscles are the court

Shizentai - Correct Carriage of the Pelvis and Head

kendo-guide |   Shizentai means "natural posture". However, it is not your ordinary posture.

You must learn the natural posture in order to stand naturally. Yes. Very complicated but you will get used to the posture.

The key point are;

to straighten the back of your neck, to pull your chin in, to tighten the butt cheeks.

It does not sound like a natural posture. Very uncomfortable for the first time you try.

Probably you know there is a difference between being relaxing and being lazy.

We do not want to be lazy. We need an effort to keep your posture but you can be relax.

That is what we want. Ok, this is how we create this natural posture.

Threaten the U.S. President-elect with the CIA - How Liberal

libertyblitzkrieg |  New Senate Minority leader, and Wall Street mega-defender, Chuck Schumer just went on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and warned Donald Trump that U.S. intelligence agencies could retaliate against him for disagreeing with their claims (based on no public evidence thus far) that Russia hacked the DNC/John Podesta and released it to Wikileaks with the intent of helping Trump win the election.

Here’s what he said courtesy of The Washington Examiner:

The new leader of Democrats in the Senate says Donald Trump is being “really dumb” for picking a fight with intelligence officials, suggesting they have ways to strike back, after the president-elect speculated Tuesday that his “so-called” briefing about Russian cyberattacks had been delayed in order to build a case.

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC after host Rachel Maddow informed him that intelligence sources told NBC news that the briefing had not been delayed.

Now watch the clip for yourself. I’m certain the near permanent grin on his face will not be lost upon you either.

You Have to Move Forward Out of Where You Are

swans |  I recall a Buddhist parable involving a stick that appears from a distance to be a snake, causing fear to rise in the perceiver. As the perception shifts upon closer examination, the fear subsides and the relieved hiker continues down the path. Understanding and awareness have a lot to do with how we feel and how we act. As hosts to the dominant cultural mindset (our collective understanding of who we are in the universe), our minds play a critical part in both perpetuating our dominant way of life and also in shifting away from it. And so it's just possible that I have performed no greater service in my three decades of activism than to simply challenge myself and others to consider the possibility that the social systems that support us and we sustain are inherently incapable of meeting basic human needs and that we must make a fresh start, in a sense, if we are to survive this century and prosper thereafter. 

These systems are the largely invisible, cyclical patterns of interaction among and within society's individuals, institutions, and principalities. They include small town school systems all the way out to our globalized economic system and to the mother of them all, our globalized monoculture. You need to perceive the stick as a stick before you can confidently move on, and this consideration is a critical step in transforming the way we live. When an alcoholic decides to sober up, he needs to understand, as AA puts it, that he is powerless to the substance. This understanding is a necessary condition for recovery. Likewise, about 6 billion humans living on our planet are powerless to make our global systems support equitable, sustainable, enjoyable living. Further, we are powerless to use the tools of these systems to prevent our world from crashing down on itself. 

In a few critical ways, our global monoculture dates back to the Mesopotamian settlements our history texts associate with the Agricultural Revolution. Over the millennia, this rapidly expanding cultural system, under the guise of various imperial masks, has come to produce predictable results, terrible and also quite marvelous. The terrible includes unrelieved poverty for the majority of the world's population, widespread unhappiness and spiritual alienation, even (especially?) among the wealthy 10 percent of the world's population, and the unsustainable use of natural resources. This last result seals our present day ultimatum -- our culture and our survival as a species have become incompatible. As if possessing a will and mind of its own, the culture has a voracious appetite for assimilating all cultures into itself and then separating every thing under its umbrella from every other thing into the smallest possible units, mainly to compete with each other. Its compulsion is to consume and waste, grow and expand, dominate, control and compete at a speed and intensity that is destroying the societies we assume it has evolved to serve.

The Octave is a Repetition of an Already Experienced Quality on a New Level

Transforming Food - First being Food

So, my boy, this totality of cosmic substances named 'exioëhary,' resulting from the evolution of the first being-food in these beings-apparatuses, corresponds in its vibrations to the last stopinder of the being-Heptaparaparshinokh and, according to the particularity of this stopinder, it enters the 'higher intentionally actualizing mdnel-in' of the law of Heptaparaparshinokh. And in order to complete its transformation into new higher substances and acquire vibrations corresponding to the next higher degree of vivifyingness, that is, corresponding to the fifth stopinder of the fundamental process of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh, it indispensably requires just that outside help which can be obtained in the presence of three-brained beings only through those factors mentioned by me more than once, and which are manifested in 'being-partkdolgduty', in other words, those factors which our Common Father Creator Endlessness consented to designate as the means by which certain tetartocosmoses — as a final result of their service to the purposes of the common-cosmic Iraniranumange— could become helpers in the administration of the enlarging world. And as for these factors, which are the sole possible means for the assimilation of the cosmic substances required for the coating and perfecting of the higher being-bodies, today we call them 'conscious labor' and 'intentional suffering'. (15)

Transforming Air - Second Being Food

Gurdjieff was very circumspect about breathing exercises which altered the natural rhythm of breathing. Some of the Movements naturally demand certain altered patterns of breathing. Beyond that, Gurdjieff encouraged the simple practice of conscious attention to the breath. "This signified that the passengers of the ship Karnak were summoned to the "Djamdjampal," that is, that "refectory" of the ship in which all the passengers together periodically fed on the second and first being-foods." 

"After the process of taking in the second being-food, Beelzebub did not immediately return from the "Djameechoonatra"" (14) "This whole attention of mine, I now intentionally divide into two equal parts. The first half I consciously direct to the uninterrupted constatation and continuous sensing of the process proceeding in me of my breathing."

Transforming Impressions - Third Being Food

In the book GURDJIEFF: ESSAYS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE MAN AND HIS TEACHING, there was a chapter on Questions and Responses, which contains transcripts from meetings from the 1940s in which Gurdjieff replies to a question by a pupil (p274-275) : 

Dr. B.: I would like to ask a question about the relationship between work and fatigue. It seems to me there is a difference between work efforts and automatic efforts. Outer work takes energy. Inner work is the opposite— it should accumulate energy. It should even be restful if it is done correctly. But for me it is the opposite. At the moment of making an effort something believes that the gates through which energy escapes will close autornatically. But it’s the opposite. I become very tired. I lose my energy.

GURDJIEFF: On the other hand, you keep it. Consciously. we eat the electricity that is in the body and transform it. This establishes in us a force. . . . In ordinary life you automatically lose this. But here it’s not the same thing; it’s not the same kind of fatigue. This other fatigue has a future. It’s tiring but it brings you a substantial result. It refills your accumulators. If you continue, a certain substance will refill your accumulator. Today the more you tire yourself, the more your organism will produce this substance.

DR. B.: Is fatigue favorable or unfavorable to the effort of concentration?

GURDJIEFF: If it’s ordinary fatigue, it’s not worth trying to make the effort; with that you can’t even do the ordinary things of life. You lose the last of your strength. Work depends on another accumulator. There is a law for this other kind of fatigue: the more you give, the more you receive.

***********************************************************************************

The energy which triggers a sensory nerve never actually gets into the brain, it simply trips a switch, so to speak, which releases pre-existing energy in the nerve to initiate an ionic chain reaction and its accompanying electromagnetic field and transmit an 'electrical impulse' to the brain. The higher brain centers are receiving 'information' about a change of state of our internal electromagnetic environment, not any new energy from the outside world, like the food and air octaves. 

The information is represented by different shapes and sizes of electrical impulses. The interesting thing about information is that it can be represented by almost any kind of medium. For example, these words appear on your computer screen by illuminated phosphors, they may then be printed on a piece of paper with ink. They have been transmitted to you with binary digits of 0 and 1's represented by pulses of electromagnetic energy. I could scratch these words in the sand with a stick or spell them out with stones. In other words, information exists on a different level of reality than the matter/energy used to represent it.

We 'eat' the information from impressions by moving electrical impulses that represent the information around the brain to certain places where that information is stored in another form of medium, possibly various combinations of proteins. Memory is a mental accumulator of information. The more attention we pay to our incoming information, the more of it gets stored in our accumulator.

Deep State Openly Threatening the President-Elect

WaPo |  Trump, if he keeps this up, is heading for a collision with both sides of the aisle in Congress and constant political fencing with the intelligence agencies. If Cabinet nominees support Trump’s pro-Russian stance, they run the risk of getting blocked. And worse, if and when a national security crisis hits, the intelligence community will have every reason to let it be known that the president was out to lunch.

Trump seems determined to prove his critics right — he is not temperamentally or intellectually up to the job. His family and closest advisers had better tell him to get a grip, or his presidency will have a rocky start and may never fully recover.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will begin a hearing on Thursday looking into the Russian attacks on democratic elections. Witnesses will include James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence; Marcel J. Lettre II, undersecretary of defense for intelligence; and Admiral Michael S. Rogers, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency. When sober, experienced officials begin laying out the case against Russia, the public may fully appreciate just how absurd Trump is being. His reflexive defense of Russia will rightly be seen as anything but “America First.” 

Behold the Man

So here we are - caught up in a maelstrom of economic and political discontents - so many untethered from that which gave their lives structure and purpose. Accelerating changes in the planetary ecology, coupled with even faster changes in hive-ape technology - have imperiled millions who lack the knowledge, skill, ability, or drive - to keep up - or even survive. 

The ordinary man is-as-he-is - because of his failure to actualize Effort - Intentional Suffering

- Self-Observation - Conscious Labor. Even if he wishes and chooses to do - it may not be possible for him to do. The ordinary man is like a man lying on the ground with a broken leg. We call him ordinary in exactly the same way we might say the man on the ground is suffering a "failure to walk". 

 

Without help, is it possible for him to simply stand up and be on his way?

 

 

What To Do, What To Do....?

Effort: Awakening results from consistent, prolonged effort. Such efforts can be made as an act of will after one is already exhausted.

Intentional suffering:  The act of struggling against automatism such as daydreaming, idle pleasure, food (eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc... "the greatest 'intentional suffering' can be obtained by compelling ourselves to endure the displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves" 

Self-Observation: This is to strive to observe in oneself behavior and habits usually only observed in others.  Observe thoughts, feelings, movements, and sensations without judging or analyzing what is observed.

Conscious Labor: is an action where the person who is performing the act is present to what he is doing; not absentminded. At the same time he is striving to perform the act more efficiently. 

Application of the above principles is the indispensable prerequisite for possible human development.

Everything else is merely conversation....,

The War on Stupid People

theatlantic |  Rather than looking for ways to give the less intelligent a break, the successful and influential seem more determined than ever to freeze them out. The employment Web site Monster captures current hiring wisdom in its advice to managers, suggesting they look for candidates who, of course, “work hard” and are “ambitious” and “nice”—but who, first and foremost, are “smart.” To make sure they end up with such people, more and more companies are testing applicants on a range of skills, judgment, and knowledge. CEB, one of the world’s largest providers of hiring assessments, evaluates more than 40 million job applicants each year. The number of new hires who report having been tested nearly doubled from 2008 to 2013, says CEB. To be sure, many of these tests scrutinize personality and skills, rather than intelligence. But intelligence and cognitive-skills tests are popular and growing more so. In addition, many employers now ask applicants for SAT scores (whose correlation with IQ is well established); some companies screen out those whose scores don’t fall in the top 5 percent. Even the NFL gives potential draftees a test, the Wonderlic.

 Yes, some careers do require smarts. But even as high intelligence is increasingly treated as a job prerequisite, evidence suggests that it is not the unalloyed advantage it’s assumed to be. The late Harvard Business School professor Chris Argyris argued that smart people can make the worst employees, in part because they’re not used to dealing with failure or criticism. Multiple studies have concluded that interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and other “emotional” qualities can be better predictors of strong job performance than conventional intelligence, and the College Board itself points out that it has never claimed SAT scores are helpful hiring filters. (As for the NFL, some of its most successful quarterbacks have been strikingly low scorers on the Wonderlic, including Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw, Dan Marino, and Jim Kelly.) Moreover, many jobs that have come to require college degrees, ranging from retail manager to administrative assistant, haven’t generally gotten harder for the less educated to perform.

At the same time, those positions that can still be acquired without a college degree are disappearing. The list of manufacturing and low-level service jobs that have been taken over, or nearly so, by robots, online services, apps, kiosks, and other forms of automation grows longer daily. Among the many types of workers for whom the bell may soon toll: anyone who drives people or things around for a living, thanks to the driverless cars in the works at (for example) Google and the delivery drones undergoing testing at (for example) Amazon, as well as driverless trucks now being tested on the roads; and most people who work in restaurants, thanks to increasingly affordable and people-friendly robots made by companies like Momentum Machines, and to a growing number of apps that let you arrange for a table, place an order, and pay—all without help from a human being. These two examples together comprise jobs held by an estimated 15 million Americans.

Meanwhile, our fetishization of IQ now extends far beyond the workplace. Intelligence and academic achievement have steadily been moving up on rankings of traits desired in a mate; researchers at the University of Iowa report that intelligence now rates above domestic skills, financial success, looks, sociability, and health.

Ecce Homo

wikipedia |   Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is (German: Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist) is the last original book written by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche before his final years of insanity that lasted until his death in 1900. It was written in 1888 and was not published until 1908.

According to one of Nietzsche's most prominent English translators, Walter Kaufmann, the book offers "Nietzsche's own interpretation of his development, his works, and his significance."^[1] The book contains several chapters with ironic self-laudatory titles, such as "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Write Such Good Books" and "Why I Am a Destiny". Walter Kaufmann, in his biography Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist noticed the internal parallels, in form and language, to Plato's Apology which documented the Trial of Socrates. In effect, Nietzsche was putting himself on trial with this work, and his sardonic judgments and chapter headings are mordant, mocking, self-deprecating, sly, and they turn this trial against his future accusers, distorters, and superficial judges

Within this work, Nietzsche is self-consciously striving to present a new image of the philosopher and of himself, for example, a philosopher "who is not an Alexandrian academic nor an Apollonian sage, but Dionysian."[2] On these grounds, Kaufmann considers Ecce Homo a literary work comparable in its artistry to Vincent van Gogh's paintings. Just as Socrates was presented in Plato's Apology as the wisest of men precisely because he freely admitted to his own ignorance, Nietzsche argues that he himself is a great philosopher because of his withering assessment of the pious fraud of the entirety of Philosophy which he considered as a retreat from honesty when most necessary, and a cowardly failure to pursue its stated aim to its reasonable end. Nietzsche insists that his suffering is not noble but the expected result of hard inquiry into the deepest recesses of human self-deception, and that by overcoming one's agonies a person achieves more than any relaxation or accommodation to intellectual difficulties or literal threats. He proclaims the ultimate value of everything that has happened to him (including his father's early death and his near-blindness – an example of love of Fate or amor fati). In this regard, the wording of his title was not meant to draw parallels with Jesus, but suggest a contrast, that Nietzsche truly is "a man." Nietzsche's point is that to be "a man" alone is to be more than "a Christ".

Post 10,001

In Victory, Magnanimity...,

thetimes.co.uk |  Donald Trump applauded President Putin last night for humiliating the Obama administration by shrugging off the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats.

Mr Putin said that there would be no tit-for-tat measures against the United States — a move framed by the Kremlin as a benevolent new year gesture, contrasting with the last vengeful kick of President Obama.

On Thursday night Mr Obama ordered 35 alleged Russian “intelligence operatives” out of the country as punishment for hacking activities. He also shut down two country estates where Russian diplomats spent their weekends.

“We are not going to create problems for American diplomats,” Mr Putin said in a statement issued by the Kremlin. “We are not going to expel anyone.”

Instead he promised to focus on building new relations with Mr Trump, the incoming US president, ignoring the “provocative” and “irresponsible” politics of the present administration. 

FP |  Various government spokespeople began to paint a picture of sanctions pushed personally by a bitter man. These were Barack Obama’s sanctions, not Donald Trump’s — not even U.S. sanctions. They were the sanctions pushed in a final, futile burst of hatred by a lame-duck president. Even Secretary of State John Kerry was a “good man,” undermined by an emotional president, according to the Foreign Ministry’s Zakharova.

The surprise came around 4 p.m. local time, via a statement was published on the Kremlin’s website. Russia would resist even the minimum expected diplomatic response of retaliatory expulsions, the statement read: “[Russia] will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.”

Putin even invited the children of U.S. diplomats to his New Year’s party.

The Coup: Can It Succeed?

petras-lahaine |  In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to ‘complete its investigation’ on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the very day of Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked ‘findings’ is already oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President’s approval. Obama’s last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump’s incoming administration as dangerous. Trump’s promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among the ‘angry’ American electorate. Trump’s success at thwarting the current ‘Russian ploy’ requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump’s appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children’s future.

If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton’s detested ‘basket of deplorables’). He embarked on a major series of ‘victory tours’ around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face ‘the real fire’, not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.

The Worst Error in the History of Science

phys.org |  Science is one of the most remarkable inventions of humankind. It has been a source of inspiration and understanding, lifted the veil of ignorance and superstition, been a catalyst for social change and economic growth, and saved countless lives. 

Yet, history also shows us that its been a mixed blessing. Some discoveries have done far more harm than good. And there's one mistake you will never read about in those internet lists of the all-time biggest blunders of science. 

The worst error in the history of science was undoubtedly classifying humans into the different races.

Now, there are some big contenders for this dubious honour. Massive blunders like the invention of nuclear weapons, fossil fuels, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), leaded petrol and DDT. And tenuous theories and dubious discoveries like luminiferous aether, the expanding earth, vitalism, blank slate theory, phrenology, and Piltown Man, to name just a few.

But race theory stands out among all of them because it has wreaked untold misery and been used to justify barbaric acts of colonialism, slavery and even genocide. Even today it's still used to explain social inequality, and continues to inspire the rise of the far right across the globe.

Take for example the controversy that surrounded Nicholas Wade's 2014 book A Troublesome Inheritance if you doubt for a moment the resonance race still has for some people.

The human races were invented by anthropologists like Johann Friedrich Blumenbach back in the eighteenth century in an attempt to categorise new groups of people being encountered and exploited as part of an ever expanding European colonialism.

From the very beginning, the arbitrary and subjective nature of race categories was widely acknowledged. Most of the time races were justified on the grounds of cultural or language differences between groups of people rather than biological ones. 

Their existence was taken as a given right up until the twentieth century when anthropologists were busy writing about races as a biological explanation for differences in psychology, including intelligence, and educational and socioeconomic outcomes between groups of people.

The Burden of Proof Sits on the Party Making the Affirmative Statement

theatlantic |  Jedidiah Carlson was googling a genetics research paper when he stumbled upon the white nationalist forum Stormfront. Carlson is graduate student at the University of Michigan, and he is—to be clear—absolutely not a white nationalist. But one link lead to another and he ended up reading page after page of Stormfront discussions on the reliability of 23andMe ancestry results and whether Neanderthal interbreeding is the reason for the genetic superiority of whites. Obsession with racial purity is easily channeled, apparently, into an obsession with genetics.

Stormfront has been around since the 90s, which means it’s been around for the entirety of the genomic revolution. The major milestones in human genetics—sequencing of the first human genome, genetic confirmation that humans came out of Africa, the first mail-in DNA ancestry tests—they’re all there, refracted through the lens of white nationalism. Sure, the commentators sometimes disagreed with scientific findings or mischaracterized them, but they could also be serious about understanding genetics. “The threads would turn into an informal tutoring session and journal club,” observes Carlson. “Some of the posters have a really profound understanding of everyday concepts in population genetics.”

No Permanent Allies, Only Permanent Interests...,

PCR |   I do not know that Trump will prevail over the vast neoconservative conspiracy. However, it seems clear enough that he is serious about reducing the tensions with Russia that have been building since President Clinton violated the George H. W. Bush administration’s promise that NATO would not expand one inch to the East. Unless Trump were serious, there is no reason for him to announce Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as his choice for Secretary of State. In 2013 Mr. Tillerson was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out, a global corporation such as Exxon has interests different from those of the US military/security complex. The military/security complex needs a powerful threat, such as the former “Soviet threat” which has been transformed into the “Russian threat,” in order to justify its hold on an annual budget of approximately one trillion dollars. In contrast, Exxon wants to be part of the Russian energy business. Therefore, as Secretary of State, Tillerson is motivated to achieve good relations between the US and Russia, whereas for the military/security complex good relations undermine the orchestrated fear on which the military/security budget rests.

Clearly, the military/security complex and the neoconservatives see Trump and Tillerson as threats, which is why the neoconservatives and the armaments tycoons so strongly opposed Trump and why CIA Director John Brennan made wild and unsupported accusations of Russian interference in the US presidential election.

The lines are drawn. The next test will be whether Trump can obtain Senate confirmation of his choice of Tillerson as Secretary of State.

The myth is widespread that President Reagan won the cold war by breaking the Soviet Union financially with an arms race. As one who was involved in Reagan’s effort to end the cold war, I find myself yet again correcting the record.

Reagan never spoke of winning the cold war. He spoke of ending it. Other officials in his government have said the same thing, and Pat Buchanan can verify it.

Reagan wanted to end the Cold War, not win it. He spoke of those “godawful” nuclear weapons. He thought the Soviet economy was in too much difficulty to compete in an arms race. He thought that if he could first cure the stagflation that afflicted the US economy, he could force the Soviets to the negotiating table by going through the motion of launching an arms race. “Star wars” was mainly hype. (Whether or nor the Soviets believed the arms race threat, the American leftwing clearly did and has never got over it.)

Reagan had no intention of dominating the Soviet Union or collapsing it. Unlike Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, he was not controlled by neoconservatives. Reagan fired and prosecuted the neoconservatives in his administration when they operated behind his back and broke the law.

The Soviet Union did not collapse because of Reagan’s determination to end the Cold War. The Soviet collapse was the work of hardline communists, who believed that Gorbachev was loosening the Communist Party’s hold so quickly that Gorbachev was a threat to the existence of the Soviet Union and placed him under house arrest. It was the hardline communist coup against Gorbachev that led to the rise of Yeltsin. No one expected the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The US military/security complex did not want Reagan to end the Cold War, as the Cold War was the foundation of profit and power for the complex.

Attack on St. Louis Homeless Foreshadows Things to Come

counterpunch |  New Life is the St. Louis “shelter-of-last-resort” because it provides places to stay for those who cannot get a Continuum of Care bed.  It can do this because it is funded 100% by donations and does not rely on writing grants that specify what type of homeless it will accept.

In April 2017 St. Louis will have an election to replace the outgoing Francis Slay.  Democratic Party Alderperson Lyda Krewson is the favorite of the downtown investors to become the new mayor.  She promises to shut her eyes tightly to the plight of those falling into the chasm of homelessness.  When addressing downtown loft dwellers about New Life in early November, she insisted that the city should shut it down and “put a lock on the place.”

In contrast, Green Party mayoral candidate Johnathan McFarland believes that “New Life must be kept open because it is the only shelter in St. Louis which takes in homeless people in truly desperate situations.  It is obviously needed because so many people come there.”

While Trump and the Republicans are more blatant in their rhetoric, the slick wordsmithing of Democratic Party politicians like Francis Slay and Lyda Krewson have equally brutal effects.  As capitalism sinks into a feeding frenzy to extract profits from every acre of native land and urban real estate, it uses whatever politician it finds most useful.  In St. Louis and Standing Rock, its focus is on those who have the least power to resist.

The crystal ball of homelessness in the US reveals a dark cloud.  US urban patterns are distinct:  Its inner cities have been poverty centers while the more well-to-do populate suburbs.  In most other parts of the world, the poor live in suburbs, far away from the services they need for survival, and the well-off populate the urban core.  But increasing numbers of the financially secure are moving into downtown areas and the pocketbooks of financial investors whisper that it’s time to drive out the poor.

Efforts to remove the impoverished and homeless from downtown areas will continue as surely as will efforts to destroy safety nets and environmental gains of the last century.  Protecting the homeless is a core part of defending social security, medicare, medicaid, public schools, child labor laws, parks and indigenous lands.