Wednesday, 31 August 2022

THESE AMERICAN SAVAGES

31 August 2022https://youtu.be/wmOePNsNFw0Totally brilliant intervention from Jeffrey Sachs. I've been following him for a long while. He may not be the world's most entertaining speaker, but he is certainly the most mature and accurate. Yea I'd like to comment further.It is desperately important that Europe work on its independence and get out from under these American meatballs.A "Europe 2049" would be appropriate.Russia may have invaded Ukraine, but the war was caused by America - hardly "unprovoked"! America takes us for fools. I will...

Monday, 29 August 2022

MACRON WAVES TO THE CROWDS IN ALGERIA

29 August 2022https://youtu.be/-s8n_LbCORgI love this....the Algerians hate Macron, but he ignored that and made it look like they were cheering him!!! Algerian independence from France was declared in 1962, not 1960, incidentally. The French ran Algeria for 132 years, the war of independence lasted 8 years from 1954 and was marked by murder and torture and the death of over million people. The French were even accused of genocide, which admittedly is a word that's thrown around rather loosely these days.France failed to hand over respectfully...

REBUILDING MARIOPOL

29 August 2022https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/russia-outlook-charts-wall-street-investing-analysis-market-strategy-economy-2022-8Looks like Russia is rebuilding mariupol v v quickly. Impressive.That is a really amazing progress. Potemkin would be proud. Wonder if the Chinese will get in on, after all, construction is their bread n butter, they can slip these new pieces into their jigsaw silk road.The Russians on the front line, wrecking and burning to rubble; then the Chinese following around after, building back better (but...

GREATER DISASTER THAN VIETNAM, IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

29 August 2022The "unprovoked invasion" is being revealed as one scenario anticipated by western planners of this conflict, when Kiev stepped up its bombing of its Donbas back in 2021 and then intensified further in January and early February 22, With Russian acquiesence to Ukraine's joining NATO, or an outright proxy war with Russia as the two possible results; defeat for Putin and his replacement by a western sympathiser was expected in either case. (who would also incidentally - this is my guessing so probably seems madly misjudged...

Sunday, 28 August 2022

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OR RADICAL DISRUPTION?

Actually I am someone who by temperament favours continuous improvement where you make the best better and transfer best practises to poorer performing processes.Step change or disruption is often portrayed as a choice between the staying on the burning platform or  jumping into the freezing seas.But one reader had an interesting reply to this criticism of breaking with the past."Growth needs change...even broken ..From seed to tiny plant need to be broken.A chicken emerge when the egg broken.Lava from mountain after eruption need to make...

CONDEMNED TO YEARS OF MISERY AND SQUALOR

28 August 2022It's a bit weird that even after six months of fighting in Ukraine, people seem largely ignorant of the real causes and real consequences of this war. They made up their minds on the 24th of February on the basis of almost no understanding and they haven't moved on in the light of new and relevant evidence. Each side battles on for total victory, indifferent to the appalling casualties and costs.Applying logic to this crisis doesn't seem to work!But why so irrational? Too proud to admit a mistake? Stuck in the rut of their ideology?...

Friday, 26 August 2022

THE DECLINE OF THE WEST

26 August 2022Mearsheimer with his story took us up to when the Russian Bear wrecks its neighbour because it doesn't like being poked in the eye Example from six years agohttps://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4From a couple of months backhttps://youtu.be/qciVozNtCDM... but after that? This is what comes next:The failure of negotiations, the moral defeat of the West, the end of the monopolar world, the re-integration of half of Ukraine into Russia...

WESTERN GOVTS, ANALYSTS AND MEDIA - HOW PROPAGANDA WORKS

26 August 2022Simple-minded banalities and prejudice. This is the diet fed to the public through official channels.In the UK, the ministry of defence MoD publishes daily bulletins on its site, and these talking points are picked up by the mainstream media, which then goes into a little more detail, and this is fed to the British public, which is why so many people who have a diet of only mainstream media have such a restricted and false view of the causes and consequences of this conflict. That is how consent for this war is manufactured.Today...

Thursday, 25 August 2022

INDIA IS IN A GOOD PLACE

India is in a good place! This guy below,  has no need to lecture us on what our past glories meant for the other side of the transaction. On the contrary, we left India with superior governance.America invited India into its World Order, but India held back. Even though America offeted start-up capital, its home market and guaranteed the supply routes.But while holding back means India chose to be a laggard, it also means any collapse of the American Order wont worry India - cf China.India's present woes are its choice, but India is well...

THE DIVIDED SELF - THE EXAMPLE OF UKRAINE

The divided selfOne good place to start to get an idea of the underlying differences between the people of West and East Ukraine, and this war, could  found in their different ideas of who they are, how they see themselves, and how these differences might be reconciled if that is possible.To understand this approach, first, try reading my earlier post The United Self.Roman or OrthodoxLook at who's fighting whom in Ukraine, and if you take out the idea that this is a proxy war between America and Russia, which of course it is, then you are...

THE FUTURES OF UKRAINE

25 August 2022 MORE AMERICAN AIDSomewhere - I cannot find the reference - there is a breakdown of the latest 3 billion USD America has promised in arms shipments to Ukraine and three points emerge on analysis: 1 is that it is just lightweight stuff whereas what Ukraine could really use is aircraft HiMAAS etcetera 2 the supplies will only last for a short time: so for example the 240,000 rounds of ammunition considering that...

Tuesday, 23 August 2022

WHO IS ALEXANDER DUGIN?

23 August 2022Alexander Dugin has been portrayed in the West as the frontman for Russia's deep  (military) state.Dugin took his cue from a famous Glaswegian, Halford Mackinder.Mackinder put geography in the driving seat of history, not economics. He created the school of Geopolitics.He split the world into Europe/Asia/Africa, and America. With inner Asia (the tundran  plains of Russia rolling over the Carpathians into central Europe) as the heartland.He split the peoples into land powers and sea powers, forever at war. Russia does not...

Monday, 15 August 2022

NOT SEEING EYE TO EYE - RUSHDIE RUSHED TO HOSPITAL

15 August 2022What we are talking about here is the freedom of thought, speech and assembly, which is the motor of progress  let's also remember that we are talking about a death threat to a citizen of the US and UK and an attempt at his execution on American soil. Someone ironically, we are also talking about a Salmon Rushdie who is very quick to criticise white society and yet in this situation where his life is threatened ,he seeks the help and support of the very society he criticises.Salman Rushdie observes that " a new world has been...

BOEUF BOURGUIGNON

Jacques Pepin paints15 August 2022There is a French quarter here, with quite a number of friendly, inexpensive restaurants. This last weekend, the dish of the day at one was "Daube de boeuf" - this is a beef bourguignon or Irish boiled beef and carrots, or Yorkshire stew, but there are intriguing key differences between Fr and Eng cuisine.With the cubed beef soaked in cooking wine beforehand, salt pepper...

Saturday, 13 August 2022

CUTTING THE BEARD OF THE CHINESE DRAGON

13 August 2022THE ISSUENancy Pelosi, leader America's House of Representatives, has just returned from a controversial unofficial visit to Taiwan. Lithuania is sending a delegation to Taiwan on a 5 day tour and Taiwan is about to open some sort of office consulate in Vilnius. Why would anyone want to cut the beard of the Chinese dragon?As a matter of identity, the people of Taiwan, in polls, self-identify as Taiwanese, and have chosen the Republic of China ROC to govern them. Aswhere China - the present govt at least, the PRC -  identifies...

Friday, 12 August 2022

CHINA'S RED LINE

12 August 2022“Strategic Ambiguity""Midline" (of the Straits of Taiwan)"Unilateral Challenge to the Status Quo"You can believe in Taiwan as an independent country, but at the same time take a bit of care with the language fabricated by our American friends. Noam Chomsky sussed out the linguistics of "this unprovoked invasion": it was hardly unprovoked, and although it was an invasion it was America that started the war.I'm sure Chonsky would have a thing or two to say about these three latest linguistic traps. They take a long time to think...

Sunday, 7 August 2022

RANT AGAINST MEDIAGARCHY

7 August 2022https://youtu.be/TV5ubJq39h0So mad! Yes! it is the media running public opinion, on behalf of an oligarchy of the rich and a minorigarchy of the weird and the woke, in the absence of any political leadership on behalf of the majority and the public interest.The public interest is for me about a fair distribution of wealth, opportunity and freedom to the majority.Where are the politicians with a longer term view of what's good for the country and the strength of leadership to outdistance the polls?Instead, for reasons most of us link...

Saturday, 6 August 2022

DOES THE CIA MAKE AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY?

6 August 2022Does America have a foreign policy strategy and if so, who is running it? ... is it the CIA, sitting in the Pentagon?How foreign policy is made-You are supposed to start with your vision/goals/aims.-Then you turn these vague wishes into measurable objectives.-Then for each you need resources, and so a strategy:  a strategy is what you'll create to plan best use of resources to achieve your objectives.-Then, you get to the policies, which are the rules governing running the strategy; and the organisation units you need to man the...

Wednesday, 3 August 2022

ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS NUCLEAR OBLIVION

3 August 2022https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-united-states-is-directly-involved-ukraine-war-2022-08-02/Another step towards nuclear oblivion.We've known this for a long time anyway, we've known perfectly well that the strategy and the planning - not just the training and the supply of arms - is down to the Western powers if it's the M142 HiMARS, it's Lockheed Martin, it's the Americans who plan the launch if it's the M270 MLRS launchers with GMLRS munitions, it's still Lockheed Martin, but from British stocks, it's gotta...

Tuesday, 2 August 2022

THE UNITED SELF

2 Aug 2022self and identity - a biography of our self - who we are - our identityhttps://youtu.be/ZD52aZ5Jh7A"personality modernity and the storied self"modernmodernity means modern times. Especially in the West ("The West" by this time in the 21st century includes many non Western countries like South Korea or Japan, according to the following framework...).we have to make a difference between pre modern or pre-industrial times and times since the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries.what makes our time "modern" is: capitalism,...