23 June 2023
On a different subject from the focus on war, here is a nicely written article on a subject of personal interest, and demographics means emerging global interest too.
Friday, 23 June 2023
Wednesday, 21 June 2023
AMERICA SEES THIS WAR AS A TEST OF ITS MUSCLE
21 June 2023
Ukraine may cease to exist, swallowed into S W Russia and Poland. Maybe R will take a further four oblasts, Odessa, possibly Transnistria.
America sees this war as a test of strength. America believes it is being watched by China. Americans thinks that if China sees America seeking peace it means defeat and appeasement or compromise with Russia. America thinks this will encourage China to use force in Taiwan. The Chinese will have encouragement that they can get a settlement in their favour.
All those places were built and colonised* by Russia centuries ago. They are Russian. This was the trouble if you remember - that Kev didn't like Russian speakers in Ukraine and began shelling them in 2014 This was the start of the physical confrontation.
It is very unlikely that a rump Ukraine after the war would be admitted to NATO. Putin has publicly declared Russia has no objection to whatever's left joining the EU, but the EU will not be able to accept Ukraine for many years, decades even.
So in all probability Russia will rebuild Novorossiya and leave the rest to Poland or the EU or some rump state that will still carry the name "Ukraine".
* Vassal states are states that have given up their full sovereignity to another (usually more powerful) state in exchange for security. A Tributary states is a kind of vassal that pays tributes (usually money or manpower) to their suzerain in exchange for protection. Rather like the Mafia who often extort people in exchange for giving said people some protection (from the same Mafia of course!). While not fully sovereign, a vassal state usually is nominally independent.
Compare this with colonisation. Colonisation is a migration, a slow invasion a process of sending settlers to populate an area and rule over the indigenous people. Some examples of colonisation are the Portuguese settling on initially empty Madeira and the Azores, Europeans replacing Native Americans in the Americas, Dutch then English in South Africa (not so successful). The consequences of colonisation vary from replacement of the local demographic or simply switching the local culture to that of the colonisers.
===
There are those who believe the West will prevail and Ukraine will defeat Russia and there are those who see events point in a different direction.
Those who think Ukraine will defeat Russia, try to boost our morale or keep us quiet and at home.
But to others, the facts tell a different story. We want the American Order to prevail, but think the (neocon) strategy of conflict and war is not going to work.
We think that pursuing goals exclusively by military means is not going to work in Ukraine. This is a proxy war. Neither Russia nor America can accept defeat.
The one employs a strategy of attrition to gradually wipe out the army, reduce the infrastructure to rubble and replace the government with one more favourably disposed to neutrality.
The other wants to contain, weaken and replace the government of the one in a strategy necessarily of escalation. It believes a negotiated peace settlement would be seen as weakness and embolden the real foe, the Chinese, not just to take Taiwan, but to kick the one out of Asia altogether, replacing it as world hegemon.
Neither can accept defeat. The conflict slowly escalates as it destroys, leaving the belligerents stripped down to only their nuclear explosive belts and underpants.
That's why I believe there are not and never will be any off-ramps for current government leaders. To avoid certain nuclear war, one or both must be replaced.
So we want reform - essentially, regime change in Washington. Then, we believe, the West will have a better chance.
We've got the wrong leadership and are losing and something must be done about this, and quickly.
Otherwise, how will we in Europe manage defeat? What will the consequences be for us?
There aren't any easy answers to any of this, but the current track is a disaster for everyone.
===
What is being fought over is not just little Taiwan or even less significant Ukraine, but a superpower fight for the top position. If Russia prevails in Eastern Europe, China can prevail in Asia. China becomes the regional Hegemon and that's the end of American dominance.
America's strategy for Eurasia is to contain Russia in East Europe and separate Germany from Russia (both part of the same European plain). It is employing the policy of containment, as elaborated by George F. Kennan way back in 1947* who inherited from Halford Mackinder, 1904**.
America is employing the very same strategy to contain China within the first island ring.
The end of American dominance in Asia means America is kicked off the first island ring - Japan, S Korea, Taiwan (sic), and out of the nine-dash line.
So we need to understand there is a lot at stake here and anyone who advocates the containment of Russia by military means needs to realise just how high are the stakes.
There is a mindset full of moral abhorrence at "this illegal and unprovoked invasion", but this viewpoint is completely detached from reality. If anyone in power pays any attention to this kind of talk, then by current logistics, the West will be defeated in Ukraine and resoundingly so.
Who was it who said we must deal with the world as we find it and not as we would like it to be?
I think the problem here is the people like this commenter who believe that the power of the United States of America is unlimited, that it's resources are unlimited, that it can do anything it likes anywhere anytime ... and yet take a look at history where America has cut and run from all its major foreign policy Adventures. Why should it be any different this time?
* https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17601.htm
** https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-mackinders-heartland-theory-4068393
Monday, 19 June 2023
WHAT WILL BE THE NEXT AMERICAN HORROR SHOW
19 June 2023
Well the basics are that Ukraine is outnumbered 10 to 1, by a professional army, taking abnormally high (in the history of warfare) losses, in a war of attrition it cannot sustain.
From the little I can make sense of, indications are that Ukraine has got maybe a couple of months oumph left in it. Then I suppose, before our very eyes, Ukraine will be made to dissappear....to be replaced by?... the next American horror show.
What could save Ukraine is intervention by East European armies, or supply of "tactical" nuclear. Neither seems likely.
Wednesday, 7 June 2023
WE ALL NEED AN ADVISORY CIRCLE
7 June 2023
Well, we all need a friend.
I would not undertake important change in my life, such as a house renovation or job application, or progress in my career, relationships, without consulting my "circle of advisors". I have learnt the hard way to plan and validate the plan and to verify progress with my circle.
Perhaps your circle is sons and daughters, your family, or maybe a group from university, and it could be they who consult more with you as there is more change in their lives and because you have more experience or lessons-learnt of managing particular challenges, though you consult them too.
We all go through major changes in our lives such as establishing a savings/pension plans, house purchase/rent, house update, recovering debt or some legal or accounting matter, changing country, job applications... all this kind of thing is talked about exhaustively at meetings or by text (though your advisors are really busy) before it's acted upon.
This clarifies thinking, reduces error and gives heart.
Most of the 'talking' is acrually text msging, but you may like to meet weekly on the chat app (there'll be times when it doesn't work too well with problems of availability).
All this to say, if you can share your projects you can work through them informally...though in practise, by habit now, you'll go through the usual routine, which amounts to conception, validation and verification:
from SWOT analysis of problems/requirements, to goals, to strategies, programs, plans, execution, monitoring and final review.
I don't think things, including warm, humourous, close and supportive relations, would be the same without this practise. It's usually successful !!!
You can start this today.
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
REGIME CHANGE IN AMERICA NOW
30 May 2023
Today we look at the arguments for and against Swedish membership of NATO, before turning to the context as part of American foreign policy, possible consequences for Sweden keeping in mind events in Ukraine, and alternatives to current American goals.
To protect our futures and The American Order (empire, of which we are a part). If ever regime change in America was needed, it is now.
SWEDISH NATO MEMBERSHIP
Sweden doesn't need to be in NATO. There is no threat to Sweden from Russia. This is all a propaganda campaign for enlargement and Sweden has been on the list for a long time due to its excellent defence industry, which NATO hopes to use more widely.
Joining NATO is only beneficial to Swedish defense companies such as: Saab, Bofors*, Hägglunds** et al. (*part under Saab, part under BAE; **now under BAE) and will confer zero net benefit to the Swedish taxpayer as billions will be spent annually to meet NATO minimum defense spending targets - money that could be spent on supporting new industries of the future, education or healthcare.
This is a nonsense campaign to capitalise on the Ukraine conflict so as to scare the general public of Sweden and Swedish MPs in particular into thinking there is a huge threat, when there really isn't one at all.
RATIONALE FOR MEMBERSHIP
On the contrary, Sweden has invaded Russia twice in the past.
Nowhere in the public record is there any utterance by Putin saying that he has any hostile intentions towards Sweden.
On the other hand, I imagine that if Sweden joins NATO and NATO plants nuclear weapons pointed at Moscow on its territory, then I think Sweden will come in for a new kind of attention from Russia.
GREAT AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY DISASTERS
So, $2t in Afghanistan and $5t in Iraq. How much in Vietnam? And Syria, Libya. How's Iran going?.....long list of expensive foreign policy disasters. Oh and tell us about the success of the "worldwide" sanctions on the economies of the West. And Ukraine is shaping up to be far and away the greatest of all Great American Disasters.
How do they all end? With America cutting and running in humiliating defeats, leaving behind them a dazed people wondering what has just happened to them, and decades of suffering and destruction.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE UKRAINE ADVENTURE
So what confidence can anyone have that the situation in Ukraine will turn out any differently, this time in America's favour? Against a nuclear-armed Russian Federation with most of the world supporting Russia?
None whatsoever - this is a war America will lose, for military and moral reasons, and it will bankrupt America and "the collective West" from all points of view.
For it is not only Ukraine that is being bled white in this proxy war - Ukraine has been well and truly conned - but from an economic point of view, so is Europe and in particular Germany; and this is America's purpose too.
CONCLUSIONS
This is all so utterly futile, disastrous and foolish from a European's point of view - and the FT, DT, Economist and MSM generally should immediately stop their misleading propaganda and get down to truthful reporting that is in the national interest, in the interests of our country and its people.
And the sooner we kick the Americans out of our share of this continent the better. Once we achieve independence, we will wipe the floor with America and China (though I admit this is a 20-year Project).
Can people not see what is basically going on here? It is evident to me at least that this is the machinations of the American neocons, who are lining their own pockets and those of the military industrial congressional elite; and imagine that they are promoting American hegemony.
This is so utterly futile and ridiculous - just look at the litter of humiliating defeats America has suffered since and including Vietnam.
ALTERNATIVES FOR THE FUTURE
Just think of how all that war money could have been spent an initiative similar to China's Belt and Road ... or infrastructure, healthcare, education. And China is quietly catching up so fast.
These neocons live in a virtual and highly selfish and immoral world of their own imagination. While back in the real world, we take the damage to our planet and our environment, our peoples and our economies, our prosperity, happiness and chances of success.
Sunday, 28 May 2023
RUSSIA'S MONROE DOCTRINE
28 May 2023
The history of this West-East war explicitly begins in 1991 with statements from James Baker and others, promises that were not kept.
I say "explicitly", but you could go back to the Russian communist revolution of 1917, or to Mackinder's Heartland Theory 1904, or to The Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople 1378, or indeed to waves of migrations East to West into Europe of the varied ethnic nomadic groups who have at times inhabited the steppes of Central Asia, Mongolia and the Slavs of what is currently Russia and Ukraine.
History would also help understand Russia's particular sensitivity to its security, after all it has been invaded over 50 times including Napoleon and Hitler twice by Sweden and even Canada!
They also say that "geography is destiny" and if you look at the world's most vulnerable frontier in Central Europe (if you follow Mackinder) you will see that there are nine gaps through which invaders have passed and this would lead to an understanding of why Russia might want to protect these gaps in some way or another, given the history above.
https://zeihan.com/russias-twilight-war/
Under Putin, Russia has sought a peaceful resolution of this conflict, but the provocations finally became too much of an existential threat and Russia intervened to protect its own on 24 February 2022. So a defensive war that any Russian leader would have undertaken - imagine if the same thing happened to America, how it would respond? America has its Monroe Doctrine 1823.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, author of the Monroe Doctrine, photo.
Saturday, 27 May 2023
YESTERDAY, A STREAKER AT THE BALI DANSE
27 May 2023
We remember the incident at Lords cricket ground where the policemen ran up and tried to cover the offenders part with his helmet ha ha.
Bule Kesurupan Masuk Ke PURE
https://coconuts.co/bali/news/naked-german-woman-crashes-balinese-dance-show-at-ubud-temple/
mp4 uncensored available ...
This unusual sighting occured at the Balinese danse near Ubud Palace (Puri Saraswati) on Monday 22 May . The danse was interrupted by a streaker Was it drugs? Who knows?
She was deported back to Germany, refused to get on the plane and is now in a home for mentally disturbed pple, the Bangli Mental Institution.
What's also interesting is how the audience - the Western audience - reacted ... or rather didn't! Noone batted an eyelid.
If the audience had been jarvanese tourists and not foreign, their reaction would have been the same only much stronger. There would have been large numbers of outraged people from the audience immediately trying to cover this girl up with anything that they had to hand....Even to the point where several of them may have themselves found themselves naked ha ha!
But not these Westerners, no, not us. Stiff upper, errrr, lip.
Wednesday, 24 May 2023
BALI, COVID, AND IDENTITY POLITICS
25 May 2023
The woman who made up this package of fruit for my friends says that she had been saving to buy a property in Bali from before covid.
Then when covid struck, she had to use all her savings in order just to live.
So today thanks to covid she has nothing and cannot buy a house.
But she is happy. She says "Alhamdulillah" ("praise be to God") because she is grateful to have survived. She is from a humble family, is used to having little money, is willing to start all-over. She is a positive and strong person.
Compare with handling of businesses by our government in UK - such mad over-support - and look at where we are today with all this high-level corruption, debt and inflation, inequality where the top 1% seem to get richer with every national setback and own almost everything.
She is originally from Java (the main island West of Bali). Her husband is also from the same village back in Java, though ironically they met here in Bali.
After a number of business failures, in 2012 she negotiated a ten-year lease on a small stand in the local market, paying £650 a year in rent and started her fruit stall.
She has three children now. Thinking about the future, they are saving to buy land and build a home.
She is a covered muslima. She says Bali people are very tolerant. Though majority Hindu, she feels very welcome and accepted here.
Contrast that with Modi's populist India or with the Anglo-Saxons' absurd obsession with 'identity politics'.
(Could Identity Politics and "Cancel Culture" be nothing more than a montage to mislead and distract from the real-world problems the UK faces - a device to divide-and-rule and hang on to power?)
At all events, everyone appears to get on well together and the island of six million plus people is again prospering. The island's economy is almost entirely reliant on tourism. So popular is the island that the Tourist Authority must protect the environment and tourist infrastructure and is devising means to limit the number of visitors.
25 พฤษภาคม 2566

ผู้หญิงที่ทำผลไม้ห่อนี้ให้เพื่อนของฉันบอกว่าเธอเก็บเงินซื้ออสังหาริมทรัพย์ในบาหลีตั้งแต่ก่อนโควิด
เมื่อเกิดโควิดเธอต้องใช้เงินเก็บทั้งหมดเพื่อมีชีวิตอยู่
วันนี้ต้องขอบคุณโควิดที่เธอไม่มีอะไรเลยและไม่สามารถซื้อบ้านได้
แต่เธอมีความสุข เธอกล่าวว่า "Alhamdulillah" ("สรรเสริญพระเจ้า") เพราะเธอรู้สึกขอบคุณที่รอดชีวิตมาได้ เธอมาจากครอบครัวที่ต่ำต้อย คุ้นเคยกับการมีเงินเพียงเล็กน้อย และเต็มใจที่จะเริ่มต้นใหม่ทั้งหมด เธอเป็นคนคิดบวกและเข้มแข็ง
เปรียบเทียบกับการจัดการธุรกิจโดยรัฐบาลของเราในสหราชอาณาจักร - การสนับสนุนอย่างล้นหลาม - และดูว่าเราอยู่ ณ จุดใดในปัจจุบันด้วยการคอร์รัปชั่นระดับสูง หนี้ และเงินเฟ้อ ความไม่เท่าเทียมที่ 1% แรกดูเหมือนจะร่ำรวยขึ้นพร้อมกับความพ่ายแพ้ในระดับชาติทุกครั้ง และเป็นเจ้าของเกือบทุกอย่าง
เธอมีพื้นเพมาจากเกาะชวา (เกาะหลักทางตะวันตกของบาหลี) สามีของเธอก็มาจากหมู่บ้านเดียวกันในชวาเช่นกัน แม้ว่าพวกเขาจะพบกันที่บาหลีอย่างน่าขันก็ตาม
หลังจากความล้มเหลวทางธุรกิจหลายครั้ง ในปี 2555 เธอได้เจรจาขอเช่าพื้นที่เล็กๆ ในตลาดท้องถิ่นเป็นเวลา 10 ปี โดยจ่ายค่าเช่า 650 ปอนด์ต่อปี และเริ่มแผงขายผลไม้ของเธอ
ตอนนี้เธอมีลูกสามคน เมื่อคิดถึงอนาคต พวกเขากำลังเก็บออมเพื่อซื้อที่ดินและสร้างบ้าน
เธอเป็นมุสลิมะฮฺที่ปกปิดมิดชิด เธอบอกว่าคนบาหลีมีความอดทนสูงมาก แม้ว่าเธอจะนับถือศาสนาฮินดูเป็นส่วนใหญ่ แต่เธอก็รู้สึกยินดีและยอมรับที่นี่
ตรงกันข้ามกับอินเดียประชานิยมของ Modi หรือกับแองโกล-แซกซอนที่หมกมุ่นไร้สาระกับ 'การเมืองแบบอัตลักษณ์'
(การเมืองอัตลักษณ์และ "ยกเลิกวัฒนธรรม" อาจเป็นเพียงภาพตัดต่อที่ทำให้เข้าใจผิดและหันเหความสนใจจากปัญหาในโลกแห่งความเป็นจริงที่สหราชอาณาจักรเผชิญ - อุปกรณ์ในการแบ่งแยกและปกครองและยึดมั่นในอำนาจ?)
ในทุกเหตุการณ์ ทุกคนดูเหมือนจะเข้ากันได้ดี และเกาะที่มีผู้คนกว่าหกล้านคนก็กลับมารุ่งเรืองอีกครั้ง เศรษฐกิจของเกาะเกือบทั้งหมดพึ่งพาการท่องเที่ยว เกาะแห่งนี้ได้รับความนิยมอย่างมากจนหน่วยงานด้านการท่องเที่ยวต้องปกป้องสิ่งแวดล้อมและโครงสร้างพื้นฐานด้านการท่องเที่ยว และกำลังคิดค้นวิธีการจำกัดจำนวนนักท่องเที่ยว
25 Mei 2023

Wanita yang membuat paket buah ini untuk teman saya mengatakan bahwa dia telah menabung untuk membeli properti di Bali dari sebelum covid.
Kemudian ketika covid melanda, dia harus menggunakan semua tabungannya hanya untuk hidup.
Jadi hari ini berkat covid dia tidak punya apa-apa dan tidak bisa membeli rumah.
Tapi dia bahagia. Dia mengatakan "Alhamdulillah" ("segala puji bagi Tuhan") karena dia bersyukur telah selamat. Dia berasal dari keluarga sederhana, terbiasa memiliki sedikit uang, bersedia untuk memulai dari awal. Dia adalah orang yang positif dan kuat.
Bandingkan dengan penanganan bisnis oleh pemerintah kita di Inggris - dukungan berlebihan yang gila - dan lihat di mana kita hari ini dengan semua korupsi tingkat tinggi, utang dan inflasi, ketidaksetaraan di mana 1% teratas tampaknya menjadi lebih kaya dengan setiap kemunduran nasional dan memiliki hampir segalanya.
Dia berasal dari Jawa (pulau utama di sebelah barat Bali). Suaminya juga dari desa yang sama di Jawa, meski ironisnya mereka bertemu di sini di Bali.
Setelah sejumlah kegagalan bisnis, pada tahun 2012 dia menegosiasikan sewa sepuluh tahun di kios kecil di pasar lokal, membayar sewa £ 650 setahun dan memulai kios buahnya.
Dia memiliki tiga anak sekarang. Memikirkan masa depan, mereka menabung untuk membeli tanah dan membangun rumah.
Dia adalah seorang muslimah yang tertutup. Dia mengatakan orang Bali sangat toleran. Meski mayoritas Hindu, dia merasa sangat disambut dan diterima di sini.
Kontras dengan India populis Modi atau dengan obsesi absurd Anglo-Saxon dengan 'politik identitas'.
(Mungkinkah Politik Identitas dan "Batalkan Budaya" tidak lebih dari montase untuk menyesatkan dan mengalihkan perhatian dari masalah dunia nyata yang dihadapi Inggris - perangkat untuk membagi-dan-memerintah dan mempertahankan kekuasaan?)
Di semua acara, semua orang tampaknya rukun bersama dan pulau berpenduduk enam juta lebih orang itu kembali makmur. Perekonomian pulau ini hampir seluruhnya bergantung pada pariwisata. Begitu populernya pulau itu sehingga Otoritas Turis harus melindungi lingkungan dan infrastruktur wisata serta merancang cara untuk membatasi jumlah pengunjung.
Saturday, 20 May 2023
BULLSZ BLOOD AND WHISKY
Strange tale of a village sacrificing a buffalo, drinking its blood (with a little whisky...) through bamboo pipes, in an animist rite to stay on friendly terms with the gods. Everyone happy. Quite dramatically shows what we were like before religion, culture, almost before language, certainly before history : that's what we were like then and that is what we are still like today, underneath the veneer.
*On May 20, DOGMA YARD
opens at Gallery Seescape*
18.00 - Gallery Seescape invites you to see the exhibition “Dogma yard” by Thai contemporary artist Sornchai Pongsa. His art connects history, beliefs, religion, ghosts, spirits and human social behavior.
Explore a negotiating environment where past behavior is connected to the present. To find reasons for the conflict between the Buddha and the ghost.
https://www.facebook.com/events/958984688565592
Sunday, 14 May 2023
HANSON FOR PRESIDENT
14 May 2023
https://youtu.be/0r0m4UCPKHw
Hanson is a classical scholar and so his starting point is governance and from the times of the Romans and the Greeks and he lauds the middle class as the backbone of citizenship because of its independence and entrepreneurship, thus can fearlessly and objectivly counsel the leadership.
He turns to the successes that California enjoyed in the past. These were its public works which supported a thriving independent middle class business community: the reservoirs, the bridges, the airports, the schools and universities.
Then he compares that to the situation today with its high taxes, homelessness, a middle-class that can no longer compete, that is leaving and being replaced by immigrants and the costs of assimilating them. He talks of the poverty that has replaced wealth and the ignorance that gas replaced learning. He talks of the financing of the poor by transferring money from the middle class, approved by the elite as they are not affected.
And finally he laments the passing of the middle class completely. They have been written out, leaving an unstable, what he calls "medieval binary", exactly what his Greek and Roman examples wanted most to avoid.
