Three New Reads – June
Philip Roddis
Was Pyongyang’s destruction this month of a border town ‘liaison office’ – touted as symbol of reconciliation but in reality lacking the truth component – a further manifestation of Kim Jong Un irrationality? What game is Washington playing, yet again by proxy, in India’s mountainous and disputed border with China? And do black lives matter or don’t they?
Here to help us with such questions are my three reads for the month.
*
Why North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office (2200 words)
If any current leader is more vilified by Western media than Bashar al-Assad or Vladimir Putin, it is North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. But those given to scepticism (an outlook often confused with cynicism in intellectual circles) have learned the hard way to ask these two questions when a non Western leader is reviled, or held up as with the angels:
How objectively sourced is the evidence for such a portrayal?
Cui bono?
Take Saddam. With hindsight, partial answers to the first question are understood even at The Guardian, which has form on whipping up moral outrage to facilitate – often as not without expressly advocating – wars it will later distance itself from. And as if to prove the truth of my aside just now, a belated answer to the cui bono question is also given by the Guardian.
In fact I find that second answer too reductive. We can add to its thesis, that it was all about oil, Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine understanding that it was all about privatisation. (Evidence not then available shows her wrong, in an otherwise exemplary assessment, to rule out oil.) Add too the wider reality, as documented in their very different ways by such as Pepe Escobar and Michael Hudson, that Iraq marks an early round of a war to maintain Western hegemony in the face of Eurasia Rising.
Which brings us back to Kim. It is understood by most consumers of Western media that North Korea is a hell on earth (no: seventy years of blockade have nothing to do with this) run by an insane dynasty. As I’ve noted before, we don’t like complexity in third world leaders. Devils or saints, we want easily assimilated morality tales with all the nuance of Enid Blyton creations.
And since it precedes – just! – the lived experience of baby boomers, Washington’s genocidal bombing of NK in the early fifties gets no mention. Ditto the truth, clear to any twelve year old versed in schoolyard realpolitik – yet somehow beyond the ken of Western intelligentsia – that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons are all that prevent it going the way of Baghdad and Tripoli. The drivers may not be identical – no oil – but the logic certainly is.
Which is ample introduction to this piece by Stephen Gowans, author of Patriots, Traitors & Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom. Fittingly, this much shorter piece opens with a quote from Fidel Castro …
But peace cannot be hoped for on the basis of some making concessions and the others making none. Peace based on the demands of the other side is not peace, it is ignominious surrender, and no revolutionary country sells itself or surrenders.
… and goes on to set the early June context in which:
North Korea recently blew up the “inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong,” an act Western media saw as “provocative”. Located in North Korea, it opened “following a 2018 inter-Korean pledge to tone down military hostilities and bring peace to the Korean Peninsula.” Now banner and building are gone. Hopes for peace between the two Koreas have, according to Western accounts, dissolved in a puff of North Korean smoke …
… on account, we all know, of Kim being ‘odious’ (GuardianSpeak) or ‘bonkers’ (MailSpeak) …
*
Do not belittle protesters in US by calling their struggle a “color revolution” (2250 words)
Perhaps because I’m a Libran – not that we Librans believe in astrology, mind! – I find myself at odds with broadly mirror opposite positions on so many big issues. Take the 2016 US election. I couldn’t stand Trump but saw HRC as equally criminal, equally sociopathic. Moreover, her plan for Syria – the no fly zones which had reduced Africa’s most prosperous state to chaos, terror and slave auctions on the quaysides of Tripoli – promised head on confrontation between the world’s two leading military powers.
Or take Brexit. Remainers who took the EU bankers’ club to be internationalist dismayed me. But that did not lead me to conclude that a Brexit led by a rival wing of UK rulers, and informed both by atavistic chauvinism and an equally delusional vision, will be just hunky dory. It won’t, and the non dialectical view of many Lexiteers – EU is bad, ergo leaving it must, regardless of timing, context and rationale, be good – seems boneheaded. Like saying that since capitalism is exploitative, closing for-profit enterprises today so workers can build cooperatives tomorrow, in otherwise unaltered conditions, would be an excellent idea.
Speaking of non dialectical assessments, I have the same problems with both sides of the BLM debate. To deny that protests taking place in the USA aren’t accompanied by criminality (as are all insurrections) is naive. On a different note it is a duty of international socialists to point out that tipping statues of slavers into rivers while (a) enjoying the fruits of Britain’s plundering past and (b) remaining oblivious to continuing exploitation of the global south is equally naïve.
But to engage in one-sided denunciations of Black Lives Matter – even to the point of saying the US protests are “color revolutions” of the kind which, for reactionary purposes and venal goals, were hijacked and artificially exacerbated in Ukraine and Syria – seems to me equally wide of the mark.
You may or may not agree with me that a better approach to broadly progressive but limited and naïve protest movements – from CND to Occupy – is to stand in solidarity with them, while simultaneously advancing more penetrating analyses. In any case one man better placed than most to draw empirically grounded distinctions, on what is and what is not a Soros instigated “color revolution”, is Andre Vltchek, author of this piece.
*
India and China rush troops, weaponry to dispute border region (1316 words)
While the West has been preoccupied with Covid-19 and BLM, the manufacturing of Sinophobia by its media has continued apace. One current hotspot being disputed Himalayan territory.
This goes back a long way. In 1962 Chinese troops entered Ladakh (known to Kipling fans as the arena in which the denouement of his spy yarn, Kim, plays out). Flush with success the previous year in ousting Portugal from Goa – and heedless of how well China’s Red Army had squared up to the USA in Korea – India’s elite forces were despatched to see off “the invader”. The result was a humiliation for “the world’s largest democracy”. As senior generals fell on their swords, Prime Minister Nehru was widely blamed – on the one hand for military unpreparedness, on the other for failing to pursue a peaceful solution prior to China’s move.
And still the situation simmers. But now the context is another cold war fought on one side by proxy. And Washington is as determined as ever to weaken a rising power destined to become its twenty-first century nemesis. We should all be paying close attention.
One of last month’s reads quoted, in the context of Syria, a Pepe Escobar piece on this rivalry. This month Andrew Korybko told of the Himalayan stand-off in terms of PM Modi playing with fire. Here though the WSWS, like Escobar, offers a more overarching view. Call me repetitive, but I say we should all be paying close attention.
For the full archive of Three New Reads, click here.
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We independently gave up the Roman Catholic Religion, when we were young, and FWIW got married in a Registry Office – and didn’t tell anyone.
However most of the surviving members of our family, still are very religious.
I find the current headlines in the Daily Mail completely Obscene. It is one of the most disgusting things I have come across.
I now feel like we are both Jews in NAZI Germany (1939), except it is now NAZI England (2020)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8470117/Father-walk-daughter-arm-arm-aisle-new-weddings.html
Tony
Incidentally, when I look again, at The Daily Mail’s Bride, I think she maybe made of wax (like from Madam Tussards). There is no humanity there. It is not a photoshop. It is a real photograph of a piece of wax…dunno about the Dad, I wasn’t that interested, but that girl is not real. Warm her up, and she will melt.
Is that not the most extreme psycho conditioning?
Tony
Totally agree; it is disgusting and hopefully pushing harder than people will accept?
I hope so. I’m slightly encouraged to see some people not even going through the motions with masks on buses – particularly the longer distance ones going between (UK) towns. And the conformers not kicking off.
Much as those south coast beach scenes were my idea of hell (not one for crowds myself), I’m hoping for a long spell of more hot weather.
At the end of the day, it comes down to how stupid Brits show themselves to be. If they stand up to this pathetic nonsense then Brits will have demonstrated some self respect.
If they accept this pathetic nonsense then God damn them, the world will be better off without Brits.
That’s if there are any Brits within a year or two. Theresa May passed a law giving the government the right to declare who is, or is not, a citizen. That is Carl Schmidt’s (Hitler’s lawyer) definition of fascism.
The Brits will only stop this by some individuals taking one for the team. The Johnson will continue to explore his new powers with the help of his unelected brain until the Dr Evil controls everything for their own benefit in UK government: government for the people, by the people? No, government of the people by Dr Evil: Slavery.
Your contention that India dispatched troops to Ladakh in 1962 and that it was because of the success in Goa is seriously flawed. India unilaterally claimed Aksai Chin in 1954 and sent troops there, first, in 1959 and again in 1961 as part of a so called Forward Policy. The invasion of Goa was a desperate attempt to distract attention from the failure of this Forward Policy. Instead it had the opposite effect: it made people ask why the glorious army (armed with WWI rifles and WWII radio sets, and lacking enough boots to go round so troops had to go to war in gym shoes) that beat the Portuguese (who, outnumbered and trapped, did not resist) were not being unleashed on the Chinese.
As for the cause and effect of the current, and wholly manufactured, confrontation, I have written about it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/126I-FDOpwJ2UJ95bQL89jjfrlan0oVVD/view?usp=drivesdk
Philip Roddis, a great summary and good reads.
Yet … will that mote in the eye ever shift before it is too late?
I mean specifically that Marxilism too was a creation of the same old powers.
The otherwise excellent Vltchek still fails to see it (as do you my dear sir!) when he writes:
‘The Western empire has been destroying the world for some 500+ years, in the most brutal ways imaginable. Hundreds of millions of lives were lost. Entire continents were plundered. People have been enslaved.’
‘Colonialism, extermination campaigns in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, are inter-connected with the plight of non-white people in the United States.
Now, black people in the United States are fighting for themselves and their children, but also for their brothers and sisters in all corners of the world, which is still colonized and plundered by Washington and London.’
‘The terrible truth emerged: in the United States, there is almost no left anymore. No real left. No internationalist left.’
———
As I regularly opine, through study and realisation on the nature of Money – the Left-Right creation, by way of ‘Marxism’, was the plan of these Above to divide these Below.
They did this to focus the ire on a fictional new power group, capitalism and capitalists, which they controlled with Money just as they had controlled Kingdoms and Kings for the previous centuries.
The ‘real Left’ was a mirage that was dissolved as quickly as it was created.
—————
INDIA/CHINA
As for the ‘great game’ still being played out in the high mountains between Eurasia and the Subcontinent- is it still about fresh water? Or is it about secure routes for roads, trains and pipelines?
As noted below by another poster the Northwest and Northeast Frontiers are at play again – BRI requires the Kashmiri corridor.
A bulletless fight ! No footage yet.
Did it happen even ?
Will it suddenly be sorted on a world stage as the last action of Putin handing over the SCO leadership, this coming month.
Has India finally realised it really ought to stop being a ‘coconut’ ?
(That’s a racist reference for these who may not have heard it before)
———
BREXSHIT SMEXIT.
I am feeling greatly reassured this morning by the fact of Merkel taking the EU presidency for the next six months – a winter that will surely see the greatest danger from the triple whammies being lined up. As the second wave of COVID, the flu season and the much delayed hard BrexShit coincide.
I hope she will organise a flotilla of small and big boats to bring us Ppe/meds and testing kits that work and take us off this belittled island and receive us on the beaches of Dunkirk!
So for you Lexiters who were deluded into believing ‘sovereignty’ was the most important Issue for your future and personal security; to be able to preserve the NHS and reinstate publicly owned services, which supposedly would be banned by the ‘evil EU’, chew on this :-
Lufthansa is becoming a semi nationalised airline (yes see , IT IS being allowed in the EU just as we could have done here) and a ‘new deal of money creation as grants, not just loans, to EU members (yes see it is being allowed In the EU ) and an EU wide response to the Corona Virus, which saw a minimal excess deaths in Germany (because the interests of 400 million come above the interests of the City of London)
So while Bozo and Govey and Dommy and the reliable man servant Keeves will be driving us into the the ditches, welcoming boatloads of chlorinated chicken and hormone beef and gmo veg, along with deregulation of working hours/holidays and H&S ….many of us may be queuing on the beaches praying for Muttis EU lifeboats. Because unlike Fartage and his rich chums and a lucky few with NI familial connections we will not have dual EU citizenships.
Do suckers ever admit to have been suckered?
Having agreed wholeheartedly with the first two parts I was somewhat dismayed by the third. The current pestilence propaganda, highlighting the supranational power of the WHO and the WEF,has only increased my regard for some kind of sovereignty as a bulwark against all behemoths such as the EU and the UN. On reflection I include the UK in the list of horrible alphabet entities of inhuman power.
Name your happy clappy major successful sovereign states who only live by their OWN resources and rules.
That sounds like an order and I don’t respond very well to them. It’s an allergy I was born with. I’m not interested in happy clappy, it’s a long time since I left my nappy. On second thought, it’s pointless to reply to the omniscient.
The Great Reset is providing cover for some other initiatives including: Israel weighs whether the timing is right to consolidate land while Trump is still in office.
Israel’s Gantz said date for West Bank annexation talks ‘not sacred’: party source – Reuters, Jul 29th
U.N. Rights Chief Urges Israel to Halt ‘Illegal’ Annexation Plan – NYT, Jul 29th
Netanyahu vows all settlements will be annexed July 1, but other lands may wait – Times of Israel, Jul 8th
Norman Finkelstein assesses possible outcomes on The Grayzone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elNKZ4niERY
Finkelstein on fire @ 00:21:00 https://youtu.be/elNKZ4niERY?t=1269
“It took me a very long time to reach this point: that is about people but fundamentally, at its core, it is about truth and justice, those eternal values.
“It makes me so angry that people can be so cheap, sell themselves at such a low price. These academics, these intellectually impoverished morons, who sit around at irrelevant conferences talking about justice and truth as social constructs.
“And then you go to the demonstrations against police brutality and what is the slogan that is most popular? ‘What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now’.”
He quotes Amílcar Cabral, one of Africa’s foremost anti-colonial leaders. “Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories.”
The intellectual titan that is Norman Finkelstein. Is ”Uncompromising” his middle name?
(Thanks for the vid. I hadn’t watched or read anything of old Norm for ages).
😉 No Compromise Norm: Norman Finkelstein calls out Crocodile Tears.
I was thinking of that video just as I was about to reply to you! I’m going to have yet another look at it. I take it you’ve also seen the excellent video he addressed to Margaret Hodge (I include a link, just in case you haven’t).
Oh, and No Compromise Norm is what I shall henceforth call him. :o)
I’ve just watched the crocodile tears video again. It’s astoundingly good! (Even better than I remembered it being).
No Compromise Norm has just gone up even further in my estimation.
dame margaret hodge such a nice strong british name is it not
stout firm english
margaret hodge oppenheimer
oppenheimer
ummmm
africa debeers front men
for rothchilds cartel
yes sir diamonds control of the worlds supply
dame margaret decades of fighting for the little fella
never once mentioned her connections
bloody blood diamonds
of the ashlanazim
Is she, perchance, related to that other famous Oppenheimer (and father of the atomic bomb), J. Robert?
(Even if she were, I’m sure she’d be far too unassuming to mention it…).
i am death he says
is this thing even human
maybe the archons live
Deffo related to the Dame…
I assume that dear little Dame Hodge is a beneficiary of the same zombie preserving machine that is protecting Tony Blair. Both of those grotesque neoliberal stooges should have been discretely retired long ago but we can rest assured that whatever blood infusions they require will continue to be administered for as long as they shore up the overlords.
They are little demons running loose, enabling the havoc that’s ordained by those who pull their strings. Such is the insane world in which we live.
Apparently, black lives matter a LOT to the people involved in the English (football) Premier League. All the on-screen graphics in the programme I saw last night were accompanied by the words Black Lives Matter at the bottom of the screen (as well as the NHS logo). Who knew that statistical analyses of throw-ins and corner kicks taken could be so political?
The pundits in the studio wore badges on their suits with those same words/the same logo on them. The players’ shirts had the same things printed on them.
Oh, and some (all?) of the black players involved gave a raised-fist salute…while down on one knee. Someone should tell them about Tommie Smith and John Carlos (who gave a raised-fist salute while on the podium at the 1968 Olympics, and who suffered repercussions for doing so).
Two things. 1) Sports have always been political. They are part of the Bread and Circus herding of humanity.
2) Timing is Everything. What was taboo in 1968 – even at the height of the Vietnam War protests – has now become celebritized and part of the dominant culture. Also, somehow the wretched Olympics have been endowed by the establishment(s) with a supernatural aura.
Part of the dominant culture? Perhaps someone should tell Colin Kaepernick (and the aforementioned footballers playing in the Premier League). They might stop embarrassing themselves by going down on one knee in public like that.
I agree with your other points, though.
Technocrats who would play God
Here is the problem with Technocrats: they lie, they can’t help lying and almost everything they say is a lie. Not about the information, but about the information being correct and absolute. That the information is robust enough to use as the basis for far reaching and life changing policy.
Here is the World Economic Forum: FATS DON’T CLOG YOUR ARTERIES AFTER ALL, NEW RESEARCH SHOWS https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/why-scientists-might-have-it-all-wrong-about-fat-clogging-our-arteries
100 Years Later: Carbon dioxide is good for the environment, grows plants, keeps us healthy. “Well, who could have known… It was what we thought at the time. Scrap that policy. Guess we’d better release the remaining population of 500 million back into nature.”
Bureaucrats, health policy makers and wonks will insist it was the best information they had at the time. But it was not a robust foundation for policy. It is a lie that there was no contrary research, and it is a lie that the policy was rooted in any kind of certainty.
The WEF marches on regardless with prescriptions for The Great Reset that are likewise built on sand. They admit the old information was probably wrong but… shucks… it’s probably right this time. What you can be sure about: those pushing the policy looked after themselves.
“I have learned from my mistakes and I am sure I could repeat them exactly.” — Peter Cook
I have to take exception to the statement that CO2 is “good for the environment….” I can’t tell from the context if you’re noting it as technocratic misinformation; or if it represents your view. Regardless, CO2 – like almost everything else – sooner or later falls into the category of “Too much of a good thing.” Even oxygen can be lethal if overdone – just ask the “COVID” patients on ventilators (ask them quickly, before they die).
Thanks, Philip. Especially for the second article.
DICTATORS AND TYRANTS
It should be noted, that Trump’s efforts to reach an agreement with Kim Jong-un was supported by the South Korean government, but not by nutcase Bolton.
Anchor: U.S. President Donald Trump said that former National Security Adviser John Bolton set back denuclearization talks by suggesting the “Libya Model” for North Korea. The comments came a day after Bolton was sacked from his position, apparently via Twitter.
The U.S. president chastised Bolton for suggesting that Washington was looking at a “Libya Model” to solve the North Korea nuclear issue.
[Sound bite: US President Donald Trump]
“But we were setback very badly when John Bolton talked about the Libyan model and he made a mistake. And as soon as he mentioned that – the Libyan model, what a disaster. Take a look at what happened to Gaddafi with the Libya model and he’s using that to make a deal with North Korea? And I don’t blame Kim Jong-un for what he said after that. That he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton. And that’s not a question of being tough, that’s a question of being not smart to say something like that.” https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&Seq_Code=148003
In fact, Bolton was not alone in being apoplectic about reaching a deal with North Korea, all the usual neoconservative warmongers commentating on MSNBC and CNN mocked Trump’s attempt at negotiations with Kim Jong-un. Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Nicolle Wallace etc….. all who promoted Russiagate and Ukraine-gate nonstop for more than three years vilified peace talks with Kim Jong-un. These are the “liberals” who pretend to be empathetic about minorities, but are eager to bomb and sanction brown and black people in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Eurasia.
In November of 2019 Biden said in his campaign launch that President Donald Trump had gotten too close to “dictators and tyrants” like Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s becoming more and more obvious that repugnant dictators, as well as those who admire and ‘love’ them, find Joe Biden threatening,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, in a statement to the Associated Press. “That’s because he’d restore American leadership in the world on day one by putting our security, interests and values at the heart of our foreign policy.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/15/biden-north-korea-rabid-dog/4200195002/
The orange buffoon might be an obnoxious idiot, but the national security state has worked hand-in-hand with mainstream media news and the Democratic Party attacking and inhibiting any attempt by Trump to establish rapprochement with either Russia or North Korea. Compassionate mentally declining basement-Joe talks about “restoring American leadership,” unfortunately, that could be code for initiating new imperialist military interventions. After all, it was Obama/Biden who expanded two wars into seven and implemented the insidious plan cited by Bolton as the “Libyan model” to overthrow Gaddafi.
I wish there was a bright side to Trump, but there’s not. He’s definitely a pathological liar, so there’s nothing embraceable about his words. He’s used the Libyan model as well as the Palestine model on Venezuela. The military coup in Bolivia was his, as well. A second term likely sees his war on Iran dream come true. His hints at rapprochements are as transparently fake as his lies about pulling out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria were.
Look what the security state is doing right now– they’re accusing Putin of paying the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill Americans. The security state working with mainstream media news and warmonger Dems will take the US into another fuckin war.
I don’t believe in a difference between Democrats and Republicans on war, Charlotte. You can get war with China from Trump, or war with Russia from Biden. You’re getting war with either party. There are a lot of Russian zionists in Israel, so the zionist Trump will be advised by Sheldon Adelson. While Obama had Zbigniew Brzezinski to advise, so he was more open to an anti-russian stance.
Both political parties are equally corrupt, but over the last four years all the Bushite neoconservatives have migrated to the Democratic Party and have been warmongering nonstop against Russia.
Nothing is guaranteed, except feeble Biden will have NO control over foreign policy it will be dictated by the same scumbags who instigate and promote every military intervention. The only thing that can be said about the buffoon is that he did NOT start any new wars.
Like Caitlin Johnstone satirically said in a recent article: “Wanting Biden because he’s not Trump is the same as wanting cancer because it’s not heart disease.”
He tried to assassinate Maduro. He orchestrated a coup in Bolivia. He assassinated Qasem Soleimani. Those are all acts of war.
Every Tuesday morning Obama used drones to assassinate supposed terrorists in Iraq and Afganistan. Many were just civilians.
Correct. You could go on in detail about the horrors of the Obama regime and I would agree with you. Trump started wars in three different countries since he took office–Iran, Venezuela, and Bolivia. He’s lying about reproachment with Russia, of course. He’s torn up missile treaties with Russia, sent arms to Ukraine, expelled Russian diplomats over the false flag Skripal event, and he’s bombed and assassinated Russian allies.
And the Dems supported all of those actions and criticized Trump for not taking it even further, especially with Venezuela, Russia, and Syria.
https://youtu.be/bu3hy4OMX38?t=243
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/06/28/this-russia-afghanistan-story-is-western-propaganda-at-its-most-vile/
Let me add this article: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/29/afgh-j29.html
Here’s another quote from compassionate Biden:
“The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, told a virtual town hall meeting ,“Not only has he failed to sanction or impose any kind of consequences on Russia for this egregious violation of international law, Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin.”
Biden continued, “His entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but this is beyond the pale,” adding, “It’s a betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation, to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way.”
I’m definitely not disputing any of your comments, just reminding that Trump is a psychopathic warmonger as well. Remember, China is the cause of all the ills in the world for Trump and his acolytes. He’s just as disgusting as Biden.
I don’t see Trump getting into a “hot war” with China, but I do see Biden’s administration escalating tensions with Russia. They’re determined to remove Putin…….
I don’t really see a “hot war” with Russia if Biden gets into office, either, just because Putin already said that he would use nuclear weapons if even attacked with conventional weapons. I think there would be a military coup in the U.S. if a President tried to start a hot war with Russia. Trump on the other hand has already been trying to seize Hong Kong, and I believe Modi is taking his cue from Trump in regards to the India/China border battle. Trump is just as dangerous now as we imagine Biden would be if he takes office.
So pick your poison–In addition, Biden will be attached to the hip of the security state and they’ll seize the moment to heighten surveillance under the guise of COVID-19. This will be necessary since the Biden administration will never address any of the social and economic issues really causing the outrage. The same problems will continue to fester while Biden’s corrupt administration feeds the deep pockets of all the usual thieves. In the end, the rage will intensify when boogeyman Trump is no longer around and Biden turns out to be a useless failure….
In the end, I don’t think we’re in agreement afterall, Charlotte. You seem to think Trump is not completely aligned with the security State and its surveillance operations. You seem to think Trump is in the way of..what exactly, I don’t know? Venezuela wasn’t on your radar. Iran wasn’t on your radar. Bolivia, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, China all moved to the back of the line for your concern with Russia. I don’t get it? You’ve got me thinking that you’ll actually vote for Trump to stop Biden, whereas I wouldn’t vote for either one even if my vote was the only one that counted. Oh well.
That was a patronizing response–I don’t agree with you therefore I’m ignorant about the security state shenanigans pulling out all the stops to get Biden elected. Which would be little more than a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
Actually it appears you’re advocating for Biden……..
We just disagree, and I’m just disappointed. I’m sure if you watch TV, then the emphasis on Trump being a special kind of bad for a President is frustrating. But where I read and watch, Trump gets a pass as if he’s trying so hard but it’s just the deep State that’s undermining him, which is frustrating. Heck, you even said that Trump didn’t start any new wars. Is that because you didn’t know? Of course not. It’s because it’s gone to the back of the line with so many people.
Don’t take me as patronizing towards you, Charlotte. I don’t recall ever not upvoting what you’ve written before today. You’re quite a treasure in the comment section here, in my view;)
Take a glimpse at today’s “Morning Joe” they spent half the show warmongering like psychos against Russia……It was truly frightening. What is the endgame nuclear war?
But I don’t want to watch it, Charlotte:D Isn’t that Mika Brzezinski? I already know she hates Russia. I already know that Wolf Blitzer hates Palestinians. I already know that Bill O’ Reilly hates China. I already know that Pat Robertson hates everyone. They’ve been doing the same shows for decades. TV creeps turn my brain into glop. It’s why I stopped watching Jimmy Dore’s show a while ago. I can’t stand the TV creeps that he can’t stop watching and acting surprised about.
Morning Joe’s diatribe gives you the spooks agenda…….😁
I’ll just read the Washington Post for that, Charlotte;)
I don’t subscribe to WAPO.
lol That’s right! The CIA has a paywall for their propaganda:D
PM Modi got elected twice for 5 years by the whole Indian population but is labeled a jingoist & hyper nationalist while PCC lifetime appointed president Xi Jinping can take over the whole South China sea and keep conflicts alive on the border with India gets praise from certain Western “liberals”: Chinese nationalism is simply invisible to them.
The US does not need to be dragged in here as India had to fend off the PLA also in 1967 and 2017 when the yanks were sponsoring Pakistan and not India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathu_La_and_Cho_La_clashes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_China%E2%80%93India_border_standoff
Just look at Xi’s “Belt and Road” & maritime Silk road imperialism to know the motive: now covid19 is taken as an opportunity by that “dear leader”. Xi’s China is plain authoritarian state capitalism, but the roads and cars are good so a section of the world praise him, as they did Adolf for his Autobahns and Volkswagens.
The Empire is dead (even if it doesn’t admit it yet).
Long luve the new empire!
👏👏👏
Modi got 31% of the vote in 2014 and – in the face of total dysfunctional disunity among opposition parties – still had to manufacture a war scare with Pakistan to win in 2019, and even then got only 45% of the vote. Not even ⅓ first time around, not even ½ second time around. And ever since the 2019 election the Modi regime has been losing one state election after another and has been reduced to trying to buy power by purchasing one or more of the winning parties over.
Voted by the entire Indian people? I think not.
Wishful thinking, disconnected from reality. Elections follow the British system of first past the post.
Today the BJP is the leading party in both national Houses plus in governing in 17 out of 30 states. After the CCP’s “Himalayan blunder” these number will only go up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Indian_ruling_and_opposition_parties
If the BJP was ruling in both houses Modi’s situation would have been secure enough to not have to distract attention from the disaster of his rule by creating a confrontation with China.
And if you imagine that the Chinese had a “Himalayan blunder” you must be “informed” by Modifellating Bhaktoganda on WhatsApp University like all the other BJP voting dupes.
World Economic Forum: COVID ACTION PLATFORM for GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Very important links contained in this video reveal the business equivalent of Continuity Of Government.
https://www.weforum.org/covid-action-platform
World Economic Forum special COVID-19 transformation map
200 layers-deep plan for reset of government, society, business and economy.
https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G0X000006O6EHUA0?tab=publications
“I couldn’t stand Trump but saw HRC as equally criminal”
That’s where I stopped reading.
How many tems of thousands had Trump slaughtered?
True, Trump has been a disgusting, bringing back the neocons into his regime. It shouldn’t be overlooked that Hillary was disgusting in the Obama regime. It’s just like now, where the fake choice is Biden or Trump. All these people are sick warmongers.
Hardly! Chou en Lai made at least three visits to Delhi, begging Nehru to call off his ‘forward policy’ (forward of the Line of Control–in other words, invasion of Chinese territory) to no avail. The memoir of an Australian diplomat, Gregory Clark, throws some light on the events:
Those who doubt Greg Clark’s account of events are warmly urged to read Neville Matthews’ classic, “India’s China War.” Matthews was The Times correspondent in Delhi at the time and was privy to the Henderson Brooks Report, prepared by and for the Indian General Staff after the war. It’s beautifully written and full of drama.
The 1959 Tibetan uprising is forgotten in the West, as is its take over of thousands of km sq by the PLA.
Naive Nehru was prepping the UNSC to accept the PRC over Taiwan. He though the PRC was with him on a third alternative between cold-warriors NATO and USSR: how wrong he was! This Fabian fool cost India dearly.
Does anyone know what this is about..?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/28/mark-sedwill-expected-to-quit-as-uks-top-civil-servant
It seems to me to be another Night of the Long Knives.
Only a five-year-old on LSD will believe that what’s happening at the moment is normal.
Sadowell has always been a complete and utter Jeremy Hunt!
I expect it is a further sacrificial offering to the potus – hoping to save some seniors and political faces.
There will be others as Trump, Barr and DoJ move in on the coupgate conspirators. The FBI agents memos ‘released’ last week puts Obama and Biden in the room. Hillary hasn’t been mentioned much – which means something. Biden is crashing and burning with dementia- he can’t even differentiate between thousands and millions of dead by CV! Or is doing a good impression of it.
Again, this is the world you once knew…
Yeah… It’s the New (sub)Normal. Here to stay, like the inflated paranoia, the China-bashing, the Purin-blaming and the relentless stay-safing. The Long Knives are getting longer and sharper.
Off topic: the hunt for unmasked, Nazi style, has begun in CA.
https://abc7.com/society/man-refuses-to-wear-face-covering-at-runyon-canyon/6275325/
https://abc7.com/society/woman-gets-upset-after-asked-to-wear-face-mask-at-trader-joes-in-noho/6275950/
For now still it is shaming but mob lynching is not far behind as black slaves in US and Jews learned hard way in Germany.
Paranoia will only grow as Nelson has another psychotic episode reimposed partial lockdown.
Fucking morons. Fuck ABC.
A good piece, and the only thing I’ll add to it is that Brexit no longer matters. Brexit is totally irrelevant, because we are now going into the biggest economic depression in history.
Hold on to your hats, folks.
Let’s put some MSM banned background meat on sloganeering about North Korea blowing up liaison office and instead focus on permanent state of war imposed by US that in fact is solely responsible for continuation of Kim dynasty and their ruling clique.
What most American miss while thinking about what going on in Korea is that 1945 did not signify for Koreans an end of short four year long WWII but the end of forty years [40] of horrible Japanese occupation theft of national treasure, slavery, institutional apartheid, discrimination causing pain, suffering and murder of millions and that included institutional rape and kidnapping of Korean women to Japan and elsewhere as a breeding machines for imperial Japan, a subject that even today stirs high emotions within Japanese-Korean relations leading many times even to short shooting wars between them under pretext of territories disputes.
The so called Korean war stems form the fact that, the only political force actively opposed the fascism and militarism in Korea before and during WWII was communist movement. And Korea was not exception where all other political parties cooperated with Japanese occupants and hence lost any credibility after war.
While Korean communists backed by Stalin and Mao [who took over China in 1949] chose democratic path of taking power sure of electoral success, they abandoned that path after being outraged seeing US 180 degree turned away from a punisher of a criminal nation into ardent supporter of Japan [hence Japanese miracle instead of turning Japan into neofeudal agriculture dominant backward country of Edo era as it was planned].
The US rehabilitation of war criminals bringing them even into Japanese government after Soviets detonated first nuke in 1949, and blocking signing peace treaty with Japan (that included demand for massive reparations] crossed all the Koreans’ political red lines across entire political spectrum.
Even now NK and SK are united in demanding massive reparations from Japan.
The year 1950 marked attempt for final liberation of Korean south from remnants of Japanese collaborators while Kim Il-sung was enjoying huge popularity among all Koreans north and south.
US geopolitics and Deep state obsession with communist revolution domino fall, did not allow for peaceful Korea. They wanted confrontation with Soviets and Mao [Hot or cold war] and for that end US invaded (under guise of UN) Korea and installed brutal dictators to rule south for decades likling thousands of Korean striking workers under Marshall law since population wanted communists in charge as sole protectors from future Japanese militarism epitomized by retaining Japanese Emperor in power. And hence another miracle of an Asian tiger, SK, happened to pacify population. Kim regime is nationalistic not ideological and could be as well right wing nationalist, not a threat to Japan or US but instead nearly paranoid with well founded paranoia about Japanese as well as Russian and Chinese threat that fuels North and south national unity that is nurtured everywhere and line of demarcation is never referred to as border but only a political not state jurisdiction line.
Today branding deeply nationalistic regimes of China or North Korea as communist is completely false as both run state capitalism with mixed sector. In fact such branding in economic terms was wrong even in 1950.
Believe or not Un, who grew up in Switzerland amid western popular culture that his father was already big fan , supported massive reduction of military in NK that constitutes a huge burden, obstacle for faster development of consumer market, he wants to see in NK (he remakes Pyongyang into a western style city, rather the soviet style city of his grandfather) and most of all he wants to develop efficient agriculture since in NK they have only effectively 4 months of agricultural season. Of course Kim wants NK to become new outsourcing center offering biggest profits from tennis of millions of skilled labor force than anywhere today.
That was another, alternative to unilateral reduction, solution to the problem of invigorating NK economy via reduction in military spending that was on the table for twenty years already, namely mutual reduction of military in NK and SK and withdrawal of US troops following signing finally a peace treaty with Japan and developing methods and schedules for reunification.
US flatly rejected it every-time it was proposed even those proposed by SK government, because as Chinese tell us even today, US is not there in SK to fight/protect against NK but to protect their own self-imposed hegemonic interests in Asia (and perhaps keep peace between both Koreas and Japan since old wounds did not heal yet) and hence deployed THAAD that radar covers over 1000 miles into highly militarized Manchuria, China.
It is laughable reading US MSM aimed at American sheeple, brainwashing about NK as it is run by unstable psychotic (which he may as well be) while these are US policies that are surely psychotic and put the world on the verge of nuclear war for nothing at all.
In fact Kim dynasty is a direct product of American belligerence after WWII and continuing preventing any equitable peace arrangements in the region.
The question for all of us remains why?
Why NK is not allowed her own “Nixon trip to China”, normalization of relations like with Nixon did with communist China, opening up relations and by that somewhat weaken the autocratic rule in NK?
The answer is that US imperial military would have been obsolete there, would have no excuse to be there under guise of defending Japan and by that US grip in the region would diminish and that reality D.C. neocons would never accept.
upvote:)
Nice. Would just add that the US is still at ‘war‘ with the PRK! Even though Truman failed to take it to Congress to officially declare one.
‘South Korea didn’t sign the armistice back in 1953, that means that that South Korea and North Korea are still technically at war. As for the U.S., “you could argue that the U.S. and North Korea are technically still at war as well since the U.S. is a participant in the conflict as the head of the U.N. command,” says Charles K. Armstrong, an expert on Korean Studies at Columbia University. “The U.S. and North Korea have not resolved the condition of war in which they entered in June 1950, under the U.N. flag.” ‘
https://time.com/5535864/us-north-korea-war-history/
“Unstable psychotic,” this is MSM spin. Kim’s behavior in the last few years shows anything but this absurdity. Apparently Kim thought he could maneuver Trump into a real Korean Peace Treaty. This of course is what is longed for by all Korean people. They have family ties, stranded all these decades. In night clubs sad songs of those horrible old days can still be heard. And they are fiery, let me tell you, from personal experience. A fiery people.
Thank you for the clear exposition.
I might add that development of nukes in NK, in fact supported by public opinion in north and south, was cheaper than maintaining huge standing military up to 10 million and it provide ultimate deterrent for Japanese aggression . and that is why Un and his father focused on that as a path to internal economic development.
Uh oh, my first and last reading of Stephen Gowan, was this crazy article in May:
“If you think the coronavirus lockdown is worse than the disease, you don’t understand the disease”https://gowans.blog/2020/05/16/if-you-think-the-coronavirus-lockdown-is-worse-than-the-disease-you-dont-understand-the-disease/
Here is an excerpt:
“It’s estimated that if no measures to limit the spread of the virus are taken, each infected person will pass on the pathogen to three others. If you do the math, it will soon become apparent that left unchecked, the coronavirus will spread like wildfire. According to standard epidemiological models, a virus as contagious as this will reproduce exponentially until 60% of the world’s population is infected, whereupon the spread will begin to slow. In the end, 90% of us will be infected. With an estimated death rate of 1%, COVID-19 will kill 68.4 million people (the world’s population of 7.6 billion X a 90% final epidemic size X a 1% fatality rate)—that is, if we decide that letting the virus spread unfettered is better than continuing the lockdown until the virus is brought to heel.”
I believe this is called “fear porn”.
Fear porn is ubiquitous even in kids TV, only new villains to be fear like COVID or climate catastrophe arrive regularity.
upvote!
{don’t worry, I’ll get over losing my ability to upvote soon;)}
I believe it’s called very bad writing. “peerlessly contagious”? Can a virus have a “peer group”? And after his dribbling auto stimulation with those orgasmic death figures, we get a little doubtful tap on the brakes: “To be sure, the overwhelming majority of those infected won’t die, and the fatality rate is miniscule” – but that soon slides into hysteria again via a jaw-dropping comparison with the Second World War!
Towards the end he veers towards incoherence: the policy to restart the economy is “a policy that kills the economy”. Admittedly – this is due to the restart dispatching “68.4 million people to early graves” (the magic estimate now being taken for granted). But since the lockdown will kill the economy anyway, you can’t blame the economic kill on the restart.
Then he goes all Dirty Harry: “…..the public policy equivalent of injecting Lysol in your arm and shining a bright light up your ass.”
(I wonder if he was chewing gum when he wrote that?)
😀
Peerlessly contageous: the most dangerous virus that ever virussed! =)
Yes it’s the kind of wording that could provide the germ (ho ho) of a Hollywood script – the kind that would feature the line, “It’s a slim chance but it might just work!”
sharon – it is truly amazing how many otherwise progressive media sites in the U.S. are completely drinking the MSM kool-aid on this covid thing. This – after not only 3+ years of being lied to literally multiple times daily by these same MSM sources on the Russiagate nonsense (not that they’ve stopped lying about it yet), but also after being lied to about literally EVERYTHING of any significance on foreign policy decade after decade.
I just keep reposting the link to that great Swiss site (that carries the work of covid “dissenters”) over and over in the comments sections everywhere that I come across the “fear porn.” It’s pretty disheartening I must say to keep hearing otherwise typically sane voices keep peddling MSM reports on covid as if they were the freaking gospel when if the same MSM source was reporting on Venezuela or Syria they would be highly skeptical! Amazing.
Exactly!
“Progressive”
There is that term again. As if blind obedience, without question, to the dictates of the corporate fascists, the total abrogation of civil liberties and the lack of critical thought makes one a forward looking person. Not bloody likely!
The MASK NAZIS are anything but progressive. They are regressive and retrograde. What next, “being the eyes and ears” of an oppressive and oligarchical criminal police state?
S Cooper – I guess I should have issued a “trigger warning” when using the word “progressive.” Sorry.
If an alternative media site is on the right side of U.S. foreign and domestic policy critiques 99.9% of the time for years, but they still swallowed the covid stuff – that is what I’m referring to with the term – “progressive.”
But hey, by all means feel free to call the same folks “MASK NAZIS” if that makes you feel better.
Though I must admit your terminology feels just a tad bit – “virtue signally” for my tastes.
The MASKS are only the beginning of the nightmare those corporate fascist oligarch psychopaths have in store for humanity. It is only going to get worse until it is stopped.
Buying into the BIG LIE is not stopping it. It is submitting, surrendering and furthering it.
These are the dangers arising from invisible enemies.
Carbon dioxide, CV19. And what about CV20 and CV21?
I am too old to play masked cruisader…
Ha ha ha ha. Some more numbers to google along with the word “cases”.
😀
I’d gladly volunteer to die as a 1 percenter if it meant my kids wouldn’t have to put up with all this bullshit new normal stuff. It’s a risk I’ll willingly take even if this bullshit were real.
It is a clear example of an educated scientific illiterate, who thinks the outcomes of models are evidence about the world, when they are nothing more than the mathematically inevitable result of the assumptions.
The great thing about computer models is that you can start with the result you want and then have the program work backwards to see what initial conditions are required to generate that result. You then try and make those initial conditions fit in with the evidence. Indeed I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they have a program that can actually do all that on its own. So all you’d have to do is plug in the evidence, the desired result and press “GO”.
It works for the Climate Change alarmists.
Not evidence – assumptions.
By “evidence” I meant raw data collected from various sources and which I thought might be “swung” in whatever direction required. I was musing on the possibility of a computer program being able to act as a “swingometer”. Admittedly, we’re entering a grey area where evidence and assumptions blur. In any case, knowing how easily the media can distort (or even outright lie) and then just barge on relentlessly, all of this categorisation might be irrelevant. All that matters is establishing an appearance of scientific credibilty.
These models don’t use data. They just make assumptions and then do the maths. It is no more complex than that. Ferguson’s half a million dead for instance was the result of him assuming how many of the population would be infected and a fatality rate of one percent, a calculation that could have been done on the back of an envelope, but using a computer gave the outcome a specious aura of science.
I know it’s very much a different topic but I was remembering a programme I saw on the discussion of how the buildings in New York fell on 9/11 where computer models were used and the outcome was programmed to be consistent with the official account insofar as that was possible. Indeed, I think part of that film was concerned with the opinion that, now we had computers, nobody had to trouble themselves with that troublesome real world at all!
It is very depressing, but I believe you.
On the topic of the World Trade Center buildings, the BBC reported the collapse of WTC7 before it happened. This one fact shows that the official narrative is false. Yet it bothers those who push the official narrative not one iota. And anyone who points it out is a conspiracy theorist.
Or they had results gained from a model and it was a worst case scenario. Which is as dumb as it sounds, but hey.
You can watch the BBC reporting it before it happened: https://youtu.be/LEsjv9vKCGc
You are suggesting not to rely on the outcomes of supermodels…?
Yes.
As a lexiter, I reluctantly agree with your comment. However, I imagine the Tories won’t get caught totally with their pants down. I’d be very surprised if trade deals weren’t significantly advanced before we even left the EU. I fully expect a deal to be announced with Israel, and other unsavoury regeme’s, the on January the 1st. On a better note: at least we won’t have to pay for the economic damage caused by coronavirus to many already struggling countries.
I’m very surprised you bought into the BLM meme. The whole thing is divisive, little wonder the Democrats and corporations are onboard. The only way to end racism is through class-consciousness, not division. As things stand you’ve got poor white people protecting statues of Capitalist Imperialists (in the UK), while middle-class students are trying to tear them down…..totally mad.
It’s difficult to criticize this article of Philip Roddis. May have to with the fact that it mainly contains slogans, not content. As for slogans, here is one
‘And Washington is as determined as ever to weaken a rising power destined to become its twenty-first century nemesis. We should all be paying close attention.’
IMO all I am seeing is yet another Andy Kaufman in a wrestling match. Only each other opponents for show, but in reality each other’s friends.
Here is another slogan
‘to engage in one-sided denunciations of Black Lives Matter – even to the point of saying the US protests are “color revolutions” […] – seems to me equally wide of the mark.’
Of course Roddis is entitled to his opinion, but why should I care?
And here is another
‘Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons are all that prevent it going the way of Baghdad and Tripoli. The drivers may not be identical – no oil – but the logic certainly is.’
No it’s not.
In fact the whole article is just one slogan
I am sure we are all for peace love and understanding, which is yet another slogan. The point is, how do we get there? – If that is not explained in an article, all that remains are empty words (slogans)
I used to like Philip Roddis articles before corona. It was not as if I was reading Michael Parenti or Michael Hudson, but I thought it was interesting nevertheless. Now I just see emptiness in Roddis article writing for the third month in a row. Have I changed? Has Philip Roddis changed? – What happened?
“What happened?”
‘ We ain’t in Kensas any more Toto! ‘ – That’s what happened.
In my view and not at all meant unkindly, Philip has ended up over the rainbow by an unforeseen route and has gone in search of the wizard and is arriving at some shocking truths about Oz & ‘Home‘ and his ‘wizard’.
How about you?
I’m collecting my thoughts before putting them here about the various subjects that he has skilfully raised here. The world – our western world, the Imperium – has become even more visceral in recent days about its dying light. Instead of allowing a peaceful demise into history.
We are blessed and cursed to be alive in Gramsci’s premonitions including:
“ The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born “
(The EU btw is part of the ‘new’ )
The European Union is anti-democratic.
Really? Who and what do you consider to be pro-democratic and less anti?
Any country is more democratic than the European Union, an organisation that has been designed to insulate “policy-makers” from democratic pressure and accountability.
Yeah that’s why they (the EU) get such shit trade treaties and compromise their regulations and producers way more than any independent country…
Seriously Steve what alternative universe do you think is available where we don’t get buttfucked by the major US conglomerates as we beg for a trade deal as a independent country? Think they will be nice and fair because they like a English accent?
You seem to have forgotten that you were attempting to rebut the assertion that the European Union is anti-democratic, which would seem to imply that you know it is anti-democratic.
An alternative view:
North Korea
https://qmap.pub/themes/read/61
North Korea (NK) was not run by Kim Jung-un. NK was a CIA black ops site. NK was used by the Cabal/NWO as leverage over other countries and for protection. The NK nuclear threat was real (NK had miniaturization tech in 2004 and ICBM tech in 2009). NK received uranium via the Uranium One scandal. NK received missile/nuke tech from Operation Merlin (Nasa/SpaceX/SAPs) and received funding as part of the Iran deal. NK was to be the war engine to ignite World War III. This was the biggest cover-up in our history and POTUS stopped it ALL. NK is now FREED from CIA control and on the path to peace!
—
Kim Jong-un
#79
Kim
Flipped/Freed
Kim Jong-un is a North Korean politician serving as Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and Leader of the Workers’ Party of Korea since 2012. Kim was freed from CIA control in 2017 and is now making amends with POTUS and the whole world.
. . . qmap.pub/players/read/79
—
Fake News Strikes Out Again After Kim Jong-un Appears Alive and Well!
5 May 2020 – 9:19:02 PM
. . . twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1257752761631981570
Trolling can be fun!
Q
https://qmap.pub/read/4117
Good work from Stephen Gowans. Not that long ago Kim and Moon were embracing like long lost brothers at the border. Then a year ago Donny dropped by for another little sentimental photo-op. So what is Trump’s role in all this, since it was perfectly obvious from the beginning, back in 2018, it would all end exactly as it has. A naïve playing to his base, hey, let’s get them troops out of Korea! Ridiculous. Who runs the Establishment anyway? And it’s going to give up its bases in South Korea and “front line defense against the menace of China”?
What it all suggests to me is Trump has or had scant comprehension of Neoliberal Plotting and Globalism dating back to the 90’s. He apparently had bought the “mad dog” version of Kim Jong Un during the hurling of insults stage, even while hiring Bolton, the real mad dog. Then he started getting “beautiful letters” from Kim. And he was thinking about getting the troops out of South Korea and bringing the Korean war to an end. This would bring him attaboy points and get him re-elected as a peace-maker maybe, or at the least show how here he was (again) attempting to reorder conventional US politics and do it his way. This was also the time of his “I have a magnificent stable brain” type statements.
Unfortunately, the young Kim Jong Un naively assumed he might get somewhere with Trump, whereas even then Trump’s now this now that style, his irrationality, had already shown, and should have been a warning. Perhaps, deeper, Kim’s effort to play along shows just how much Western Propaganda has underestimated him. He has been deliberately cultivated to resemble his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, and it’s clear he takes his job seriously, unlike his father. Plus there is a reverence for him amongst the people, healthy or not. The notion that North Korea will go down easily, even with its antiquated military, is a mistake.
Moon is a huge disappointment following his performance at the border and all the promises. I fancy Moon has damaged himself politically with all this, and once again the South is waiting for someone capable of telling the US to fuck off.
FFS, not Pepe Escobar,he’s nothing but a raving lefty from Brazil 😵
Poor old Pepe,he’s often on RT International,given it big’ uns about BRICKS,now thats all gone tits up
BRICKS has mysteriously become RICs,but unfortunately now its just RCs
Poor old Pepe,he also goes onto The Saker blog, getting his ‘message’ out
And what a message!
Multi polarity,you know, the next best thing in the development of mankind,unfortunately the ‘I’ and the ‘ C’ are now at each others throats,well i never 😲
Dear old Phil doesn’t like complexity in third world countries like North Korea, well perhaps Phil would like the simplicity of a North Korean gulag,poor Phil 😩
Of course Phil doesn’t get it,North Korea isn’t a third world country,its a socialist paradise!
I’ll see you over there Phil 😜
Oh hang on – aren’t you Louis Proyect’s alter ego?
Roddis always provides a reliable mixture of trivial and wrong.
Agreed polistra its just like reading msm .
Warmongering and the effect of a false flag followed X blackwater mercenaries and an owner of Black Umbrella company incited violence into a race card play. CHAOZ / CHAOS.
Identity Politics 101. Divide and conquer.
Wars have been perpetual as Human Beings are not in peace.
What is needed is an inner revolution.
I would like to upvote your comment, but that feature is gone (could we have have it back please?)
So I will do it like this: upvote
And I will do it like this: downvote
Good reads but even the story that North Korea indeed has functioning nukes is a CIA invention ? That all involved embrace for diverse reasons . What North Korea does have is China’s unwavering support , which it has had since 1950 , and ultimately the reason the US was again defeated in Vietnam aka Korea part 2..
I thought that North Korea actually tested a nuclear bomb, and it was measured on a seismograph?
How would a seismograph be able to tell if an explosion was nuclear or not?
Good question, so looked it up and found this article:
“Of Nuclear Bombs and Earthquakes” http://seismo.berkeley.edu/blog/2009/05/25/of-nuclear-bombs-and-earthquakes.html
“There are, however, major differences between the seismograms of natural tectonic earthquakes and those of explosions. Firstly, the waveforms look very different. While an earthquake generates strong S-Waves, the seismograms of underground nuclear test lack most of these waves. Instead, the P- (or primary or pressure) waves dominate the seismogram from the detonation of an atomic bomb below ground.
A second way to distinguish between the origins of the elastic waves is to analyze the data collected by many stations in what is known as a “Moment Tensor Solution.” By performing this computation, seismologists trace the elastic waves back to their origin. That not only pinpoints the precise location of the focus, it also shows the mechanism of the forces initially shaking the rocks. During an earthquake, rock breaks in a shear fracture, which results in the rapid sideways movement of two flanks of a fault. In an explosion, however, the origin is indeed a point, from which elastic pressure waves travel concentrically outward.”
That’s about the diff between earthquakes and explosions, not between types of explosions.
You mean between a conventional weapon detonation and a nuclear detonation, correct? Apparently not, from what I’ve read this morning. They have to send out planes to do atmosphere tests.If you mean differences in other types of explosions, then I’m not sure what you mean?