Greta Thunberg's take is not going to do anything good for the environmental movement. She is obviously being used by the Swedish government to legitimize the Western proxy war against Russia, and Zelensky as symbol of that disaster. "Western" in this case comprises only the US and Britain: much of the West has been seriously set back by this insane opposition to Russia, and the monetary costs, especially in terms of cheap oil and gas. If democracy actually existed they would express their resentment- even outrage vociferously. But democracy doesn't exist.
You might be right, but isn't a more direct explanation that Greta believes in the cause?
Let's see what happens in European elections. I don't have much insight there, but am told the media is 100% propaganda. Can they really get the public to endorse a permanent decline in their standard of living? We'll see.
I'm told that peace candidates won recent Taiwan elections.
Twenty years old is too young for anyone to achieve the measure of political sophistication required to unravel the complexities of history and geopolitics. I didn't have a sufficient level of that sophistication at age 40, and I would never have ever achieved it if I didn't have a real taste for using university libraries to research academic subjects far outside of the realm of popular conversation.
So I'm patient and forgiving of the political enthusiasms of younger people. In so many ways, they're just like I was.
I share Greta's opinions on anthropocentric climate heating. I also realize that she's been elevated as a poster child by powerful political interests who find her useful for some purpose. The cynic in me says that she's been given the spotlight as a diversion from the reality that there's no serious effort to put the brakes on a global consumer capitalist economy that insists on growth at all costs.
This happens a lot. In most issues of Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the CFR, there's a well-argued article or two by a historian or cultural anthropologist counseling The Western Atlanticists- that's US- to check the imperial hubris, dial back the interventionism and militarism, stop dithering on climate change, etc. The articles are published in the official record of FA, archived, and ignored. And it's back to following the sage crackpot realism of Dr. Strangelove.
My hunch is that if catastrophe is to be averted, someone is going to have to invent our way out of it, with something like deep geothermal power.
The Ukraine cause, or environmental? I'm very sure the EU media is 100% propaganda, but you can't convince people they aren't suffering when they are, and they will be suffering in spades this Fall and Winter when energy reserves are all used up and everything inflates like a weather balloon. The line everyone is trying to hold is that the Ukraine war may yet be turned around -and they'll have it all. I heard - I think Blinken say - that Russia is "withholding" gas and oil from the EU: but how many people are stupid enough to believe that? We''ll soon find out.
It appears that Greta T. believes Ukr has just cause. Why not? She has a great deal of company.
You can't hide someone's life getting worse. All you can do is blame it on outside forces. It might work and it might not.
The chance the Ukraine war will turn around is about the same as the chance the Sun will rise in the West. It is militarily impossible. I say the whole thing is a colossal grift.
The Economist reports that Russia is still shipping natural gas through the Ukraine pipeline. This doesn't fit the narrative so the Economist does its best to cast this into a poor light. Fail, sayeth I.
One of the Nordstreem pipelines is still intact but Europe doesn't dare reopen it. It would just get bombed again.
The irony is he probably thinks he's a good guy. Often murderers think they are the good guys. Heck, Britain, the US, and its Western Allies in World War II carpet bombed all the major cities of Germany systematically, creating firestorms killing 100s of thousands of non-combatant civilians. And the impact of destroying these cities - such as Dresden, or even in Japan, Tokyo - has been historically questionable from a military standpoint.
Yes, from what I’ve seen of VZ ‘s media performances, I’m certain he believes he’s the good guy , reinforced by his mindless cheer squad that gives him endless access to their war chest.
I think you’re stretching the bounds of reality in him being able to identify what being a ‘good guy’ is. He’s a puppet filling his pockets and nothing more.
"....worried about neural implants" but unaware that the "powerful have already achieved that with propaganda" Recognition of this since the 2014 Maidan coup (or even before that) has shocked me and caused great mental distress. It's as if the Western allies unconditionally supporting Ukraine have been struck by a powerful "need for war" pandemic. They are like lemmings. Bravo for your work Caitlin.
"War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them. Of course, the ideal of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity is never really attained. The classes upon whom the amateur work of coercion falls are unwearied in their zeal, but often their agitation instead of converting, merely serves to stiffen their resistance. Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion bitter and satirical. But in general, the nation in wartime attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war. Loyalty - or mystic devotion to the State - becomes the major imagined human value. Other values, such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them." -Randolph Bourne
Back in World War Two USA if you were seen having frivolous fun someone might shout "don't you know there's a war on?" The country was converted to a total war economy. The manufacture of automobiles ceased. Once it was all over happy days returned.
The current mode is that while not total the wars are indefinitely sustainable. This is not what I had in mind as a "sustainable economy," but it's what we've got. Unfortunately it means that the coerced conformity also goes on forever.
1. The end of the first two capitalist crusades (World Wars) were followed in the West by pro-elite and anti-commoner social reforms. The US had Prohibition and the Red Scare. I only know UK history well enough after WWII to know there was a moral panic.
2. Yeah, and? None of that needs to exist, even temporarily, except for that a very few people are served well by the implications and about half of everyone else gets a little beak-wetting out of the proceeds.
After WW2, when the lucky men got home and mustered out, there was a brief recession, which was fixed by creating a permanent war economy. The propaganda lessons learned first during our 180 degree turn into WW1, having been refined by their use in advertising and the new industry of ‘public relations’, served our system very well indeed. Those techniques have now been so well refined now that we can be manipulated into thinking, or really feeling, anything they want us to think or feel. The Nazis openly admired, during their rise in the 1920s, how the US pulled off its 180 into WW1- how the massive propaganda that first got Wilson re-elected in 1916 with the slogan ‘He Kept Us Out of War’ to massive hatred of anything German and a declaration of war in a matter of months. After 100 years of ‘progress’ in this insidious industry, the PTB are light years ahead of even that monumental achievement.
It is very impressive. The Internet has greatly increased the power of the system. One can try stories out very cheaply and rapidly. You can see what people are doing instead of what they say they will do. If someone gives you money you can see what inspired them to do that, then emphasize this. If you see someone influencing others in a way you don't like you can shadowban them.
Al Gore said of a campaign, "they told me if I spent so many dollars on such and such ads then in three weeks your ratings will go up nine points. I spent the dollars on the ads and in three weeks my ratings went up nine points."
We blame identity politics on party leaders but I say they do it because it works. Ordinary people drive it. People don't understand issues. They have no ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. They understand names, faces, and grooming. Hillary Clinton said she didn't much care about grooming until she got to DC and found out how important it was. In 2016 we were subjected to mountains of criticism of Donald Trump's grooming. OMG, orange skin and a combover. Mon dieu. I have on two occasions been in the presence of US Senators. Best grooming I ever saw. It was like they had a glowing nimbus about them. How much time do TV personalities spend in the makeup room?
I was once in the presence of a senator who possessed the emptiest head that ever boasted a $100 haircut and a $2,500 suit below the neck. 30 years ago. Adjust for inflation. You’re right on.
Mind Control is being achieved now with synthetic biology nanotechnology that we have all been exposed to in our air (chemtrails), water and food, but most importantly, in the jabs. Check out Celeste Solum at the CelestialReport.
"...while the odd empire manager may say “end the wars” it never happens, because everything in it is oriented toward war."
Nobody of influence and authority ever faces consequences, not personal or professional, for pushing for more war.
This is Russia's fundamental problem here. Short of nuclear war, there is little Russia can do that will so much as inconvenience the decisionmakers in the West.
Its a bloody big planet, even if our maps and mental scales are small.
One reason Orwell saw the three systems or Oceania, EastAsia and (Westasia?), is that each system was almost entirely insular from the others. The only places they fought were in the 'borderlands'.
The ruling elites are entirely divorced from any real consequences.
If Bush, Bliar and Rassmussen had ended up in front of the ICC for the "Ultimate Crime", that might have changed the calculus.
People believe in myths about money, including that it is an embodiment or even a *source* of value, rather than a mere instrument of it. "Money" autism explains nothing because it is a norm, not a reality.
I think the vast majority of US votes are cast with regard to their own debts and their ability to order others around.
And Babylon 5 showed "President Clarke" using that line, in support of a xenophobic and totalitarian policy, several years before Bush immortalised it - for a xenophobic and totalitarian policy!
Chimpy & Friends - now of the Imperial Demonrat Party.
Russia is a founding member of BRICS, which is seen as a dire threat by the oligarchy of the United States. Demanding natural gas payments in rubles instead of dollars is part of that.
I see the West's forcing of the rise of BRICS as a foolish self-harming policy.
If you look at global payments, what little decline there is in dollar-denominated trade has largely been replaced by Euro-denominated trade.
The better argument would be that the West's willingness to sanction willy-nilly, confiscate and otherwise ignore its much-hyped "Muh Property Rights And Rule Of Law(tm)" have shown that only a fool would keep their assets in the West.
The shift away from the dollar has just begun. It will progress over the years. A BRICS currency is being considered. African nations are borrowing in RMBs (yuan).
I myself have moved some of my assets out of the Western sphere. If they are freezing bank accounts for donation of small sums to the Canadian truckers strike then I don't see why they wouldn't do the same to me.
TPTB certainly might freeze your assets, but good luck getting them back in, if you live in a western country.
One of the many problems with a non-dollar reserve currency, e.g., Yuan, is that the issuer will have to run up huge current account deficits, otherwise nobody will have Yuan or whatever to hold or spend.
Patrick Powers: One of my best friends lived in Jakarta for years. He caught Dengue Fever and damn near died. He would have died but fortunately a Swedish woman was at the airport.
The hospital called the airport and the Swedish woman came to the hospital to give my friend a blood transfusion which saved his life.
Asians all have the same blood type which, my friend said, was not compatible with his.
You might want to make sure you have an extra supply of your blood type in Indonesia.
...while the odd empire manager may say “end the wars”
I never hear this, unless you believe RFKJ and Gabbard are empire managers. What I do hear from the antipeace mob is any hint of peace rebutted by "you're a stooge of Putin."
They're part of the Show and they aren't being seriously attacked by the Party machine yet. It's absolutely fair to assume they're there on recognizance of the showrunners.
I wonder if Ms. Thunberg realizes the tragic extent to which she has been co-opted by the USian imperial brain-police apparatus -- or if she does not, how she will respond when she awakens to the bitter truth of our now-eternal powerlessness. (Because I have enormous respect for her passion, I see her as an innocent in the same way we of the old '60s Counterculture were innocents, smug [and therefore utterly vulnerable] in the foolish belief our righteousness protected us from contamination by the Infinite Evil that has threatened the world since the advent of patriarchy and which -- with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- achieved the terminally misogynistic ecogenocidal omnipotence over our Mother Earth and all her children that was always the patriarchs' ultimately apocalyptic purpose.)
If she wants to make a stand on war ecology, she should start a picketing action outside the Pentagon, which spends more money on war than most of the planet combined - and wages more war than all of them combined!
While this is true, I did the math once and it came out to something like 0.1% of global emissions. That's the problem : all of modern society is pretty much based on this stuff.
Looks like they are gathering more ammo/followers , in order to take out the ZNPP and blame it on Russia. Greta will be able to influence all the Kiddies - looking for answers. The Nato meeting in Vilnius is a Legit target. Don't believe me - read Jamenta's post.
Oh YEAH, because at like 17 YOU completely understood global geopolitics to the Nth degree, YOU knew instantly what was true and untrue, and YOU were never fooled by the Western PR Machine.
YOU DO REALISE YOU ARE DEMANDING A TEENAGE GIRL UNDERSTAND *EVERYTHING* THAT MOST WESTERN GROWN ADULTS ARE STRUGGLING WITH??
Have you ever considered it's not this teenage girl with the actual problem? Maybe it's you haters with your unrealistic demands?
My comment was a direct rebuttal to the relevance of your emotivism and your need to have positive feelings about moral passion plays. Can you address that?
Comment : 🤔If it’s VZ’s motive to target the younger generation . Greta attracts a lot of followers who care about the effects of climate change and their adult selves in the future.
Everything is indeed carefully orchestrated to create the the perspective that propaganda wants us to have. Greta is to appear as a youth involvement and care of the environment. Logically, this should be the case, yet it is a veneer.
Realistically, she makes no difference, whether speaking at the U.N. or elsewhere. Sure the nations are just going to draft better legislation and punish companies for violating it, right? As if they (world leaders don't know) You already explained this here in the highly dysfunctional empire-person.
We know our elections here in the states are rigged/manipulated. There is a few things here. 1.) People are loyal to one rhetoric over the other. Trump was election fraud 2016 so Biden had to win. 2.) Biden ran a poor to nonexistent campaign that was so horrible that beating Trump was all that matter to most. 3.) Those that are truly aware an oppose the election bullshit are a small minority. 4.) There is a reason why third parties are heavily demonized, to prevent people pushing potential change.
Well, it's because politics is meant to be a performance engendering subordination to ideals, not a reality of improving material conditions. The false emotionalized promises of reformability discourage us from tearing down the very same system of private property that ensures they remain unmet.
You with your concise brevity, indeed. People don't seem to realize that there are reasonable limits that should be kept to maintain a stable society. I mean the inhabitants of Catal hoyuk figured it out several thousand years ago...Egalitarian is almost a swear word, but most don't even know the word. That we creating a self limiting system based on ideology that perpetually benefits the rich. I mean wealth inequality is discussed here and it remains so due to people refusing to acknowledge the system needs to be changed.
This is Puritan bullshit that only someone ignorant of Anglo-Saxon history could seriously undertake. You idiots have been continuously wrong and stuck inside your own dreams since the moment John Calvin laid pen to paper. Take meds.
Taes, you're the clear record-holder in trying to misdirect arguments away from ever having to defend or explaining your position accountably, and toward turf where you feel more comfortable (practically anywhere else.)
Stuck for an answer? Demand that someone else answer a different question...it's an old game. Tedious.
DC Reade: What do "teas" have to do with anything? Do you put yeast in your tea? Stinky, like many pontificating blowhards, love big three and four syllable words. It makes them feel smart. They can show off their useless college educations.
That's more like it! However, it's the banking cabal that doesn't like competition. It's their money that governments borrow [at interest]. It's *their* [imaginary] money we ludicrously crave. The bankers, of course, own the media and most, if not all, politicians. There now exposed is the mountain range to climb. It's not impossible but time is tight.
I'd say that Big Money owns the media and almost all politicians. The nice thing about Big Money is that it doesn't even try to hide. All you have to do is pick up a copy of Forbes' listing of the biggest. It's very useful. Those policies that favor the biggest Western companies and disfavor the biggest Eastern ones are the ones that will be enacted. For example, in I think 2013 I read that Gaszprom of Russia was the most profitable company in the world. Contemporary politics can be seen as a massive effort to throttle Gaszprom.
The biggest of USA Big Money is the fossil fuels, second is Big Finance, and third pharmaceuticals. The most powerful of all though could be Big Weapons. The money isn't as large as the others but military spending buys millions of votes.
Let me be clear. I've been a blue collar worker all my life. My father worked hard as a salesman and worked his way up to chief operating officer of a Midwestern USA company.
So I saw both sides of business.
Now, I'm an old cripple. Blue collar workers' bodies wear out early. FDR never expected a guy like me to live past 65.
The only ONLY reason I make comments on this site, read this site, and care about this site is because I want the human race to survive and prosper.
Socialism is not the answer. Top down edicts are not the answer. Taxes and regulations are not the answer.
"Let my people go!" Moses.
Let the people decide how to run their lives, what to do with their money, their love, their souls.
Let the chips fall where they will.
We are human beings and there is no escaping our natures.
DC Reade: Now you've gone into mind-reading. Is the Circus in town? This substack is full of commentators like yourself who can read people's minds and predict the future. How big is your crystal ball? What color am I thinking of now?
Mind reading has nothing to do with it. I merely realize that no one can see "both sides of business" when there's more than two sides.
I also know that no one can base their opinions on the big picture of anything exclusively on the basis of their own personal experience. Although I have not problem admitting that it helps, and the wider someones personal experience, the more based they are.
Yvon Chouinard has more breadth of experience than anyone I know. He's a poster child for your fantasy of Virtuous Capitalism, but he could just never worship it as an ideology to run his political views. He understands the need for a heavy dose of socialism to counter all the individual greed out there.
What you disparage as Socialism is actually just more like extending the law enforcement function of government to the realm of economics, in order to forbid lawless practices like pollution, resource plunder, and inhumane labor practices. You want no taxes and no regulations? Mad Max Fury Road is a fun fantasy- as Fiction, to watch from the comfort of your living room, In the real world, it's more like Somalia, or the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan.
Ironically, it's still possible to live without taxes and regulations in much of the US- as an Individual. There are still counties in this nation with fewer than 1 person per square mile. Not in Nebraska, though. The most thinly populated country in Nebraska has about 13 people per square mile. You all still need Government there.
I wouldn't care that much about how Nebraska takes care of itself, if it didn't have two senators from a state with only 2 million people to provide the crucial votes on measures that affect the other 328 million of us. But that's only a bug of this particular Federal government, not feature. Not a reason to get rid of Government entirely.
The other part of the reason I want some amount of control over Nebraska is all those rivers running through it. Rivers aren't confined by State borders. They're part of the Commons. As are all of those Federal Water Projects that the US Department of Interior and Army Corps of Engineers built. Some were a good idea with long-lasting benefits, and some were only good for beneficiaries of the Federal pork barrel. The pork barrel is a bug, too. A nasty, resistant bug. But not a feature, and not a reason to discard Government.
I dare you to wrap your head around that fact. But to guess about it, you'll be explaining him and everything about his ideas away in your own head within a minute or two. And then changing the subject.
That's only a guess based on the evidence of your written record, of course. I'm not a mind reader.
Bet U.S.A. chicken hawk media neglected to cover any U.S.A. war of aggression with such professional propaganda purpose as now driving narrative of U.S.A./N.A.T.O.--Nazi American Terrorist Organization, using Ukraine as surrogate battle field after luring Russian Federation into its invasion of portions of country.
Sometimes I feel we are a living Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale: it's all made up. Nazis are running the shop and no one seems to notice , or much care. Blaming the wrong cause is no solution. But is sometimes an ersatz solution has a very long shelf life.
Greta Thunberg's take is not going to do anything good for the environmental movement. She is obviously being used by the Swedish government to legitimize the Western proxy war against Russia, and Zelensky as symbol of that disaster. "Western" in this case comprises only the US and Britain: much of the West has been seriously set back by this insane opposition to Russia, and the monetary costs, especially in terms of cheap oil and gas. If democracy actually existed they would express their resentment- even outrage vociferously. But democracy doesn't exist.
You might be right, but isn't a more direct explanation that Greta believes in the cause?
Let's see what happens in European elections. I don't have much insight there, but am told the media is 100% propaganda. Can they really get the public to endorse a permanent decline in their standard of living? We'll see.
I'm told that peace candidates won recent Taiwan elections.
Greta Thunberg is 20 years old.
Twenty years old is too young for anyone to achieve the measure of political sophistication required to unravel the complexities of history and geopolitics. I didn't have a sufficient level of that sophistication at age 40, and I would never have ever achieved it if I didn't have a real taste for using university libraries to research academic subjects far outside of the realm of popular conversation.
So I'm patient and forgiving of the political enthusiasms of younger people. In so many ways, they're just like I was.
I share Greta's opinions on anthropocentric climate heating. I also realize that she's been elevated as a poster child by powerful political interests who find her useful for some purpose. The cynic in me says that she's been given the spotlight as a diversion from the reality that there's no serious effort to put the brakes on a global consumer capitalist economy that insists on growth at all costs.
This happens a lot. In most issues of Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the CFR, there's a well-argued article or two by a historian or cultural anthropologist counseling The Western Atlanticists- that's US- to check the imperial hubris, dial back the interventionism and militarism, stop dithering on climate change, etc. The articles are published in the official record of FA, archived, and ignored. And it's back to following the sage crackpot realism of Dr. Strangelove.
My hunch is that if catastrophe is to be averted, someone is going to have to invent our way out of it, with something like deep geothermal power.
The Ukraine cause, or environmental? I'm very sure the EU media is 100% propaganda, but you can't convince people they aren't suffering when they are, and they will be suffering in spades this Fall and Winter when energy reserves are all used up and everything inflates like a weather balloon. The line everyone is trying to hold is that the Ukraine war may yet be turned around -and they'll have it all. I heard - I think Blinken say - that Russia is "withholding" gas and oil from the EU: but how many people are stupid enough to believe that? We''ll soon find out.
It appears that Greta T. believes Ukr has just cause. Why not? She has a great deal of company.
You can't hide someone's life getting worse. All you can do is blame it on outside forces. It might work and it might not.
The chance the Ukraine war will turn around is about the same as the chance the Sun will rise in the West. It is militarily impossible. I say the whole thing is a colossal grift.
The Economist reports that Russia is still shipping natural gas through the Ukraine pipeline. This doesn't fit the narrative so the Economist does its best to cast this into a poor light. Fail, sayeth I.
One of the Nordstreem pipelines is still intact but Europe doesn't dare reopen it. It would just get bombed again.
Greta meets Zelensky - with this the malignant narcissist globalist tyrant mocks us with his nakedness
Looking at the photo, I can almost hear the psychopath's laughter.
The irony is he probably thinks he's a good guy. Often murderers think they are the good guys. Heck, Britain, the US, and its Western Allies in World War II carpet bombed all the major cities of Germany systematically, creating firestorms killing 100s of thousands of non-combatant civilians. And the impact of destroying these cities - such as Dresden, or even in Japan, Tokyo - has been historically questionable from a military standpoint.
He laughs at good guys.
He thinks with his nose powder.
Yes, from what I’ve seen of VZ ‘s media performances, I’m certain he believes he’s the good guy , reinforced by his mindless cheer squad that gives him endless access to their war chest.
💸💶💰🤑
I think you’re stretching the bounds of reality in him being able to identify what being a ‘good guy’ is. He’s a puppet filling his pockets and nothing more.
Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree.
He's being used by the big guys
But are they on the cover of _Vogue_?
"....worried about neural implants" but unaware that the "powerful have already achieved that with propaganda" Recognition of this since the 2014 Maidan coup (or even before that) has shocked me and caused great mental distress. It's as if the Western allies unconditionally supporting Ukraine have been struck by a powerful "need for war" pandemic. They are like lemmings. Bravo for your work Caitlin.
"It's all about money." -- Marnie Powers
"War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them. Of course, the ideal of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity is never really attained. The classes upon whom the amateur work of coercion falls are unwearied in their zeal, but often their agitation instead of converting, merely serves to stiffen their resistance. Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion bitter and satirical. But in general, the nation in wartime attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war. Loyalty - or mystic devotion to the State - becomes the major imagined human value. Other values, such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them." -Randolph Bourne
Back in World War Two USA if you were seen having frivolous fun someone might shout "don't you know there's a war on?" The country was converted to a total war economy. The manufacture of automobiles ceased. Once it was all over happy days returned.
The current mode is that while not total the wars are indefinitely sustainable. This is not what I had in mind as a "sustainable economy," but it's what we've got. Unfortunately it means that the coerced conformity also goes on forever.
1. The end of the first two capitalist crusades (World Wars) were followed in the West by pro-elite and anti-commoner social reforms. The US had Prohibition and the Red Scare. I only know UK history well enough after WWII to know there was a moral panic.
2. Yeah, and? None of that needs to exist, even temporarily, except for that a very few people are served well by the implications and about half of everyone else gets a little beak-wetting out of the proceeds.
After WW2, when the lucky men got home and mustered out, there was a brief recession, which was fixed by creating a permanent war economy. The propaganda lessons learned first during our 180 degree turn into WW1, having been refined by their use in advertising and the new industry of ‘public relations’, served our system very well indeed. Those techniques have now been so well refined now that we can be manipulated into thinking, or really feeling, anything they want us to think or feel. The Nazis openly admired, during their rise in the 1920s, how the US pulled off its 180 into WW1- how the massive propaganda that first got Wilson re-elected in 1916 with the slogan ‘He Kept Us Out of War’ to massive hatred of anything German and a declaration of war in a matter of months. After 100 years of ‘progress’ in this insidious industry, the PTB are light years ahead of even that monumental achievement.
It is very impressive. The Internet has greatly increased the power of the system. One can try stories out very cheaply and rapidly. You can see what people are doing instead of what they say they will do. If someone gives you money you can see what inspired them to do that, then emphasize this. If you see someone influencing others in a way you don't like you can shadowban them.
Al Gore said of a campaign, "they told me if I spent so many dollars on such and such ads then in three weeks your ratings will go up nine points. I spent the dollars on the ads and in three weeks my ratings went up nine points."
We blame identity politics on party leaders but I say they do it because it works. Ordinary people drive it. People don't understand issues. They have no ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. They understand names, faces, and grooming. Hillary Clinton said she didn't much care about grooming until she got to DC and found out how important it was. In 2016 we were subjected to mountains of criticism of Donald Trump's grooming. OMG, orange skin and a combover. Mon dieu. I have on two occasions been in the presence of US Senators. Best grooming I ever saw. It was like they had a glowing nimbus about them. How much time do TV personalities spend in the makeup room?
I was once in the presence of a senator who possessed the emptiest head that ever boasted a $100 haircut and a $2,500 suit below the neck. 30 years ago. Adjust for inflation. You’re right on.
And control.
As Patrick said above about Zelensky, I doubt the successfully propagandized are able to discern what neural implants are.
Mind Control is being achieved now with synthetic biology nanotechnology that we have all been exposed to in our air (chemtrails), water and food, but most importantly, in the jabs. Check out Celeste Solum at the CelestialReport.
Are you Ukrainian?
No, that's a childish myth. Only mentally ill people need to create mysteries and perform fear of them.
"...while the odd empire manager may say “end the wars” it never happens, because everything in it is oriented toward war."
Nobody of influence and authority ever faces consequences, not personal or professional, for pushing for more war.
This is Russia's fundamental problem here. Short of nuclear war, there is little Russia can do that will so much as inconvenience the decisionmakers in the West.
Yeps.
Its a bloody big planet, even if our maps and mental scales are small.
One reason Orwell saw the three systems or Oceania, EastAsia and (Westasia?), is that each system was almost entirely insular from the others. The only places they fought were in the 'borderlands'.
The ruling elites are entirely divorced from any real consequences.
If Bush, Bliar and Rassmussen had ended up in front of the ICC for the "Ultimate Crime", that might have changed the calculus.
Today's megalomaniacs openly declare their goal as "full spectrum dominance".
Or "If you're not with us, then you're against us!"
Yep, it's no secret. Unfortunately it appears that voters in favor of this outnumber those opposed. But who knows. That could change.
As long as the consequences don't hit too close to home.
Food shortages trigger uprisings. I believe that the great majority of US votes are cast with selfish motives about personal money.
I dunno, there wasn't an uprising as a result of the Bengal Famine, for instance.
Hungry people are by and large pretty docile.
People believe in myths about money, including that it is an embodiment or even a *source* of value, rather than a mere instrument of it. "Money" autism explains nothing because it is a norm, not a reality.
I think the vast majority of US votes are cast with regard to their own debts and their ability to order others around.
And Babylon 5 showed "President Clarke" using that line, in support of a xenophobic and totalitarian policy, several years before Bush immortalised it - for a xenophobic and totalitarian policy!
Chimpy & Friends - now of the Imperial Demonrat Party.
Russia is a founding member of BRICS, which is seen as a dire threat by the oligarchy of the United States. Demanding natural gas payments in rubles instead of dollars is part of that.
I see the West's forcing of the rise of BRICS as a foolish self-harming policy.
If you look at global payments, what little decline there is in dollar-denominated trade has largely been replaced by Euro-denominated trade.
The better argument would be that the West's willingness to sanction willy-nilly, confiscate and otherwise ignore its much-hyped "Muh Property Rights And Rule Of Law(tm)" have shown that only a fool would keep their assets in the West.
The shift away from the dollar has just begun. It will progress over the years. A BRICS currency is being considered. African nations are borrowing in RMBs (yuan).
I myself have moved some of my assets out of the Western sphere. If they are freezing bank accounts for donation of small sums to the Canadian truckers strike then I don't see why they wouldn't do the same to me.
TPTB certainly might freeze your assets, but good luck getting them back in, if you live in a western country.
One of the many problems with a non-dollar reserve currency, e.g., Yuan, is that the issuer will have to run up huge current account deficits, otherwise nobody will have Yuan or whatever to hold or spend.
I live in Indonesia.
You print money, buy stuff with it, and never pay it back. Print more money to pay the interest. Nice work if you can get it.
Patrick Powers: One of my best friends lived in Jakarta for years. He caught Dengue Fever and damn near died. He would have died but fortunately a Swedish woman was at the airport.
The hospital called the airport and the Swedish woman came to the hospital to give my friend a blood transfusion which saved his life.
Asians all have the same blood type which, my friend said, was not compatible with his.
You might want to make sure you have an extra supply of your blood type in Indonesia.
I didn't say that the current arrangement was fair or equitable or anything of the sort.
...while the odd empire manager may say “end the wars”
I never hear this, unless you believe RFKJ and Gabbard are empire managers. What I do hear from the antipeace mob is any hint of peace rebutted by "you're a stooge of Putin."
They're part of the Show and they aren't being seriously attacked by the Party machine yet. It's absolutely fair to assume they're there on recognizance of the showrunners.
Neither has enough influence or authority and people of influence and authority treat both as kooks.
I wonder if Ms. Thunberg realizes the tragic extent to which she has been co-opted by the USian imperial brain-police apparatus -- or if she does not, how she will respond when she awakens to the bitter truth of our now-eternal powerlessness. (Because I have enormous respect for her passion, I see her as an innocent in the same way we of the old '60s Counterculture were innocents, smug [and therefore utterly vulnerable] in the foolish belief our righteousness protected us from contamination by the Infinite Evil that has threatened the world since the advent of patriarchy and which -- with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- achieved the terminally misogynistic ecogenocidal omnipotence over our Mother Earth and all her children that was always the patriarchs' ultimately apocalyptic purpose.)
If she wants to make a stand on war ecology, she should start a picketing action outside the Pentagon, which spends more money on war than most of the planet combined - and wages more war than all of them combined!
Not to mention that the US military is by far the single largest emitter of greenhouse gasses out there.
While this is true, I did the math once and it came out to something like 0.1% of global emissions. That's the problem : all of modern society is pretty much based on this stuff.
Nope. You cannot have done the math. As it’s notably NOT disclosed. By special exemption for international climate agreements. As per US wishes.
Ha! They’d shut that down quick. She’s a tool, not a trail blazer
Looks like they are gathering more ammo/followers , in order to take out the ZNPP and blame it on Russia. Greta will be able to influence all the Kiddies - looking for answers. The Nato meeting in Vilnius is a Legit target. Don't believe me - read Jamenta's post.
Omg Caitlin, everything in this piece is 100% on point! Which of course is the norm for you.
Greta meets Zelenskyy. Of course... how did I not see that coming?!? 😁
Well, this is disappointment to the extreme! Shame on you, Greta.
You haven't been paying attention. Greta is tool of the WEF greenwashers. She's a fraud, totally controlled pseudo-opposition.
Oh YEAH, because at like 17 YOU completely understood global geopolitics to the Nth degree, YOU knew instantly what was true and untrue, and YOU were never fooled by the Western PR Machine.
YOU DO REALISE YOU ARE DEMANDING A TEENAGE GIRL UNDERSTAND *EVERYTHING* THAT MOST WESTERN GROWN ADULTS ARE STRUGGLING WITH??
Have you ever considered it's not this teenage girl with the actual problem? Maybe it's you haters with your unrealistic demands?
She is 20 now.
Individual morality is a scam designed to distract us from the material effects of our actions in the world.
Lol, I remember those old "Platitude Generators"!! :'D
Which one was this from? It is pretty good. :)
My comment was a direct rebuttal to the relevance of your emotivism and your need to have positive feelings about moral passion plays. Can you address that?
Oh SWEET! And what did the AI program respond with when you asked it that?
How fascinating!
Yup
Comment : 🤔If it’s VZ’s motive to target the younger generation . Greta attracts a lot of followers who care about the effects of climate change and their adult selves in the future.
Yes this is the point
Put your support behind these two and you're actively cheering on your own and your children's annihilation.
Everything is indeed carefully orchestrated to create the the perspective that propaganda wants us to have. Greta is to appear as a youth involvement and care of the environment. Logically, this should be the case, yet it is a veneer.
Realistically, she makes no difference, whether speaking at the U.N. or elsewhere. Sure the nations are just going to draft better legislation and punish companies for violating it, right? As if they (world leaders don't know) You already explained this here in the highly dysfunctional empire-person.
We know our elections here in the states are rigged/manipulated. There is a few things here. 1.) People are loyal to one rhetoric over the other. Trump was election fraud 2016 so Biden had to win. 2.) Biden ran a poor to nonexistent campaign that was so horrible that beating Trump was all that matter to most. 3.) Those that are truly aware an oppose the election bullshit are a small minority. 4.) There is a reason why third parties are heavily demonized, to prevent people pushing potential change.
Well, it's because politics is meant to be a performance engendering subordination to ideals, not a reality of improving material conditions. The false emotionalized promises of reformability discourage us from tearing down the very same system of private property that ensures they remain unmet.
You with your concise brevity, indeed. People don't seem to realize that there are reasonable limits that should be kept to maintain a stable society. I mean the inhabitants of Catal hoyuk figured it out several thousand years ago...Egalitarian is almost a swear word, but most don't even know the word. That we creating a self limiting system based on ideology that perpetually benefits the rich. I mean wealth inequality is discussed here and it remains so due to people refusing to acknowledge the system needs to be changed.
The system was changed to US becoming a corporation, unbeknownst to the citizens. It must be changed back to a Constitutional Republic.
This is Puritan bullshit that only someone ignorant of Anglo-Saxon history could seriously undertake. You idiots have been continuously wrong and stuck inside your own dreams since the moment John Calvin laid pen to paper. Take meds.
I now see why you have no time for research. Your anger management classes, which are clearly wasting your time, aren't working.
Odd to imply that people who believe myths merit restraint.
Stinky: Are you going for the record of three syllable or more words in a comment?
Taes, you're the clear record-holder in trying to misdirect arguments away from ever having to defend or explaining your position accountably, and toward turf where you feel more comfortable (practically anywhere else.)
Stuck for an answer? Demand that someone else answer a different question...it's an old game. Tedious.
DC Reade: What do "teas" have to do with anything? Do you put yeast in your tea? Stinky, like many pontificating blowhards, love big three and four syllable words. It makes them feel smart. They can show off their useless college educations.
That's more like it! However, it's the banking cabal that doesn't like competition. It's their money that governments borrow [at interest]. It's *their* [imaginary] money we ludicrously crave. The bankers, of course, own the media and most, if not all, politicians. There now exposed is the mountain range to climb. It's not impossible but time is tight.
I'd say that Big Money owns the media and almost all politicians. The nice thing about Big Money is that it doesn't even try to hide. All you have to do is pick up a copy of Forbes' listing of the biggest. It's very useful. Those policies that favor the biggest Western companies and disfavor the biggest Eastern ones are the ones that will be enacted. For example, in I think 2013 I read that Gaszprom of Russia was the most profitable company in the world. Contemporary politics can be seen as a massive effort to throttle Gaszprom.
The biggest of USA Big Money is the fossil fuels, second is Big Finance, and third pharmaceuticals. The most powerful of all though could be Big Weapons. The money isn't as large as the others but military spending buys millions of votes.
Will Greta now meet with Putin and shake his hand in greeting? Otherwise this meeting wreaks of hypocrisy.
Those that control Greta are anti-Russia so no chance of that show ever coming to light.
Let me be clear. I've been a blue collar worker all my life. My father worked hard as a salesman and worked his way up to chief operating officer of a Midwestern USA company.
So I saw both sides of business.
Now, I'm an old cripple. Blue collar workers' bodies wear out early. FDR never expected a guy like me to live past 65.
The only ONLY reason I make comments on this site, read this site, and care about this site is because I want the human race to survive and prosper.
Socialism is not the answer. Top down edicts are not the answer. Taxes and regulations are not the answer.
"Let my people go!" Moses.
Let the people decide how to run their lives, what to do with their money, their love, their souls.
Let the chips fall where they will.
We are human beings and there is no escaping our natures.
So let it be.
You didn't "see both sides of business." You got a itty bitty glimpse, and then decided you knew all you needed to know.
DC Reade: Now you've gone into mind-reading. Is the Circus in town? This substack is full of commentators like yourself who can read people's minds and predict the future. How big is your crystal ball? What color am I thinking of now?
Mind reading has nothing to do with it. I merely realize that no one can see "both sides of business" when there's more than two sides.
I also know that no one can base their opinions on the big picture of anything exclusively on the basis of their own personal experience. Although I have not problem admitting that it helps, and the wider someones personal experience, the more based they are.
Yvon Chouinard has more breadth of experience than anyone I know. He's a poster child for your fantasy of Virtuous Capitalism, but he could just never worship it as an ideology to run his political views. He understands the need for a heavy dose of socialism to counter all the individual greed out there.
I don't think Yvon has ever been to Davos. He'd rather be out by the river on a fishing trip, sleeping in the cab of his pickup truck. He called Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel "city boys" with no understanding of the vital importance of the biosphere, which is what they are. Chouinard became a millionaire by inventing rope climbing hardware that he made by becoming a self-taught blacksmith, in order to get the tools required to safely pursue his passion, rock climbing. Before he started selling his - and for some time afterward- Chouinard was sleeping rough in the parks and collecting pop bottle for cash. One summer, he at cat food. If he cares at all about being praised by people like me, it's something that he puts up with, rather than craving fame. https://www.businessinsider.com/rise-patagonia-yvon-chouinard-history-photos-2022-9?op=1#patagonia-continued-to-make-waves-on-the-sustainability-front-including-with-major-campaigns-like-the-2011-black-friday-dont-buy-this-jacket-ads-which-urged-customers-to-reduce-their-consumption-18
What you disparage as Socialism is actually just more like extending the law enforcement function of government to the realm of economics, in order to forbid lawless practices like pollution, resource plunder, and inhumane labor practices. You want no taxes and no regulations? Mad Max Fury Road is a fun fantasy- as Fiction, to watch from the comfort of your living room, In the real world, it's more like Somalia, or the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan.
Ironically, it's still possible to live without taxes and regulations in much of the US- as an Individual. There are still counties in this nation with fewer than 1 person per square mile. Not in Nebraska, though. The most thinly populated country in Nebraska has about 13 people per square mile. You all still need Government there.
I wouldn't care that much about how Nebraska takes care of itself, if it didn't have two senators from a state with only 2 million people to provide the crucial votes on measures that affect the other 328 million of us. But that's only a bug of this particular Federal government, not feature. Not a reason to get rid of Government entirely.
The other part of the reason I want some amount of control over Nebraska is all those rivers running through it. Rivers aren't confined by State borders. They're part of the Commons. As are all of those Federal Water Projects that the US Department of Interior and Army Corps of Engineers built. Some were a good idea with long-lasting benefits, and some were only good for beneficiaries of the Federal pork barrel. The pork barrel is a bug, too. A nasty, resistant bug. But not a feature, and not a reason to discard Government.
Yvon Chouinard supports Socialism, Taes. https://www.influencewatch.org/person/yvon-chouinard/
I dare you to wrap your head around that fact. But to guess about it, you'll be explaining him and everything about his ideas away in your own head within a minute or two. And then changing the subject.
That's only a guess based on the evidence of your written record, of course. I'm not a mind reader.
This is like a listicle of truth bombs.
Bet U.S.A. chicken hawk media neglected to cover any U.S.A. war of aggression with such professional propaganda purpose as now driving narrative of U.S.A./N.A.T.O.--Nazi American Terrorist Organization, using Ukraine as surrogate battle field after luring Russian Federation into its invasion of portions of country.
Sometimes I feel we are a living Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale: it's all made up. Nazis are running the shop and no one seems to notice , or much care. Blaming the wrong cause is no solution. But is sometimes an ersatz solution has a very long shelf life.