Friday, March 26, 2021

Links — 26 March 2021

Bill Totten's Weblog (China acted, the West dithered)
A Tale of Two Lockdowns
Godfree Roberts, publisher of HereComesChina newsletter


Bracing Views (budgetary priorities)
Is China Winning? It’s Our Own Fault
W. J. Astore
TASS
Russia, China oppose Washington’s imposition of its view of democracy — Kremlin

‘Lies’: Diplomat blasts NATO chief’s remark Russia refuses dialogue with alliance





Defend Democracy Press
Turkey, Ukraine press forward with plans for two-front anti-Russian proxy war
Rick Rozoff


Russian and Eurasian Politics
Biden Trips : Four Reasons Why Calling Putin a “Killer” is a Misstep
Gordon M. Hahn | Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group


ECNS
China firm in safeguarding national sovereignty, security: FM spokesperson
Xinhua

So-called Xinjiang Uygur issue is U.S. strategic conspiracy
CGTN

Chinese officials respond to Xinjiang-related sanctions
China Daily

Over 30 Chinese stars cut ties with brands, standing firmly behind Xinjiang cottonGlobal Times

China experts sign joint declaration demanding end to anti-China campaign
Xinhua


Global Inequality (Mao Tse-Tung)
"The World Turned Upside Down"—a critical review
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace


9 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Your obsession with geopolitics knows no bounds.

It's the like the intellectual version of a vitamin deficiency.

If I had a time machine, would I see "Links - 26 March 2032" ?

Ahmed Fares said...

Peter Pan,

Your obsession with geopolitics knows no bounds.

Socrates said: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Socrates believed that philosophy – the love of wisdom – was the most important pursuit above all else. For some, he exemplifies more than anyone else in history the pursuit of wisdom through questioning and logical argument, by examining and by thinking. His 'examination' of life in this way spilled out into the lives of others, such that they began their own 'examination' of life, but he knew they would all die one day, as saying that a life without philosophy – an 'unexamined' life – was not worth living.

If you think that Tom Hickey's love of wisdom is akin to a vitamin deficiency, count me in as being deficient also.

Also, thanks to Tom for his effort in making these posts.

Peter Pan said...

Geopolitics isn't anyone's life. It's an absurdity, posited by those who've lost touch with their own humanity. Too much power and too much time spent in high places produces this sort of garbage.

Geopolitics has nothing to do with the concerns of ordinary people. If 'the people' had power, they'd put an end to it. Nobody in their right mind would relate to other countries in that way.

It doesn't take much effort to parrot what you've read in books.
How many times will Tom copy/paste the 'world island' mantra?

Posting links for over 10 years on a blog may bring him happiness... but to assume he reads all this shit, suggests there is something pathological going on.

No amount of analysis separates you from crystal ball thinking.
Such activities are unproductive.

When academics are paid to waste their time on geopolitics, society is not being served. In no way is this cutting edge stuff.

Yes, the world is full of stupid young men with unexamined lives, ripe for the picking. They are sent off to fight pointless battles, so that profit can be extracted. Many a good life has been built on their blood.

Posting links ain't gonna stop it. Posting it for the chattering classes is like singing to the choir. When the music stops, the wider culture hasn't changed. Ordinary Joe & Jane will be exactly as you left them.

That's what you get for over-analyzing the world.

Tom Hickey said...

How many times will Tom copy/paste the 'world island' mantra?

I intend to continue posting on it until the Blob/Borg gives up the idea of world domination, which requires control of the Eurasian land mass, an idea that has been predominant in Western strategic thinking for over 100 years. Or until the public wakes up.

The almost inevitable outcome is nuclear war, which the Blob/Borg has already planned in. Even if that doesn't come about, the risk it happening as a result of accident, mistake, or even a Dr. Strangelove scenario is increasing. It's insanity.

Unfortunately most people in the US are unaware of this, foolishly assuming that whatever happens the homeland is secure from attack. Even a another conventional war would be fount in Europe and the continent and UK destroyed. Europeans might have thought of this, I don't know.

Tom Hickey said...

to assume he reads all this shit, suggests there is something pathological going on.

I actually do read this and more, although it is usually only a fairly limited portion of my day depending on the news feed. I read very vast.

I can assure you that something pathological is going on in the heads and hearts of our "masters." There is no other cogent explanation than psychopathology and sociopathology. As the sages say, money and power drive mad those who seek them to excess.

Listen to the late and great George Carlin on this, but it is no joke.

And it is not just military matters. The four horseman have mounted up.

Tom Hickey said...

The historical dialectic is comprised of "moments" in time, which are continuous, of course, rather than discrete, but which can be identified in terms of aZeitgeist, or overarching cognitive-affective bias. These moments can be viewed a waves on the ocean of time, which rise, crest and break, to be followed by the next swell that is already rising behind it.

Medievalism was replaced by the Renaissance in the West, and the Renaissance by Modernism. The wave of Modernism has crested and is breaking. What this means is the the forces of destruction are already at work to make way for the rise of the next wave, which is tentatively called Postmodernism, but that is premature since it is not yet clear what that wave will look and how to characterize it as the next iteration.

The forces have already gathered in the breaking of the wave so stopping them will be impossible. The problem is that the power of technology now exceeds the ability of humanity to handle it safely. So it appears that a mass culling is in store as the wave breaks.

Since the forces are already in place and moving, it is impossible to avoid what is coming down. But since it is at least in part caused by human agency, it is possible to manage it to some degree. However, it is a tsunami, e.g, climate change affecting food supply, the threat of nuclear war, and pandemics. The whole catastrophe.

In my view, it is a moral responsibility to call attention to this failure to meet the emergent challenges of technology while exploiting the opportunities to the fullest. Now the bill is coming due.

MMT can be used to alleviate some of the socio-economic ills of contemporary society but it cannot fully address the issue, since MMT makes possible political choices that contribute to the problem. MMT is not a substitute for intelligent agency.

Then the issues are further complicated by cognitive-affective bias, moral and ethical failure, and mental illness. But the overarching problem is the level of collective consciousness is insufficient to the emergent challenges, especially given the power of technology.

Why a mass culling? Technology has resulted in an explosion of human life on the planet and humans have no natural predators to cull them naturally, other than disease, and technology has modified that to a significant degree. But technology has also created emergent challenges, which if not addressed, will do the culling through war, starvation and pestilence.

So far the world system has not adapted sufficiently to avoid or minimize this.

Ahmed Fares said...

There are three kinds of people: Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who ask, What happened?

Peter Pan said...

I intend to continue posting on it until the Blob/Borg gives up the idea of world domination, which requires control of the Eurasian land mass, an idea that has been predominant in Western strategic thinking for over 100 years. Or until the public wakes up.

When they are given their pink slips, and told to do something else with their lives, they will desist. Until then, they constitute a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. The hope is that they never accomplish anything beyond collecting paychecks for "thinking".

The almost inevitable outcome is nuclear war, which the Blob/Borg has already planned in. Even if that doesn't come about, the risk it happening as a result of accident, mistake, or even a Dr. Strangelove scenario is increasing. It's insanity.

Yes.

Unfortunately most people in the US are unaware of this, foolishly assuming that whatever happens the homeland is secure from attack. Even a another conventional war would be fount in Europe and the continent and UK destroyed. Europeans might have thought of this, I don't know.

Most people are under no illusions as to the power of nuclear weapons. It is the effects climate change that challenges their grasp of the big picture. Most people are not statisticians.

Peter Pan said...

There are three kinds of people: Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who ask, What happened?

What will happen, we have seen before. Take those events and scale them up.

Nerdy voiceover:
Overshoot and collapse is a feature of history. It's not a bug.