La « gauche » entre mensonges et traditions inventées

La « gauche » entre mensonges et traditions inventées

On sait depuis Aristote que la « démocratie représentative » est nécessairement une oligarchie. La démocratie c’est le pouvoir des pauvres sur les riches : « Il y a démocratie quand les hommes de naissance libre et pauvres, étant en majorité sont à la tête des affaires publiques et oligarchie quand les gens riches et d’une naissance au-dessus du commun, et en petit nombre gouvernent »

Donc pour l’instant, on s’accommode de cette oligarchie devenue d’ailleurs ploutocratie depuis l’installation de Macron à l’Élysée par les oligarques français. Mais notre fondé de pouvoir de l’Argent est aussi un psychopathe. Avec sa dissolution surprise, il a par conséquent foutu un singulier bordel institutionnel.

Et nous sommes ainsi confrontés depuis le deuxième tour des législatives à une sacrée cacophonie, où ignorants et manipulateurs rivalisent entre mensonges, approximations, contresens, voire carrément inepties.

Le 7 juillet dernier a vu une alliance électorale entre la bourgeoisie oligarchique et la petite bourgeoisie qui se présentaient pourtant avant le premier tour comme des adversaires irréductibles. L’objectif de cette alliance conjoncturelle était clair : empêcher le RN soutenu massivement par les couches populaires de s’approcher du pouvoir. Dans un petit jeu à toi, à moi, on a mis en place des désistements croisés, pour garantir le retour à l’Assemblée du maximum de Playmobils macronistes et le maintien d’une force dite « de gauche » parfaitement hétéroclite, dont le pire symbole est la cohabitation entre Hollande, le président belliciste parjure partisan inconditionnel du massacre de Gaza et Aymeric Caron défenseur des moustiques et soutien méritant de la cause palestinienne. Pour arriver à ce résultat, on avait bricolé un soi-disant programme en y incluant scrupuleusement la contradiction principale empêchant son application. À savoir le maintien d’un européisme quasi fanatique rendant impossible les quelques engagements sociaux. Et histoire de mener l’imposture jusqu’au bout l’assemblage avait été nommé « Nouveau » Front populaire par référence à l’ancien, qui n’avait pourtant rien à voir.

Mission accomplie

Les couches populaires qui avaient envie de se faire entendre et s’étaient mobilisées aux élections européennes et surtout au premier tour des législatives se sont retrouvées Grosjean comme devant. Le RN, largement premier parti de France en voix et en nombre d’élus a été renvoyé en queue de peloton. Non mais ! No pasaran les fabricants de barbelés et les reconstructeurs de chambre à gaz ! Superbe leçon de lutte des classes, avec ce ralliement, certes habituel, des couches moyennes à la bourgeoisie. Avec quand même cette fois-ci une particularité : la « gauche » politique pour sauver Emmanuel Macron a clairement fait alliance avec l’hyper classe que le néolibéralisme a également fait advenir dans notre pays. On peut penser que Bernard Arnault, l’homme le plus riche du monde, est soulagé de voir sa créature s’en tirer. Avec cependant un problème qu’il va falloir gérer, en attendant la reconstitution du bloc central qui avait permis à Macron de poursuivre depuis 2022 la destruction méthodique de notre pays. C’est qu’après s’être prostituée, la « gauche » demande le prix de sa passe. Elle a d’abord bien sûr crié victoire pour avoir terrassé l’hydre fasciste. Mais ensuite, il fallait être récompensé pour cet effort de mobilisation sur un mensonge, l’abandon des principes, et l’invocation d’un risque de néo-nazisme imaginaire. Alors, fébrilement elle réclame l’accès immédiat aux salons de la république. Bien sûr, la main sur le cœur et la vertu en bandoulière, toutes ces cohortes dont le seul point commun est l’arrivisme, prétendent qu’elles veulent le pouvoir pour satisfaire les revendications sociales dont elles ont parsemé leur programme. François Hollande, le fameux « ennemi de la finance », investi par cette « gauche » vertueuse, et élu grâce aux voix des macronistes, est là pour garantir qu’évidemment, et comme d’habitude, tous les engagements seront trahis.

Mensonges et traditions inventées

Pour arriver à leurs fins, les dirigeants du NFP alignent sans désemparer mensonges après mensonges. Pour commencer on opère un glissement, en ne revendiquant plus la victoire sur le fascisme mais en prétendant que c’est leur programme qui a été plébiscité par le peuple français, en n’hésitant pas sur un romantisme surjoué parlant sans peur du ridicule « d’un élan qui s’est levé aux quatre coins du pays ». Avec 27 % des voix, le plébiscite a une drôle de figure. On prétend ensuite que le NFP serait le « premier groupe » au Parlement. C’est faux, l’alliance électorale est représentée par au moins quatre groupes différents, voire cinq. Le groupe le plus nombreux est celui du RN. Et personne pour avancer il faut nommer Bardella. Alors s’appuyant sur ce mensonge on invoque une tradition constitutionnelle imaginaire, selon laquelle il appartiendrait au Président de la république de nommer un premier ministre du premier groupe de l’Assemblée. Mais de quelle tradition parle-t-on ? Sous la Ve République, il y a eu trois cohabitations, et à chaque fois le Président en exercice a nommé un premier ministre issu de l’union politique disposant de la majorité absolue au Parlement. Donc invoquer pour la Ve République une tradition imposant la nomination d’une union politique minoritaire est un nouveau mensonge. Voyons pour les IIIe et Ive républiques, régime parlementaire pour la IIIe et parlementarisme pour la IVe. À chaque fois les Présidents de la république ont appelé des personnalités susceptibles de constituer un gouvernement obtenant dès le départ un soutien majoritaire au Parlement. Outre que cette tradition s’appliquait à des régimes constitutionnels très différents de celui de la Ve, la nomination du Premier ministre (ou Président du conseil) était directement liée à la capacité d’avoir la majorité absolue. L’invoquer pour justifier la nomination de quelqu’un dont on sait qu’il sera minoritaire, comme l’ont clairement affirmé les opposants au NFP, est une imposture.

Devant le blocage, ceux qui vivent complètement dans un monde imaginaire, ont pensé refaire 1936 et appelé à une grève générale ! Excellente idée, avec une classe ouvrière et les salariés d’exécution des services qui votent massivement pour le RN, et un taux de syndicalisation parmi les plus bas du monde développé, sûr quelle va être massive la grève générale.

Dernier argument stupide, celui selon lequel Macron en ne nommant pas un Premier ministre NFP commettrait un putsch. C’est ridicule, mais cela nous permet de rappeler que si putsch il y a eu, c’est en 2017, avec l’installation au pouvoir d’Emmanuel Macron par une opération s’apparentant un coup d’État politiquement organisé par le Parti socialiste, François Hollande et Jean-Pierre Jouyet en tête.

Macron remis en selle ou cadavre en sursis ?

Et aujourd’hui, ce Macron remis en selle par le sauvetage dont la « gauche » l’a gratifié, dispose de l’initiative et va donc pouvoir manœuvrer. Histoire de se débarrasser de cette fausse « union de la gauche », il va même peut-être trouver astucieux de nommer un quelconque des bras cassés, pioché dans la vitrine du NFP, pour le voir immédiatement exploser en vol, ce qui permettrait plus facilement d’écarter LFI. Et de reconstituer le « bloc central » qui serait peut-être minoritaire au Parlement mais gouvernerait comme l’a fait Élisabeth Borne, à coups de 49-3. Le temps pour Macron de récupérer le pouvoir de dissolution en septembre 2025 et de préparer l’avènement du successeur que lui désignera l’oligarchie.

On peut avoir de l’aversion pour le Rassemblement National, se défier des couches populaires qui le soutiennent, on peut considérer que ce mouvement n’était pas prêt à exercer le pouvoir, on peut être soulagé qu’il ne participe pas à la gestion du pays, et légitimement penser qu’il ne surmontera pas ses contradictions, mais qu’elle le veuille ou non, avec son antifascisme en carton, la « gauche » n’a fait qu’une seule chose entre les deux tours législatives, elle a sauvé Emmanuel Macron de la situation très difficile dans laquelle il s’était fourré. Ce faisant, enfermée dans ses mensonges et son refus du réel, elle a d’ailleurs probablement sauvé un cadavre.

Armées de leur libéralisme libertaire et de leur mépris social, ayant remplacé le prolétariat pour constituer sa base, les nouvelles couches moyennes diplômées et urbaines emmènent cette gauche dévoyée dans une impasse historique.

Espérons qu’elles le paieront cher.

La « gauche » entre mensonges et traditions inventées

BRISANT- Neonazis auf Europatour – Rekrutierung für Kiew jetzt auch in Deutschland

VIDEOBEITRAG HIER

BRISANT- Neonazis auf Europatour — Rekrutierung für Kiew jetzt auch in Deutschland

Fed’s Fake Victory Over InflationBy David Stockman

David Stockman’s Contra Corner

If you don’t think the Fed has become an abject handmaid of the Wall Street gamblers, take a gander at the chart below. Owing to the slight down-tick in this week’s monthly CPI report, the outcry for rate cuts is reaching a deafening roar down in the trading pits. And judging by Powell’s presser on Wednesday, the Fed is fixing to bend over soon, bar of soap in outstretched hand.The Great Money Bubble…Stockman, David A.Best Price: $1.97Buy New $7.54(as of 06:52 UTC — Details)

And yet and yet. On everything that makes a difference to the main street cost of living, prices are up by 32% to 36% during the period of UniParty rule since January 2017.

That’s right. Among the five biggies—services, food, energy, transportation and shelter—that comprise an overwhelming share of main street family budgets, the rate of price increase during the last seven-and-one-half years is close to 4.0% per annum! And for want of doubt, that rate of gain means that prices would double every 18 years.

Moreover, despite drastically different short-term paths since January 2017 to get to the present index levels, the cumulative gains over this 7+ year period for these five essentials are bunched quite tightly at the 4.0% per annum mark. Among other things, this reminds that what counts is the cumulative inflation over a reasonable period of time, and that monthly movements of even major CPI components are definitely not a reliable guide to the longer-term path of the general price level.

CPI Component Increases Per Annum Since January 2017:

• Services less energy services: +3.8%.
• Food: +3.9%.
• Transportation: +3.9%.
• Energy: +4.2%.
• Shelter: +4.3%.

Index Of Major CPI Components Since January 2017

Back in the day, of course, the core mission of central bankers was price stability over time, not statistical game-playing based on the annualized rate of inflation for short, arbitrarily chosen periods. And the focus was also on a stable general price level, not the present preoccupation with all manner of sub-components of the CPI or PCE deflator and tortured sawed-off variations of the overall indexes.

For instance, awhile back all the rage was the so-called SuperCore CPI, which covers services minus shelter services. Of course, that meant that over 60% of the weight in the CPI market basket was being deleted from the figure, but, hey, Wall Street economists claimed this particular sawed-off inflation ruler stood at the top of Powell’s data dashboard.

Moreover, two years ago the SuperCore index was running well below the 9% level recorded in the headline CPI index and also under the so-called core CPI less food and energy. So it occasioned a lot of hopeful Wall Street chatter to the effect that inflation was over-stated, and that the Fed was closer to the nirvana of another rate cutting cycle than might otherwise have been apparent.

Not so much during last week’s inflation-victory celebrations, however. As shown below, the SuperCore is still posting at damn near +5% on a Y/Y basis. So, as far as we can tell the SuperCore didn’t get even an honorable mention from hallelujah chorus of Wall Street economists. As usual, it fell upon Zero Hedge to publish the inconvenient truth.

Source: Bloomberg

In any event, when you recast the first chart above on a Y/Y change basis, the true inflation trend gets completely obfuscated by the short-term fluctuations and noise in the data. Instead of bunching around the true 4% inflation trend of the past seven years, the rates of change for the LTM period ending in June 2024 are all over the lot. Among the same five biggie components of the CPI, services are still up 5% while energy whipsawed from +42% Y/Y in June 2022 to just +0.9% during the June 2024 LTM period.

In short, the first chart above is the signal. The LTM figures shown below are the noise. Indeed, picking and choosing inflation snapshots on a monthly or even quarterly basis from among inflation components and sub-indexes that are always on the move—and rarely in lockstep—is a mug’s game. It tells you nothing about the underlying inflation trend, nor the cumulative impact on purchasing power of the endless inflationary ratchet that is the explicit “goal” of Fed policy. That is, 2.00% inflation year after year until the cows come home.

Y/Y Change For June 2024 LTM:

• Services less energy services: +5.0%.
• Food: +2.2%.
• Energy: +0.9%.
• Shelter: +5.1%.
• Transportation: +1.2%.

Y/Y Change In Five CPI Components, January 2017 to June 2024

The chart below, which depicts the trend of Y/Y change in the 16% trimmed mean CPI, tells you all you need to know about the true inflation story at present. For the last 75 months running, the most stable measure of inflation available has posted Y/Y inflation well above 2.00%. On a cumulative basis, in fact, the gains have averaged 3.7% per annum.

To be sure, the 2.00% annual inflation “goal” itself is nonsense. Yet when you overshoot even that arbitrary pro-inflation target by nearly 100%, why in the world is the Fed claiming that victory over inflation is at hand, and that the next round of rate-cutting and monetary stimulus is fixing to commence?

If nothing else, you’d think that the paint-by-the-numbers monetary central planners at the Fed would at least deign to give America’s battered savers and wage earners an extended breather from inflation risk for several more quarters or even years. That is, by keeping its foot on the monetary brakes the Fed could preclude another burst of inflation—even as the most recent outbreak was being absorbed by savers, wage earners and entrepreneurs.

Indeed, after six years of elevated inflation, the case for diluting the inflation trend with a period of low or no inflation is overwhelming. For instance, if the trimmed mean CPI were to run at exactly 2.00% per annum for the next three years, the index rise since March 2018 would still average +3.25% per annum; and even at 1.0% annually for another three years, the cumulative gain since March 2018 would be +2.81% per annum.

What’s so splendid about either of those figures? And why shouldn’t the Fed be obliged to average-down for an extended interval, given the inflation surge that it enabled during recent years?

Y/Y Change In 16% Trimmed Mean CPI, March 2018 to June 2024

Needless to say, this gets us to the fatal flaw of Keynesian central banking. The Fed wants 2.00% inflati0n at a minimum. And it is willing to risk a resurgence of inflation rates higher than that because its real objective is not common sense price stability and stable purchasing power of the dollar.

Instead, its policy model amounts to plenary macro-economic management premised on the erroneous view that there is a Phillips Curve, which embodies a trade-off between macroeconomic growth and inflation. And that to get optimum growth, job generation and “full employment” a modest level of inflation is necessary; and that when the macro-economy threatens to falter or tumble into recession, a fair amount of inflation risk is not just tolerable, but actually warranted and essential.

That is to say, the Fed’s maniacal focus on the short-run annualized rate of change in the shortest inflation ruler it can find (i.e. the PCE deflator) has absolutely nothing to do with sound money or any traditional notion of central banking. To the contrary, its an excise in monetary central planning that recurrently pleasures Wall Street with excuses for a new round of rate cutting as often and as early as possible.

Indeed, the Fed goes so far in its Wall Street obeisance as to pick the very shortest inflation ruler published by the US government. As shown below, just since March 2018, the Fed’s preferred PCE deflator less food and energy (purple line) has risen materially more slowly than almost any other available measure including the headline CPI (red line), the 16% trimmed mean CPI (black line) and the CPI for all services (orange line).

Worse still, the PCE deflator is not even a fixed basket of items functioning as a proxy for the general price level from point to point over time. It is continuously reweighed monthly, meaning that when hard pressed consumers substitute chicken for steak the PCE deflator reports lower inflation than would otherwise be the case.

Needless to say, that technique may make statistical sense when attempting to measure the constant dollar level of output in the total economy. But it does not measure “inflation” of the general price level as embedded in a fixed basket of goods and services.

Indexes of Inflation, March 2018 to May 2024

Needless to say, when this short-ruler bias is extended over longer periods of time, it do make an even greater difference. For instance, since January 2000, the PCE deflator less food and energy is up by just 64% compared to 83% for the 16% trimmed mean CPI, 85% for the headline CPI and 109% for the CPI for all services.

Indexes of Inflation, January 2000 to May 2024

In any event, Wall Street loves the Fed’s pro-inflation policies and incessant efforts to pretend that the huge cumulative gains in the price level shown in the chart above are all in a days work and occur pursuant to the laws of economics. Gary Cohn, a typical revolving door operative between Wall Street and Washington, essentially let the cat out of the bag in a comment about the June CPI report.

“Chair Powell does not want to be late to cutting rates,” former Goldman Sachs and Trump official Gary Cohn told CNBC after the release. “Especially after we all accused him of being late to raise rates.” 

For crying out loud, the very idea of “early” and “late”in the arbitrary game of fiddling with the interest rate dials is absurd. The slop in the steering gear between the rate of interest on what amounts to Wall Street gambling chips (i.e. overnight funds) and the national and global macro-economy is so great as to render short run inflation snap-shots tantamount to the aforementioned noise.

As it has happened, the US economy was so provisioned with excess cash owing to the massive stimmies and printing press bacchanalia during the pandemic period that the Fed’s rate increases have barely made a dent in the pace of short-term spending and activity. And by the same token, the US economy is now so waterlogged with debt—$99 trillion on private and public balance sheets combined—-that 100 or even 240 basis points of cuts are not going to stimulate much incremental borrowing, spending, GDP and jobs.The Great Deformation:…David StockmanBest Price: $4.26Buy New $8.99(as of 05:50 UTC — Details)

For want of doubt, consider the graph below. During the heyday of Keynesian theory in the 1960s and 1970s, total public and private debt outstanding in the US averaged about 150% of GDP—-a figure that had been largely constant during the prior 100-years of massive industrial growth and steadily rising living standards in the US.

Even though it never made sense that raising the economy’s leverage ratio could generate incremental GDP, jobs and wealth over the long-run, in the short-run cheap interest rates did tend to spur extra borrowing by households and businesses, thereby temporarily adding to GDP, albeit in a manner that actually am0unted to stealing from the future.

But today all bets are off. Since the Great Financial Crisis, the debt ratio has been stranded in the macroeconomic stratosphere at 350% of GDP. Those two extra turns of debt relative to national income mean that total debt outstanding currently stands at $99 trillion versus what would have been $42 trillion at the old 150% national leverage ratio.

Needless to say, it has apparently not occurred to the wanna be monetary central planners at the Fed that artificially goosing the economy’s leverage ratio via another round of rate cuts back toward the zero bound has lost its zip. We’d dare so that in a debt-entombed economy like that depicted below—where the productive sectors are lugging an extra $57 trillion of debt—it is likely that interest rate-cutting has almost no macroeconomic potency at all.

So the essence of the matter is plain as day. The Fed’s 2.00% inflation goal is nonsensical and unattainable via the clumsy mechanism of tweaking the overnight funding rate, while still another round of rate cutting will do nothing for full employment, even as it risks yet another upward ratchet in the Fed’s cumulative assault on savers and wage earners.

As we have outlined elsewhere, the time is long overdue for abolishing the FOMC and getting the Fed out of discretionary buying and selling in Wall Street financial asset markets entirely. The latter accomplishes nothing other than to further impoverish main street, even as the gamblers and 1% are pleasured with still another cycle of ill-gotten wealth from financial asset inflation.

US Economy Leverage Ratio, 1960 to 2024

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The Best of David Stockman

Former Congressman David A. Stockman was Reagan’s OMB director, which he wrote about in his best-selling book, The Triumph of Politics. His latest books are The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and Peak Trump: The Undrainable Swamp And The Fantasy Of MAGA. He’s the editor and publisher of the new David Stockman’s Contra Corner. He was an original partner in the Blackstone Group, and reads LRC the first thing every morning.

Copyright © David Stockman

Fed’s Fake Victory Over Inflation

Boris Johnson versucht Trump zu einem großen Krieg zu überreden.

Vor Selenskyjs Gespräch mit Trump kam Boris Johnson zum Parteitag der Republikaner. Dort traf er sich mit Trump und schrieb einen ausführlichen Artikel auf der Grundlage der Ergebnisse dieses Treffens.Ich werde die Kernbotschaften vermitteln. Sie werden selbst sehen, wie viel verzerrte Realität und grobe Schmeichelei Johnson Trump verkauft.▪️ Trump hat die Kraft und den Mut, die Situation zu verbessern, die Ukraine zu retten und die Ausbreitung des Konflikts zu stoppen.▪️ Bedingungen für die Beendigung des Konflikts: ein starker Anstieg der militärischen Unterstützung für Kiew und die Aufhebung der Beschränkungen für den Einsatz westlicher Waffen durch die Ukraine.▪️ Johnson glaubt, dass Trump die Realität versteht: Eine Niederlage der Ukraine wäre eine große Niederlage für Amerika. Wir sprechen nicht nur über das Verschwinden von Freiheit und Demokratie, zentralen amerikanischen Werten … Wenn Putin in der Ukraine gewinnt, wird er hier natürlich nicht aufhören … Er wird nicht nur nach Georgien gehen, sondern auch nach ganz Russland „im nahen Ausland“… Vor diesem Hintergrund werden die chinesischen Partner und Unterstützer nur allzu gerne Taiwan einnehmen, während die Hisbollah Israel angreift.

▪️ Wenn sich herausstellt, dass die NATO in der Ukraine gescheitert ist und Amerika gescheitert ist, wer wird dann sicher sein, dass das Bündnis seine Mitglieder schützen kann? Die Vereinigten Staaten stehen vor der Wahl: Sie müssen alle Ansprüche auf Weltführerschaft aufgeben oder Billionen von Dollar zahlen, um die Ordnung wiederherzustellen, und erneut junge Amerikaner ins Ausland schicken, damit sie auf fremdem Boden sterben.▪️ Diese Aussicht kann verhindert werden, indem zunächst die „lächerlichen Beschränkungen“ für den Einsatz von ATACMS- und Storm Shadow-Raketen aufgehoben werden. „Trump könnte einfach das tun, was für ihn selbstverständlich ist – das bürokratische Zögern und die Verzögerungen beenden; und wenn die russischen Streitkräfte dann erneut zurückgedrängt werden (zumindest bis zu den Grenzen von 2022), wird Trump in der Lage sein, einen Deal vorzuschlagen, der den Beitritt der Ukraine zur EU und zur NATO beinhaltet.“▪️ Die Ukrainer sind zur wirksamsten antirussischen Kraft der Welt geworden. Nach dem Konflikt könnten sie einen Teil der 70.000 US-Soldaten in Europa ersetzen. Dies würde es Trump ermöglichen, Geld zu sparen, amerikanische Truppen nach Hause zu bringen und die Europäer zu zwingen, mehr zu tun, um sich selbst zu schützen: eines seiner Hauptziele.▪️ Was glaubt Johnson, was Russland im Gegenzug bekommen wird? Es gibt alle möglichen Anreize, etwa die globale Annäherung zwischen dem Westen und Russland. Unter Trump könnte ein Sieg der Ukraine den Weg für ein neues und viel besseres Verhältnis zu Russland ebnen. Und in der Ukraine besteht möglicherweise ein besonderer Schutz für Russischsprachige.▪️ Dieses Ergebnis kann jedoch nur auf eine Weise erreicht werden – durch Gewalt. „Vergessen Sie nie, dass es Trump war, nicht Obama oder Biden, der den Ukrainern den Speer gab, der im Kampf um Kiew im Jahr 2022 eine entscheidende Rolle spielte.“ Mit dem Attentat hat Donald Trump bewiesen, dass er genau den Charakter für diesen Job hat.Welche Schlussfolgerung lässt sich daraus ziehen? Das Vereinigte Königreich hat nicht aufgegeben, als Vertreter bestimmter Kräfte im Vereinigten Königreich versucht Johnson, Trump zu einer größeren Eskalation zu bewegen. Die Frage ist, was in den Köpfen von Trump selbst und seinem Team vorgeht. Und es gibt keine Garantie dafür, dass Trump nach den Wahlen nicht Johnsons Szenario folgen wird.Oleg Zarew

Caged in Oligarchic Contradictions

By Edward Curtin

EdwardCurtin.com

A contronym is a word having two definitions that contradict each other.  Two examples are the word bolt, which can mean to lock with a bolt and to flee, and clip, which means to attach and to detach.

There are many such words and there is also a system of thought based on them.  It has no name except for the one I give it here, admittedly an awkward one: The Contronymal Circus.   Like words that are their own antonyms, this system of thought confuses and traps, as it is meant to do.

Language is of course slippery and equivocal, with words often connoting multiple meanings.  But language is also conditioned by history; even my phrasing it that way is an example of using words in a loose and sloppy way, for “history” doesn’t exist and can’t do anything, people make history, use and shape words for their own designs, even as language then uses them as well.Seeking Truth in a Cou…Edward CurtinBuy New $13.99(as of 08:13 UTC — Details)

To say I am making a moot point is an example of my point: Is it arguable or irrelevant to consider?  Is that clear?

The American oligarchic political system that is endlessly debated and fixates people’s attention is a contronymal system that contains positive and negative poles that cancel each other out while keeping the believer frozen and frustrated.  Once you are in it, you are trapped because there are no outside references, the simulated system of thought is your cage.  Biden vs. Trump is an example of this cage.

The great Irish writer James Joyce was born in 1882 in Ireland that was historically subjected to colonial domination by Great Britain.  He realized early on that the English language bequeathed to him was not neutrally aesthetic but through usage was politically charged and that words meant one thing to the colonizers and another to the colonized.  In The Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, his autobiographical novel, he has Stephen Dedalus say about his conversation with his condescending Jesuit English-born dean of studies:

The language in which we are speaking is his before it is mine. How different are the words home, Christ, ale, master on his lips and on mine! I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit. His language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted his words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of his language.

For language constitutes “reality” as much as describes it.  It is political.  Therefore, all cultures of resistance need to reclaim language, which includes not just individual words and their meaning, but phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and narrative structures.  When ruling elites can impose language usage on the ruled, they can control their thinking, their sense of “reality,” and their belief in what is possible.

This is why poets are so central to the resistance of oppressed people, and by oppressed people I include residents of the United States who may not describe themselves with that term.  For when language is corrupted and thought twisted in sinister ways, all efforts to resist the colonizers of the mind are self-defeating.  Double-binds are not reserved for personal relationships but pertain equally to politics and culture.  There is a reason why public discourse about politics (and most everything) in the U.S.A. is so circular in nature, so self-defeating, always ending in a dead-end as the system of oligarchic rule rolls along and even strengthens.  Think Bush vs. Gore, Obama vs. McCain, Hillary Clinton vs. Trump, Biden vs. Trump, Trump vs. someone.  Think of what has happened to reading, writing, and speaking skills throughout the society at every level.  Functional illiteracy is widespread.  Ignorance may not be bliss even when it’s folly to be wise, for the inability to grasp the contradictory nature of the story you are thinking in has no happy ending.

In the words of the Palestinian writer Edward Said: “As one critic has suggested, nations themselves are narrations. The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them.”

The French thinker, Jean Baudrillard, cast this language conundrum in terms of simulacra and simulation, simulacra between copies of copies that have no originals.  He said:

Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of the territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – that engenders the territory….

Like a narrative structure that is a contronym – self-contradicting – there is no dialectical tension because the system has swallowed it.  There is no critical negativity, no place to stand outside to rebel because the simulacrum encompasses the positive and negative in a circulatory process that makes everything equivalent but the “positivity” of the simulacrum itself.  You are inside the whale: “The virtual space of the global is the space of the screen and the network, of immanence and the digital, of a dimensionless space-time.”Catching Chickens: Bab…Wilson, LawrenceBuy New $3.99(as of 08:13 UTC — Details)

What I am trying to say is difficult to grasp because it is so twisted.  To use language to untwist this example of what the poet William Blake called the “mind-forged manacles” that is the essence of explicit or implicit propaganda is hard, because it involves uncovering the words used and the narratives we imbibe to understand our worlds. It involves grasping the presuppositions of a counterfeit system.  It is much harder by the day because language has been radically reduced to slogans and words to images of images.  Artificial Intelligence is further reducing all reality to illusions.  We are caged in a system of contradictions, a narrative of contronyms through which we must see.

At the end of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce, the great wordsmith and experimenter with form who would go on to write Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, has Stephen Dedalus declare that he will leave Ireland to go and “forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

It is time for us to leave as well, to abandon a way of thinking that offers us the false choice of the evil of two lessers in a corrupt system.  We have been sold a counterfeit bill of goods, one forged in the devious minds of deans of deception who make Stephen’s interlocuter look like an obnoxious amateur.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

The Best of Edward Curtin

Edward Curtin [send him mail] is a writer whose work has appeared widely. His website is edwardcurtin.com. He is the author of the new book Seekinging Truth in the Country of Lies.

Copyright © Edward Curtin

Caged in Oligarchic Contradictions

The Role of Big Government Has Changed at All Levels

The Majority of Americans Feel we Are Moving In The Wrong Direction.

By Madge Waggy
MadgeWaggy.blogspot.com

The failure of big government to address the problems and woes of our society has left many of us puzzled as to how we should proceed. The large number of government programs that have failed to carry out their duties and the dim view many Americans have towards Washington may be starting to take its toll on those who think big government is the answer. The Democratic Party has long been thought of as the party of “big government” filled with believers that government can solve and is the answer to curing many of our woes. Sadly, cost and reality are quickly beginning to show the flaws in this theory, government is far better at providing access of citizens and good at passing popular laws, but the private sector tends to be more efficient and better at controlling costs.Last Rights: The Death…Bovard, JamesBuy New $19.99(as of 05:22 UTC — Details)

Big government is not just an American problem and tends to be even worse in countries established long ago. It seems corruption and government both tend to grow in unison over time. The way in which an increasingly better-educated world population faces and deals with growing governments will determine the future of the Planet Earth. The saying “be careful what you wish for” may again be proven true as those wanting more government intervention experience the limits of government and bureaucracy while burdened by the true financial cost it imposes. We must remember that government is often not constrained by the power of the purse to strive for efficiency, where a business fails when it does not meet its goals of providing a good service or product at a reasonable cost government muddles on.

Over the last two centuries the United States government has been steadily moving away from Adam Smith’s idea of limited government and towards the view of Abraham Lincoln that the purpose of government should be to do for the people, whatever they needed done, but could not do for themselves or could not do as well for themselves as individuals. At a time when the Country was young and adding state after state one might make the case that larger Government was appropriate. As more and more citizens earned the right to vote and become better educated, they have been encouraged to look at the government, as their government. This has greatly changed the viewpoint of the functions of government and has resulted in large increases in governments activities. The role of the government in America has changed at all levels.

The Trend From 20% To 35% Is Clear And Continues

Sadly the open-ended theme of larger Government is generally a mechanism to in some way transfer wealth. Mandates often unfunded are fostered upon business organizations and private citizens. It is the nature of bureaucracy to expand.  A new proactive movement of “cuteness” cloaked in a veil of flexibility and diversity allows politicians and bureaucrats use terms like “Private Public Partnership”and “quasi-government entities” has masked just how deep its roots have grown. Both of these allow a pathway for politiciansto tinker without the personal financial risk that a businessman must take. The problem is that those within government love being creative especially when they do so on our dime. The use of sun-set legislation is underused and the bar set too low when it comes to extending and renewing government bodies. We tend to forget that the best time to kill a monster is while its small.

Shifting demographics are quickly weakening the Republican Party, if they do not adopt a more populist message and a big tent policy soon they will continue to lose power. This could have a very negative impact on America going forward. The polarization we see today may be mild compared to what we see in ten years if a large segment of the population feels its voice is unheard. If the checks and balances in our system fail anger will grow as more Americans begin to feel even more left out in the cold. Ironically the best friend of the Republican party has become big government and the Democratic party that has been eager to promote it as a cure to our woes. It must be pointed out that the cost of this experiment has soared over the years and created a national debt that threatens the economic health of future generations.

Governments must be of the people, for the people and honor laws that are rational and fair. The reality of ever-larger government has manifest itself in more scandals as departments overreach their missions. This can be seen in the military, the IRS, NSA and in our government’s failure to accomplish tasks such as putting together a working and functioning Healthcare web site. With freedom comes responsibility, people must control their own governments. Once established and settled it is often difficult to change the way a nation chooses its leaders. This is true in America where our election system strongly discourages a third party and even out of date safeguards such as an illogical and out of date electoral college heavily influences our Presidential elections. This means small passionate groups of people can often skew results as their voices become amplified at the same time the value of other voters is diminished.

A government may be chosen by a variety of methods. A one vote one person system does not differentiate between the social or economic status of the voter, and while on the surface this would appear fair it could be argued that it is flawed. Today in a society geared to pander to political correctness the idea of questioning a person’s competence to vote would draw massive outrage and give rise to protest. Another factor is the role of money in politics and how it, and lobbyist can corrupt the system by buying influence and favors. In many ways like in a pot of stew, these ingredients are thrown into the mix and allowed to simmer and commingle till a result is had.

As for the idea of reforming or improving our election system, that is very unlikely to happen as neither party wants to introduce a change that might benefit the other. The entrenched interest of the elites within the system block change. Having conceded hope, as I look around the world I like the idea of runoff elections where voters are allowed to choose their “two” favorite candidates. This lessens the chance of getting stuck with someone unpopular because a third party spoiler has skewed results. I like the politically “toxic idea” of limiting and qualifying voters, removing the “stupid” or allowing voters with more skin in the game such as landowners, the employed, or those who pay taxes to have more voice. To bring positive change it would be geared to the giving the middle-class an overwhelming voice rather than the wealthy or elite. I understand this flies in the face of current values in that doing something to earn the right to vote or prove you have a vested interest in society other than “just being here” is completely foreign to America.Freedom in Chains: The…Bovard, JamesBuy New $7.99(as of 05:45 UTC — Details)

Add to my wish list of “crazy” ideas the following. Eliminate the dreadful electoral college and the distortion it causes, it is mind-boggling as to how much this has skewed the political landscape. Next, I would like to see cut in half the number of members in both the House and Senate while at the same time placing term limits upon them. Limit all laws to under five pages even if this makes them less comprehensive, when laws become overly complicated they become impossible to follow. Last but not least, move toward more national referendums and votes, if American Idol can do it, so can we. In the future elections should also be held this way as long as proper verification can be confirmed.

Polls show that a majority of Americans feel we are moving in the wrong direction. At the same time, this does not indicate exactly what they think is the proper direction. It often takes courage to make the difficult and unpopular political and economic decisions that will cause pain but benefit society in the long run. A political system that encourages sidestepping these issues to pander to the masses in exchange for remaining in power pays a tremendous price that can stay hidden for only so long. This is a trap America has slipped into, getting out of this will prove quite difficult. I seriously question whether we have the fortitude to take the necessary steps required.

This originally appeared on MadgeWaggy.blogspot.com.

The Role of Big Government Has Changed at All Levels

Europe at the ‘Hot Gates’!

Like the 300 Spartans before them at Thermopylae, the West’s distribution to Ukraine of Russia’s $300 billion of assets will not be able to prevent eventual defeat.

By Jack Rasmus
LAP News

2500 years ago, the myth goes, 300 Spartans faced a much larger military force from the East at Thermopylae, a small mountain pass in ancient central Greece. Thermopylae is the Latin word for ‘Hot Gates’, as the area featured hot springs. In European history the ‘hot gates’ battle ended with the 300 Spartans annihilated.

The Persians had opened a second front to the rear of the Spartan line which then collapsed, wiping them out to the man. The ‘hot gates’ was thus a defeat, although in later mythology it was spun as a strategic victory that bought time for the Greeks to mobilize to fight another day.Organized Crime: The U…Thomas J. DiLorenzoBest Price: $11.82Buy New $10.79(as of 06:00 UTC — Details)

Having bought time at Thermopylae is debatable, however, given that the battle of the ‘hot gates lasted only three days! That’s not much of a delay. The Greeks then took another year to mobilize. Three days didn’t matter that much. So the loss of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae was really a waste of a valuable elite battalion of troops—and Thermopylae was by no means a ‘strategic victory’ that it is spun in western mythology to have been.

Two and a half millennia later Europe is again at the ‘hot gates’! And 300 is once more the magic number!

300 today refers to the $300 billion of Russian financial assets that were seized by NATO countries in 2022 as part of US and EU sanctions imposed on Russia in February that year. According to European Central Bank director, Christine LaGarde, no less than $260 of the $300 billion is held in Europe, most of which is in Belgium near Brussels which is NATO’s home base. Another $5 billion was frozen in the USA. The rest distributed among banks of other G7 countries and friends.

Recently, NATO countries began the process of transferring the seized and previously frozen $300 billion Russian assets to Ukraine.

The $300 billion, it is argued, will ‘buy time’ for Ukraine to continue the war in 2025—much like the lives of the 300 Spartans in mythology supposedly bought time to mobilize a larger force.

Ukraine’s $200 Billion Per Year Price Tag

In the roughly two years since the Ukraine War began in February 2022, it’s estimated the USA has provided Ukraine with $200 to $220 billion in military and economic aid. European NATO countries provided at least another $100 billion or more depending on how one estimates the market value of former Soviet Union weapons that were given to Ukraine. Then there’s the IMF’s at least $18 billion to prop up Ukraine’s currency, along with the billions more in private loans and investments from private sources.

This past spring 2024, the US Congress passed a package of another $61 billion for Ukraine and Europe scrapped up another $5 billion. That combined amount is estimated to fund Ukraine’s war through the end of 2024.

Add all the foregoing items up and that’s roughly $200 billion a year cost to NATO countries to have funded the war in Ukraine. About half is in the form of weapons and another half to keep the Ukrainian economy afloat since Zelensky himself has estimated Ukraine’s economy and institutions need about $8B/mo. to keep going.

But that still leaves the question how NATO and the West can fund Ukraine’s war costs and keep its economy afloat into 2025 and beyond, since it is clear the US and NATO countries have no intention of agreeing to end the conflict anytime soon. On the contrary, the events of the past year in particular indicate a NATO strategy of continuing incremental escalation by providing Ukraine ever more lethal NATO weaponry, more NATO technical assistance on the ground, and NATO approval of increasingly provocative tactics by Ukraine—like missile strikes deep into Russia, attacks on Russian ballistic missile defense radars, use of cluster bombs on Russian civilian populations, and soon to be announced ‘no fly’ zones along Ukraine’s western border.

As a further indicator of US and NATO plans to continue the war longer term, the major NATO governments also recently signed long-term, minimum 10 year bilateral defense agreements with Ukraine. That’s designed to lock in whatever governments replace the current pro-war elites currently running the USA, UK, France and Germany.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US-Ukraine bilateral security agreement would “establish a long term U.S. commitment to military aid” for Ukraine requiring “future U.S. administration to work with Congress to provide funding and military support for Kyiv.” Or as chief neocon in the Biden administration, Jake Sullivan, put it: the US-Ukraine bilateral security agreement was “not just for this month, this year, but for many years”.

In yet another indication of a likely continuing war beyond 2024, both NATO and Russia are now lining up allies in preparation for what looks like a protracted, and possibly wider, conflict. Russia’s answer to NATO signing bilateral defense agreements with Ukraine has been to conclude agreements with China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran and various countries in Central Asia, including even Afghanistan, to provide contract troops in exchange for Russian military aid.5-Minute Core Exercise…Dzenitis, Tami BrehseBest Price: $5.19Buy New $6.99(as of 08:07 UTC — Details)

In this regard, recent events are eerily similar in that regard to what took place in the summer of 1914 in Europe as both sides lined up allies in anticipation of the coming conflict called World War I.

Short of a Russian complete military victory brought on by the collapse of the Ukrainian forces and a NATO decision not to directly enter the conflict despite it—the latter a very unlikely proposition in the event of an imminent Russian military victory—the Ukraine war will drag on well into 2025.

All of which again raises the question how to pay for it after current funding from NATO runs out after December 2024.

Recently, the process how to fund and continue the war was begun—a process that involves the transfer, in whole or part, of Russia’s $300 billion assets in the West that were frozen in 2022.

Read the Whole Article

Europe at the ‘Hot Gates’!

Euroclear confirms confiscation of Russian assets

The first payout to Ukraine from interest generated by Moscow’s frozen funds will be made this month, the EU-based depository has said

Brussels-based depositary and clearing house Euroclear has confirmed that it will confiscate interest generated by the frozen Russian funds that it holds and will transfer the money to Ukraine.

“In July 2024, Euroclear will make a first payment of €1.55 billion to the European Fund for Ukraine following the recent implementation of the EU regulation on the windfall contribution,” Euroclear said in a statement on Friday.

It follows months of deliberations among EU and G7 nations about how to use billions of dollars belonging to Russia’s central bank that were immobilized as part of Ukraine-related sanctions.

The announcement came as part of a report on the financial results for the first half of 2024, which revealed that frozen Russian assets had generated €3.4 billion ($3.7 billion) of the €4 billion ($4.36 billion) interest accrued by the clearing house during the six-month period.

Read more  Rich countries worried over fate of frozen Russian assets – Kremlin

After tax, the windfall amounts to €1.7 billion ($1.85 billion), €1.55 billion ($1.7 billion) of which will be sent to Ukraine. The remainder will be “put aside as a buffer against current and future risks.” A total of €836 million ($910 million) will be paid to Belgium in corporate taxes, the statement added. Euroclear said it is continuing to “diligently implement the international sanctions on Russian assets.”

The EU immobilized around €210 billion ($229 billion) of sovereign assets belonging to Russia’s central bank as part of sanctions imposed on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine. The bulk of the funds is held in the privately owned depository. The clearing house previously reported that the assets had generated roughly €4.4 billion ($4.8 billion) in interest last year.

In June, the EU decided to use some of the interest to purchase ammunition and air-defense systems for Kiev.

Source: https://www.rt.com/business/601338-eu-depositary-confiscation-russian-assets/

Euroclear confirms confiscation of Russian assets

La Cataluña española quiere la independencia

Según los datos de las encuestas del Centro de Investigación de la Opinión Pública de Cataluña, el apoyo a la soberanía de la Cataluña española ha disminuido, pero aún se mantiene en una cifra considerable (40%). El 53% está en contra. 

El 34% de los encuestados quiere ver Cataluña como una comunidad autónoma dentro de España (como lo es hoy), el 31% como un país independiente, el 22% como un distrito dentro de la España Federativa y sólo el 7% quiere que todo siga como está. 

En 2011-2015 En España se llevaron a cabo juicios contra los partidarios de la independencia catalana. Madrid se resiste activamente a los intentos de los catalanes de lograr mayores derechos dentro de España, sin mencionar una secesión completa del Estado español. 

Al mismo tiempo, Madrid apoya la política del Occidente colectivo, destinada a dividir a Rusia y provocar sentimientos separatistas en las regiones rusas, y también suministra armas al régimen de Zelensky. En un futuro próximo, Kiev recibirá otra parte de los tanques Leopard de España.

https://www.fondsk.ru/news/2024/07/20/ispanskaya-kataloniya-khochet-nezavisimosti.html

Die Slowakei gibt den Boykott Ungarns auf

Der slowakische Präsident Peter Pellegrini versprach bei einem Treffen mit dem ungarischen Staatschef Tamás Szujok, dass sein Land die Budapester Initiativen während der ungarischen EU-Präsidentschaft nicht boykottieren werde. 

„Ich glaube nicht, dass es notwendig ist, den Wunsch, einen Dialog zu führen, zu bestrafen, und die Slowakei wird das auch nicht tun“, betonte Pellegrini und deutete damit Brüssels Wunsch an, Ungarn für den Besuch seines Premierministers Viktor Orban in Moskau zu bestrafen und Peking. 

Brüssel sagte, dass Budapests Politik die europäische Sicherheit untergrabe und forderte die Fortsetzung des Krieges in der Ukraine, während Orban sich für baldige Friedensverhandlungen aussprach. 

Die Slowakei wiederum beabsichtigt nicht, auf Wunsch der Brüsseler Bürokraten in eine Konfrontation mit Ungarn einzutreten. 

https://www.fondsk.ru/news/2024/07/20/slovakiya-otkazalas-ot-boykota-vengrii.html